Streaming Dawn by Steve Bein

Author:Steve Bein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: japan, fantasy, swords, historical fantasy, samurai, ninja, japanese demons, medieval japan, sword and magic, japan 1500s
Publisher: Steve Bein

Chapter 9

Kaida sat in the lotus position at the foot of her thin little futon, meditating on her problems.

Eisaku had not allotted her much in terms of sleeping quarters: a single tatami-sized rectangle of wooden floor in the back corner of the servants’ dormitory. The only source of light was a lamp of sardine oil, whose greasy smoke blackened the rafters and made the very walls smell of fish. But her futon was clean, as were those of her fellow servants. This was no mean feat; the only remedy for taking the stink out of a sweaty day-laborer’s bedclothes was daily washing. That bespoke a fastidious pride even in Kiyosu’s lowliest workers, and that pride could only have come from one man. The fact that Kaida’s sleeping quarters did not stink of sleep-sweat was due entirely to Eisaku. She had to remind herself that she never would have killed him if he hadn’t forced the issue.

She might have found a better solution if only her mind were younger, quicker, more agile. It was only after she’d killed him that she found the hole in her kimono, left behind by Eisaku’s crossbow bolt. At the time she’d thought she had sidestepped the shot cleanly; now she knew her reflexes weren’t as fast as she needed them to be. She was of the Wind; she relied on skill, not luck. Once her skills began to fail her, her luck could not hold out for long.

At least she retained enough acuity to understand the ever-changing mind of Hashiba Hideyoshi. At first she’d wondered whether there was any point in guiding him to a decision about anything. The man’s moods shifted with the winds. But after three days of observing him, she came to understand the only measure of dependability in him: this was a man who did not yet know what he wanted to be. There was no mistaking his ambition; it carried him forward as swiftly as an arrow leaving the bowstring. But like an arrow, he did not know where his career would end, or when, or to what purpose.

As soon as that image clarified itself in Kaida’s mind, she understood some of Hideyoshi’s other choices. His many names, for instance. Kinoshita Tōkichirō, a samurai name for a peasant boy who wanted to make himself a warrior. Hashiba Hideyoshi, taken from the names of Oda Nobunaga’s top advisors—a general’s name for a warrior who wanted to make himself a general.

Who could say what his next name would be? Emperor Hideyoshi, perhaps. Kaida was certain of one thing only: Hideyoshi was an arrow that wanted to aim itself. Perhaps Oda Nobunaga had been his archer; he’d lifted Hideyoshi from the muck and launched him high into the air. But now Hideyoshi wanted to choose his own target. That was why selecting the right advisors was so important to him. They served as his fletching, his guiding feathers.

If Kaida’s intuition was correct, then Hideyoshi had arranged to meet Okuma and Itsumi face to face for the same reason the master fletcher did not select feathers at random.

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