Read Online The Incense Game by Laura Joh Rowland - Free Book Online Page A

Emptiness yawned in his heart like a black cavern so deep that all the tears he cried could never fill it. The distant noise of shovels and pickaxes barely impinged on him while he mourned.
    The floorboards squeaked as footsteps paused outside his room. The door slid open a crack. The cautious voice of his manservant said, “Master Yanagisawa- san ? Are you awake?”
    Yanagisawa lay still, his eyes closed.
    “You have a visitor,” the servant persisted.
    “I don’t want to see anyone.” Yanagisawa’s voice was rusty from disuse.
    “It’s Kato Kinhide. From the Council of Elders.”
    Kato was an old ally of Yanagisawa’s, from the days when Yanagisawa had still cared about politics. “Tell him to get lost.”
    “I will not get lost,” said a man’s irate voice. “Not until I’ve talked to you.”
    The door scraped all the way open. Yanagisawa screwed his eyes shut tighter. Kato entered the room, made a sound of disgust, and said, “It smells like a wild animal den in here! Don’t you ever wash?” He tripped over trays of food that Yanagisawa had barely touched. “And when was the last time you ate a good meal? Not since Yoritomo died, I’ll wager.”
    Yanagisawa had forbidden everyone to speak Yoritomo’s name or mention his death. That his beautiful, beloved son was gone was unbearable enough. Hearing the fact spoken made it even worse. Anger at Kato’s insensitivity shook him out of his torpor. His eyelids, crusted with dried tears, peeled open. Kato moved across his bleary vision, a thin figure with wide shoulders exaggerated by the epaulets of his surcoat, the topknot protruding from his narrow head. As Kato flung open windows, cold, fresh air blew into the room.
    “Don’t.” Yanagisawa pulled his hand from under the quilts and raised it to shield his eyes from the light.
    Kato stood by the bed, staring down at him. “Merciful gods.” Kato had a flat face with leathery skin, its features so minimal that they looked like slits cut for eyes, nostrils, and mouth. He studied Yanagisawa’s long, scraggly hair, mustache, and beard, sallow skin, sunken eyes, and the fingernails as long and curved as talons. “You’re even worse than I expected.”
    Yanagisawa didn’t care what Kato thought; nor did he care that he’d lost the beauty in which he’d once taken great pride. “You’ve talked to me. Now you can go.”
    “I’m not finished.” Urgency did away with the respect that Kato owed to Yanagisawa. “I came to tell you it’s time to stop playing dead and pull yourself together. It’s been almost a year.”
    A stab of offense pierced the barrier that Yanagisawa had built between himself and his fellow humans. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know what it’s like.”
    “I know that Yoritomo had his throat cut. I know he died a horrible, premature death,” Kato said with brutal frankness. “I also know that letting yourself go to hell won’t bring him back.” He noticed the tears welling in Yanagisawa’s eyes. “Unless you snap out of it, you’ll have a lot more to cry about besides Yoritomo.”
    “Leave me alone,” Yanagisawa whispered.
    Kato went on, relentless: “Your political faction is in shambles. Allies have been deserting you like water leaking from a punctured bladder. Pretty soon you can forget about regaining the status and power you lost when the shogun blamed you for that fiasco at the palace last year. You can say good-bye to your hope of ruling Japan.”
    “I don’t care about that anymore.” Yanagisawa pulled the quilt over his head.
    Kato tore it off. The slits of his eyes blazed with anger. “Well, I care! So do the others who’ve stood by you and fought for you all these months. We’re not going to let you destroy us as well as yourself!”
    That was all they really cared about—their own fate. Yanagisawa said, “Thank you for your loyalty. I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you.”
    “You’ll have to do more than apologize.” Desperation