The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)

by S. M. Stirling

  Órlaith frowned. “Wasn’t it kept in a shrine . . .”

  “The Atsuta Shrine, yes. Very old, very . . . very holy. Venerable. But badly damage . . . damaged in the great war of one hundred years ago.”

  They both looked thoughtful. “World War Two,” Heuradys said after a moment. “Against the ruler of Deutschland, wasn’t it? The mad one with the little mustache and the big spiked helmet and the withered arm he was always sticking out? Giant balloons and poison gas and steel war-chariots.”

  “Hai,” Reiko said. “We call our portion the Pacific War.”

  According to the version she had learned, Japan had been selflessly attempting to bring peace and prosperity to Asia when the Americans had suddenly and brutally rained fire on her cities. She suspected the details might be a little more complex. Being raised at court had made her skeptical of political innocence on anyone’s part, even a court as small, austere and tightly disciplined as that of post-Change Japan.

  “The Grass-Cutting Sword has been preserved there at Atsuta for a very long time, brought only . . . brought out only for ceremonies of new Emperor. Not seen, you understand, even then, even by him. Kept wrapped by Shinto priests. From a thousand and nine hundred years ago, when the Venerable Shrine was founded to keep it by Miyasuhime-no-Mikoto, widow of Prince Yamato Takeru. Until the Change everyone thought it was there . . . then things were very bad in Japan.”

  “As bad as anywhere in the world, I should imagine,” Heuradys said thoughtfully. “So many people packed together.”

  “Hai. The Seventy Loyal Men set out to take my grandmother, only one of my family to survive the first fires, from Tokyo to Sado-ga-shima, Sado Island. Seventy men at the start, and one girl with burns, and ancient armor and swords they take from . . . exhibits? Displays? Twenty-six came to Sado with her, a month after the Change. Half those were dead within a year, broken by what they see . . . saw, and did.”

  “Brave men,” Órlaith said soberly.

  “Very. They win absolute meiyo—”

  “Great honor,” Órlaith supplied.

  “Yes, great honor to preserve dynasty, all bow, all are . . . inspired. Very necessary in terrible time, to give people symbol of hope, of . . . things going on?”

  “Continuity,” Órlaith said.

  “Of continuity. My father said to me once, to fight and work and struggle people need more than fear—they must have a hope, a goal beyond their own lives, their own bellies. A flag, a living being, can be the soul of a dream. Egawa Noboru, his father Egawa Katashi was one of the Seventy; and Koyama Iwao, my Grand Steward’s elder brother—both were part of the Regency Council later. But they can . . . could only bring my grandmother, who was a small child. And the Yasakani no Magatama, the jewel—there with them at the palace in Tokyo. Many years later, in the time of my father, we sent expedition . . . an expedition . . . to the Shrine to find the Sword. But it was gone.”

  She took a deep breath. “Then, half a year ago . . . my father saw it. Saw it in dreams.”

  She said it half-defiantly, ready for politely veiled disbelief. There had been enough of that at home. What she saw in those odd cat-like eyes was more disturbing in its way: acceptance. She went on.

  “In a castle, in a desert, across the ocean. And . . . I have had these dreams too, since we came here to this fief. Three times. Heat, light, thirst, fear.”

  Órlaith made a gesture that involved thumping her fists on the sides of her head as she squeezed shut her eyes.

  “Arra, that was what she meant! Past the dead City of Sky Spirits, to the Valley of Death! The thing that didn’t belong there!”

  Reiko looked from one to the other. Heuradys was puzzled too, if not as completely as she.

  “City of Sky Spirits?” she said.

  “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula,” Órlaith said. “City of Angels, it was called, and most thoroughly dead. And past it . . . Death Valley.”

  Heuradys snapped her fingers. It wasn’t a gesture Reiko was familiar with, but the sharp wet pop caught her attention well enough.

  “That report from the Dúnedain at Eryn Muir!” she said. “It wasn’t just leftovers they tangled with.”

  “Leftovers who killed my cousin,” Órlaith said grimly. “Once things get organized Mom’s going to be doing something serious about that. Past time San Francisco and the Bay cities were dealt with. They just pushed themselves up the priority pole.”

  “Yes, but the Rangers said the Koreans and Haida and the Eaters with them disappeared to the south. Three guesses as to where they’re going!” Heuradys said. “You can get to Death Valley overland.”

  Órlaith said something in the language she called Gaelic. Reiko had to read the tone, but that was swearing if she’d ever heard any.

  “But a castle?” she said, in English again. “By Brigit the Bright who sends knowledge, we need to do some research!”

  Reiko didn’t know why she was smiling, for a moment. Then she realized it was because now she could feel something besides bleak determination. It was unfamiliar enough that it took a little while to truly know what the sensation was: hope.

  • • •

  The pavilion was a pleasant open-sided place of wood left to bleach to a natural silvery-gray, on a little tongue of land running into the lake not far from the salle. It was connected to firm ground by a plank walkway with carved railings on either side, and it had a view out over reeds and water to the wooded hill to the west; if you turned you could also see the walls of Castle Ath glowing umber in the afternoon sun. The air smelled of water, silt and greenery; a trout jumped in the still blue beyond, leaving a widening ring of ripples.

  Two of her Imperial Guard stood by the entrance to the walkway, with their bows slung over their backs and their tall su yari spears in hand, foot-long blades glittering in the sunlight; a pair of knights in the black gear of the Protector’s Guard were on the other side, with their shields on their arms and drawn swords resting on their armored shoulders. Both groups saluted in their various ways as the three young women passed.

  Music sounded as they approached, a slow melancholy tune on a stringed instrument, she thought what they called a lute here, very much like a biwa. Reiko knew that Western music had strongly affected Japan in the century and a quarter between Meiji and the Change; and that at least the Change had not undone. This was only strange, not incomprehensible:

  “So, we’ll go no more a-roving

  So late into the night;

  Though the heart be still as loving,

  And the moon be still as bright.

  For the sword outwears the sheath

  And the soul wears out the breast

  And the heart must pause to breathe

  And love itself must rest—”

  A man in the same colorful after-bath robe as they waited by the tables there, rising to bow and lay his lute aside. She studied him as they were introduced. Very tall by her standards, a few inches above average here. Damp brown hair, and eyes of normal brown but flecked with cat-like green. A handsome face in the beaky fashion of his folk, and he carried himself like a warrior.

  Reiko chided herself for the childish pleasure she felt when she saw that the table in the pavilion held several plates of sushi—chirashizushi style, the rice in a box with several types of sashimi topping, and futomaki rolls with chopped tuna filling, as well as cucumber and carrot. It really wasn’t important . . . but after growing up eating rice nearly every single day you craved it when it was removed, and the smell of it pickled with vinegar in the rolls made her mouth water. It would be easier to ignore the pain of a stab wound, in the long term.

  She’d been slightly surprised to find that people here actually knew of sushi, much less ate it. Albeit rarely, and as a treat for the wealthy. Prince John and the others could even use chopsticks with some facility, enough so that she felt even more horribly self-conscious about her progress with knife and fork.

  You are dist
racting yourself because the serious matters frighten you, she thought, as she poured soy over a pat of wasabi in the center of a shallow dish. Stop doing that, Reiko!

  “Dreams,” Órlaith said to her brother. “It’s just going around, that it is. Tell Her Majesty about yours.”

  His eyes went between Reiko and his sister as he did so, going wide.

  “Her too?” he blurted when he’d finished and seen their reactions. “You too, Orrey? Why didn’t you tell me this morning?”

  “Once is coincidence, twice can be happenstance . . .”

  “The third time is either enemy action, or someone sending you a message,” Heuradys supplied. “You’ve had three dreams each on successive nights, and it’s three people, two of whom are having the same dream. That’s someone . . . no, Someone . . . talking. As plain as a sign in glowing letters written across the face of the moon.”

  Reiko didn’t speak aloud, but her glance flashed to Órlaith.

  “Just the last three nights,” the Crown Princess said, then nodded to her brother. “Well, just the last three nights definitely.”

  “As if it was far away, at first, and now is close enough to speak clearly. Or more clearly, or as clearly as may be,” Reiko said.

  Órlaith nodded approvingly to her and went on to her brother. “And her dream and mine are the same. Heat, thirst, desert, a strange building.”

  John looked at Heuradys with a question in his eyes.

  “No,” she replied to the glance, and shook her head with a broad gesture. “Just us faithful vassals here. You two . . . three . . . are the sacred monarchic types. You get the messages from the otherworld. And I don’t envy you one little bit.”

  John frowned. “You two got the heat-fear-castle one. I’m getting the warm-water-old-man-ships one. What does it mean? Couldn’t they be a little more precise, by the Saints? Since they are Saints, or angelic visitations.”

  “Dreams don’t work that way, Johnnie. Remember how Da . . . I don’t know if he told you, but before the Quest, when he was our age, he had a dream of the Sword. He said that all it did was sort of alert him to the possibilities involved. No detailed instructions. The Powers who are friends to our kind don’t tell us what to do; They speak in the terms we understand because they must, and They offer choices. We have to make the choices and succeed or fail. And by the sound of things, in Korea whoever They gave the choices to failed. Oh, how they failed. Probably not for want of trying, but they did.”

  John shook his head. “No, he didn’t tell me that one. Well, you’re the heir, you’ve got the Sword, it was more relevant to you.”

  “He didn’t like talking about it unless he had to; said the bards were inventive enough on their own.”

  She grinned. “And you have the disadvantage of being a Christian, dreams aren’t an important part of the apparatus for you Book people. The real question is, what are we going to do about them?”

  Breath hissed between his teeth. “Basically you want to up and go after this . . . Grass-Cutting Sword, right?”

  She shook her head. “No. Our friend from Japan here wants to go after it, for that it belongs to her and through her to her people and the Powers that watch over them.”

  “For the lord and the land and the folk are one,” Heuradys said.

  Evidently it was a proverb. Reiko blinked; that was something one of her own people might just as easily have said. Reiko shot her a glance, nodded crisply and looked down again.

  Órlaith went on: “I want to help her. Then we set about dealing with the folk who killed our fathers, together.”

  Reiko nodded again, and busied herself with her chopsticks and a roll. She might still have a little difficulty with this language, but she could recognize something she agreed with down to the roots of her soul.

  “Well, our lady mother the High Queen isn’t going to be pleased,” Prince John said. “Though . . . when Uncle Ingolf came into Sutterdown with the Prophet’s killers on his tail, babbling a weird story about magic lost islands and glowing swords, she went along with it. Hell, she ran away without asking Nonni Sandra’s permission to join our father when he went east to Nantucket.”

  “She didn’t ask because she knew the answer would be no,” Órlaith said dryly.

  “And,” he added thoughtfully after a moment, “that was before we had their example. Everyone in Montival’s grown up on the story since.”

  “Aunt Fiorbhinn’s ‘Song of Bear and Raven,’” Órlaith said. To Reiko: “My father’s youngest half-sister is a notable bard, and somewhat of a poet.”

  “There’s hardly a ranch out in the backwoods where they don’t sing ‘Bear and Raven,’” John said. “In which much is made of her rebellious decision to run off to the east with Father. The Catholic princess and the pagan chief, the ones whose fathers killed each other in battle, coming together to create something greater than either.”

  “Not to mention creating you and me. Yes, and that was when she was our age. People change when they get older. They get more . . . cautious. They’ve been hit harder and more often. It doesn’t mean they’re stupid or timid—Mom is extremely good at calculating chances, I think, and she’s certainly brave, and Ignatius is a man who just doesn’t pay any attention to fear as such. But sometimes just . . . just jumping in is the better way to do it. The risk you avoid may be the worst risk of all.”

  “The Heika here seems to have her advisors under control, at least,” Heuradys said.

  Reiko shook her head emphatically. “So sorry, but I have noticed, here in Montival you are not very . . . no offense, but your feelings show.”

  “Funny, we Associates say that about Mackenzies. Yes, I’ve noticed your people don’t show theirs much, even by north-realm standards,” Heuradys said. “So your vassals are not as absolutely obedient as they look?”

  “Some, one, two of the leaders. Others no; and these my father brings are most loyal of all.”

  “He left the ones he wasn’t sure of?” Órlaith asked, interested. “Sure of their loyalty?”

  “All loyal to Japan, to Emperor as . . . Emperor, the symbol of the nation. But my . . . Saisei Tenno had ruled from young man, younger than I am now when he take . . . took real power, when Council of Regents step aside to become advisors. Ruled strongly all those years, wisely, led in battle, made policies that work well. When he spoke, they listened—not just to the Emperor as a symbol on a flag, but to the man, you understand? I am . . . young, female, inexperienced. Very difficult to go against . . . what is the word, the thought everyone shares so much that they can hardly see it? Like a binding of roots below the soil?”

  “Nemawashi,” Órlaith said absently, using the Nihongo word Reiko was trying to convey.

  “Consensus,” Prince John said.

  “Yes. They may override me if I try to lead them in ways they very much do not go to . . . want to go, against their consensus. Some, at least. I cannot make them obey, not yet. Tenno in Japan always . . . has always been able to command like Great Kami come to earth, in . . . theory. Often, not in . . . reality world?”

  “The real world,” Órlaith said.

  “Hai, thank you, the real world. People say they obey, they bow, very polite, but sometimes lock the Emperor up in a little court away from things, use him like stamping seal on documents, and courtiers have to sell calligraphy to buy rice for the household. If the Emperor disobeyed, they would remove him and exile him to a distant small island, and put another of the kin in his place. Saisei Tenno told me, often, never never give order you know will not be obey . . . obeyed. That is the first step on a bad road.”

  Órlaith smiled with a twist of pain in it. “And didn’t Da say exactly the same thing at times?” Her brother nodded.

  “Theory versus practice,” Heuradys said, and Reiko nodded gratefully herself; she knew she was being understood, but it was still frustrating to be less than fully fluent. “Theory versus real world.”

  The hatamoto smiled. “We have a saying, Your Majesty
: It is easier to beg forgiveness than seek permission. If what you do works, that is. In this case, we really won’t have to worry about forgiveness if we fail, I suspect.”

  Reiko worked that out mentally, then laughed. Sometimes thinking about humor did not spoil it. Though the joke there was like umeboshi in a rice ball, rather sour.

  Órlaith nodded, took one of the rolls in her chopsticks, dipped it in the wasabi-infused soy, and ate it. Then she spoke, looking out over the water.

  “We’ll have to prepare to do what my mother did when she went after Da. Abscond. That’ll take a while, getting the details straight, and coordinating things over distances.”

  “We’ll need a way to convey messages that doesn’t go through normal channels,” John said.

  “And we’re going to need some troops. Not many, not a huge force—the logistics wouldn’t work—but some. People with appropriate skills, and personally loyal to you, Orrey,” Heuradys added. “If those people the Dúnedain encountered down along the bay are heading for the same place, it’ll take more than nine Questers. Even if the number is canonical.”

  “I have some ideas along those lines,” Órlaith said.

  Then, with a slow thoughtful smile: “And I’m probably going to need a nice Persian cat. Fortunately I know where to get one, and a messenger nobody will question when they’re riding about.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Eryn Muir

  (Formerly Muir Woods National Monument)

  Ithilien/Moon County, Crown Province of Westria

  (Formerly Marin and Sonoma Counties, California)

  High Kingdom of Montival

  (Formerly western North America)

  June 25th (Nórui 25th), Change Year (Fifth Age) 46/2044 AD

  Susan Clever Raccoon rode into the center of Eryn Muir on an afternoon in June, and drew rein after she’d looped around a farmer delivering what looked like sacked potatoes piled high in an oxcart. The man in the shapeless undyed linsey-woolsey tunic, floppy canvas hat and battered leather britches gave her an odd look, but she returned it with a smile and nod and his hand stopped unconsciously moving towards the cocked, loaded crossbow resting butt-down in a scabbard beside him. Getting stared at was a stranger’s fate nearly everywhere except a few of the largest cities, and even there a Courier got the hairy eyeball sometimes.