Child of Vengeance Read Online Free

shimmeredlike a peacock. Munisai looked at it with disgust. Dozens of men had carried it—dozens of men who could have carried spears and helped in the battle instead.
    The clan Nakata had arrived.
    There was a dull, throbbing pain underneath his left shoulder that he did not want to think about, but the very sight of the palanquin made it pulse anew. He would be expected to visit that gaudy thing, to bow and prostrate himself before men he hated, and the thought filled him with loathing.
    But the Nakata were allies of his Lord Shinmen, so he would have to endure it. This was duty, he knew, and duty was distraction. Duty meant that he did not have to feel or think of wounds of both the flesh and the heart.
    He looked around once more. Those warriors who could bowed to him as his eyes passed across them. The doctors, shaven-headed and sweating, were too frantic to worry about him. Saying nothing, he rooted around in a wooden chest and took some bandages and a small envelope of what smelled like salve, and left them to tend to their macabre and glorious garden.
    ON THE WAY to the palanquin, Munisai found himself giving commands that did not need to be given, dallying to supervise that which needed none. But he could not avoid it forever, and when he finally arrived he stood before it for a few moments. Night was all but here already, and the burgundy silk glowed from lanterns lit within. A mobile palace brought to reign over a place that other men had fought and died for. He had to force the scowl from his face before he ducked his head and passed through the curtains.
    As soon as he entered, he was hit by the smell of incense. Wisps of it hung in the air, no doubt to mask the stench of the battlefield. He held back in the shadows of the entrance and looked inward.
    All was silk or lacquer wood painted in gold leaf. When it was carried, the hall was big enough for perhaps a half dozen to sit in comfortably. But set down, the palanquin’s hidden panels and curtains could be opened and unfurled so it grew, and now it was big enough for Lord Shinmen and the Nakata to sit on a raised dais while a few ranks of bodyguards and courtiers from either clan knelt aroundthem. A woman plucked quietly on a koto harp in the background, the music lilting and soothing.
    Lord Shinmen’s wound had been treated in a way that Munisai did not know how to describe without talking ill of his lord. The bruise where the arrow had struck certainly didn’t warrant a sling, but now the lord’s left arm was tightly bound to a body swathed in bandages, and he made a show of having difficulty drinking.
    There were two of the Nakata with him. Both wore rich kimonos in burgundy, patterns traced upon the garments in threads of silver. The man closest to Shinmen was Lord Nakata; an old, squat man with a doughy, round face and eyes that were constantly pinched into a squint. The jokes ran that he was always looking for the last coin in the room, so scared was he of missing wealth.
    Munisai recognized the other man as Nakata’s eldest son and heir, Hayato. He was burning the incense, idly poking stick after stick to stand in a small bowl of sand. He looked little like his father, being a slight man with a long face. His eyes were wide and dulled, the incense holding him in its sway.
    Indeed, Hayato seemed oblivious to anything but the smoke. He ignored his father and Shinmen as they spoke. The pair of lords had chosen a polite, inoffensive topic as etiquette required.
    “It is believed the slaughter was great, that the enemy were dashed to pieces upon the rocks of your brave men like a great wave of filth and pestilent vermin, Lord Shinmen?” asked Lord Nakata, eyes blinking around blindly.
    “Indeed, Lord. Were guessing required, it is not unreasonable to think that even their distant descendants will still have nightmares of this day,” replied Shinmen.
    “Quite so, quite so. No wonder, if even one such as a lord should sustain such a grievous wound as