Title: Pure Heart, White Mage
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, religious themes
Spoilers: None; AU from canon.
Summary: Kidnapping, curses, and assassination - and at the middle of it all is the Puritan Church. In the midst of a political and magical upheaval, Fai must face the choice between preserving his faith - and protecting those he loves.
Author's Note: Please read this note or you may be very confused.
This fic was written for the remix challenge held on the kuroxfai community on Livejournal in October 2011. That means that it was intentionally and deliberately modeled on another author's fic, to the extent that some sections of the text are nearly word-for-word with the original. This was done with the author's knowledge and permission. Please do not accuse me of plagiarism or unoriginality if parts of this fic seem uncannily familiar to you.
The fic being remixed is Black Cat, White Mage by sweetjerry.
"Come in, Fai."
The heavy wooden door banged shut behind him, plunging him from the bright daylight outside to a semi-darkness lit with ranks of candles. It took Fai's eyes a moment to adjust, and when he did he stopped dead.
Ranged around the conference tables was every single senior priest or administrator of the Cattalina monasterial complex. The Senior Mage of the College of Sorcerers; the High Cleric of the Sisters of Mercy; the Bishop of the Great Library, and half a dozen more. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of the ceremonial chainmail and red-embroidered tabard of the Knights Templar, although the stout grey-haired man who wore it bore no other resemblance to Kurogane.
But all of these august figures sat deferentially aside from a collection of white-haired men whom Fai had never met before. Even if he did not know their faces, however, there was no way he could fail to recognize the bright colors of their robes or the glittering decorations worked into their vestments and collars. Half a dozen Bishops, and even the high-peaked hat of an Archbishop - who reported only to the Holy Father - were gathered in the chapterhouse, and Fai felt himself torn between holy awe and wholly irrational panic. My God, what have I done? he thought, before he managed to get hold of himself.
"Welcome, brother," Father Joshua greeted him kindly, and Fai gratefully latched on to his familiar presence. "In the Lord's name, be at ease in this place. The Bishop and I - as well as these others - are gathered to discuss the events of yesterday afternoon, the breach of our security by hostile magics and the attack on one of our young acolytes. How is the poor girl?"
"Resting, Your Grace," Fai responded. "She woke up for the first time earlier today, but she seems very confused and has no memory of what happened to her."
His steady, almost tranquil tone did nothing to suggest the miserable, sleepless few days he'd spent waiting for her to awaken. He was no physician - the Order of Holy Sorcerers didn't specialize in that kind of magic, and Fai had less talent than most - but at least he could be by her bedside, holding her hand as the nurses worked. Waiting for her to awaken from that frightening, too-still sleep which robbed her skin of its normal cheerful color.
"That is good to hear," Joshua said with a nod. "Such a terrible attack to befall such a young, fragile spirit; thankfully the Lord has been looking out for her and guarded her spirit during this ordeal. What do the Sisters say about her recovery?"
"They think that she'll recover without any permanent effects, although they haven't seen very many attacks like these before." Fai said. Although he didn't ask the question outright, there was a subtly inquiring tone in his voice as he glanced around the council chamber. It was quite rare to see so many church elders at a time, save for the regularly scheduled conclaves in Celestina; it was almost unheard of to have so much high Church authority focused on the welfare of one young girl.
"That is part of the reason why we called you here today," said the white-haired man sitting to the left of Father Joshua, at the head of the table. Fai had never met him in person before, but from his robes and his collar Fai realized he must be the Archbishop of Clow. He normally stayed in the grand cathedral at Anna-Metrushka, near the royal palace and the seat of government; he must have travelled very hastily, or already been on his way, in order to make it to Cattalina for this meeting. Why?
"Fai Flowright, you are highly acknowledged as one of the most gifted young Holy Sorcerers sponsored to the Order in recent years," Father Joshua addressed him; his tone was matter-of-fact, not praise or flattery. "In addition, you had the eyewitness view of the attack as it actually happened. What can you tell us about the curse or spell that assaulted this girl?"
"Your Grace…" Fai said slowly. "It all happened very fast, it's true - it was hard to be certain of anything. But I could have sworn…" He hesitated, falling silent.
"Go on," one of the senior bishops urged him. "Say what you are thinking."
Fai took a deep breath and lifted his head, his level gaze meeting that of his superiors. "The magical signature was very similar to that which our own College uses, Your Grace," he said quietly. "I am almost certain that the attack on Little Kitty originated from a sorcerer of our own Order."
Somewhat to his surprise, the priests sitting around the table did not react in outrage or consternation. Instead they exchanged glances, and the Archbishop nodded at the Senior Mage. He turned back to Fai. "Your certainty is almost correct, my son," he said gravely. "It was indeed launched by one who was - once - a member of our Order, and no mere initiate. We have reason to believe that the perpetrator was none other than Fei Wong Reed."
Fai gasped, his eyes widening as the meaning sunk in.
Everyone in the Holy Kingdom knew of the Apostate, the devil incarnate who had broken from the Church to found his own, treasonous order of heresy and deceit. Many people even knew his name, Fei Wong Reed, none other than a descendant of Clow Reed himself. But only a handful people of knew - and most of them were here in this room - that before his defection, Fei Wong Reed had been a Grand High Wizard of the Holy Order of Sorcerers.
He had taken almost all of the Church's deepest and most dangerous secrets when he left, and he had years since then to continue experimenting in the blackest and most perverted branches of the Art which were forbidden by Church law. If Fei Wong Reed were behind the attack, that certainly explained its suddenness, its viciousness, even the unbelievable distance at which it had been cast. But that still left the question…
"But - why?" Fai said hoarsely. "Why attack her? She's just a child, for God's sake - she's hardly been outside the monastery walls in her life! Why in Heaven's name would he pick her as a target? What could he possibly hope to accomplish?"
There was another one of those long, heavy moments in the chamber - the silence of men who all knew what each other were thinking, but did not want to be the first to speak.
At last the weight of expectation seemed to fall on the senior archbishop, who cleared his throat under the Senior Mage's angry glare. "Fai, what we are about to tell you is one of the deepest secrets of the Holy Throne," he began in a severe tone. "Not a word of it is to be spoken outside this chamber, on peril of your soul. Do you understand?"
"Yes, of course," Fai agreed, faintly stunned.
"From the day you brought the girl back to the monastery, our senior priests suspected there was more to her than there seemed," the Archbishop began. "It took months of secret investigation, but what we concluded was beyond a doubt: She is none other than the missing Princess Sakura."
"What?" Fai exclaimed, completely lost in shock. None of the heavy portents of this meeting so far had prepared him for this. "But - that's impossible!"
"Incredible, to be sure," the Archbishop agreed solemnly. "Nevertheless, we determined it was the truth. As for how that came to be, I'm sure the Senior Mage can explain."
Father Joshua shot him a glare at having been so blatantly tossed the hot coal, but cleared his throat. "The guards at the palace at Clow always swore that there was no possible way any kidnapper could have gotten into and out of the royal nursery, carrying the Princess, without being seen," he said. "The best supposition was that magic had been used to spirit her away, and so it seemed at the time. What actually happened, however, we believe to be more complicated.
"We have monitored her closely all her life, and we strongly suspect that Katherine - or rather, Princess Sakura - has a great deal of inherent magical talent. Such gifts are valuable, but they can also be unpredictable, especially in moments of great stress - as you would have reason to know."
"Yes," Fai whispered. "I know."
"When the young Princess found herself being kidnapped - frightened, no doubt, at being so abruptly pulled away from her familiar nursery - we believe that she instinctively defended herself with magic," the priest continued. "The uncontrolled, unexpected burst of power destroyed the transport spell which abducted her - and dropped her in the middle of nowhere, alone and frightened, where God's hand would guide you to her to bring to us."
Fai's stunned mind was finally starting to catch up with the implications of this unbelievable announcement. "So you've known?" he demanded incredulously. "You've known for twelve years that she was the missing Princess, and you kept it a secret all this time?"
"The Apostate was obviously targeting her," the bishop said. "She was still in danger. For her own protection we had to keep her here, under the watchful eye of our most keen and powerful mages. You proved the importance of that when you protected her from the assault two nights ago."
"She didn't even know who she was!" Fai said, anger bubbling up inside him on poor Little Kitty's behalf. The church orphanage was a safe and loving home, but every child who was raised there grew up with the empty lack inside them - knowing that a part of them would always be lost in mystery, knowing that there should have been parents and family beside them and never would be. "Do the King and Queen know? That she was found and sheltered here?"
Another uncomfortable silence. This time, Fai didn't wait for them to work up the nerve to break it. "You hid the truth of the Princess' survival from her own family?" A distant part of him was surprised by his own fury, by how clearly he was letting it show even in these august presences. He had always tried to be there for Little Kitty, to fill the role of older brother and godfather, but he always knew that he could never replace her parents in her heart. To think for twelve years her parents still lived, still wept for her loss, still yearned to see her and his own church had kept her from them -
"It was no accident that you should be the one to find her, to bring her to us," the senior priest said with just an edge of defensiveness in his tone. "It was ordained. God delivered her into our hands; we were only following his plans."
"When was it ever part of God's plan to make orphans of children, to deprive them of security and love?" Fai demanded.
"We never stinted her," said one of the other priests - Father Miguel, who was in charge of administering the orphanage and hospice. "We saw to it that all her needs were fulfilled, as with any other girls and boys in our care!"
"Children need more than food and shelter," Fai began furiously. "They need the love of their parents, their siblings, the certainty of belonging where they are loved and wanted -"
"She is beloved by God!" the senior priest retorted angrily.
"So are we all!"
In the brief silence that followed his shout, Fai reined his anger back to a more controlled level. "So are we all," he repeated in a more normal tone. "All the children of God are beloved by Him, but did not He direct that we should love each other, as well? He has never asked that we should forsake love here on earth, as a requirement to earn His love in heaven…"
Fai trailed off, caught off-balance by his own thoughts. Truly? During his argument with Kurogane on the day he had left, hadn't he said so in as many words? Don't ask me to choose between love in this life and the next. But why should he have been forced to choose? The scripture encouraged men and women, parents and children and brothers to love each other. Why had he been forced to choose?
Or was Fai the one who had made the choice himself?
"Nothing can be accomplished by casting recrimination and blame at this late date," the Archbishop said in a stern voice, taking back the attention of the audience after Fai's outburst. "The fact remains that although for twelve years the Princess Sakura was hidden from the Apostate's sight, it is clear that she is hidden no longer. He stretches out his dark hand from beyond the borders of Nihon to claim her, and although his first attack has been turned aside, no doubt others will follow."
Fai nodded. The anger in him was dying down, robbed of its fuel, but it left cold fear in its wake for his Little Kitty. "What will he do to her?" he asked anxiously.
"None of us can be sure of his methods," Father Joshua answered, "but we can guess at his motives. An anonymous orphan girl would be of no interest to him, but the Princess of Clow is another matter. No doubt he seeks to take her into captivity, to control or persuade her to his twisted ends. If he could accomplish such a thing, he would have an invaluable foothold into Clow, as he has established years past in Nihon."
When Fei Wong Reed had left the Puritan church, he had taken not only the knowledge and power of the Holy Order of Sorcerers, but also a large number of followers. Together with the recruits he managed to gather from the outside, they formed the core of his new Church - the Liberated Church, set up in opposition to the Puritan Church with himself as the dark Father. He had fled from Clow into Nihon, their neighboring country with whom relations had always been acrimonious at best.
Some parts of the scripture Fei Wong Reed had kept intact - he could hardly have done otherwise if he wished his sect to have any recognition in civilized lands. He still allowed for the existence of the almighty God and his heaven, the prophets and apostles, the fallen archangel and the terrors of Hell. He still acknowledged the fall of Man and the Original Sin into which men were born. But that was where Fei Wong Reed's church twisted into a terrible heresy, for Fei Wong Reed rejected the doctrines of forgiveness.
According to the Puritan church, sin was inherent in man - evil, along with good, was born into their nature. Only God and His angels were perfect; no man, no matter how good or pious, could hope to live a completely sinless life in this imperfect world. But God was merciful, and sins could be forgiven; if a man repented his wrongs and accepted the love of God, then he could still ascend into heaven.
Fei Wong Reed had seized upon one word in the scriptures - hitsuzen, usually translated as 'inevitable' - as in the inevitability that mortal men would make mistakes and commit sins. But Fei Wong Reed translated that word as 'predestination,' and upon that word built an argument that men were born with their fates already decided. Those who were born into sin were destined to live an evil life, and no amount of forgiveness could save them; they were doomed to the torments of Hell. Only a select few, decided not by the free will of man but by some inviolable design, were born into righteousness; only those few would ever gain admittance to heaven.
No amount of earthy forgiveness, Fei Wong Reed had written, could change the destiny to which a man was bound. A man's destiny, for good or ill, could be discerned by his natural urges towards piety or sinfulness, but could not be altered. For that reason, men should cast off the shackles of outdated morality, and each act freely according to his nature.
It all sounded very good on paper, Fai thought bitterly. And the fresh new perspective on theology and morality appealed to the inevitable class of young, educated scholars who were always questioning hidebound outdated traditions. But the effect of this new moral system - at least in Nihon - had been chaos. As the new religion had spread like wildfire through the country's ruling class, a shockwave of abuses and excesses followed in its wake.
According to the Libertarians, the blessed few could be recognized by their fair appearance and righteous nature, while the sinful masses would remain in wretched ugliness - that was the theory, at least. Yet somehow when the Libertarian Church became fashionable in Nihon, it was always the wealthy, powerful aristocrats who were recognized as righteous, and the mashes of unwashed peasantry who were consigned to the depths of Hell.
The new Libertarian aristocrats - with the subtle encouragement of their new Holy Father, who knew the best way to win converts was to offer people what they already wanted - ran wild in their indulgences. Old-fashioned virtues of mercy and charity towards the poor were thrown out with the washwater - after all, if their evil nature already condemned them to an eternity of torment, then why bother trying to better their lot here on Earth?
King Ashura of Nihon had reasons of his own for breaking with the Puritan church; he had wished to divorce his wife and take a younger, fresher woman to bed, that he might beget a male heir. But he already had a daughter, and the Queen did not consent to the annulment - and according to long-standing tradition, no man could forsake his wife against her will, for his own convenience or pleasure. The church had refused to grant King Ashura's divorce, and it had become a long-standing source of bitterness between Nihon and the Puritan Church.
Fei Wong Reed, on the other hand, had felt no compunction at all about granting such a minor favor to the monarch who had harbored him and his breakaway sect. An agreeable marriage of interests - Ashura was granted his remarriage (actually, he was on his fifth wife to date, and no sons yet) and Fei Wong Reed was granted a whole kingdom of converts.
As Libertarianism became the royally sanctioned religion of Nihon, the King was finally free to move against the entrenched privilege of the Puritan Church that had opposed him for so long. As the Holy Fathers of Clow watched in horror, church lands were seized by the crown and redistributed among the king's allies, treasures were plundered and crypts were sacked. Clergymen were harassed and tormented, some even killed outright; most of those who could flee to safety did so, but some refused to abandon their flocks until the bitter end. United with his new Archbishop, Ashura sought religious accord within his borders at the point of a sword. Whole villages burned as the Church loyalists and the Libertarians fought it out, and only his brutal ruthlessness had allowed him to subdue the population short of open war.
All this had passed twenty years ago, and yet even worse loomed on the horizon. King Ashura, whatever his other sins, was a powerful and charismatic leader; with him on the throne, a tenuous unity held Nihon together. Yet the land was unrestful under a surface veneer of peace. He was getting old, and signs of illness and dissipation began to show. And yet even as the end of his life drew nearer, he refused to name either of his daughters as his heir, clinging till the end to the distant hope of bearing a male heir of his own blood.
As far as the Puritan Church was concerned, either of Ashura's daughters would have been suitable monarchs to follow him onto the throne of Nihon. His eldest daughter Kendappa was a bit bloody-minded, but at least she was a pious Puritan. Tomoyo, the daughter of his second wife, was a Libertarian out of necessity - only under the Libertarian doctrines was her mother's marriage and thus her own legitimacy recognized. Still, all reports that had come to Clow of her said that she was a good and gentle woman, and that she was inclined to allow both Libertarians and Puritans to live in peace under her rule.
But none of that would matter if Ashura refused to name an heir. By the strict patriarchal traditions of Nihon, if Ashura died without a named heir then the kingship would default to one of his many distant cousins. Rumor had it that such an outcome was exactly what Fei Wong Reed desired; a new puppet king even more under his thrall than strong-willed Ashura ever was. But no one could be sure just which of several competitors would win their way to the top of the heap. Without a clear line of succession, a bloody civil war was inevitable.
The last thing anyone - especially, above all, the Church Fathers - wanted to see in Clow was a repeat of what had happened to Nihon. As a mere younger princess, Sakura could not have effected such a drastic change on her country even if she tried, but the Church elders had no intention of giving Fei Wong Reed even the smallest foothold into the royal family. With such high stakes in the balance, Fai could almost understand how the Church Fathers were willing to throw their scruples into the dust in order to protect Puritan domination in Clow.
But the cost…
"You must take Princess Sakura into hiding," the Senior Mage instructed him. "She is no longer safe here. We had hoped that this day would be long delayed - at least until after the Princess had been sworn into our own orders - but is not to be. Take her far away, and remain vigilant; at any time you may be called upon to defend her from more sorcerous attacks, or even plain mortal hazards such as kidnappers or marauders."
"I will do everything in my power to protect her, Your Excellencies," Fai vowed fervently. "But - I am only one man. I'm not certain I can do it alone."
"For the sake of stealth and secrecy, you must," Father Joshua said. "The hand of the Church will be behind you. We will draw you a purse from the church coffers, as well as whatever other gear or resources you require. We do not ask you to have to skin rabbits in the wilderness to survive." He smiled in wry humor.
"But - I can't accept those," Fai said in some confusion. "My oath of poverty - money and possessions are forbidden to me."
There was a long, fraught moment, and then the archbishop cleared his throat.
"Brother Fai, these are extreme circumstances, and the Church understands that," he said. "Measures will be taken to accommodate your change in situation. Before you leave this chamber, Father Omin will relieve you of your oaths."
"Wh-what?" Fai stammered. For a paralyzed moment, he wanted to scream in protest; for so long he had obeyed his oaths, sacrificed for them, that they had become a part of him. To have them taken away so suddenly - it was like they had never mattered at all, like all the things he had given up were worth nothing. Terror followed the outrage. "Father, you're not casting me from the Order, are you? I -"
"No, no, my son," Father Joshua reassured him quickly. "You will always be recognized within the church as a Revered Mage… however, you will need to travel incognito. For the sake of appearances - or even self-defense - you may be called on to do many things that your oaths would forbid. So that you need not feel tormented by the demands of Father Church, we will relax them."
He couldn't stop himself. "Even the oath of chastity?"
That prompted a few raised eyebrows, and Fai couldn't help but flush. Father Miguel put in, a bit condescendingly, "Of course. It would be unseemly for a young maiden of Katherine's age to travel with only a single man for a guardian. For the sake of appearances - and for our dear daughter's own spiritual welfare - you will probably need to take a wife as quickly as possible."
Fai opened his mouth to argue, but then left it open as the words failed to come. Surely they knew about his condition - they must have heard the scandalous rumors about himself and Kurogane, after all. He'd never thought he'd be glad of those painful rumors, yet the Church elders seemed unmoved. He shot a beseeching look at Father Joshua - he, at least, had heard all of Fai's unhappy thoughts and secrets during confessional - but the older man made no move to speak.
He'd missed his moment - the archbishop was taking command again. "These are all details to be worked out at a later date," he said firmly, dismissing the argument as unimportant. "Right now, we must be concerned with speed. This is not a council of discussion and consensus; there is must we much accomplish, and very little time."
The Archbishop called for an accord among the elders - unsurprisingly, there was a chorus of unanimous Yeas. The chamber full of men and robes seemed to whirl around Fai, and he found himself outside less than an hour later without any clear idea of how he'd come to be there.
So fast. Twenty years and more he'd lived here, studied here, worshipped here; and in less than a day, everything was turned upside down. The heavy ironbound door closed behind him, with a resounding crash like the closing of a tomb.
Kurogane ducked his head as he passed under the lintel into the inn's common room, dark hair slicked back into spikes and still dripping water onto his neck. Years of military discipline still shaped his daily routine; he still woke at dawn, attended to all his chores and washed himself in cold water before the sun had cleared the horizon. Even if, as now and the past bloody week, the rest of the day stretched out empty before him.
He was getting restless, and mighty bored of this town. It could hardly be called a town, except for the double handful of buildings and the solitary inn - the only two-story building for miles around - that had sprung up around the two roads that crossed here. The town itself was named for the signal fire kept always burning at the crossroads - Something Flammen - but Kurogane could hardly be bothered to remember it.
Truth be told, he'd only stayed here for more than a single night because the slight increase in traffic meant he had a greater chance of finding work here than elsewhere. Since leaving the temple house at Cattalina, he'd traveled gradually east towards the Clow-Nihon border. To save coin, he'd camped out most nights in the wilderness, catching and cooking his own food in the best soldiering fashion. He often missed Syaoran's presence around his little campfire; many of these tasks he hadn't performed since his own squire days, and they were harder to carry out with only one hand.
But he could hardly afford the cost of an inn every night. Truth be told, Kurogane had expected to find work before now. He knew he had valuable skills - more so than ever in these disturbed, war-torn days; any soldier of the Church was a fighter worth reckoning with, and however he'd scoffed at that magician, he knew he was one of the best. And he wasn't greedy, wasn't asking for a fortune; only enough to feed himself and pay his own way. Anyone who needed the skill of a fighting man - as an armsman, as a mercenary, hell even as a bodyguard or caravan guard - would be getting a hell of a bargain in him.
Yet despite this - and despite him putting up his sign on a post in every village he'd passed through - he'd yet to receive any offers. The rumors of his furious departure from the Church preceded him; perhaps people were scared off by the air of ecclesiastic displeasure surrounding him. Or perhaps they looked at him and saw only his missing arm, and assumed he would be no good in a fight. Idiots, he thought. Their loss.
Still, the continuing lack of employment was going to pose a problem for him pretty soon. Not only would he eventually run out of money - he'd taken his own share of pay with him when he left, but it wouldn't last forever - but local authorities tended to look with disfavor on idle mercenaries hanging about in their towns, looking for trouble. Sooner or later he'd have to move on, work or no work - and yet if he had to keep moving on every few days, how could he possibly find the employment they wished him to have? It was a frustrating dilemma.
Despite the hassles, though, he didn't regret leaving the Church behind - not for a minute. Kurogane had never been one to agonize over his actions; he'd made his decision and that was that, bridges burned behind him. He would find his way in this world without the help of God or any priest, he was determined of that.
As he walked into the common room, hunching his neck a bit automatically as his head brushed against the lowest-hanging beams, the innkeeper called out to him. "Hey, soldier!" the burly man said; Kurogane grunted but did not take offense. There were worse appellations. "You got a visitor - someone came looking after your offer of work."
"About time," Kurogane grumbled, even as his heart rose in his chest. "Where?"
"She's in the back," the man answered, and Kurogane's eyebrows rose despite himself at the feminine pronoun.
Now curious, Kurogane hitched his sword against his side and made his way towards the narrow back room the innkeeper had indicated. As soon as he stepped through the door, he was aware of the presence of two armed bodyguards; his hand dropped to the hilt of his sword as he sized them up warily.
Only after he had determined they were no threat to him did he turn his attention to the woman seated at the small, unpolished wooden table. Dark eyes regarded him coolly from a smooth white face, and black hair tumbled in carefully arranged curls away from her neck and cascaded down her back. Her clothes, although modest in cut and color, were of fine cloth - this was a lady, without question.
He bowed; he was not completely without manners, after all. "I am Kurogane of Suwa," he said, giving his oldest affiliation first; "apprenticed as a squire to the Amamiya family at Drottensburg Keep, lately a knight of the Templars in the Holy Order of the Cross. As of now I serve no order and no master. You got work for me?"
"I believe we can come to an arrangement," the woman said in a cool, smooth voice. One dark, gloved hand opened towards the chair across the table from her. "Please sit, sir knight."
He sat; the chair creaked as it took his weight, and he remained aware of the two bodyguards flanking the door. The lady looked him up and down, disdain barely concealed in her expression. "Your notice claimed that you were an expert warrior?" Her voice was faintly incredulous, and her eyes lingered on his missing arm. "I must admit, that would not be my first thought on seeing you."
Kurogane sat back, eyes narrowing. "Lady, if you were an expert warrior yourself, you wouldn't have to doubt it," he said bluntly. "You would know by the way I walked and sat, by the way I handle my weapon and the pattern of scars on my skin. I could tell you about the campaigns I've fought and the titles I've won, but you'd just have to take my word for it if you don't already know my reputation. Or we could go outside and I could duel against your armsmen, and you could judge my skill that way - assuming you don't need him fit for anything tomorrow. But if you're going to base my fitness to fight based on what you see, then we might as well go our separate ways right now."
"Enough," the woman said hastily, waving her hand through the air. "I meant no insult. I simply require some proof of your skill before I know if you are the right man for the job. This is no mere guard job that I am offering; I can pay a sum of five hundred lira for its completion, and not just any thug would be worthy to earn it."
Silently, Kurogane reached inside his tunic and pulled out the Order of Valor that he had received for his defense of Rauma. The woman's eyebrows went up, and she looked impressed despite herself. "Of course, you could have stolen that," she said in a deliberately casual voice.
Kurogane snorted. "If I could steal a golden cross from a champion, then that would be proof itself of my prowess as a fighter."
One of the bodyguards snorted in laughter; the woman showed only a faint, chill smile. "Very well," she said. "I will accept, at least provisionally, that you are all that you claim to be."
She reached into her vest, and pulled out a black velvet drawstring bag. Pulling it open, she shook it onto the rude tabletop before her; Kurogane's interest sharpened at the glitter of coins that spilled onto the dark wood. "The question is only, can you do what is required?"
"That depends on what you need," Kurogane responded. "And for that matter, who I'm doing it for. You have my name, lady, but I don't have yours or your patron's."
"My patron is not part of this discussion at this time," the woman said in a flat, unemotional voice. "Discretion is part of the requirement for this job, and you will be well paid not to pry. As for myself, you may call me Xing Hua."
"All right, Xing Hua," Kurogane said. "If that's the way you want to play it, then I won't ask too many questions. So now that we've done enough dancing around the issue, what exactly is it that you want to hire a skilled warrior for?"
Xing Hua studied him for a moment across the table; taking in his battle-worn gear, the scars on his hand and arm and face. "I see a warrior such as yourself values bluntness," she said. "Very well, let us get straight to the matter. We would hire you to kill a man."
Kurogane sat back, a chill raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He was suddenly very aware of the two armed men at his back. He cursed himself for his naiveté in not seeing where this was going; but when he'd offered his services as a hired sword, he'd never imagined this. Bodyguard work, company fighting - but never assassination. And yet, he had to take the chances that were offered to him, and there were no lack of men in the world who deserved death. "Not impossible," he said cautiously. "What man?"
"I understand that you have abandoned the mantle of the Puritan Church," Xing Hua said after a moment. "That you reject the corruption and wickedness masquerading as holy righteousness, and now seek to make your own way in the world free of the banal spoutings of morality and sin. Is that so?"
Kurogane bit back an irritated impulse to repeat his question and demand a straight answer. He couldn't afford to piss off a potential employer, no matter how elusive she insisted on being. "Yeah, that's me," he said. "Why?"
"The influence of the Puritan Church is still pervasive in this land, their hand heavy, their eyes everywhere," Xing Hua said. "Yet now that you have left their ranks, you will find that there are others dedicated to destroying their filth and iniquity. It is such a specter of depravity that we seek to remove from the world, with you as our agent." Some of her cool reserve had passed off as she spoke; her eyes were alight with a dark flame, her face transformed with enthusiasm and a thirst for mayhem.
God, this was all beginning to stink of politics - worse, sectarian politics. "Why me?" he demanded. "You have two perfectly good men-at-arms of your own; why would you need a washed-up old soldier like myself?"
Xing Hua retreated behind an impassive mask, the brief glimpse of her inner self fading. "You are a former member of the Church," she said. "You are familiar with their routines and the layouts of their strongholds."
And your people aren't? Kurogane wondered silently. The layout of a Puritan cathedral tended not to vary much from one city to the next; anyone who was familiar with one was at least passingly familiar with them all. He studied his would-be patron with narrowed eyes.
She had black hair and eyes, but that didn't mean much; half of Clow did, including Kurogane himself. Nihon and Clow had been neighbors from time out of mind, and periods of war had left seeds of conquest while periods of peace had brought mingling and intermarriage. There was nothing incriminating or shameful to have a dash or more of Nihon in your family tree.
But the more she spoke, the more certain words, certain speech patterns were becoming clear to him. Few other people would have noticed, but Kurogane's family had immigrated to Clow from Nihon only a few generations back, and they still had kin on the other side of the border. There were certain mistakes that native speakers of Nihongo always made, and the more he talked here with the pretty and enigmatic Xing Hua, the more of that dialect he heard. And that put another light on all this fancy talk about filth and iniquity - the light of the Hellfire doctrines of the Libertarians.
"All right," he said. He thought of his fellow men-at-arms during the Crusades, thought of the smug and callous lieutenant who'd rebuffed his attempt to lay charges against them. "I won't deny that after the things I've seen, there are not a few Puritan bastards who deserve more than the point of my sword. Who did you have in mind?"
"Yukito Tsukishiro," Xing Hua replied.
There was a long moment of silence across the table, and then Kurogane broke into incredulous laughter. "Him?" he said. "That little rabbit-priest in Celestina? You must be joking; that little bugger couldn't harm a fly!"
"He lives in open sin with the highest powers of the worldly court, spreading his corruption from the royal family all throughout the country!" Xing Hua said coldly. "Yukito Tsukishiro, the filthy sodomite, embodies in himself all the worst essences of the decadent, corrupted Church! His sinful actions flagrantly prove his evil, twisted nature. He deserves no better than death, so that he may speedily be judged by the Maker and sent to his final torment!"
"You are out of your mind, lady," Kurogane growled. "I know that boy - I served with him, once, on tour of battle in the north. Skinny little kid with the glasses too big for his face and his robes falling off his body… such a miserable look on his face, like he saw all the problems of the world laid in front of him and just… blamed himself that he couldn't fix them all."
Kurogane shook his head, momentarily lost in a sea of memory. Yukito had looked so out of place on the battlefield - but none of the soldiers had looked askance at him once they saw his power at work. Most powerful Healer I ever met - fool boy he was, he wanted to go to the front and help out. Just because he could. I was one of those assigned to his battalion, I got a pretty good look at him in action. He cried a lot, of course, when he saw all the shit no magic and no prayers in the world can fix. But he kept going. Kept asking 'What can I do? What can I do?' like a mantra. Even when he couldn't help, he could at least take away the pain. Over and over, man after man, endless rows on the floor of the healer's tent or the ditches where soldiers dragged themselves after they'd been cut to pieces - there was no end to them, but he never stopped. He just kept on going.
He snapped back to himself, and leaned forward over the table, his hand planted on the rough wood of the surface. He took some satisfaction at how Xing Hua shrank away before him. "If Yukito Tsukishiro has got a problem, it's that the world is too corrupt and dirty for him, not the other way around," he growled. "He's done no wrong and he's harmed no one, and I won't be party to any effort to bring harm to him."
"That's a terrible shame," Xing Hua said, regaining her composure - although Kurogane saw she still leaned back as far away from him as she possibly could. "Because now that you have been granted access to our council, we cannot let you leave this building alive."
A screeching moment of tension stretched between them, and then Kurogane broke it - surprisingly - with a laugh. "Damn, you're bold," he said, and then his voice dropped to a hair-raising growl. "Or are you that eager to die?"
He started to push himself to his feet. "Kill him!" Xing Hua cried out to her two warriors, and the tiny room exploded into motion.
Kurogane twisted as he rose, kicking the little wooden chair at his opponents. It slowed them down enough for him to gain a little space, settling firmly on his feet and drawing his sword in a fluid motion. He blocked the left guardsman's first clumsy slash, made over the obstructing furniture, with contemptuous ease. These two couldn't fight worth crap.
He didn't expect Xing Hua to join in the melee; but just in case, he upturned the heavy wooden table and shoved it back in a motion that would pin the woman against the far wall. Then he moved forward, with an almost cat-like pounce, to place himself between his two opponents. The bulk of his body would block their view of each other, preventing them from coordinating their attacks effectively; and now they were each pinned between him and the wall, while he could move freely.
The one on the right recovered first, finally kicking the wooden chair clear, and swung at him. He deflected the lighter, cheaper blade with a ringing clash of steel that sent the guardsman's arm flying wide; the edge of the sword bit into the wooden boards of the wall and stuck there. Kurogane sensed movement behind him and turned, bringing his sword around to catch his second opponent's blade right above the hilt of his sword.
Their crossguards locked and fouled, and sharp edges suddenly became meaningless as it became a contest of might against might. All the strength that Kurogane had trained into his remaining hand - all that he had needed to compensate for his lost arm - came to bear, and he shoved his enemy bruisingly back against the wall, forcing his blade aside. He pulled back, relaxing his hold a moment as he felt his other opponent stir, and he aimed a powerful kick back and to the side of him even as his right arm slid smoothly under the swordsman's guard to cut his torso from belly to armpit.
It was a mortal blow, and the man gasped and gurgled as he slid down the wall, sword twitching from his hand as his fingers lost strength. Kurogane whirled to face his remaining opponent, saw the naked terror in the man's eyes as he watched his comrade die. Kurogane grinned, fiercely exhilarated by the thrill of combat, and let the tip of his blade flick up in a salute before he charged forward.
The second guardsman was no better than his partner had been; it was all over in a matter of seconds. Kurogane forced his blade to the floor, then stamped on it hard enough that the paltry steel snapped in two. The man dropped the useless sword-hilt and scrabbled desperately at his tunic - no doubt for another weapon concealed there - but he hardly had time to reach for the hilt before Kurogane raised his own weapon to contemptuously slit his throat.
Warm blood had splashed over his arm and chest, and pooled sticky under Kurogane's boots as he turned back towards Xing Hua. She was still there - she could hardly have got past him to the door in all the confusion - and she cowered against the wall behind the inadequate cover of the table.
Kurogane extended his still-steaming blade, and the tip of the sword with careful precision came to rest at the hollow of Xing Hua's throat. She gasped for breath, eyes wide in her pale face as she stared at him in disbelieving horror. "How?" she panted. "You must be the devil himself!"
Kurogane narrowed his eyes as he considered the woman before him. She was either a traitor or, more likely, a Nihon spy; she'd tried to kill him, and conspired to kill others. For the sake of his country, he ought to kill her now - and yet -
He lifted the point of his sword away from her skin. "Pax Dei," he said. The Peace of God, which laid out the laws that defended the weak from the ravages of war. Thou shalt not kill the helpless, nor those who have not taken up arms, nor those who cannot defend themselves.
He lifted the black velvet pouch from where it had fallen on the floor, and tucked it into his belt before he turned on his heel and walked out. After all, the Pax said nothing about taking money away from spies and killers.
~to be continued...