The Result of their Temptation

word count 3792


The Result of Their Temptation


The Takagari hunting party filled the courtyard. The falcons themselves stretched their wings, made short flights and stooped back to their owners with ear splitting cries. Men milled about, and dogs and horses added to the din.

In the center of this entire maelstrom, two men stood talking companionably. One, taller and thinner, stood quietly self-contained. He seemed to be the eye of the cyclone swirling around him. His regular features were delicate for a man, yet there was nothing particularly feminine about him; more as if he had been created from porcelain. His companion, shorter and clearly muscular, was also handsome, but rougher hewn. If the taller of the two was the eye, then this one was the wall of wind that held back the storm itself.

From the safety of the mansion itself, two older men paused in their work to look out over the courtyard. “Our clan is lucky to have two such young men,” murmured one to the other.

“We are also blessed with the marriage the young Lord is making,” answered the other.

The hunt itself was part of the festivities and the bride to be was on her way to the mansion even then. When the hunt returned, their success would add to the feast, although pork, fish and vegetables were being prepared now. The taller of the two and the bridegroom, Lord Daichi, mounted his horse. His companion, Isoda, called everyone to order around him. His duty was to protect the young Lord in all things.

The two had grown up together like brothers, instead of the cousins that they were, Isoda always protecting the less study Daichi. Isoda trained physically while Daichi studied. Daichi excelled in archery and horsemanship; his falcons were exemplary. However, his true strength lay in his intelligence. He had already proven his wisdom leading the clan and increased their prosperity two-fold. Isoda knew this and felt only pride in being able to serve him as bodyguard and protector of the clan.

Since his only strengths were his horsemanship and the falcons, the Takagari was chosen as a wedding sport the young Lord could excel at and excel he did. His falcon blooded three kills, while no one else could boast of more than two, so when they returned several hours later, it was with plenty of fowl for the feast.
The Lady Ogina and her maidens peeked out a window at the men as they returned. It was easy to narrow the prospective bridegroom to one of two men as they handed off the fowl to servants and headed off to prepare themselves to meet the bridal party. The ladies were split over which of the two could be Lord Daichi.

“It must be the taller one,” one said. "He is so elegantly handsome.”

“The shorter one has such a commanding air!” said another. “Surely he is Lord Daichi!”

Lady Ogina said nothing, but merely watched the two. Her heart was beating quickly, and her eyes followed Isoda’s form. She pulled the window shut. “We must finish our preparations,” she said, and quietly bore their teasing of her flushed cheeks as they styled her hair into the traditional bunkin-takashimada hairstyle and added the combs.

The men cheerfully teased Lord Daichi, as men will do any bridegroom as they bathed. The water in the mountain hot spring was sulfuric, but no one minded; it cleansed the soul as well as the body. They all had a bit of advice for their lord, and Lord Daichi listened, blushing, knowing it was meant in good fun and good will. Finally, though, Isoda murmured in his ear, “If you wish some time alone, my Lord…”

“No, it is fine,” Daichi smiled at Isoda. “This is one battle you cannot fight for me my friend. They mean well. They know that this is one area that my books are no help.”

Isoda looked appraisingly at his lord. “You are a finely formed man,” he said. “You have no marring scars. There is no reason a woman would not look favorably upon you.”

“Merely this one mole on my shoulder.”

“That is not seen in public, my Lord. You have accomplished much for our clan and made us rich.”

“One does not wish to be desired for that, you know.”

Isoda smiled. “I do not think there will be a problem. I see no reason why any woman would not choose you.”

Daichi grasped his shoulder. “As always, you give me confidence. Thank you.” Isoda bowed, and they moved out of the water.

When it was finally time for the bridal feast, Lord Daichi knelt at his place awaiting the bride. To his right sat Isoda calmly. The bride came in trembling and beautiful, in her shiro-maku, not daring to look at her bridegroom. His covert looks at her pleased him. She was small with a round face, and he thought she might have dimples, although it was hard to see much as she kept her head down shyly and the tsuno kakushi was in the way. She finally dared a single peek up and exchanged glances with Isoda. She paled, realizing that her hopes were in vain and dropped her gaze. The fan in her hand trembled harder and she nearly forgot to open it slowly as tradition demanded.

Isoda, on the other hand felt pierced to the heart. He flushed and quickly looked down; hoping everyone else was looking at the bride and groom. What was this feeling? Never had he felt desire like this before! This was crazy! This was his lord’s bride, not some geisha! Isoda kept his eyes under control for the rest of the feast, and never knew that the bride’s eyes kept glancing toward him. It would not have helped him had he known.

The young Lord was quite pleased with Lady Ogina. She fulfilled her role well in the days that followed, and the clan prospered. Isoda however stayed away from the mansion as much as possible. When Lord Daichi questioned him about it, he merely stated that the young couple needed time together, and that the clan was eager for an heir. To which Lord Daichi would laugh and say, “As the gods allow!” So it went for several months.

It was Isoda’s routine to go into the forest to practice and there Lady Ogina found him. She watched him discreetly from behind a tree for some time. Finally, Isoda stopped in the middle of his practice form, and without turning toward her, said, “What is it that you want?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I was walking and heard you. I came merely to see what you were doing.”

He shook his mane, which was not tied back as usual. “You have no ladies with you. If you were just walking, you would not be alone.”

“Even a lady can desire time alone.”

He turned to look at her. Her eyes darkened with desire as she looked at his sweat soaked body, and his body responded to the look in her eyes. Still he shook his head. “You are my Lord’s Lady,” he said.

“Have we no voice in what we want for ourselves?” she questioned. “Must we always only have what others give us?” She moved closer and touched his cheek. “Why is it that I am not allowed to decide what I want?”

Her touch was more temptation than Isoda could bear. He wrapped his arms around her and their lips met for the first time. It was though eternity exploded in their hearts, and now nothing would keep them apart.

Not long after that, Lord Daichi was involved in negotiating a trade treaty with another clan; and so he went away. He requested Isoda stay to protect the mansion and the Lady, and it was with mixed feeling that Isoda complied.
“I know you feel you need to be with me, Isoda,” Lord Daichi said. “My heart stays here at the mansion with Lady Ogina. It is my heart that I need you to protect. As my cousin and my brother, whom else can I trust?”

Isoda knelt at his feet, ready to confess all, when the men going with Lord Daichi swept in and out, taking Lord Daichi with them. Isoda remained on his knees, weeping to himself. Yet it made no difference. As much as he loved his Lord, his desire for the Lady was stronger and drew him to her as the waves are drawn to the shore.

To protect their time together, he showed her the secret door at the back of the shrine; daily she left her ladies outside the front of the shrine and she went in alone to pray for a child, she said. She slipped out the secret door and they met in the forest for an hour or so. It was never enough time, but they dared not linger; it was better than no time at all. She developed quite a reputation as a pious person; and no one ever thought to question Isoda’s doings.

After a while though, Lady Ogina’s own ladies began to complain.
“Must we come to this shrine all the time, Lady?” protested one of the women. “I am afraid. We often hear the cry of the Nue while you are in the shrine. It cannot bring a blessing to have a Nue so close.”

“Surely there is a closer shrine to the mansion,” said another.

“No!” She answered sharply. “Must I bring men at arms to satisfy you while I pray on a woman’s business?” She glared at them. “This is the mansion’s own shrine. What would you have me do? Request them to move it?”

Shamed the ladies could not meet her look. “It is just the Nue…” whispered one.

“Very well,” Lady Ogina snapped. Back at the mansion, she requested the staff call Isoda. He came and knelt before her in front of all her ladies.

“My ladies fear while I am in the shrine,” she said. “They think that they hear a Nue in the forest.”

Whatever Isoda had expected, it was not this. “A Nue?”

“It cries in the forest while our lady prays,” said one of the women.

“It can only mean misfortune,” said another lady.

Isoda bowed his head. “It will be dealt with,” he promised, and backed from the room. Once outside, he paused to still his beating heart, wondering what the Nue really meant and if there was one. If so, why had he never noticed? Still he called the men together, and they combed the forest, looking for the creature, praying that he and Ogina had left no clue themselves. He made sure that he was in charge of the area they used, and within a few hours they were able to report back to the ladies that there was no sign of a Nue in the forest.
In spite of that, the cry began being heard by many throughout the forest, until many in the mansion was afraid. Isoda was forced to assign men at arms to the ladies for Lady Ogina to continue going to the shrine, she refused to stop going, even after Lord Daichi returned home.

Lord Daichi was delighted with the practice, delighted that she wanted a child. He confided in Isoda how modest, how charmingly shy she continued to be. Isoda could only groan to himself knowing how comfortable she was with him, that she had no reason to be shy with him. It only pierced him with more guilt, knowing that having tasted he could no longer resist the temptation of being with her.

Their moments together continued, but seemed so fleeting and marred by the fact that they had to be on guard every moment. When suddenly a stranger appeared at the edge of their clearing, Isoda reached for his katana, knowing it was in the sheath beside him.

Before he could do more than lay one hand on the sheath, the stranger was at his side, holding Isoda’s own katana at Isoda’s throat. As Isoda lay there blinking, he suddenly recognized the stranger’s unearthly beauty for what it was; this was a Youkai; he was not human at all.

The Youkai laughed, and stepped back. The Lady Ogina gasped as she identified the stranger and feared; “The Nue!” He bowed gracefully in response.

“What do you want, Nue!” Isoda stood. His voice sounded unusually harsh in comparison to the Nue’s laughter.

“What do I want?” mocked the Nue; his voice was as musical as his laughter. “It is rather what you want that is the problem.”

The Lady Ogina had slowly pulled up her kimono, now she burst out; “What I want! I am not allowed what I want unless I take it secretly! Always I must give! It’s not fair!” Pain flashed across Isoda’s face, but he did not dare look away from the Youkai.

“I have come because you are unsettling my little ones,’ said the Nue. “To stop this, I have decided to help you.”

“Help us?” gasped Ogina.

“What do you mean?” demanded Isoda.

“You wish to be together, do you not?”

“Yes!” The Lady Ogina fell forward on her knees. Isoda looked shamed, but nodded.

“Then I will see to it.” The Nue turned to go.

“No, wait, what are you…”

“You will know it when it happens.” With a flap of massive wings, he was gone, Isoda’s katana quivering in the dirt. The two he left behind were both fearful and amazed, and even unable to discuss what had just happened right then. Isoda gently escorted her back to the shrine and he spent an hour with his katana.

The next day, they did nothing but huddle together and discuss the Nue. “I cannot be happy with this,” said Isoda. “It cannot be a good thing to trust in such a being.”

“Yet what choice do we have?” Lady Ogina laid her head against his shoulder. “It didn’t sound as though he was giving us the choice to refuse him.”

Isoda sighed. She was right. He held her tighter and shuttered. “If I could only resist you,” he murmured, “and worship from afar as I should. I am not worthy to hold you in my arms.”

“Don’t say such things!” Lay Ogina clung to him tighter. “You break my heart so! Don’t you understand that it is you that I want?” Isoda kissed the tears from her eyes, but in his heart, he knew that his penalty would be severe.

For a time, it seemed things were becoming peaceful again. The Nue’s cries were less frequent and summer wore into fall. One thing that did not change was Lady Ogina’s love for Isoda, nor his for her. Instead, it grew deeper, and yet they no longer despaired, but were thankful for their fleeting time. Both knew they would be caught eventually, and it would end badly, but the temptation to be together was more than either could resist.

Suddenly one evening, the Nue appeared to them. “Quickly,” he said, “she must return to the shrine. The Lord is coming to pray as well. Then you must come back here as soon as possible.”

The pair of lovers did not even pause. They moved swiftly and before the Lord could reach the shrine, Isoda was helping Lady Ogina in the secret door. When he returned to the glade, the Nue was sitting on a log regally. The setting sun behind him enhanced his unearthly magnificence. Isoda was forced to look away.

The Nue laughed, and the splendor seemed to dim. “Up to now,” he said, “I have contented myself with protecting the two of you here so that no one could discover you in my forest. However, the time is coming when I will keep my keep my promise.” He stood and turned to leave.

“Wait…” gasped Isoda. The Nue tended to move too fast for him.

“Are you trying to tell me you are weary of this woman?”

“No! Never that!” Isoda denied that with his whole body. The Nue waited. “It’s just…that...my Lord Daichi….well, he…I mean, I’ve always protected him.” Isoda finished in a rush.

“Humans! Always wanting opposing things! How foolish! Yet humorous in their own way as well.” The Nue smiled strangely. “Well, I will consider this.” Once again, he vanished with a flap of gigantic wings.

Isoda was left feeling perturbed and angry. He jerked out his katana and began to work up a sweat. By the time they found him, his movements had returned to their normal fluid grace, but the soldiers who found him shivered at the vicious look that remained on his face.

Meanwhile, Lady Ogina had her own trials. She had time to compose herself, and was praying for help when Lord Daichi entered the shrine. She did not have to counterfeit her surprise at his loud entrance.

It soon became clear that his intention to pray was more carnal than pious. She suffered his touch; but suddenly the Nue’s cry in the forest sounded as though it was almost on top of the shrine itself. His astonishment was almost as complete as hers had been, and when they heard the flapping of enormous wings on top of the shrine, he rushed out to the soldiers who were with the women. “After it!” he shouted.

“What?” they puzzled. It soon became clear that they had not heard the Nue, but Lord Daichi insisted that they search the forest. In the melee’, Lady Ogina and her ladies fled to the mansion.

It was only a few days later that the first reports of the demon boar began to filter in.

It was hard for the farmers to work because the creature would attack them in the fields. Meanwhile, the boar and his family were destroying fields. Although his family was all normal sized wild pigs, the Demon boar itself was about three times the size of a ordinary boar. If something were not done quickly, the harvest would be ruined.

As Lord Daichi, Isoda, and others planned the hunt, the Lady Ogina gracefully served them sake. She knelt behind Lord Daichi, and he turned to her. “What say you, my Lady?”

“Are you participating in the hunt as well, my Lord?”

“No!” burst out Isoda. Lord Daichi looked at him peculiarly. “I mean there is no need. We can take care of it for you, my Lord.”

Lord Daichi looked back at Lady Ogina’s composed face. She did not look at him, merely gazed at the floor. “Yes,” he said, “I think I will go. It is time that I do more that my people can see.”

“It will be too difficult to protect you on this type of hunt,” argued Isoda. “There are better ways to show the people how much you do for them that is not so dangerous. Please, my Lord, reconsider.”

“Enough!” Daichi banged both fists on the tatami mat. “I am not a child that needs to be followed! I am Lord of this place, and if I choose to go on a hunt, I will!” He stalked from the room, and nothing would convince him to change his mind. They did at last persuade him to plan to stay in the rear, with his arrows and Isoda planned to ride just before him.

It was with some trepidation that they rode out the next morning. Isoda had not slept well the night before and his dreams were filled with foreboding. They slowed and spread out as they neared the place the swine family had last been reported.

Isoda hung back to stay near Lord Daichi. The soldiers in front mostly carried spears, although a few, like Lord Daichi, had bows. Isoda had a spear, but his katana hung at his side.

Ahead of them, there was a sudden noise in the underbrush. Everyone prepared, facing that clump of brush when an abrupt squeal from their right startled them, and caused a couple of the horses to shied. The sow charged out squealing furiously and two of the soldiers wheeled, spearing her neatly.
Everyone’s attention was on the sow as she died, kicking and squealing, when unexpectedly the demon boar charged out of the original undergrowth, cutting through the line of soldiers, heading straight for Lord Daichi.

He appeared to be crazed at the death of his mate, and ready for blood. Lord Daichi got off one arrow, before his frightened horse threw him. The boar was bristling with arrows and spears, but it made no difference. Isoda leap from his horse and fought to get around Lord Daichi’s frantic mount that was also battling the angry swine with his fore hooves. He still managed to get there before anyone else, katana in hand, slicing at the animal, until he managed to cut its throat. It was still too late. Lord Daichi was badly gored and at the realization, Isoda fell to his knees beside him and howled.

Lord Daichi reached up one blood covered hand and took Isoda’s. “You did… warn me, my friend,” he gasped. “Please, you must…protect...my heart.”

Isoda was inconsolable as they carried Lord Daichi back to the mansion. “It’s my fault,” he kept saying, but they all knew better, for they had all seen how hard he had tried to save Lord Daichi. Lady Ogina stood bravely as they neared, but fainted dead away, everyone thought at the sight of her Lord’s mangled body; no one realized it was upon hearing Isoda repeating, “It’s my fault.” Her fear was that someone would decide to blame him. No one did.

By the time spring came, the people began to press Lady Ogina to choose a husband for fear that war would come, and were satisfied when she chose Isoda as a strong leader for the clan. He was a fine war leader, and the clan rallied and stayed strong.

When spring came a second time, the couple had completely forgotten the Nue and were happily expecting their first child. At last, the child was born, a boy, and Ogina’s screams caused Isoda to force himself into the birthing room. There he took the child from his frightened wife, and looked into a strangely familiar face on the child. He pulled the blankets back from the babe, and on his tiny shoulder, in the same place as the former Lord, the child had a mole, and where the goring had occurred was a huge birthmark. Isoda gasped, and said, “This is the work of the Nue and my fate—for I failed to protect my Lord before. Now I have both you and again my Lord to protect.”