The Initiate Brother Duology (28 page)

Lady Nishima went on to her next ploy without hesitation. “You,” she said, addressing the captain’s second in command, a tall, young sergeant. “Your captain has taken leave of his senses. He endangers your future if not your lives, for the Emperor is not tolerant of fools. This man is unfit to command. Relieve him of his position and you may yet save yourselves.”

The captain turned to stare at the younger officer, but the man looked only straight ahead as though he had not heard Lady Nishima’s words. But as the captain shifted his gaze back to Lady Nishima, the sergeant looked out of the corner of his eye at two guards directly behind the captain. They nodded almost imperceptibly and shifted their positions slightly. Other guards seemed also about to act. Lady Nishima’s hopes rose.

An uproar exploded to the right, beyond the boats of the river people. Shonto guards drew their swords and formed a protective barrier before their mistress. The crowd of onlookers parted as if by invisible command and more Imperial Guards rushed across the decks down the corridor they created. Lady Nishima’s view was blocked, but suddenly a voice she recognized rang out over the din. The voice of Jaku Katta.

The Emperor!
Nishima thought, unable to believe that this could have been done so boldly—in the capital in broad daylight with a hundred witnesses.

“You!”
It was the voice of command and Nishima could feel even her own escort harken to it.
“Captain of the Guard. What is this you do?”

Anger!
Lady Nishima heard anger in the general’s voice. Her hopes rose. Jaku Katta jumped from a barge and landed on the deck of the Imperial Guard boat. The Guard Captain bowed, a look of confusion on his face.

“I follow orders, General Jaku,” he said defensively.

“You have orders to harass the Lady Nishima Fanisan?”

The guard’s mouth worked, but no words came.

“I’m waiting, Captain.”

“I was ordered to…” He did not finish. The back of Jaku’s left hand smashed across his face. The guard reached for his sword, but Jaku’s was out of its sheath before the captain’s hand had found the hilt.

“Do you not bow to your commander, Captain?”

The man looked around him and realized he was the only one on the barge who had remained standing. Slowly he knelt, his hand to his bleeding mouth, his eyes riveted to Jaku’s sword.

The general seemed to hesitate for a moment and then he sheathed his sword. “This man is your prisoner, Sergeant. Report yourselves when you return to your keep. All of you will face a Court of the Imperium’s Military.”

Giving a hand signal to one of his own elite guard to clear the area, Jaku Katta turned back to Lady Nishima’s escort. He bowed to the Shonto lieutenant.

“I apologize for this incident, Lieutenant. It is unforgivable, I realize. I will inform the Emperor at the earliest opportunity. Would you ask if I may extend my apologies to Lady Nishima in person?”

The Shonto guard bowed in return. “Certainly, General. But please, before I do, I must inform you that the insult inflicted upon the House of Shonto and the honor of my mistress by this barbarian in Imperial Guard livery is beyond tolerance. I, too, feel that I have been dishonored by this man. I cannot accept this.”

Nishima watched all of this through her partially drawn curtains. The words drifted to her only in part, but it was easy to guess what was being said. I am rescued yet I do not feel the danger has passed, she thought.

Jaku Katta shook his head in sympathy, one soldier to another. “I understand completely, Lieutenant, but is it not enough to know that his punishment will be…
extreme,
at the hands of the Court of the Military?”

The Shonto lieutenant seemed to weigh his words, but then asked, “Would you accept this insult, General?”

Jaku Katta considered this for only an instant, and then shook his head. “I would not.” He turned to his second in command. “Clear a place on the quay and give the captain his sword. Be sure no one interferes.” He turned back to the lieutenant. “Take two of your guard as witnesses.” He bowed. “You choose the course of honor, Lieutenant. May the gods stand at your side.”

The lieutenant bowed in return and relinquished his command to his second, a young captain with the face of a scholar. This young man went immediately to convey Jaku Katta’s request to Lady Nishima.

“Is there to be a duel?” she asked as soon as the Shonto captain approached.

“It is unavoidable, Lady Nishima. I would have given the challenge myself if the lieutenant had not taken it up, as was his right.”

“But the Imperial Guardsman is huge!” She raced through several arguments in her mind. Honor, she thought, this is about honor, not about fear. I must appeal to that. “Does not the lieutenant endanger the Shonto name more if he is to fail?”

“He will not fail, Lady, though I fear the cost may be great.” He turned back to the quay where a crowd gathered to witness the conflict. The sight of the general reminded him of his duties. “General Katta has asked if he could convey his apologies to you in person, Lady Nishima.”

“Of course, yes. Bring him to me.” She could see the fight was about to begin, and there on the quay the difference in the size of the two men could truly be seen.

“General,” Nishima said as Jaku approached. “Can you not stop this senseless fight? Will not the Imperial Guard be held responsible for his actions as it is?”

Jaku bowed low. “I tried to dissuade your lieutenant, Lady Nishima, but it is his right. He felt Shonto honor had been put in question. I am sorry.”

Swords rang out in the silence that had settled. Lady Nishima hid her mouth behind an open fan, but in her eyes there was anguish. This is my fault, she thought. If I had listened to Rohku Saicha, this would never have happened. Or would it? Something still told her there was more to the situation than met the eye.

“Do you wish to move along the canal until this is completed? You can do nothing for your lieutenant here.”

“Yes, please,” she said. Anything to be beyond the sound of the swords.

Jaku signaled to her boatmen who obeyed him as though he were their commander. They rounded a corner and settled close to a stone quay.

Jaku broke the awkward silence first. “Please allow me to apologize for the actions of my guards, though I know they were unforgivable.”

Lady Nishima interrupted him. “You need not apologize to me, General Katta. I remain indebted to you for your act of bravery in our garden. You saved my lord’s life. This is a thing for which I can never repay you.”

Jaku shrugged in modesty, then turned his tiger eyes on the young woman. “It was an honor to serve the Shonto, Lady Nishima, an honor which I would gladly repeat.” He let the statement hang in the air and then turned
his eyes away. “I have assured your esteemed uncle that you are in no danger while he is in Seh. Excuse my presumption, but I have been concerned about your safety since the…incident in Lord Shonto’s garden.”

“Your concern flatters me, General Jaku, but it is not the Shonto way to allow ourselves to be in another’s debt.”

“Debt? It is I who am in your debt, Lady Nishima, that you have not called me a presumptuous fool.”

Lady Nishima nodded to Jaku for his kindness, but the ringing of swords, loud and frenzied drew her gaze away. There was silence then.

Jaku Katta cocked his head to one side concentrating on the distant sounds. “It is over, Lady Nishima. We may hope honor has been restored.” He stood as an Imperial Guard came running up.

“The captain has fallen, General.”

“And the Shonto lieutenant?”

“He lives, Sire, but his wounds are severe. We have taken the liberty of removing him to a doctor’s care.”

Lady Nishima hid her face in her hands for a second but then regained control.

The general nodded, dismissing the man. “I’m sorry, Lady Nishima, but he could not be dissuaded. I will see to his medical care myself and inform you of his condition.”

“There was nothing you could do. Please do not feel the blame is yours. Pardon me, General, but I must continue, if I may.”

Jaku bowed quickly. “Of course, I did not mean to detain you.” He stepped off the boat onto the quay. “Perhaps we will meet at the Emperor’s celebration of his Ascension?”

You are bold, Nishima thought. “Perhaps.”

He smiled and fixed her with a parting glance.

The cold eyes of the predator, Nishima thought, as the general turned away. But still she felt stirred by his presence. Had he not saved her uncle? Had he not rescued her from this impossible situation?

Her escort returned and the boatmen pushed off. A voice inside spoke, saying that despite all appearances, something was not right. What was it Jaku had said to the Imperial Guard captain when he appeared?—“You have orders to harass the Lady Nishima Fanisan?”

That is how he sees me, she realized suddenly,
Lady Nishima Fanisan—a daughter of the blood.
She felt the island of Lady Okara slipping away, and the
life she desired gone with it. “I can never escape it,” she said in a whisper, “though I would not choose it if offered a thousand times. My blood, I cannot change my blood.”

As the dusk settled in the capital of Wa, the Lady Nishima rode toward her destination feeling, more than ever, that it had been chosen by forces beyond herself.

Not far away, Jaku Katta boarded his own sampan and signaled his boatmen to take him to the Imperial Palace. Once in the privacy of his craft, Jaku could not help smiling with satisfaction. She is not as unattainable as I had been led to believe, he thought. Oh, but she was no fool! Almost she had convinced the guards to mutiny against their captain! He shook his head in disbelief. If he had not appeared when he had…well, it was done now, and that fool of a captain would never tell what his orders had been. That had been a close moment, and the lieutenant was so small! Jaku had feared he would not be able to perform the deed. He should not have been concerned—Shonto men were trained to be the best and, except for Jaku’s elite guard, they were.

The Emperor’s general leaned forward as if to hurry his boat along. Battle had been engaged and now everything hung in the balance. Only time would tell if his plans were adequate. And the time would be short.

Only one doubt nagged at the Commander of the Imperial Guard. He knew it grew out of something that could almost be called superstition, but he could not reason this doubt away.

Jaku Katta could remember failing to accomplish something once in his life and the person who had brought about that failure had returned, and slipped through an assassination attempt already.

The famed kick boxer closed his eyes and rubbed his brow as if in sudden pain. It was not a memory that brought him comfort. Not one of the thousands of people who watched had seen what had occurred. But it had marked Jaku and he could not erase that mark.

A small Botahist monk had stood before him, utterly calm after deflecting a blow that had all the power of Jaku’s huge frame behind it. Deflecting it, yet Jaku knew there had been no contact between them. He had felt the power though, the unheard of power. To turn a blow without touching the assailant….

Jaku shook his head to free himself of his memory. He looked out to the banks of the canal and saw the people bow as he passed. Drawing a long
breath, he forced a calm over himself. They no longer stood in the limited arena of the tournament ring. Here, the boy was hopelessly beyond his depth, there could be no doubt of that.

The boat rounded into the Canal of His Highest Wisdom, the widest canal in the capital, and there, at its end, the white palace of the Emperor seemed to glow in the failing light. It was Jaku’s destination.

T
HE BOTAHIST ACOLYTE, Tesseko, knelt by the charcoal fire that burned amidships. The motion of the river junk was less noticeable there and her sensitive stomach appreciated that. A wind fanned the coals and smoke curled up to sting her eyes, but she did not seem to mind—it was a fair wind and it hurried them on their way to Seh.

She chanted the glory of the Perfect Master silently as she worked, knowing that this helped speed the time during the performance of menial tasks. (Glory, glory to His wisdom which leads me.)

She glanced up as she cooked and saw the people on the canal bank kneeling as the Imperial Governor’s progress passed. She, herself, felt awe to be part of this procession. As she had thought herself immeasurably fortunate (Glory to the Seven Paths) when she was selected to accompany senior Sister Morima on this journey. Sister Morima, the woman who had looked upon the
Hand of Botahara
with her own eyes! Yes, she had felt fortunate.

Junior Acolyte Tesseko bent over the food she prepared, vegetables, steamed rice—the simple fare of the ascetic. Into this she mixed a secret blend of herbs, for Sister Morima had been taken ill, or so it seemed. Since they had set out from the Priory of the Divine Awakening, seven days past, Sister Morima had become more and more withdrawn. Her face had become pale and her skin waxy. This will set her to rights, Tesseko told herself.

She felt a certain disappointment at Sister Morima’s silence. She had hoped to learn more; after all, Tesseko was almost ready to become a senior Acolyte—and she was only eighteen—she had hoped the Sister would take
her more into her confidence, there was so much Sister Morima could teach her. But she realized now that it was not to be so.