Kiisan followed Father Izador through the various courtyards, buildings, and paths of the ancient citadel. The place was much larger and in better shape than he had expected from Han Li's description, however many parts of it were long out of use and filled with dust. The wooden church, which had been built much later than the old stone buildings under the supervision of Father Shiku only about ten years ago, was the only part of the citadel that seemed to have been inhabited recently. Kiisan wondered why such a nice little church would stand alone in these ruins. Five inhabitants also seemed unusual, but he could not complain; the four men he had met were entirely kind, and supporting of his cause.
Father Izador sat down on some of the many stone steps that encircled the various levels of the citadel and Kiisan sat down beside him. "How long have you lived here?" Kiisan asked, trying to initiate a friendly conversation.
"Seventeen years, I've been here since the church was built. I came with Father Shiku and Dr. Clark. We're all pretty familiar with the area."
"I see...I'm from the state of Serif, so I'm really a know-nothing here," Kiisan smiled, "Why does Zawn live here then? I assume that the other three of you are the caretakers of the church..."
Izador pulled the tie out of his ponytail and ran a hand through his shining hair, turning his face upward towards the clouds as he tried to recall the situation. "Zawn was a rebel of some sort with the T'Rumour family sometime back...after their revolt was crushed he wandered here somehow and just became part of the family, I guess...You haven't met Tiko yet though. He's only twelve-years-old, but he's a great kid...The five of us don't go away from here much, so we're pretty close...and then Lady Sanada visits every other month or so depending on what she's up to...it's not bad here..."
Kiisan took off his large blue hat and fanned himself with, feeling heat escape from it once lifted off his head. "It sure is hot today..."
The umber-haired man rolled his sleeves up past his elbows and retied his hair, "And it will only get hotter for the next couple of weeks..."
"You have a long dry season here?"
"Some years...it comes and goes..."
The younger priest wiped his face with his handkerchief, "That's no fun at all..."
"Well, if you're looking for excitement I could toss you into the well..." started Izador teasingly.
"N-no thanks..." stuttered Kiisan.
Murasaki Fuji no Shita ni Kuni
"The Country Under the Purple Wisteria"
Chapter 28- The Center of the Circle
Han Li sat perched atop the main sandstone outer wall of the citadel, keeping his eyes open for any sign of Jirobane and Carlos. It was Ocha's firm assertion that Jirobane had found something interesting along the way and become distracted, dragging the fairly passive priest along with him. The older man was inclined to agree, but Kiisan wanted everyone to be present before any large plans for the next major movement were decided upon.
In the meantime the revolutionaries were concentrating their energy on cleaning up the old citadel. Laundry already blew in the warm breeze on four lines strung throughout the upper courtyard. Mio had thoroughly approved of the location and thus it had become the official revolutionary headquarters. Out of the corner of his more orange toned eye Han Li could see Louis Abdul and Mio attempting to raise some of the blue and white banners they carried around some of the higher points of the citadel. It was not a job that the faint-hearted Mio was exactly cut out for. Han Li shook his head; there was really no point in sitting here all day. Jirobane and Carlos would come when they came, and that was all there was to it. He climbed back down the ladder to the ground to assist Sasshalai with sweeping out some of the dirtier corridors.
********
Mio approached Sanada carefully. He wanted to talk to the enigmatic woman, but he was afraid of being ignored or brushed off. The orange-haired strategist had carefully planned what he wanted to ask, but as he began all his planning was forgotten, "Hello...Lady Sanada..."
She looked up from her curled and crinkled map to gaze into his wide eyes, "What do you want?"
"I...I...I just w-wanted to t-talk..."
"You don't sound at all like you're in any shape to be talking," she replied with a smug smirk.
"Um...sorry...uh, are those stories about where you learned strategy and how you find out enemy plans true?" Mio clasped his hands together awkwardly and turned his face down to his small feet.
"Yes, they're true," she stated calmly, "Every single one of them...about myself and General K'aan, about Chancellor Sembre, about the Massacre at Lone Hawk Peak, and even the one about myself and your father. All of the rumors are correct. I killed off all the false ones ages ago. Is that all you wanted? If that's it, would you mind getting out of my office?"
Mio shifted from one foot to the other nervously, "So my father did say you were worthy of being his successor?"
"Yes, he did. I just told you that, Sir Silverburg," she said coldly. Everytime she mentioned an Imperial officer her voice seemed to take a more icy turn. Her manner was very tense and precise and her confirmation of Mio's fear shot an arrow through his heart.
"...I'm sorry that I had to bother you about all that nonsense...I guess I'll be going now..." He headed towards the door with his head hung low, reflecting over how his father had given this merciless woman what he had never given his own son...his approval.
The young man was closing the door slowly behind himself when Sanada's voice, having taken on a softer tone called after him, "Wait. ...wait just a moment Sir Silverburg."
He glanced over his shoulder, but her gaze drew him back from the doorway to her desk. He could not find a single word to respond as she spoke to him then with warmth that he had not thought possible from such a person. "Mio de Silverburg, the difficulties in your life have caused you much grief, but you are truly just as strong a person as Kiyon de Silverburg. And others will love you for your heart even if he cannot. I have made a name for myself as Sanada Morin, but everyone can only recognize you by the name of your village..." She dipped her quill pen in the small bottle of ink sitting on the corner of the desk and wrote neatly on a clean sheet of paper, "Mio Silverberg." "Make a name for yourself. This is the name that the world will remember...Sir Silverberg."
She placed the sheet of paper in his dainty hands gently and smiled, without any stain of her previously smug attitude showing. Mio felt his face grow warm as he blushed in embarrassment. He bowed deeply to his fellow strategist and hurried away from her office as quickly as he could.
Once outside of the building he leaned against a half-crumbled wall and took a deep breath, trying to slow the rapid beating of his heart. He slowly lifted the piece of paper and looked at the elegant letters, "Mio Silverberg."
He closed his eyes and sat down with the name placed over his heart.
*********
Far to the south of the rebels' current location, Mio's father, Emperor Leo Maximillian's chief strategist barged through the large double doors that led to the shared office of General Tej K'aan and General Cuaran Raecliff. "The latest news states that the revolutionaries attacked and defeated the troops trying to set up a post in the Slalain Citadel. Sanada Morin was involved in the rebel victory as was your wayward little son, Kiyon," gloated General Raecliff.
"He's not my son, I disowned him a long time ago," the ruddy-haired man spat back, sticking his white-gloved hands into his coat pockets.
"It's been a long time since we've heard about Lady Sanada..." the narrow-eyed General K'aan murmured to himself.
"And a good thing too! That woman is a bloody horror to everyone involved with her regardless of what side she's taking and besides that, she's an awful little-"
"Keep your mouth shut Cuaran!" shouted General K'aan, "I won't take any of your trash about Lady Sanada!"
Kiyon de Silverburg took the opportunity to sit down in an extra chair and thumb the turquoise-eyed General's Raecliff's latest report from his subordinates in the Crona area. He was in no hurry. He could wait as long as the two generals wanted to argue. He had told his wife he would not be able to eat dinner with her anyway.
General Raecliff got up angrily from his desk and kicked this comrade's spilling most of the dark-skinned General's things onto the floor. "You're wasting your time trying to defend that scrawny, smart-mouthed, cold-hearted woman! You just defend her because you-"
Tej K'aan nearly leapt from his chair as he rose in a fury. He restrained himself from drawing his blade on his coworker, and instead slugged the shorter man squarely in the chin. "You're only sitting in this office today because your father was such a flattering subservient coward! And you're just as yellow-bellied as he was to speak about a woman like that behind her back!"
Cuaran Raecliff stumbled a few steps backward from the blow, and wiped blood from his lip, wincing in pain from the Northerner's punch.
"Are you two finished yet, or do I have the time to read the report from the Dunan Lake region while I'm sitting here?" Kiyon asked sarcastically.
"What do you want with us today?" Tej inquired.
"Cooperation, that's good. I was getting afraid that one of you might kill the other before I got a chance to tell you the current plan."
Cuaran pulled over his chair and sat across from the middle-aged strategist, "Go on..."
"We'll let the rebels get set up in their little headquarters and raise whatever silly resistance in the area they feel like stirring up and in the meantime we'll take a large force out to the northern Dunan region to prepare for their next movements. They will most certainly want to attack some of the fortified cities of Dunan because they're occupied by more troops than anything in the Central Plains States. While the rebels engage us in northern Dunan we'll send Major Ko-Wen to take their headquarters with the majority of their forces so far away. And here you have all the technicalities written out with the emperor's stamp of approval in case either of you doubt my word. We're going to the northern Dunan Lake region, so get ready."
He casually tossed the document to General Raecliff, who sat closer and left the office, heading down the corridor to speak with Major Tawya Ko-Wen.
***********
"Harmony...harmony...harmony..." Kiisan scribbled the word in the dirt with a twig, over and over again, turning the situation over in his mind. "A cause worth fighting for?" he asked himself softly.
"For Han Li...no..." said a rough, but pleasant voice.
Kiisan turned to see Han Li standing behind him looking down over him with the familiar expression of diluted happiness on his face.
"No? It's not?"
The older man sat down alongside the boy he considered his pupil and shook his head, "No, not really...but I'm just a typhoon inside..."
Han Li's golden pendant flipped out from the folds of his cloak as he smoothed it down and the warm sun sparkling on it caught Kiisan's eye.
"What's that? Are you wearing a 'Holy Circle'?"
The tan-skinned man put his hand around the pendant and frowned, "No harmony for me..." He tried to change the subject of his conversation with the boy he thought might be more to him than just a student, "Sasshalai told me your real name..."
"Not you! Don't say it!" Kiisan flustered.
"...harmony is more the thing suited to Saint H-"
"I'm not anything like a saint! And don't say my name!" yelled Kiisan, keeping anyone else from hearing the quiet voice of the cloaked man.
Hai-Yong peered at them over the edge of one of the walls of the higher level of the citadel above them, "What in all Aronia are you two talking about?"
Han Li jabbed Kiisan to keep him from answering and smiled broadly, "Everything."
The red-haired man rolled his eyes as he turned back to his task of cleaning off the windows of what had become the kitchen, "Kiisan, that guy is so weird..."