by Lian Hearn
I went to the room. Makoto was already asleep. Kahei was talking to two of his men who had come to keep guard. He told me he had also put two men to watch the room where Kaede slept. I lay down, wished she were next to me, briefly considered sending for her, then fell into the deep river of sleep.
· 3·
or the next few days our march to Maruyama continued without event. The news of Jin-emon’s death and the defeat of his bandits had gone ahead of us and we were welcomed because of it. We moved quickly, with short nights and long days, making the most of the favorable weather before the full onset of the plum rains.
As we traveled, Kaede tried to explain to me the political background of the domain that was to become hers. Shigeru had already told me something of its history, but the tangled web of marriages, adoptions, deaths, that might have been murders, jealousy, and intrigue was mostly new to me. It made me marvel anew at the strength of Maruyama Naomi, the woman he had loved, who had been able to survive and rule in her own right. It made me regret her death, and his, all the more bitterly, and strengthened my resolve to continue their work of justice and peace.
“Lady Maruyama and I talked a little together on a journey like this,” Kaede said. “But we were riding in the opposite direction, toward Tsuwano, where we met you. She told me women should hide their power and be carried in the palanquin lest the warlords and warriors crush them. But here I am riding beside you, on Raku, in freedom. I’ll never go in a palanquin again.”
It was a day of sun and showers, like the fox’s wedding in the folktale. A sudden rainbow appeared against a dark gray cloud; the sun shone bravely for a few moments; rain fell silver. Then the clouds swept across the sky, sun and rainbow vanished, and the rain had a cold, harsh sting to it.
Lady Maruyama’s marriage had been intended to improve relations between the Seishuu and the Tohan. Her husband was from the Tohan and was related to both the Iida and the Noguchi families. He was much older than she was, had been married before, and already had grown children. The wisdom of an alliance through such an encumbered marriage had been questioned at the time, not least by Naomi, who, although only sixteen, had been brought up in the Maruyama way to think and speak for herself. However, the clan desired the alliance, and so it was arranged. During Lady Maruyama’s life her stepchildren had caused many problems. After her husband died they had contested the domain—unsuccessfully. Her husband’s only daughter was the wife of a cousin of Iida Sadamu, Iida Nariaki—who, we learned on the way, had escaped the slaughter at Inuyama and had fled into the West, from where it seemed he now intended to make a new claim on the domain. The Seishuu clan lords were divided. Maruyama had always been inherited through the female line, but it was the last domain that clung to a tradition that affronted the warrior class. Nariaki had been adopted by his father-in-law before Lady Maruyama’s marriage, and was considered by many to be legal heir to his wife’s property.
Naomi had been fond of her husband and grieved genuinely when he died after four years, leaving her with a young daughter and a baby son. She was determined her daughter would inherit her estate. Her son died mysteriously, some said poisoned, and in the years that followed the battle of Yaegahara, the widowed Naomi attracted the attention of Iida Sadamu himself.
“But by that time she had met Shigeru,” I said, wishing I knew where and how. “And now you are her heir.” Kaede’s mother had been Lady Maruyama’s cousin, and Kaede was the closest living relative to the former head of the clan, for Lady Maruyama’s daughter Mariko had died with her mother in the river at Inuyana.
“If I am allowed to inherit,” Kaede replied. “When her senior retainer, Sugita Haruki, came to me late last year, he swore the Maruyama clan would support me, but Nariaki may have already moved in.”
“Then we will drive him out.”
ON THE MORNING of the sixth day we came to the domain border. Kahei halted his men a few hundred paces before it, and I rode forward to join him.
“I was hoping my brother would have met us before now,” he said quietly.
I had been hoping the same. Miyoshi Gemba had been sent to Maruyama before my marriage to Kaede to convey the news of our imminent arrival. But we had had heard nothing from him since. Apart from my concerns for his safety, I would have liked some information about the situation in the domain before we entered it, the whereabouts of Iida Nariaki, the feelings in the town toward us.
The barrier stood at a crossroads. The guard post was silent, the roads on all sides deserted. Amano took Jiro and they rode off to the south. When they reappeared, Amano was shouting.
“A large army has been through: There are many hoofprints and horse droppings.”
“Heading into the domain?” I called.
“Yes!”
Kahei rode closer to the guard post and shouted, “Is anyone there? Lord Otori Takeo is bringing his wife, Lady Shirakawa Kaede, heir to Lady Maruyama Naomi, into her domain.”
No answer came from the wooden building. A wisp of smoke rose from an unseen hearth. I could hear no sound, other than the army behind me, the stamping of restless horses, the breathing of a thousand men. My skin was tingling. I expected at any moment to hear the hiss and clack of arrows.
I rode Shun forward to join Kahei. “Let’s take a look.”
He glanced at me, but he’d given up trying to persuade me to stay behind. We dismounted, called to Jiro to hold the horses’ reins, and drew our swords.
The barrier itself had been thrown down and crushed in the rush of men and horses that had trampled over it. A peculiar silence hung around the place. A bush warbler called from the forest, its song startlingly loud. The sky was partly covered with large gray clouds, but the rain had ceased again and the breeze from the south was mild.
I could smell blood and smoke on it. As we approached the guardhouse we saw the first of the bodies just inside the threshold. The man had fallen across the hearth and his clothes were smoldering. They would have burned if they had not been soaked with blood from where his belly had been slashed open. His hand still gripped his sword, but the blade was clean. Behind him lay two others, on their backs; their clothes were stained with their own last evacuations, but not with blood.
“They’ve been strangled,” I said to Kahei. It chilled me, for only the Tribe use garrotes.
He nodded, turning one over to look at the crest on his back. “Maruyama.”
“How long since they died?” I asked, looking round the room. Two of the men had been taken completely by surprise, the third stabbed before he could use his sword. I felt fury rise in me, the same fury I’d felt against the guards in Hagi when they’d let Kenji into the garden or when I’d slipped past them—fury at the dullness of ordinary men who were so easily outwitted by the Tribe. They’d been surprised while they’d been eating, killed by assassins before any of them could get away to carry a warning of the invading army.
Kahei picked up the teakettle from where it had been sent flying. “Barely warm.”
“We must catch up with them before they reach the town.”
“Let’s get moving,” Kahei said, his eyes bright with anticipation.
But as we turned to go I caught a fresh sound, coming from a small storeroom behind the main guard post. I made a sign to Kahei to keep silent and went to the door. Someone was behind it, trying to hold his breath but definitely breathing, and shivering, and letting the breath out in what was almost a sob.
I slid the door and entered in one movement. The room was cluttered with bales of rice, wooden boards, weapons, farming implements.
“Who’s there? Come out!”
There was a scuttling noise and a small figure burst out from behind the bales and tried to slide between my legs. I grabbed it, saw it was a boy of ten or eleven years, realized he held a knife, and wrenched his fingers apart until he cried out and dropped it.
He wriggled in my grasp, trying not to sob.
“Stand still! I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Fa
ther! Father!” he called.
I pushed him in front of me into the guardroom. “Is one of these your father?”
His face had gone white, his breath came raggedly, and there were tears in his eyes, but he still struggled to control himself. There was no doubt he was a warrior’s son. He looked at the man on the floor whom Kahei had pulled from the fire, took in the terrible wound and the sightless eyes, and nodded.
Then his face went green. I pulled him through the door so he could vomit outside.
There’d been a little tea left in the kettle. Kahei poured it into one of the unbroken cups and gave it to the boy to drink.
“What happened?” I said.
His teeth were chattering, but he tried to speak normally, his voice coming out louder than he’d intended. “Two men came through the roof. They strangled Kitano and Tsuruta. Someone else slashed the tethers and panicked the horses. My father ran after them, and when he came back inside the men cut him open with their knives.”
He fought back the sob. “I thought they’d gone,” he said. “I couldn’t see them! They came out of the air and cut him open.”
“Where were you?”
“I was in the storeroom. I hid. I’m ashamed. I should have killed them!”
Kahei grinned at the fierce little face. “You did the right thing. Grow up and kill them, then!”
“Describe the men to me,” I said.
“They wore dark clothes. They made no sound at all. And they did that trick so that you could not see them.” He spat and added, “Sorcery!”
“And the army that came through?”
“Iida Nariaki of the Tohan, together with some Seishuu. I recognized their crests.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds,” he replied. “They took a long time to go past. But it’s not so long since the last ones rode through. I was waiting until I thought they had all gone. I was about to come out when I heard you, so I stayed hidden.”
“What’s your name?”
“Sugita Hiroshi, son of Hikaru.”
“You live in Maruyama?”
“Yes, my uncle Sugita Haruki is chief retainer to the Maruyama.”
“You’d better come with us,” I said. “Do you know who we are?”
“You are Otori,” he said, smiling for the first time, a wan, feeble smile. “I can tell by your crests. I think you are the ones we have been waiting for.”
“I am Otori Takeo and this is Miyoshi Kahei. My wife is Shirakawa Kaede, heir to this domain.”
He dropped to his knees. “Lord Otori. Lord Miyoshi’s brother came to my uncle. They are preparing men because my uncle is sure Iida Nariaki will not let Lady Shirakawa inherit without a fight. He’s right, isn’t he?”
Kahei patted him on the shoulder. “Go and say good-bye to your father. And bring his sword. It must be yours now. When the battle is won we will bring him to Maruyama and bury him with honor.”
This is the upbringing I should have had, I thought, watching Hiroshi come back holding the sword, which was almost as long as he was. My mother had told me not to tear the claws off crabs, not to hurt any living creature, but this child had been taught since birth to have no fear of death or cruelty. I knew Kahei approved of his courage: He had been raised in the same code. Well, if I did not have ruthlessness by now, after my training in the Tribe, I would never get it. I would have to pretend it.
“They drove off all our horses!” Hiroshi exclaimed as we walked past the empty stables. He was shaking again, but with rage, I thought, not fear.
“We’ll get them back, and more,” Kahei promised him. “You go with Jiro, and stay out of trouble.”
“Take him back to the women and tell Manami to look after him,” I said to Jiro as I took Shun from him and remounted.
“I don’t want to be looked after,” the boy announced when Kahei lifted him onto the back of Jiro’s horse. “I want to go into battle with you.”
“Don’t kill anyone by mistake with that sword,” Kahei said, laughing. “We’re your friends, remember!”
“The attack must have come as a complete surprise,” I said to Makoto, after telling him briefly what we’d learned. “The guardhouse was hardly manned.”
“Or maybe the Maruyama forces were expecting it and pulled back all their available men to ambush them or attack on more favorable ground,” he replied. “Do you know the land between here and the town?”
“I’ve never been here.”
“Has your wife?”
I shook my head.
“Then you’d better get that boy back. He may be our only guide.”
Kahei shouted to Jiro, who had not gone far. Hiroshi was delighted to be brought back again, and he knew a surprising amount about the terrain and the fortification of the town. Maruyama was a hill castle; a sizable town lay on the slopes and at the foot of the rounded hill on which the castle was built. A small, fast-flowing river supplied the town with water and fed a network of canals, kept well stocked with fish; the castle had its own springs. The outer walls of the town had formerly been kept in good repair and could be defended indefinitely, but since Lady Maruyama’s death and the confusion that had followed Iida’s downfall, repairs had not been kept up and guards were few. In effect, the town was divided between those who supported Sugita and his championship of Kaede, and those who thought it more practical to bend before the wind of fate and accept the rule of Iida Nariaki and his wife, whose claim, they said, also had legitimacy.
“Where is your uncle now?” I asked Hiroshi.
“He has been waiting a little way from the town with all his men. He did not want to go too far from it, in case it was taken over behind his back. So I heard my father say.”
“Will he retreat into the town?”
The boy’s eyes narrowed in an adult way. “Only if he absolutely has to, and then he would have to fall back to the castle, for the town can no longer be defended. We are very short of food: Last year’s storms destroyed much of the harvest, and the winter was unusually hard. We could not stand a long siege.”
“Where would your uncle fight if he had the choice?”
“Not far from the town gate this road crosses a river, the Asagawa. There’s a ford; it’s almost always shallow, but sometimes there’s a flash flood. To get to the ford, the road goes down into a steep ravine and then up again. Then there’s a small plain with a favorable slope. My father taught me you could hold up an invading army there. And with enough men you could outflank them and box them in the ravine.”
“Well spoken, Captain,” Kahei said. “Remind me to take you with me on all my campaigns!”
“I only know this district,” Hiroshi said, suddenly bashful. “But my father taught me that in war one must know the terrain above everything.”
“He would be proud of you,” I said. It seemed our best plan would be to press on and hope to trap the forces in front of us in the ravine. Even if Sugita had pulled back into the town, we could take the attacking army by surprise from behind.
I had one more question for the boy: “You said it’s possible to outflank an army in the ravine. So there’s another route between here and the plain?”
He nodded. “A few miles further to the north there is another crossing. We rode that way a few days ago to come here. After a day of heavy rain there was a sudden flood through the ford. It takes a little longer, but not if you gallop.”
“Can you show Lord Miyoshi the way?”
“Of course,” he said, looking up at Kahei with eager eyes.
“Kahei, take your horsemen and ride with all speed that way. Hiroshi will show you where to find Sugita. Tell him we are coming and that he is to keep the enemy bottled up in the ravine. The foot soldiers and farmers will come with me.”
“That’s good,” Hiroshi said approvingly. “The ford is full of boulders; the footing is not really favorable to war horses. And the Tohan will think you are weaker than you are and underestimate you. They won’t expect farmers to fight.”
> I thought, I should be taking lessons in strategy from him.
Jiro said, “Am I to go with Lord Miyoshi too?”
“Yes, take Hiroshi on your horse, and keep an eye on him.”
The horsemen rode away, the hoofs echoing across the broad valley.
“What hour is it?” I asked Makoto.
“About the second half of the Snake,” he replied.
“Have the men eaten?”
“I gave orders to eat quickly while we were halted.”
“Then we can move on right away. Start the men now; I’ll ride back and tell the captains and my wife. I’ll join you when I’ve spoken to them.”
He turned his horse’s head, but before he moved off he gazed briefly at the sky, the forest, and the valley.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he said quietly.
I knew what he meant: a good day to die. But neither he nor I was destined to die that day, though many others were.
I cantered back along the line of resting men, giving the orders to move on and telling their leaders our plan. They got to their feet eagerly, especially when I told them who our main enemy was; they shouted mightily at the prospect of punishing the Tohan for the defeat at Yaegahara, the loss of Yamagata, and the years of oppression.
Kaede and the other women were waiting in a small grove of trees, Amano as usual with them.
“We are going into battle,” I said to Kaede. “Iida Nariaki’s army crossed the border ahead of us. Kahei has ridden around the side of them, where we hope he will meet up with his brother and Sugita. Amano will take you into the forest, where you must stay until I come for you.”
Amano bowed his head. Kaede looked as if she were going to speak, but then she, too, inclined her head. “May the All-Merciful One be with you,” she whispered, her eyes on my face. She leaned forward slightly and said, “One day I will ride into battle beside you!”