On Algid Shores

Don't look. Don't look. Don't look.

Even with the admonition to herself, Gen couldn't help but lift her eyes. Her husband-to-be wasn't even focused on her, so her breach of manners went unnoticed by him. He was staring up at her father, not at the girl kneeling at her father's feet.

Gen didn't know what to think of Master Arata, although she had heard the gossip. He was a vicious killer, a warlord who showed mercy to none. His effort to unify the lords wasn't to help the shogunate, but for him to take over as shogun. He was power-mad--or just plain mad. There were even fainter rumors of black sorcery and blood rites to aid him. If those rumors were true, he was skilled in the darkest of magics.

But rumors were seldom true--that's what made them rumors. No, what concerned her most in that moment was that Master Arata had a hard face, his lips thinned almost to nonexistence. His expression seemed as though there was a nasty taste in his mouth.

She was that nasty taste, she realized with a sinking heart.

"So it is agreed." Her father didn't move or change position.

"It is," Master Arata replied.

Her eyes drifted beyond the man she was to marry and came to a halt. Behind him was another man, as different from her betrothed as a cherry blossom was to bamboo.

Her breath stopped in her throat--not because this man was beautiful like the evening sky was beautiful, a beauty overwhelming and full of grandeur, a beauty to make a person feel small and insignificant beside it. Nor did her heart move because of the pride outlined in every curve of his body, or that he carried himself like a prince. No, she would not have minded to see him if it were only that. She would have drawn in her breath in amazement, but then released it without a qualm and looked away again.

What gave her pause was his eyes focused on her. He was looking at her.

And, perhaps of everyone in that crowded room, he seemed to see her, too.

When he noticed her looking up, he gave her a small--and inappropriately reassuring--smile.

Somehow, she couldn't look away.

* * * * *

The morning after her wedding night, Gen's handmaiden bathed her gently in the furo while she cried. The hot water brought out the heady smell of the cypress tub, but even the aromatic scent didn't soothe her. Gen's tears were silent, and her maid pretended not to see them.

When her bowl of natto was placed before her for breakfast, she couldn't bear to look at it and pushed it towards her handmaiden. The other woman ate it, saying nothing.

That afternoon, Gen paced over the tatami mats in her room. Her mind kept on stopping at the fact of her marriage. She had been told that she would learn to feel affection for Master Arata eventually, but her imagination faltered when she pictured his cold eyes, his indifferent manner. How could she feel anything but dislike for someone like him?

Her handmaiden came into her room and bowed, handing over a roll of paper. Gen raised her eyebrows and unrolled it.

Her husband's scribe had written only a few brief characters, and Gen could almost hear Master Arata's barked voice through the note. "War between Akiyama and Hashimoto. Departed immediately. Obey Lekan."

Gen laughed in sheer joy. She was free! At least for a short while. She asked the handmaiden, "Who's Lekan?"

The girl bowed again. "Your husband's manservant. The foreigner." The servant's face was down, so she didn't see her mistress's reaction to the words.

Gen's heart was suddenly beating much more quickly. She felt a part of her must have always known who this man would be.

* * * * *

"I see that you are well." Lekan's voice was curiously accented, as if there were music only he could hear, to which he sang the words in accompaniment. It took a moment for her to puzzle out the simple sentence. She'd heard the different accents of the provinces and towns, but never one with a flavor so far from her home.

Impulsively, she asked, "Where are you from?" At his blank stare of surprise, she clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oi, my father would kill me for my rudeness!"

Lekan smiled. "I think you are beyond his purview now that you are married. And when Master Arata is away from here, you answer to me."

She bowed low. "Then I humbly beg your pardon, Master Lekan."

"Not Master. Just Lekan."

She straightened up.

He was still smiling. "I am no master," he said without explanation. Then he waved a hand towards the hallway. "May I escort you outside? It is good to talk with the beauty of nature surrounding us."

"Thank you," she said. "I haven't seen any of the gardens yet."

"Then I am even more pleased to show you." He didn't touch her, as was proper, but he didn't move far from her side, either. "And I would give you answer, if I only knew. I was taken from my home when just a boy and sold into slavery. I traveled on many ships before my former master landed on these shores, and that is when I was given to a lord here." They had reached the graveled paths, and their feet made a crunching sound as they walked. He looked away from her for a moment, studied the drooping blooms of an orchid, pale as moonlight against the night darkness of his hand. "My new master was one of those who rebelled against the shogunate five years ago. When Master Arata killed him in battle, the Master set me free. I owe him my life."

He turned back to her. "My life and my loyalty. I believe with all my heart in his efforts to unify the lords. Do you?"

She swallowed hard. Nodded.

"Aren't they beautiful, the gardens Master Arata has created? To the right, if you look over there, are the flowers called ever sorrow…"

* * * * *

"What is this game you play?" Lekan asked her several weeks later. Although he didn't spend much time in her company, she noticed he made sure to attend to her at least once a day and ask her if she needed anything. She seldom asked for anything, but when she did, he brought it to her within the hour. Sometimes, they just sat and talked, other times he would tell her the history of Castle Wakahisa or give her updates on her husband's battles.

The latter, she accepted in grim-faced silence. Perhaps misinterpreting her look for one of concern, he didn't soften the information for her. It would be hard for him to guess that she wanted nothing so much as for her husband to meet the wrong end of an enemy's spear.

At Lekan's question, she laughed. He had come across her seated in the garden, and she had set up the game board on a bench near the pond. "Have you never played? It is old as time. I'm surprised no one's ever taught it to you, since you've lived here so long."

Lekan glanced away out the window. "I am not given much time for games."

Her smile faded, but since he had asked, she showed him the board. "It is called Go. There are black and white pieces. Black," she faltered, as his eyes became intent on hers, "goes first. The goal is to surround your opponent's pieces and capture them. When there are no more moves to make, the game is over and we tally the score."

"How do you keep score?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It's complicated."

He grinned at her, and she felt her cheeks heat in response. Their eyes met for one beat too long before she lowered her face to the board.

Lekan said softly, "Most worthwhile things in life are complicated. Will you teach me?"

Gen nodded. But she didn't dare look up at him again. She wasn't sure what would happen if she did.

* * * * *

The second month of her husband's absence drew to a finish, and the end of third month crept closer. Gen looked forward to Lekan's visits every day, but with a growing pain. He had made clear his loyalties from the beginning. And she knew that her loyalties should be straightforward, no matter how much she despised her husband's attentions. But her heart--that, she could not control.

It was with great surprise that she entered her bedchamber one night to discover someone already waiting for her.

He smelled of horse and said little, but she knew what was expected of her. After he left, she cried--not because he had left, but because he had come to her with no warning and no time to prepare herself for the encounter. Her very soul felt bruised, though he had raised no angry hand to her.

Afterwards, she put her robe back on and set about directing the servants to make a feast to welcome her husband back to his home.

* * * * *

All the days of her husband's return, she did not see Lekan except at a distance. And her nights were occupied.

Her appetite was low, and even her handmaiden remarked on her thin cheeks. It wasn't until news of war returned that she began to recover. When she received another brutal note of adieu from her lord, she laughed loudly, startling her handmaiden. Then Gen stood up and declared herself famished.

Lekan came to her the next day. "He is away to the East this time," he told her. "The shogun is in conflict."

"I see."

"Do you?" Lekan smiled at her, but his eyes were troubled.

She wondered if he was concerned for her husband. She supposed he would be. It was part of what she loved so dearly about him, his gentle heart.

"I do understand you," Gen replied. When he turned abruptly to look at her, she asked, "Would you care for a game of Go?"

* * * * *

The weeks of her husband's absence flew by in shared laughter and conversation. Lekan told her a bit more about himself and some of the horrors he had gone through before he'd come to this peaceful place owned by a warlord. He even talked about her husband and why he thought Master Arata would be able to unify the diverse noble houses, despite their conflicts.

"There is something that drives him," Lekan said as they strolled through the gardens together.

As Lekan stopped to examine a blossom, Gen was reminded of the first time they had properly met, and Lekan's tour of the garden. He had seemed so strange then, so foreign. Now, he was more familiar and dear than her own family.

Lekan glanced over at her, but his gaze seemed unfocused. Inward-turning. "I used to think that his purpose came from within, his sense of responsibility because of his family's history. But, now, I'm not so sure." They walked for several steps in silence before he continued. "Perhaps it has something to do with the magic."

Gen drew in a sharp breath. She remembered the rumors she'd heard back home, and she wondered how much could be true. Even though she couldn't stand to be near him, Master Arata had never harmed her or threatened her, as the rumors might have suggested he would, if he committed black sorcery. "What do you mean?"

Lekan waved a hand in dismissal. "I don't mean that he is possessed. Far from it--he is more in control than any other man I have met. But the spells he does require great skill and learning. He has begun to teach me a thing or two, but I cannot imagine the discipline required to master them all. And I do not know where he learned the practice."

Gen wanted to ask more questions, but she was afraid of the answers. Mostly, she wanted to know how much Lekan knew, and what magic he, himself, possessed. Instead, she bit her tongue and remained silent until their walk was finished and he gave her his bow.

Just like always, each time Lekan left her at the end of the day, she felt another piece of her spirit tear away from her.

She knew he was not indifferent to her. From the way he looked at her, to their long conversations and shared moments of silence. But she didn't know how to bridge that gap. And she was frightened to try.

* * * * *

"It has been two months."

"Indeed," she said and placed a circle next to his piece. She always played white, and Lekan always played black--they had silently taken up the colors without a need to speak of it. Today, they had convinced the servants to set up the game board in the garden, and the leaves rustled pleasingly in the cool breeze.

"I speak to him, sometimes," Lekan admitted. When Gen looked up sharply, he said, "The magic I told you about. We can talk over long distances. He asks after the estate, and gives me news of the fighting."

"How does it work?" As if learning about magic was an everyday occurrence, she casually placed another piece on the board. But her mind wasn't on the game, and Lekan gave her a quick glance at the folly of her move. He played, and then watched her as she rubbed her chin in consideration.

"A bowl of still water, a drop of blood, and words," answered Lekan to her question.

They played in silence for several moments, and Gen simply tried to empty her mind of everything but the board in front of her. She didn't want to think about magic right now, about how it had made Master Arata powerful.

The words seemed torn from him when Lekan added, "He sees you as a burden."

"Indeed."

His eyes were upon hers, forcing an answer. "Do you not care?"

She dropped the piece she had been fiddling with into the pile in her box, but wouldn't look up at him. Somehow, it was too hard to meet his eyes. "What else am I?"

"You are…" She looked up through her lashes, and he bit his lip. When he answered, it seemed as if the words were forced out against his better judgement. "You are the sun rising after the winter," he said in a soft tone. "You are the moon on a cloudless night. You are the reason for everything."

She laughed, startled at his words, but the sound caught in her throat. A feeling stole over her suddenly, a feeling of looking down on the scene from a great height, an observer. She stood up, scattering the round pieces from the game as she let the box drop heedlessly to the ground. "And you," she said. "You are the night come alive to devour me."

He touched her. For the first time, he put his hands into her hair and drew his fingers through the long, dark strands. She smoothed her palms over the planes of his face, so familiar now. After that, there was no further need for words for either of them.

* * * * *

When her husband returned, as he must, she did not know how she could bear it. After such a pacific interlude, he crashed into her serenity with his unpleasant stench of war and his indifference. He came back, expecting a wife. But after that first night of his return, when she was forced to lie with him, she thought she must die. How could she reconcile what was supposed to be with what was?

The visits from Lekan stopped, as they had when her husband returned before, and she began to dwindle again. She could feel the bones pressing hard against her face as, day after day, food lost its flavor and she could not bear to eat.

After a scarce two months, her husband returned to war.

The day Arata left, as soon as Lekan stepped through the door, she threw herself upon him. "What about--" he began to ask, but she stopped his questions with her mouth.

When they had wound down, the first thing he said was, "We cannot continue as we are." He shook his head when she would have protested and asked her, "If you conceived, what do you think our child would look like?"

The question gave her pause for a moment, but she said fiercely, "Beautiful."

But the truth--the truth was there for her to see. She could not stop fact with desire.

"I do not want to live without you," she said.

"If we are caught," he said grimly. "You won't."

* * * * *

It felt like a dream--a waking dream where no matter how hard she tried to rouse herself, she couldn't. It had happened as Lekan had feared it would: someone had noticed their rendezvous and told her husband. Barely hours after Master Arata's return, she found herself bound by chains and brought before the gathered village to hear judgement.

"Death for the whore," read the seneschal aloud.

The cheering took her by surprise. Some of these were the men and women she had lived with every day of her life. They had seen her when she had taken her first steps, they had applauded her when she reached adulthood. They had accompanied her to her new home when she was married to serve her new lord. Now, they were clamoring for her blood.

They had not found Lekan anywhere on the grounds when they went searching, and she was fiercely glad. She cared nothing for her own life, but for him--a part of her wanted him to live on, even if there was no hope for her, to carry their love with him always. She didn't know the extent of his magic--they had only spoken of it the one or two times--but she hoped it was enough to get him safely away, and she hoped that her husband didn't have stronger spells to stop him.

The people were calling out invective, and she felt faint before the force of their hatred and the cold glare of her husband next to her. She looked into the crowd, looking for any sympathy at all, and she thought at first that she was imagining things. There in the center of the screaming mob, his head cowled for disguise--there, a glimpse of a familiar face as his hood shifted as he looked up at her. The dear features, the utterly recognizable skin that would betray him if someone jostled him too hard and knocked back his covering. So vulnerable he seemed, with such an identifying mark upon him, the flag of his foreign birth. Black as night, but beautiful as the sun.

She raised her eyes from his hidden features, so as not to betray him. She hoped no one else had seen that brief glimpse, as she had. He was once again a hooded figure in the crowd, indistinguishable.

What would happen next, what his plans were to rescue her, what the people would do to her if he failed--she did not know. But with a love so powerful as to defy death, she did not need to know.

No matter what happened to him, to her, it didn't matter.

Love was enough.