by Lian Hearn
Zenko concerned her more than Taku. It was already obvious that Taku was going to be highly skilled; he would stay with the Tribe and rise high in it. Kenji had no sons, and Taku might even be master of the Muto family one day. His talents were precocious: Invisibility came naturally to him and his hearing was sharp; with the onset of puberty it might even become like Takeo’s. He had loose limbs like hers and could fold himself into the smallest of spaces and stay hidden for hours on end. He liked to play tricks on the maids, hiding in an empty pickling barrel or a bamboo basket and jumping out to surprise them like the mischievous tanuki in stories.
She found herself comparing her younger son to Takeo. If her cousin had had the same upbringing, if the Kikuta had known about him from birth, he would have been one of the Tribe, like her children, like herself, ruthless, obedient, unquestioning. . . .
Except, she thought, I am questioning. I don’t even think I’m obedient anymore. And what happened to my ruthlessness? I will never kill Takeo or do anything to hurt Kaede. They can’t make me. I was sent to serve her and I came to love her. I gave her my complete allegiance and I won’t take it back. I told her at Inuyama that even women could act with honor.
She thought again of Ishida and wondered if gentleness and compassion were contagious and she had caught them from him. And then she thought of the other, deeper secret she held within her. Where had her obedience been then?
The Festival of the Weaver Star fell on a rainy night. The children were dismayed, for the clouded sky meant that the magpies could not build a bridge across heaven for the princess to meet her lover. She would miss their one meeting and be separated from him for another year.
Shizuka took it as a bad omen, and her depression increased.
Occasionally messengers came from Yamagata and beyond. They brought news of Takeo’s marriage to Kaede, their flight from Terayama, the outcasts’ bridge, and the defeat of Jin-emon. The maids marveled at what seemed to them like something from an ancient legend and made up songs about it. Kenji and Shizuka discussed these events at night, both torn by the same mixture of dismay and unwilling admiration. Then the young couple and their army moved into Maruyama and news of them dwindled, though reports came from time to time of Takeo’s campaign against the Tribe.
“It seems he has learned ruthlessness,” her uncle said to her, but they did not discuss it further. Kenji had other preoccupations. He did not speak of Yuki again, but when the seventh month passed and no news had come of her, the whole household entered a time of waiting. Everyone was anxious for this Muto child, the master’s first grandchild, who had been claimed by the Kikuta and would be brought up by them.
One afternoon just before the Festival of the Dead, Shizuka walked up to the waterfall. It was a day of oppressive heat with no wind, and she sat with her feet in the cool water. The cascade was white against the gray rocks, and the spray caught rainbows. Cicadas droned in the cedars, rasping her nerves. Through their monotonous sound she heard her younger son approaching, though she pretended not to; just at the last moment, when he thought he would surprise her, she reached out and caught him behind the knees. She pulled him into her lap.
“You heard me,” he said, disappointed.
“You were making more noise than a wild boar.”
“I was not!”
“Maybe I have something of the Kikuta hearing,” she teased him.
“I have that.”
“I know. And I think it will become even sharper as you grow older.” She opened his palm and traced the line that ran straight across it. “You and I have the same hands.”
“Like Takeo,” he said with pride.
“What do you know about Takeo?” she said, smiling.
“He’s Kikuta too. Uncle Kenji told us about him: how he can do things no one else can do, even though he was impossible to teach, Uncle says.” He paused for a moment and then said in a small voice, “I wish we didn’t have to kill him.”
“How do you know that? Did Uncle tell you that too?”
“I heard it. I hear lots of things. People don’t know I’m there.”
“Were you sent to find me?” she asked, reminding herself to share no secrets in her grandparents’ house without checking where her son was first.
“Not exactly. No one told me to come, but I think you should go home.”
“What’s happened?”
“Aunt Seiko came. She is very unhappy. And Uncle—” He broke off and stared at her. “I have never seen him like that before.”
Yuki, she thought at once. She stood quickly and pulled on her sandals. Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry. If her aunt had come, it could only be bad news—the worst.
Her fears were confirmed by the pall of mourning that seemed to have settled over the whole village. The guards’ faces were pale, and there were no smiles or banter. She did not stop to question them but hurried to her grandparents’ house. The women of the village had already gathered, leaving fires unlit and the evening meal uncooked. She pushed her way through them as they muttered words of sympathy and condolences. Inside, her aunt, Kenji’s wife, knelt on the floor next to her grandmother, surrounded by the household women. Her face was drawn, her eyes red, her body shaking with deep sobbing.
“Aunt!” Shizuka knelt before her and bowed deeply. “What happened?”
Seiko took her hand and gripped it hard but could not speak.
“Yuki passed away,” her grandmother said quietly.
“And the baby?”
“The baby is well; it’s a boy.”
“I am so sorry,” Shizuka said. “Childbirth . . .”
Her aunt was racked by even fiercer sobs.
“It was not childbirth,” the old woman said, putting her arms around Seiko and rocking her like a child.
“Where is my uncle?”
“In the next room, with his father. Go to him. Maybe you can comfort him.”
Shizuka rose and went quietly to the next room, feeling her eyes grow hot with unshed tears.
Kenji sat unmoving next to his father in the dim room. All the shutters were closed and it was stifling. The old man had tears trickling down his face; every now and then he raised his sleeve to wipe them away, but her uncle’s eyes were dry.
“Uncle,” she whispered.
He did not move for a while. She knelt silently. Then he turned his head and looked at her.
“Shizuka,” he said. His eyes went bright as tears sprang into them but did not fall. “My wife is here; did you see her?”
She nodded.
“Our daughter is dead.”
“It’s terrible news,” she said. “I am so sorry for your loss.” The phrases seemed useless and empty of meaning.
He did not say anything else. Eventually she dared to ask, “How did it happen?”
“The Kikuta killed her. They made her take poison.” He spoke as if he did not believe his own words.
Shizuka herself could not believe them. Despite the heat she felt chilled to the bone. “Why? How could they do such a thing?”
“They did not trust her to keep the child from Takeo or to bring him up to hate his father.”
She had thought nothing could shock her about the Tribe, but this revelation made her heart nearly stop beating and her voice disappear.
“Who knows, perhaps they also wanted to punish me,” he said. “My wife blames me: for not going after Takeo myself, for knowing nothing of Shigeru’s records, for spoiling Yuki when she was a child.”
“Don’t speak of these things now,” she said. “You cannot blame yourself.”
He was staring into the distance. She wondered what he was seeing.
“They did not have to kill her,” he said. “I will never forgive them for that.” His voice broke, and though his face was clenched, the tears fell then.
THE FESTIVAL of the Dead was celebrated with more than usual solemnity and grief. Food was placed at the mountain shrines and bonfires lit on the peaks to light the way back to the world
of the dead. Yet the dead seemed reluctant to return. They wanted to stay with the living and remind them over and again of the ways they had died and their need for remorse, for revenge.
Kenji and his wife brought no comfort to each other, unable to draw close in their grief, each blaming the other for Yuki’s death. Shizuka spent many hours with each of them, unable to give them any consolation but her presence. Her grandmother brewed calming teas for Seiko, and the woman slept long and often, but Kenji would take nothing to dull his pain, and Shizuka often sat with him until late at night, listening to him talk about his daughter.
“I brought her up like a son,” he said one night. “She was so talented. And fearless. My wife thinks I gave her too much freedom. She blames me for treating her like a boy. Yuki became too independent; she thought she could do anything. In the end, Shizuka, she’s dead because she was a woman.” After a moment he added, “Probably the only woman I’ve ever really loved.” In an unexpected gesture of affection, he reached out and touched her arm. “Forgive me. I am of course very fond of you.”
“As I am of you,” she replied. “I wish I could ease your grief.”
“Well, nothing can ease it,” he said. “I will never get over it. I must either follow her into death or live with it as we all must live with grief. In the meantime . . .” He sighed deeply.
The rest of the household had retired. It was a little cooler, and the screens stood open to catch the slight breeze that now and then crept down the mountain. A single lamp burned at Kenji’s side. Shizuka moved slightly so she could see something of his face.
“What?” she prompted.
He seemed to change the subject. “I sacrificed Shigeru to the Kikuta for the sake of unity. Now they have taken my daughter from me too.” Again he fell silent.
“What do you plan to do?”
“The boy is my grandchild—the only one I’ll ever have. I find it hard to accept that he’s lost to the Muto completely. I imagine his father will have a certain interest in him, too, if I know Takeo. I said before that I would not seek Takeo’s death; that’s partly why I’ve been hiding out here all summer. Now I will go further: I want the Muto family to come to an agreement with him, to make a truce.”
“And go against the Kikuta?”
“I will never do anything in agreement with them again. If Takeo can destroy them, I will do everything in my power to help him.”
She saw something in his face and knew he was hoping Takeo would give him the revenge he craved. “You will destroy the Tribe,” she whispered.
“We are already destroying ourselves,” he said bleakly. “Moreover, everything is changing around us. I believe we are at the end of an era. When this war is over, whoever is the victor will rule over the whole of the Three Countries. Takeo wants to gain his inheritance and punish Shigeru’s uncles, but whoever leads the Otori, Arai will have to fight them: Either the Otori clan must conquer or they must be utterly defeated and wiped out, for there will be no peace while they simmer on the border.”
“The Kikuta seem to be favoring the Otori lords against Takeo?”
“Yes, I’ve heard Kotaro himself is in Hagi. I believe in the long run, despite his apparent strength, Arai will not succeed against the Otori. They have a certain legitimacy to claim the Three Countries, you know, because of their ancestral link with the emperor’s house. Shigeru’s sword, Jato, was forged and given in recognition of that, hundreds of years ago.”
He fell silent and a slight smile curved his lips.
“But the sword found Takeo. It did not go to Shoichi or Masahiro.” He turned to her and the smile deepened. “I’m going to tell you a story. You may know that I met Shigeru at Yaegahara. I was about twenty-five; he must have been nineteen. I was working as a spy and secret messenger for the Noguchi, who were allies of the Otori then. I already knew that they would change sides during the battle and turn on their former allies, giving the victory to Iida and causing the deaths of thousands of men. I’ve always been detached from the rights and wrongs of our trade, but the depths of treachery fascinate me. There is something appalling about the realization of betrayal that I like to observe. I wanted to see Otori Shigemori’s face when the Noguchi turned on him.
“So, for this rather base motive, I was there in the thick of the battle. Most of the time I was invisible. I have to say, there was something intensely exciting about being in the midst of the fray, unseen. I saw Shigemori; I saw the expression on his face when he realized all was lost. I saw him fall. His sword, which was well known and which many desired, flew from his hands at the moment of death and fell at my feet. I picked it up. It took on my invisibility and seemed to cleave to my hand. It was still warm from its master’s grip. It told me that I had to protect it and find its true owner.”
“It spoke to you?”
“That’s the only way I can describe it. After Shigemori died, the Otori went into a state of mad desperation. The battle raged for another couple of hours, which I spent looking for Shigeru. I knew him: I’d seen him once before, a few years earlier, when he was training in the mountains with Matsuda. It wasn’t until the fighting was over that I came upon him. By then Iida’s men were searching for him everywhere. If he could be declared dead in battle, it would be convenient for everyone.
“I found him by a small spring. He was quite alone and was preparing to take his own life, washing the blood from his face and hands and scenting his hair and beard with perfume. He had taken off his helmet and loosened his armor. He seemed as calm as if he were about to bathe in the spring.
“The sword said to me, ‘This is my master,’ so I called to him, ‘Lord Otori!’ and when he turned I let him see me and held the sword out to him.
“ ‘Jato,’ he greeted it, took the sword in both hands, and bowed deeply. Then he looked at the sword and looked at me and seemed to come out of the trance he was in.
“I said something like ‘Don’t kill yourself,’ and then, as if the sword spoke through me, ‘Live and get revenge,’ and he smiled and leaped to his feet, the sword in his hand. I helped him get away and took him back to his mother’s house in Hagi. By the time we got there we had become friends.”
“I often wondered how you met,” Shizuka said. “So you saved his life.”
“Not I but Jato. This is the way it goes from hand to hand. Takeo has it because Yuki gave it to him in Inuyama. And because of her disobedience then the Kikuta started to distrust her.”
“How strange are the ways of fate,” Shizuka murmured.
“Yes, there is some bond between us all that I cannot fight. It’s mainly because Jato chose Takeo, through my daughter, that I feel we must work with him. Apart from that, I can keep my promise never to harm him and maybe make amends for the role I played in Shigeru’s death.” He paused and then said in a low voice, “I did not see the look on his face when Takeo and I did not return that night in Inuyama, but it is the expression he wears when he visits me in dreams.”
Neither of them said anything for a few moments. A sudden flash of lightning lit the room, and Shizuka could hear thunder rolling in the mountains. Kenji went on: “I hope your Kikuta blood will not take you from us now.”
“No, your decision is a relief to me because it means I can keep faith with Kaede. I’m sorry, but I would never have done anything to hurt either of them.”
Her admission made him smile again. “So I have always thought. Not only because of your affection for Kaede—I know how strong your feelings were for both Shigeru and Lady Maruyama, and the part you played in the alliance with Arai.” Kenji was looking at her closely. “Shizuka, you did not seem completely surprised when I told you about Shigeru’s records. I have been trying to deduce who his informant in the Tribe might have been.”
She was trembling despite herself. Her disobedience—treachery, to give it its true name—was about to be disclosed. She could not imagine what the Tribe would do to her.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Kenji went on.
“Uncle,” she began.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said quickly. “I will never speak of it to another soul. But I would like to know why.”
“It was after Yaegahara,” she said. “I gave the information to Iida that Shigeru was seeking alliances with the Seishuu. Shigeru confided in Arai, and I passed the information on. It was because of me that the Tohan triumphed, because of me that ten thousand died on the battlefield and countless others afterward from torture and starvation. I watched Shigeru in the years following and was filled with admiration for his patience and fortitude. He seemed to me the only good man I had ever met, and I had played a leading part in his downfall. So I resolved to help him, to make amends. He asked me many things about the Tribe, and I told him everything I could. It was not hard to keep it secret—it was what I had been trained to do.” She paused and then said, “I am afraid you will be very angry.”
He shook his head. “I should be, I suppose. If I had found out anytime before this, I would have had to order your punishment and death.” He was gazing at her with admiration. “Truly you have the Kikuta gift of fearlessness. In fact I am glad you did what you did. You helped Shigeru, and now that legacy protects Takeo. It may even make amends for my own betrayal.”
“Will you go to Takeo now?”
“I was hoping to have a little more news. Kondo should return soon. Otherwise, yes, I will go to Maruyama.”
“Send a messenger—send me. It’s too dangerous to go yourself. But will Takeo trust anyone from the Tribe?”
“Maybe we will both go. And we will take your sons.”
She gazed steadily at him. A mosquito was whining near her hair, but she did not brush it away.
“They will be our guarantee to him,” Kenji said quietly.
Lightning flashed again; the thunder was closer. Suddenly rain began to fall heavily. It poured from the eaves, and the smell of wet earth sprang from the garden.