Shadow Magic

CHAPTER TEN





KOUJE

The actors were preparing for that evening’s show when I drew Mamoru aside, gently, by the elbow.

“Oh,” he said, his face faltering. “I had hoped we might stay for the show. It’s a version of The Thousand Cherry Trees, about the banished prince, you know. I hear he’s very dashing—though he’s nothing in comparison to his loyal retainer who, I believe, is the coveted star role. You should have heard them all arguing over who would get to play him.”

“It’s exactly why we can’t stay,” I replied.

The last thing we needed, in a border town, when tensions were so high—when we’d had such trouble getting across in the first place—was to be caught up in that particular performance.

My lord never knew the trouble there had been one summer, at least ten years back, when all the plays were about dragons and their riders. The theatre district had nearly been shut down because of it. While the capital was another matter entirely from the countryside, it never served a man to tempt fate when she had been so kind to him already.

Just thinking of the crowded streets of the city in comparison to the quiet houses of the countryside, cluttered together for only a brief moment along the road, was enough to make a man homesick. Mamoru himself was unused to unpaved streets and thin mattresses—to what it meant to live in the country.

Honganje prefecture was even smaller than that, a fishing village old as time itself, barely cutting its own survival into the face of the mountains looming over it. The salt and the sand got into everything, as did the stench of fish.

He’d never be able to live there. It would have been better to stay on with the caravan at that rate.

“They’re not going in the right direction, anyway,” Mamoru agreed. “And it would be somewhat vainglorious to watch a play that’s about—”

I hushed him, momentarily, a finger to my lips, as I heard footsteps passing us. It was Goro, looking for his script; or Ryu, looking for his plectrum; or Aiko, searching out a missing piece for someone’s costume, a wig, or a mask. All those details were becoming second nature. If only they had been going in the right direction. But we had no place among them, and I could no more afford to raise my lord’s hopes than I could afford to raise my own. That was most dangerous of all.

“As much as I’ve been looking forward to the show,” Mamoru amended, toying with his sleeve. It was a habit I’d only seen in him when he was a little boy. The court, his father, Iseul, and even I, had long since trained him out of it.

It suited him there. At least we were capable of relearning what we’d been forced to forget.

“As have I,” I agreed. “I’ve lifted enough boxes to enjoy the fruits of my labor.”

“I’ll go when you deem it best,” Mamoru said. “It seems so rude not to thank them—not to let them know we’re in their debt.”

“Hey, Goro!” Aiko called from somewhere within the makeshift playhouse—the inn we’d be staying at that evening, if we were staying at all. “If you’ve gone off with that mask again, I’m going to skin you alive and feed you to the mountain demons!”

“They’ll be busy enough with the preparations for the play that they won’t have a chance to notice we’re gone,” Mamoru said, not allowing himself to sound as wistful as we both were. “Do you remember the poem about—what was it—floating weeds? I always found it so mournful when I was little. Perhaps this is why.”

“It won’t be that way forever,” I counseled, though I knew absolutely nothing when it came to poetry.

“No,” Mamoru agreed. “Soon enough we’ll be weeds with roots. I wonder what sort of plant a weed becomes when it is watered by the sea?”

“Excellent for your constitution,” I promised. “You’ll never have a winter’s fever again.”

Mamoru rested his cheek against the side of the inn. We were lucky it was summer and there was little danger of my lord catching fever. He didn’t have his brother’s constitution; he never had. It was as though the first son had taken everything he would need to become Emperor, leaving nothing in turn for the second. Now that I understood our new Emperor a little better, it would have scarcely surprised me to discover that was his plan all along.

“I do still wonder if this might not all be an accident,” Mamoru said. “As much as I once would have welcomed the chance to run away with you, Kouje, I fear the days for such rebellion have long since passed.”

“You’re not as old as all that,” I reasoned.

When was the last time we had spoken so freely with one another? My lord had been certainly no older than a boy of five, so I at twelve would still have been too young to realize the impropriety of my informal ways.

“I did think of it often enough,” Mamoru admitted. “That we might never have to go to war, as my brother did; that you and I could live, with your sister, in some small fishing village, and that I would never have to dress myself as a girl again. At least, I’d thought those days were over.” He laughed warmly.

“I would never have allowed it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“You would have been right to stop me,” Mamoru replied. “I may be well versed in this part, but any other and I would fall miserably short.”

I moved to shield him—from what was less certain. He seemed so small, and his cheeks were flushed with the heat of memory. It was the same look he got in his eyes when he did have a fever: those long, terrible winters when there was no one but me to visit him, and the servants were all but certain we would lose him that time. “Unless they wished for you to play the prince,” I said.

“Oh, no, Kouje,” he said. “It would be most difficult to play that role. I’d have no distance at all from it; I’d assume too much.”

“I’ll get our things once the show begins,” I promised. It was all I had to offer him; that, and a bed of grass for the night.

Think of how far you’ve come, Kouje, I cautioned myself, before the usual refrain. And think of how far you have yet to go. It was an old trick: Reward yourself before you warned yourself, and you would get far enough on your own two feet.

We passed from behind the inn to the front, where men and women were filing into the theatre, and Goro himself was shouting advertisements from a stone raised beside it. “The greatest adventure you’ve ever seen!” he yelped, in a voice that was much larger than he was. “You’ll never know such daring and excitement!”

No one was paying any attention to us; especially not Goro, who was testing his luck every time he called my lord “princess.” All that saved him was the fact that Mamoru seemed to enjoy it, and coming to blows with an aspiring playwright over an innocent nickname was too much even for me. Even where Mamoru was concerned.

“I’ve heard that the loyal retainer is able to leap from mountain to mountain in a single bound,” Mamoru said, falling into step beside me, just in my shadow. He’d taken to doing that lately, and I’d taken to accepting it. Once, I’d walked behind him; walking at his side should have been anathema to me.

It was part of the roles we played. If a wife walked before her husband in the streets, there would be such a fuss that the Emperor himself would have come to see the novelty.

“A single bound?” I asked. “He must have very long legs.”

“They also say he is so handsome that no one dares to look upon him,” Mamoru added, somewhat slyly. “The women say that, at least.”

“They talk far more of the prince’s beauty,” I said, though I felt my cheeks grow hot. He was teasing me, and I him, but we had not indulged in such behavior since we were children. It fit a bit stiffly—the same way an old glove might—but it fit nonetheless.

“They flatter him,” Mamoru said.

“They flatter that poor retainer,” I countered. “Who will never live up to such a standard. Jumping across mountains? If only he could.”

The last statement burned more hotly in my throat than I’d expected, and I was grateful it was so dark, so noisy, so crowded upon the street. The gossips were out in full force, along with the other eager theatregoers, travelers and merchants and locals alike, each hoping that some noble grace would touch them through the hand of the make-believe prince. Someone jostled against Mamoru’s shoulder and I caught him, drawing him gently aside.

“There is one among these numbers who used to believe he could do all that, and more,” Mamoru said, the hint of a smile ghosting over his lips. “A silly little boy with too much time for imagining things, though. You’d barely recognize him now.”

“He has grown quite a bit,” I agreed. “But his eyes are the same.”

“At least someone recognizes him,” Mamoru agreed.

We slipped into the inn through the side entrance, which faced another one of the small, simply made houses. In the main hall, one could hear the excited whispers of the audience as they were arriving, and it did seem strange that we should not be allowed to watch a performance in which—at least in the barest of ways—our own actions were represented.

Our things, minimal as they were, had been tossed in with the others’ trunks and boxes; on the second floor, in a series of connected rooms, all small and clean and cast into utter chaos by the arrival of the merry band. I saw Mamoru cast a longing glance toward one of the beds, over which a series of brightly colored scarves had been scattered, and I knew what he would miss the most: rice in the mornings and not having to comb twigs from his hair.

“We could always take a pillow,” I suggested, already knowing what his answer would be.

“That would be stealing,” he replied. “Unless we could pay for it.”

Which we couldn’t.

I dug through the very garments I’d helped to unload—the only way I could pay for anything; with my hands and my shoulders, both of which were aching—and found the last vestiges of what belonged to us.

“They did say they could use the horse,” Mamoru sighed. “Very fine, that creature. I do wonder…”

“We need him more right now than the diplomats,” I soothed, though I bowed my head for a brief moment in apology.

“Well,” came a third voice. “There you are. First sign of work and you run away: I see how it is.”

“Aiko,” Mamoru said, startling.

The question on both of our minds was whether or not she thought us common thieves—and how long she’d been standing there.

“We haven’t taken anything,” I began, holding up my hands.

“Of course you haven’t,” Aiko muttered. “Because you’re two noble idiots. If you did take something, it would serve you better than it did us. A blanket, maybe, or some money—yes, money. You need that to live out there.”

I cast an uncertain look to Mamoru, who seemed just as baffled as I was. “I don’t think I follow,” I tried again, inching closer to Mamoru. In case of what, I didn’t know. It was first nature to me now, not second. I didn’t trust the look in Aiko’s eyes—as though she knew something we didn’t.

“Cut the pretending,” she said. “Neither of you is any good at it.” My throat tightened around the pulse there, and I knew I’d been right to come between her and Mamoru.

“Aiko,” Mamoru said. “I can assure you, we don’t know what—”

“When I was little, the prince passed through my town,” Aiko insisted. “I’ve seen him before. So’ve some of the others; it’s just that I’m the only one who recognizes you.”

Mamoru reached out to grip the back of my shirt and I let him, preparing myself—though for what, I couldn’t be sure. It was possible Aiko had already notified the authorities, close as we were to the border crossing. It was possible they were already waiting for us just downstairs.

I would die there before I let them take Mamoru, I thought, and set my jaw.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Aiko snapped. “What are you even thinking? I’m telling you…” She trailed off for a moment, as though she’d only just realized the weight of her accusation. Whether or not she’d always known she was standing before a prince, speaking the words made them all the more real. With a stifled, uncomfortable sound, she dropped to her knees and held something up: a soft leather wallet, heavy with coins. “I’m telling you to take this,” she finished, eyes cast to the floor. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

It took both of us too long to understand what it was she was saying; then, before I could do anything at all, Mamoru had stepped out from behind me to kneel on the hard floor of the inn. I found that I could not breathe, and the expression that came over Aiko’s face indicated she felt much the same way as I did.

“Stand up,” she said, a little too roughly. “We all want you to get away. But not like this.”

“I don’t understand,” Mamoru said. I would have gone forward then and pulled him to his feet, but I was frozen where I was—as though I was a member of the audience, watching a play I could not join. That wasn’t my cue; it wasn’t even my scene.

“Why do you think idiots like Goro write these plays?” Aiko said, her brow furrowing. She was very beautiful in that moment—more beautiful than any of the court ladies, none of whom had such fine, clear eyes—torn as she was between laughter and complete disbelief. Most felt that way when faced with Mamoru in all his finery; and he was at his finest then, kneeling before a common stagehand. His brother would never have done such a thing.

That was why his people loved him. His kindness was unmistakable, and his concern for his people was one not shared by his brother. The Ke-Han people had made him into a hero simply because to them he was one. They saw Mamoru as I did. Mamoru himself seemed oblivious to such admiration, but that made him seem all the more worthy of it.

“I didn’t think,” Mamoru said, and cut off, shaking his head. “Because it’s a good story?”

“Why not write it about the Emperor?” Aiko said. “Take the money. Don’t be stubborn.”

“Whose money is it?” Mamoru asked. “Is it yours?”

“Maybe,” Aiko said. “Maybe not. We’re making good coin off your story tonight. You deserve a cut. Take it and get out of here. All due respect,” she added, glancing up to me. “Your…”

“Don’t say it,” I managed, my voice grinding out hoarsely. “He—it’s difficult as it stands not to—”

“What my… What my husband means to say,” Mamoru said, with far more delicacy than I could have managed, given the circumstances, “is that perhaps, especially given the material of the play, we shouldn’t speak of things that may cause the gods to believe we’ve become carried away with our own luck.”

Aiko nodded, and I could see the conflict warring in her face, the sharp downturn of her brow. I recognized that look from one I’d worn constantly—a mixture of pride and exasperation.

My lord, it seemed, brought such emotions out in people.

“Take the money,” she said finally, laying the bag on the floor between her and Mamoru. “Please. Think of it as a gift.”

It was very difficult for me to keep still, but I held my tongue. Something told me, perhaps my intuition, that it was Mamoru’s decision to make, and that I would be doing him no favors by stepping in to influence him.

“You must allow your people,” she said, raising her head, “to do something for you beyond putting on a play.”

My lord shook his head, and spoke so quietly that for a moment I was sure only I could hear him. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such friends.”

He truly didn’t. Perhaps my lord did not yet understand how deeply his kindness had been felt during the war. While his father and brother had fought valiantly to crush our opponents, Mamoru had organized camps for the refugees of cities too close to the mountains. He was beloved as Iseul was not—respected not only for his actions on the battlefield but also his compassion off it—and our new Emperor’s attack on his brother had merely brought that affection to the forefront.

He had even gone so far as to take the place of one of his men who had been wounded on the battlefield. He was a common soldier and nothing more, but to rest wounded without finding a man to take his place would have been a great blow to his honor. My lord Mamoru took up his mantle without hesitation—a fact I was later both displeased and awed to learn. The deception was not discovered until the next day, and it had since become a favorite tale of the playwrights.

The Ke-Han people were bound by tradition. But we were not so bound as to forget kindness, either.

“Plays are well enough,” Aiko went on, either ignoring him or simply at a loss for what to say. “They inspire the people well enough, let them dream a little about life as it ought to be rather than how it is. But dreaming isn’t enough sometimes.”

She rose to her feet, having made up her mind about something, and pressed the money pouch into my hand. The look on her face promised ill if I refused it.

“You can’t afford rice for your lady wife on dreams alone,” she said, and I thought I caught the hint of a smile on her face. “Take it, or I’ll start screaming that I’ve found the errant prince.”

Finally, finally, my lord rose to his feet. He took my arm to steady himself, and the expression on his face was one of wonderment and gratitude.

There was a time when I would not have been able to keep myself from kneeling. Indeed, I could not even so much as imagine a time when I would have been the one man left standing in a roomful of those on their knees. My father would have died of shame at even the prospect. It seemed that my lord was not the only one who’d grown since leaving the palace. I turned my face toward Mamoru when I might instead have bowed, and offered the gift to him.

“My… wife” I said carefully. “It is for you to decide.”

Mamoru reached his hand out, fingers hesitating at the last moment. He looked first to me, then Aiko, as though on the brink of some terribly important decision. Then, without warning, he sprang forward, catching her up in a tight embrace. Aiko made a startled sound, then returned the gesture, an awed smile upon her lips.

We both knew, if my lord did not, what an honor it was. And yet it was also a gesture of pure friendship—without hierarchy interfering.

“No one’s ever going to believe me,” she said, looking wistful when they parted. It was a strange expression to see on her face, when I was all too used to her practicality. But then even particularly practical stagehands, it seemed, could not hold strong when it came to my lord.

“Thank you,” said Mamoru sincerely.

For my part I bowed, much lower than was proper. When I lifted my head, Aiko was wiping at something on her face, though I hadn’t seen any tears there moments ago.

“Come on,” she said, marching over to one of the makeshift beds with a renewed purpose in her eyes. “Let me teach you nobles how to prepare for more than one night out in the woods.”

There was nothing for us to do but to accept her help, it seemed. She outfitted me with one of the heavy canvas bags used for toting smaller props. It was sturdy, and would keep out water so long as I didn’t do anything foolish like drop it in a river. That I was almost more grateful for than the money, since it would allow us to carry more food than we could fit into our mouths at one sitting.

“Good luck,” Aiko said as we were leaving. “Everyone’s watching the play, so if you leave through the back, no one will catch on.”

“What about the things we’ve taken?” Mamoru asked, the smallest of frowns creeping across his brow. “Are you sure it’s all right?”

Aiko knelt once more, formal as a courtier in her acrobat’s clothing and the bright ribbon tying back her hair.

“We are your people, my lord,” she murmured. “Even if the current climate would have you believe otherwise.”

Overcome, I found that I could not have put it better myself.

“We must go while the play still holds their attention,” I said, to remind myself as much as to remind Mamoru.

It was with no small amount of regret—as well as with two blankets, wrapped around a pillow for Mamoru taken at my insistence—that we left. As my lord and I crept around the far side of the inn, leading the Volstov diplomat’s horse, we could hear the raucous tones of the audience that had gathered to watch Goro’s play.

Mamoru hesitated a moment, so that I nearly walked into him before I noticed and stopped myself.

“I do wish we could at least stay through the first act,” he said, turning his face up to smile at me in a way that I knew meant he was joking with me, but that he was also serious.

He might have been surprised to learn that he was not the only one who felt that way. That Aiko had surprised me as much as anyone, and that if I’d been about to trust anyone but myself with Mamoru’s well-being, I might have up and asked her to come with us.

I put a hand on his shoulder, not quite able to shake the idea that perhaps it was not too late to learn a life of juggling and acrobatics. My lord had the sort of face that would draw crowds of hundreds, even thousands, and he liked the theatre well enough. He was a very excellent wife.

The horse snorted, as though he could hear my thoughts and knew as well as I did how ridiculous they were.

The sad facts of the matter were that I could never entrust our safety to such chance circumstances. In such a large group, the truth was bound to come out sometime, and even if we were fortunate enough to not be turned in, it would mean treason for every man and woman in the troupe should someone else discover us and notify the proper officials. We were damned either way, and while I knew that I might be able to bear the guilt of putting a friend in danger, my lord was not as thick-skinned as I. I would protect him. That was my pleasure, duty, and burden.

Exile was a lonely existence, and one I dearly wished to shield Mamoru from as long as I could. I’d spent a great deal of my life doing such things at the palace, after all. Perhaps I might manage it in other places just as easily.

“I’ll tell you all about the play,” I promised, shifting my newly weighted pack against my shoulder. “Though my memory is poor, and I may require some help in putting together the complete tale.”

“Of course,” Mamoru said, drawing close to my side as we’d grown accustomed to walking. The evening had a certain chill to it that made me doubly glad for the blankets we’d taken. Soon we would have to start riding to cover more ground, but I saw no reason to speed us along just yet.

“I am especially poor with endings,” I confessed. “And this one in particular I cannot recall.”

“How terrible,” said Mamoru. “You were always very good with the endings of the stories you told me. I remember them all!”

“That is because you liked only happy endings,” I told him. Above our heads, a bat took flight in crazed, looping circles. I hoped it was feasting on mosquitoes.

My lord shook his head. “Then I suppose this story too will have to have a happy ending. Otherwise, I won’t permit its telling.”

“But Goro will be so disappointed,” I said, feigning horror. That made Mamoru laugh, and soon I found myself joining him, though in a quieter tone, still unable to shake my caution on the open road.

“Do you suppose…” Mamoru began, then seemed to lose himself in thought.

I myself became lost in trying to guess what he was asking. There were a great many possible directions for his question to take, each equally valid in its own right. Did I think there were more commoners sharing in Aiko’s sentiment? Was it possible that we had become something like local folk heroes and not traitors at all? Or did I think our own story would have a happy ending, even if I had to craft one from air the way I had with my lord’s old storybooks? It was difficult to say.

“I think,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “that tonight we will be sleeping with blankets and a pillow, and that tomorrow we can buy rice for breakfast.”

That surprised a smile from him, and he paused at last so that I might help him up onto the horse.

“I hope that no one misses that pillow,” he said, covering a yawn with one hand.

I didn’t speak my next thought, partly to let Mamoru sleep if that was his desire, and partly because I had a feeling he’d make us turn back immediately if he knew that the pillow Aiko had given us had been her own.