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Smoke rose from the campfires outside the village. It was the same color as the sky, darker than the clouds made by Taiki's breath in the air. The air itself was thin with altitude, bleak with the scent of malingering snow. The chill in it gave no admission of approaching spring, not this deep in the northern mountains.
When Taiki looked up, over the pitched tents of the camp and the rooftops of the village beyond, he saw dark flecks moving in formation against the clouds. Riders of the aerial cavalry, returning from the south, carrying lists of names to be delivered to the king. It was no easy task, to recover the name of every man, woman, and child still living in Tai. Before his death the usurper had burned the kingdom's census records, as he'd burned the whole of Saku Prefecture and the village of Garyou.
Taiki had his own list to deliver, one he and Seirai had compiled that day. He paused to gather his bearings, trying to gauge whether his master had come back from the village. The ability to sense Gyousou's presence had been the first of his powers to return to him, and the one that brought him greatest relief, but the perception came only in flickers, licks of flame seen at a distance through dense haze. He stilled himself and turned in the direction that felt truest. It would be dusk soon, time to take shelter against the cold.
As he passed the nearest tent on his left, he heard a faint cry.
It was a strange sound, quickly silenced. Disturbed, Taiki approached the entrance of the tent. He stopped there, poised in uncertainty, listening.
In a moment came another sound, less of a cry than a smothered moan. The pain in it bewildered Taiki, since the king's army was not at war, and had faced no enemies in recent days, not even youma.
Afterward he would wonder what had possessed him to intrude, instead of calling out to ask if all was well within. Only one lit brazier glowed inside the tent. Taiki hesitated at the loss of light and peered into the depths beyond the entrance, where the sleeping mats would lie. At first he could see nothing but unclear motion, hear nothing but rustling and faint grunts. There was a man, a soldier. Two of them, kneeling on the sleeping mat, and between them a boy--one of the village youths--on his hands and knees. The men's bodies moved in short, sharp jerks, and a smell hung in the air like a miasma. It was not the act taking place but the scent, finally, that Taiki recognized.
Blood.
He recoiled. As he stumbled backward another soldier--a lieutenant, one of Gashin's--turned away from observing the others and noticed him at last. The lieutenant dropped the cup in his hands as though it had suddenly seared his skin.
Taiki met his eyes for an instant, then looked back at the men with the boy. One of them saw him looking, and froze in mid-thrust as if pierced by an arrow to the gut. The lieutenant lurched to interpose himself between what his men were doing and the kirin of Tai. Horror contorted his craggy face.
"Taiho--!"
Taiki turned and fled from the tent.
Commotion rose behind him, and the lieutenant's voice shouted his title in desperation. Taiki ran, darting among the tents--all alike, all equally ragged in their disrepair--until he escaped the sounds of pursuit. Then he stopped and doubled over. Nausea swept through him. His stomach twisted, though there was nothing for his belly to heave up.
He crouched there for a time, covering his mouth with shaking hands while his pulse pounded in his ears. The image of the kneeling boy pushed all others from his mind. He understood, belatedly, what had been happening.
I have to go back, he thought. I have to--
He rose unsteadily. As soon as he emerged into the thoroughfare that led among the tents, he came face to face with General Gashin.
"Taiho." The general looked as daunted as Taiki had ever seen him. "I was told you witnessed something upsetting."
Upsetting. As if his own reaction were all that mattered. Shame began to curdle in Taiki, making his stomach clench again. He'd run away, caught in dumb animal panic, instead of standing and demanding to know what was going on. He looked at Gashin.
"Is he all right?"
"My lord?"
"That boy," said Taiki. The clarity of his own voice was like a stranger's.
Sweat gleamed on Gashin's brow like flecks of ice. "My first concern was for your welfare, my lord. I'll check on the boy at once, with your permission."
Taiki nodded, pulling at the closure of his coat. He hunched against his shame and his relief that he wouldn't have to go back, that someone else would see to it. "You can send word to me at the Dragon Pavilion."
Gashin bowed and strode away, swiftly, as if equally relieved to escape.
*
The king's residence in camp made few concessions to his position. There was the name, which Gyousou never used, because (he said) no matter what anyone called it, a tent was a tent. There were the banners outside, hanging motionless in the cold mountain air, and the golden braziers within, never unlit, filled with the best of whatever fuel could be provided. Otherwise it differed little from the tents of the officers. Taiki wondered whether the reversion to old habit was a solace to his master, not merely a concession to necessity.
The tent served as a refuge, at least, since no one would follow him into it uninvited. Taiki hurried past the sentries without a word, catching a glimpse of their surprise before the tent flap fell shut behind him.
He straggled out of his coat and boots. It was too early for sleep, but he sank onto the bed regardless--another concession, not a sleeping mat but a real bed, with layers of soft, thick luxury Taiki knew were more for his own benefit than Gyousou's. He huddled, curling around his belly. It felt as if he'd swallowed a stone. He had no right to feel so ill when he'd only caught a whiff of blood, when none had touched him. He'd seen and smelled worse things, hadn't he, since returning to Tai? And before.
Worse things.
Memories swarmed into his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them, rolling over. He reached into his sash and drew out the list of names he and Seirai had gathered. It was so short, he thought in despair. Two families at the far end of the valley, and a half-beast girl living alone. The girl spent much of her time in fox shape, one of the families had said. There were still mice and voles to be hunted on the slopes.
His fingers tightened on the list. The paper was already creased from being folded. He ought to smooth it out and put it on the table, to have it ready for Gyousou to work--
"Kouri?"
His master's voice, low and sober. Taiki sat up and pushed back his mane. It had grown enough that it was forever in his eyes, now, catching in his lashes or obscuring his sight. Gyousou was striding toward him, expression hard-set with concern.
"Are you well?"
Lying to his master was never comfortable, but easier to manage if he didn't speak. Taiki nodded. He held out the list to Gyousou, who took it without shifting his gaze from Taiki's face.
"I've just heard a sordid tale from Gashin. Two of the men in his command are offering to make eunuchs of themselves with their own blades." A pause. "No one could tell me what exactly you'd seen." A faint dryness in the could, as if Gyousou knew it was more likely would.
"I saw them with a boy from the village. Gashin's men. They were--" Taiki stopped, and found he didn't know what to call it, not really. None of the words he knew for love, even the bodily kind, seemed to have anything to do with what had gone on in the tent. He knew the word for rape, but wasn't sure if he could bear to speak it in front of Gyousou, or whether it applied. "Using him. One on each end."
Gyousou's face grew sterner, if that were possible, only to soften with something like regret. When he spoke his tone was grave and unexcusing. "According to the lieutenant, it was a transaction. The boy confirms he was to be paid. Has been paid, now. Reparations."
A cold lump settled in Taiki's throat. He'd seen the teahouses with green pillars throughout the kingdom, knew in the abstract what kind of trade went on behind their doors. He struggled to set his own distress aside.
"Will he be all right? Gashin was supposed to tell me. He was supposed to send word--"
"Gashin will find a place for him, if he wants it, and better work than what he was given to do today."
"Then--he's not hurt?" It seemed impossible that anyone could endure that and not be hurt. "I smelled blood."
"He's recovering," answered Gyousou. He studied Taiki closely again. "How did you stumble into something like that?"
For an instant Taiki felt accused, though Gyousou's voice was only troubled. "I heard a cry. It sounded like--someone in pain, someone being hurt."
The muscles in Gyousou's jaw shifted. He surged up from his crouch with frustrated momentum, on the verge of pacing in circles, if not charging out of the tent. "A military camp is no place for you. But I've known that from the start."
Taiki lowered his eyes. "I don't belong here, and what those men were doing does." He looked up. "Is that what you mean?"
The breath Gyousou exhaled was too fierce to be a sigh. "I mean there is too much goodness in you, and not enough in this place." He divested himself of his sword in a series of terse movements and sat down beside Taiki on the bed, heavily, without grace. "You remind us what goodness is. But there are times when men hate to be reminded."
To know that his master was disturbed gave Taiki a measure of guilty comfort. They were troubled together, at least, rather than troubled alone. After a moment of quiet he leaned into Gyousou's side, against the rumpled wool of his cloak.
"Can't you forbid it?" he asked.
A hand came to rest between his shoulders. "Forbid what, exactly?"
The touch felt good. Taiki had wondered if even Gyousou's touch would make him flinch, after what he'd seen, but it had nothing in common with what the men in the tent had done. Nothing at all. He closed his eyes, and in his mind the scene with the boy did not replay itself. There was only Gyousou, Gyousou's presence at his side like a great hearth full of flame. He'd never been more grateful for its immensity.
"That kind of...transaction."
"I could. I will, if you ask it. But the hiring of prostitutes has never been forbidden before. I could not expect the order to be obeyed, and we're in no position to dismiss soldiers for such infractions. We need the troops we have. They could be censured, but we can hardly dock pay or rations when there is little to pay and nothing to feed them to begin with. You see the difficulty."
Taiki nodded, growing more wretched with understanding.
"Later, when the kingdom is recovered, and the army in better order--then it could be done." Gyousou paused. "Would you have these men punished?"
"No," said Taiki quickly. He turned his head to avoid Gyousou's gaze, sinking as near to petulance as he ever came. He was a kirin, and wished no harm on anyone, and his master knew it--why even ask? But he knew why. Gyousou continued speaking, voice steady with solicitude.
"Would you address them, then? On top of Gashin telling them their exploits made the Taiho ill, that might be punishment enough. Having to face you."
Taiki shifted restlessly. "I don't want to see them. And it's not me they should apologize to." An image of the boy returned to him. "He was younger than I am."
"He was doing as he thought he must to survive." Gyousou withdrew his hand, leaving cool absence at Taiki's back, and turned his head to stare at nothing. "By now you know I cannot put an end to everything that pains you. Not quickly enough. I'm sorry."
"No, it's not--it's--I'm sorry. I'll stay out of other people's tents." Taiki slumped again against Gyousou's side. His face felt raw, as if he'd been crying, although his eyes were dry. He rubbed them wearily. "I hope someone wrote down his name, at least."
Someone had: Gashin, or the lieutenant, or perhaps one of the men who'd bought the boy's compliance in the first place. Gyousou agreed that when he made the next additions it should be first on the list. It had become practice, now, that the names of anyone ill or injured received priority. The census-takers and couriers marked such names with the character for "need." In some cases the difference of an hour or two had saved the ailing from death.
That the king seemed in no immediate hurry to take up his brush consoled Taiki. Perhaps no one was dying tonight in Tai. He could hope.
"I have something for you," said Gyousou. "One of the village matrons gave me these, when she learned you were traveling with us." He drew a folded cloth, not even half the size of his fist, from the place at his belt where he'd secured it. He put it into Taiki's hands. "If you feel well enough to eat."
Taiki unfolded the cloth slowly. "I'm all right."
"You said there was blood."
Taiki nodded. "There was," he murmured. "A little."
What lay within the cloth made him draw breath in surprise. Dried plums, five of them, brown and wrinkled and contorted with age. He touched their leathery skin. Fruit of any kind was so rare.
"The last of a hoard, I suppose." Gyousou rose from the bed and began to shed his cloak.
"We can share them," Taiki said. He felt a small but determined pleasure at the thought.
"No, the lady was clear, those are for the Taiho. Not for starving orphans, not for the troops, not for that useless fool of a king."
Taiki stared. "What--"
"Her eyesight isn't what it used to be, she claimed. Her hearing likewise." The corner of Gyousou's mouth curled upward. "You should eat."
Taiki folded the cloth over the plums. He would eat them later, just before sleep, so his belly would be silent while he lay next to his master through the night.
*
It took all of his wiles--such as they were--to convince Gyousou to eat one of the plums.
"They're delicious," Taiki offered.
"I'm glad to hear it."
His master sat at the table, putting away his brush after recording the last of the day's names. It was not a task that could be delegated: only the king's hand could mark the scroll that raised his subjects to immortality. When Gyousou finished he extinguished the lamps, leaving no light but the glow of the braziers.
Taiki sat in bed, upright but wrapped in blankets. He watched Gyousou shed his outermost layer, then his belt and his boots, and waited for him to come near before drawing back the covers.
"The lady who gave them would've known I'd want to share," he pointed out. "I can't help it."
"Fortunately she made it plain to me that they were meant for you."
"Master Gyousou's hungry."
It was true. They were always hungry, he and Gyousou and everyone else in Tai. The granaries were empty. All crops had failed in the final years of Asen's rule. Most of the beasts that could be eaten had been slain, and few wild creatures had been born from the trees in the woods. Shipments of grain from En and Kei could not arrive quickly enough, even with Risai and her troops working to speed them.
"I'll live." That, too, was true. Hungry as they were, none of them could die of it. Neither king nor Saiho, nor anyone whose name was on the list. "Tomorrow I'll find a kochou wing to gnaw, or some such."
Taiki winced, though he knew Gyousou wasn't in earnest. He looked down at the three wrinkled plums cupped in his palm. "I already ate two. That's enough for me."
"Save the rest, then."
"Master--"
"I refuse," declared the king, in the voice he had once used from the throne in Hakkei Palace. Taiki remembered that voice; when he was small it had made the little hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end with shivery awe. Now there was a crooked smile on Gyousou's lips, spoiling the effect, and the dried plums were still sitting in Taiki's hand. Taiki lifted them like an offering to a beloved but unrelenting god and looked into Gyousou's face.
"Master Gyousou," he said gently, "it would make me happy."
Gyousou went still. The stare he leveled at Taiki lasted only a few seconds before shifting upward, as if to berate the roof of the tent or the denizens of the sky on its far side. Then he took one of the dried plums from Taiki's hand and ate it.
Smiling, Taiki tucked the rest of the plums away. Gyousou muttered as he chewed, as if to himself, his eyes dire with a warning of good humor.
"Thank Heaven you are what you are, and will never use your influence for personal gain. Or political advancement."
"My influence?"
"You know very well what I mean."
Taiki considered what had passed between them. "I wouldn't ask for anything I shouldn't."
"Just so." Gyousou laughed shortly. "It's a comfort."
The laugh should've been reassuring, but Taiki grew more uncertain. To displease Gyousou was the last thing he wanted, let alone over a matter of dried plums. He'd already caused his share of trouble by asking for impossible things. Subdued, he reached for Gyousou's sleeve.
"Master Gyousou," he murmured, "you can tell me no." It was incongruous, to say such a thing to the king--and as soon as the words were out, Taiki remembered that Gyousou had spoken the same ones to him not so long ago, in different circumstances. Maybe not so different. He ducked his head, flushing. He could see by the sudden keenness in his master's eyes that Gyousou remembered, too.
"Can I? Am I meant to, I wonder." The keenness lingered. "I did refuse you earlier tonight."
Taiki shook his head. "You explained why. If I'd thought about it more, I would've seen on my own that it wouldn't work. I wasn't thinking."
"You were distraught." Gyousou leaned back, drawing Taiki to stretch out beside him as he settled. "With good reason. What I said before was spoken in haste. Let me consider it."
"Really?"
"If you went on poking into tents without warning, it would serve as a deterrent." Gyousou's voice was at its driest. "If nothing else, the men would take their vices elsewhere."
The thought was harrowing. "I don't want to be the police," said Taiki weakly. "And I shouldn't just...barge in. They might be doing private things that aren't vices."
Gyousou gave him a thoughtful look, almost surprised, before flattening his lips on what might have been a smile.
"There's a good deal of that. It's practical."
A good deal of what? wondered Taiki. "Practical?"
"Useful for keeping up morale. And for keeping warm."
As if to illustrate, Gyousou curled his arm and fitted Taiki closer against his side. Taiki nestled with mute appreciation of the principle, and only then grasped what Gyousou must have thought he meant by private things. When his startlement receded he could have laughed. Of course the soldiers might share their sleeping mats with one another. In moments of bemusement it had occurred to Taiki that if others of his own kind didn't share their masters' beds, maybe that was only because no other kingdom was as frigid as Tai. Practical, indeed. He sighed as Gyousou's hand slid through his hair, heavy enough for him to take pleasure in the weight of it. The cadence of Gyousou's voice slowed to an idle pace.
"If you had studied the classics, you'd have read the poems of General Sho and Yuu Ran, who became his chief officer. When I was fifteen I could recite them from memory." Gyousou's eyes narrowed, as if he were trying to discern the shape of an object in the distance. Then he shook his head. "Long gone."
"Love poems?" asked Taiki. His disbelief waned only in part when he recalled the poetry he'd read in school.
"Famous ones."
"And Master Gyousou memorized them."
"I had to. Exams."
Taiki had no clear picture of most of his master's youth, let alone much sense of how it might have resembled his own, but the idea of a fifteen-year-old Gyousou poring over romantic poetry made him want to curl up in a ball of pure delight. Then another thought struck him.
"If I wrote a poem, would it be on the official exams in Tai?"
Gyousou's teeth flashed. "I'll see to it."
Taiki wondered whether that would count as using influence for personal gain. "I don't really write poetry, Master."
"No?"
"Not at all."
"No?" Gyousou was leaning toward him, eyes dark with affection, reaching to cup his face.
Before Taiki could blurt out anything foolish like if I did, I'd write it for you, Gyousou had covered his mouth gently with the pad of one thumb. The touch was dry and warm. Gyousou's hands were always warm, the shape of them callused, familiar. Without thinking Taiki tipped his chin from side to side, faintly, so that the thumb caressed his lips.
Watching, Gyousou spoke without drawing away. "It's late," he said. "We should rest."
For a moment Taiki felt like iron in a smith's forge, halfway melted and then pulled from the fire before it could turn molten altogether. He nodded and pressed his face into Gyousou's hand.
"We break camp in the morning." When the king lay back, he drew Taiki's head to rest on his shoulder. "There's one more village before we reach the pass."
*
For a long time sleep eluded Taiki. The low light from the braziers, the warmth of the bedclothes and the man beside him, his own scent and Gyousou's bundled up together--all these should have lulled him, but his mind refused to quiet. He lay still and listened to his master breathe.
It was small consolation to know the boy had agreed to let the men do what they'd done. The pitch of that cry still rang in his ears, and Taiki knew the tenor of pain well enough not to mistake it for other feeling. How could anyone take pleasure in an act like that, an act that hurt, even if it wasn't refused? Why hadn't the men stopped, when they heard that cry? Or had they stopped? Long enough to soothe briefly, maybe, to run their rough hands over narrow hips before resuming.
Taiki's stomach began to twist again. He curled his hands against his chest, acutely conscious of Gyousou's body next to his own: the shape of it, the strength in it, the heat. Gyousou had never done that with him--had never hinted that he wanted to, and Taiki hadn't known enough to imagine that he might.
He shut his eyes. He wouldn't be able to sleep if he didn't ask.
He spoke in a whisper. "Master Gyousou."
"Hm?" A muffled sound, relaxed.
"What those men did, with that boy. Do you...do you want to do that with me?"
Silence for a long moment. Then Gyousou shifted, turning on his side to study Taiki with an intensity unabated by the dimness.
"I'm not sure what you're asking. I hope you know I never want to hurt you."
"No, I mean...I didn't know people did that. Like that. I didn't know anyone would. Like..."
His master's voice was calm, not quite flat. "Playing in the rear courtyard?"
The euphemism was new to Taiki. It made his ears burn nonetheless. So there were words for it, he thought. For doing that.
Gyousou let out a fraught sigh. "Kouri. I'm not unwilling to speak of this, but I think your purity's been assailed enough for one day."
Taiki blinked. Purity was one of those traits others attributed to him; he himself rarely bothered to wonder whether he possessed it or not. Any questions about the state of it were dwarfed by the enormity of his astonishment.
"People really do that? They like it?"
"People do."
He tried to relate the revelation to himself, to his own body, and balked at his foremost assumption. "Doesn't it hurt?"
"It can, if done badly. Or it can be satisfying to all concerned. What you saw today was not the introduction I would've wished for you."
Taiki quieted. He had enough perspective, however limited, to realize he knew little of physical love, of what lovers in this world or any other might do together. That there was more to learn seemed certain. In other aspects of life his ignorance preyed on him, as it had when he was small, but in this he felt no obligation to be better versed. He trusted Gyousou to teach him what Gyousou wanted him to know. He reveled in the nights when, after a drowsy hour of caresses, his master would look at him with particular intent, and would lean toward his ear to say, in that low voice of sheer assurance: here. I want to show you something. And always it was something unexpected, if only because Taiki's expectations were so few. Unexpected, sometimes startling. Always good.
This, this business in unlikely courtyards might be another such thing. Taiki was willing to believe it possible. He gazed up at Gyousou.
"Were you going to show me?"
Gyousou paused as if still weighing answers. His brow furrowed as he reached to lay a hand on Taiki's mane. His hand began to move in deliberate, lengthy strokes. "I thought we might try it, in time."
"So Master Gyousou does know how to do it."
"Yes, he does." The hand stopped, tightened, then slid restlessly down Taiki's back. "Listen to me. We'll try it sometime only if you wish to, or not at all. I don't want you to be frightened of this, of the possibility, because of what you saw. "
"I'm not--"
"Aren't you?"
At close range that stare brooked no dissembling. Taiki hesitated. "What I saw, I didn't like that. What you do, everything you do with me, I like it, even when I never thought of doing it, or knew that people did it, or...."
"Good." Gyousou seemed to relax. "Enough of rear courtyards for now. Though yours is handsome." Something flickered in his face. "'Splitting the peach,' that's another phrase you might commit to mind."
"Master Gyousou!"
"You'll hear worse if you keep lurking among the rank and file." Regret shaded the laughter in Gyousou's eyes. As his hand returned to Taiki's mane the gentleness of it felt almost mournful. "This is no place for a kirin, truly."
For a moment Taiki was unsure what place he meant: the camp, the kingdom in its abject state, their shared bed. He was sure of one thing. He laid his forehead over Gyousou's heart.
"My place is with you," he said.
*
They were halfway to sleep at last when one of the sentries outside hailed the king. Gyousou eased Taiki's weight aside and rose from the bed. He pulled on a heavier robe, took up his sword, and went to answer. He returned after a moment and lit the lamp on the table, holding a scrap of paper in his other hand.
Taiki watched drowsily from the cover of the blankets. Their nights were disturbed in this way as often as not. Neither of them resented the interruptions.
"How many?" he asked.
"Only one," said Gyousou. He wet the inkstone and readied his brush to add the name to the immortal list.