The more Remo thought about it, the more troubled he became. It appeared Chiun might be right. Killing Smith might be the only way to survive. But did Remo want to survive at that price? What was life worth?
He wasn't born in Sinanju, where life was a struggle, where pushing it on to old age was a major triumph, especially for an assassin.
And he was not just a killer. He was Sinanju just as much as he was American, but not more. He let the warm water splash against his face and received the water now as a gentle stream, just as he had received it as an immense force shooting him through the sluice.
He had been given Sinanju, and it was a trust for the future as much as it was a tool for the present. He let the water touch his body. become one with his body. and tried to forget the tale of Master Sayak.
Chapter 10
From the histories of Sinanju: "The Tale of Master Sayak and the Emperor's Concubine":
And it came to pass, during the masterhood of Sayak, that an emperor of a kingdom west of the middle kingdom of China, on his throne in Rhatpur north of the populated city of Delhi, suffered an affront to his life of such skill and daring that he realized no guards would keep him alive, no soldiers could stay the dagger now aimed at his imperial heart.
And beseeching Sinanju he sent a courier with a message. "O Master, my empire is held in the grip of a murderer's blade. None of my ministers or captains know how to help. No shield will prove sufficient. Only Sinanju and its glory can sustain my kingdom. Ask but the price and it will be delivered unto you."
Now, Sayak knew Emperor Mujjipur was the grandson of Emperor Shivrat, who paid well and promptly to the House of Sinanju when seizing the throne from his brother, and Sayak knew that blood often ran true. And the honor of a grandfather was often passed through the blood to the grandson.
But Sayak had made one mistake. Being Sinanju, he assumed that the problems of a soldier or a minister would not be problems for a Master of Sinanju. So he did not ask about the problems. But when there is a thunderstorm, the wagons of Master and soldier, Master and peasant, Master and courtesan, are all stuck in the same mud.
And when Sayak presented himself to Emperor Mujjipur in the summer palace of Rhatpur, the emperor gave to him a freedom few emperors would have allowed.
"To protect my royal life you are given fiat to kill whoever in my kingdom threatens that royal life," said Emperor Mujjipur. "Only one person may you never kill. Only one person's life must at all cost be spared, no matter what the provocation, and that is my beloved concubine, Hareen. No harm may come to her under any circumstance."
Now, Emperor Mujjipur was an old man, in his middle fifties, and his girth was wide, his breathing heavy, and his life hanging by a thread. And yet in that age men often delude themselves about love, and like boys again believe that whoever they happen to love at the moment is a gem beyond compare. So Sayak did not think this announced protection as anything unusual.
Besides, in these situations, such announcements are irrelevant. If Emperor Mujjipur had placed such a prohibition on a son or a cousin, then that might have posed a problem, because in these matters, the one who benefits from the removal of the emperor, the one likely to inherit the throne, is usually the one who seeks the ruler's death.
More significantly, though he had granted his concubine her protection, he had failed to put the empress under that protection. For if he loved this concubine Hareen so much, the queen, out of anger, might possibly have sought Mujjipur's death. Sayak understood the purpose of royal marriages is not sexual but political. Yet he was aware that some empresses felt themselves lovers as well as consorts of their mates. As a Sinanju saying went, all the best planning in the world could get out of hand in a lover's bed.
Yet this was not the case with the empress, who only laughed when Master Sayak respectfully asked her of her life at court, hoping to find the source of her troubles.
"We are all doomed because of the emperor's foolishness-me second, assassin, and you first," she said, and would explain no more.
Sayak knew there was only one way to avert danger and that was, of course, to stop it at the source, which was most simply done at the moment the danger struck. For the most deadly point is also the most vulnerable point.
And it came to pass that the assassin who had attempted twice before to steal the life of Mujjipur sent another deadly hand against the emperor.
He was a common strangler of some skills and some strength, but one of insufficient power. Sayak easily took the strangler's rope and put it about the strangler's neck, turning it slowly so that the face purpled and the teeth bared as the strangler struggled for breath, a move designed to injure the mind more than the body. The strangler would know for the first time, firsthand, the suffering he wrought and fear it.
Naturally it worked, and the strangler said he had been hired by a young captain in the palace quarters of the concubine Hareen. And keeping his promise, Sayak did not put the strangler to death with the rope, but dispatched him with a certain speed that would be welcomed by any of the dying. For it is not the purpose of Sinanju to cause pain. Pain for pain's sake alone is a waste and the mark of a sloppy assassin, and Sinanju would never allow that.
Knowing the injunction, Sayak formally asked the emperor for permission merely to enter Hareen's quarters.
"I honor this beauty so much that I allowed as how her quarters were like her kingdom. You must ask her permission," said the emperor.
But Sayak saw a danger. "Oh gracious Emperor, ruler from the throne at Rhatpur, light unto your subjects, the land you do not control in your own kingdom is land set against you. And land set against you is a danger."
"Sayak, from Sinanju in the Koreas, you have not seen her soft skin, or her eyes as bright as all the mornings of all the suns of all the universes. You have not seen her smile, or receive your body with her gentle love. You cannot know the rapture of this heavenly creature."
And so the answer was no. And Hareen refused even to see Master Sayak. Shortly thereafter there came five men with spears to take the life of the emperor, and these five did Sayak dispatch, but not before these five did again point the finger to the young captain in the quarters of the beautiful Hareen.
And again Mujjipur forbade entrance, saying he had mentioned this to Hareen and that it had brought her to tears.
The next killers came in a band of twenty, with arrows and slings and all manner of death in their hands, and Sayak through Sinanju prevailed, although this time the arrows were close, and the missiles closer, and he knew that while he could defeat the next in all probability and the one after that in all probability, sooner or later even a Master of Sinanju would suffer loss if all he did was sit as a target, like the emperor.
And he told this to Mujjipur, saying the emperor must take back his word to the concubine Hareen. An enraged Mujjipur called Sayak a lesser Master of Sinanju.
"All I ask is that you protect my life without harming my one blessed relief in a burdensome kingdom, and you say you have failed. Since when does Sinanju fail?"
Now, knowing one should never call an emperor fool, Sayak accepted the rebuke and promptly entered the quarters of the beautiful Hareen.