Autumn Princess, Dragon Child

by Lian Hearn

  “The wolf has grown more real,” Shika said. Gen snarled at Sademasa’s intense stare and showed his teeth. “You see, it snarls, it will bite, it feeds on meat.”

  “Can it die? Would these men die?”

  “They can only be destroyed by fire. Any other damage can be patched up. They are not truly alive, therefore they cannot die.”

  “Well, I will have this one taken apart so I can see its workings.”

  Gen gave a sharp howl, and Sademasa leaned forward. “How interesting. It understands every word, doesn’t it? I look forward to its dissection. Maybe it will tell me itself how it was made.” Sademasa smiled in satisfaction. “Nobuto said you also have the magic mask, the one the monk would not let me see before.”

  Shika bowed his head. Kiku! Hurry up or Gen and I will both be dissected!

  “Show it to me,” Sademasa commanded.

  Shika drew it carefully from the seven-layered bag and held it up with both hands, the face turned to Sademasa. Stillness fell as, one by one, the men in the room became aware of its power. Even Sademasa was silenced. Eventually he said, “Give it to me.”

  “Uncle, it will burn anyone who tries to wear it, except me.”

  Sademasa pursed his lips as he considered this.

  “Fetch the traitor’s son,” he ordered, and Nobuto and another retainer left the room. They returned, after a few moments, dragging between them a young man the same age as Shika. It was his childhood friend Nagatomo.

  He had been beaten so badly he could not stand. His arms were pinioned behind his back. Blood stained his face and hair. When the men released him he fell to the ground. Nobuto kicked him. He groaned but did not scream.

  Shika’s heart hardened immediately as horror, pity, and rage filled it.

  Sademasa said to Nobuto, “Place the mask on his face and we will see if the vagabond is telling the truth.”

  “It will burn him,” Shika warned again.

  Nobuto smiled slightly, as if the prospect amused and pleased him. Sademasa leaned forward with cold curiosity.

  Shika rose, intending to throw himself on his uncle and kill him with his bare hands, but two of Sademasa’s warriors seized him and held him down.

  One retainer held Nagatomo’s face upward and Nobuto pressed the mask against it. A scream of such pain erupted from the lips that even the most brutal retainers shuddered. Nagatomo writhed helplessly against the restraining grip. The smell of seared flesh filled the room.

  Through the screams Shika heard something else, a voice that sounded like the dead Naganori.

  “Sademasa,” it called, “I am waiting for you!”

  A ripple of shock ran through the room as the men registered the voice, but, before anyone could act, a high-pitched buzzing came from the roof. Shika looked up and saw a crack open in the ceiling and the sparrow bee burst through it.

  Naganori’s voice called again, “Sademasa!”

  Sademasa, distracted by the voice, did not notice the sparrow bee until too late. It flew straight to his face and stung him on the lips. He brushed it aside, and it immediately stung his hand. The men holding Shika let go and rushed forward.

  The crack in the ceiling opened wider and through it dropped Shika’s sword, Jinan. He was about to snatch the mask from Nagatomo’s face, but instead he caught the sword by the hilt and raised it to strike Sademasa. But it was not needed. The venom had already done its work. His uncle was scrabbling at his throat with his hands, gasping for breath, his chest heaving against the tightly laced armor, his eyes bulging. He fell forward, his legs jerked and kicked, he lost control of bowel and bladder and the stench in the room grew worse.

  The sparrow bee buzzed angrily as it swooped around, making the retainers shrink from it. One or two of them drew their swords, trying to hit it with the flat of the blade. But they only enraged it further. It had stung two more men, sending them to the same choking death as Sademasa, who now lay unmoving on the floor, before someone thought to unbar the door and the surviving men rushed out.

  Shika stood with sword raised, but no one approached him. Then he went to Nagatomo, whose screams had subsided to moans. Shika removed the mask from his face and looked carefully at the damage. Through the scorched skin the eyes stared back at him, reduced by agony to something scarcely human. Yet they saw Shika, and recognized him, and another light came into them.

  Shika knelt beside him and gently untied his arms, rubbing the numb fingers as the blood rushed back into them. The eyes wept tears of pain.

  “I am sorry,” Shika whispered. “Forgive me. You will not die. We will save you.”

  Kiku and Kuro dropped through the ceiling, restless with delight and triumph. They paid no attention to Nagatomo.

  “That went all right, didn’t it?” Kiku said. “Did you like my voice? I told you we would tease him!”

  “It was my sparrow bee that did it,” Kuro boasted. He inspected the corpses. “I didn’t know it was that poisonous! I hope they don’t kill it. I want it back.”

  “What happens next?” Kiku asked.

  “Now this fortress is mine and everyone in it must obey me,” Shika said. “I have to take control, but first I must help Nagatomo.”

  “Oh,” Kiku said, looking at Nagatomo for the first time. “Is he your friend? What a shame.”

  “Do you have any salve or medicine for this burn?”

  “I only brought poisons,” Kuro said. “I thought we came to kill, not to heal.”

  The fake wolf had wagged his tail at the sight of the boys and now he came closer to Nagatomo, who seemed mercifully to have lost consciousness, and sniffed at the ruined features, licking gently at the tears. Shika pushed him away, but Kiku said, “Let him lick it. Dogs and wolves clean with their tongue. Maybe Gen will help soothe the pain.”

  I cannot delay any longer, Shika thought. He ordered Gen to stay with Nagatomo and went to the door, signaling to the boys to follow.

  “What can you hear, Kiku?”

  “The men are in the inner yard. The one called Nobuto is trying to organize them to attack you. They sound reluctant.”

  “Where’s my bee?” Kuro demanded.

  “It’s buzzing. I can hear it, but I’m not sure where.”

  “If they hurt it I’ll kill them,” Kuro muttered.

  The doors had all been left open as the men fled through them. Sword in hand, Shika strode through the passages and out into the courtyard.

  The milling, arguing warriors fell silent. One or two set arrows to their bows and trained them on him.

  He said, “Kumayama no Jiro no Sademasa, brother of Shigetomo, uncle of Kazumaru, now known as Shikanoko, is dead. No man killed him. He was punished by Heaven for his faithlessness and cruelty. I have returned to take up my inheritance and challenge the tyrants in Miyako and Ryusonji. I will restore the rightful emperor to the throne. Those of you who loved my father and who will serve me, kneel and swear allegiance. Anyone who wants to oppose me can do it now, with the sword.”

  One by one the men put their weapons away and fell to their knees. Only Nobuto remained standing. He looked around and saw he was alone.

  “You cowards!” he screamed. “You forget our lord so quickly? An imposter has scared you with his magic tricks and his accursed creatures. I will prove there is one man left in Kumayama.”

  He rushed at Shika with drawn sword and gave such a slashing blow it would have cut Shika in half had he remained where he was. He leaped sideways, evading the blade, and immediately found himself parrying a frenzied attack. He had killed the two men on the road from a distance, with arrows, and Gessho had already been weakened by poison when he had fought him with the sword. Now he faced a grown man in the prime of life and full strength, a warrior far more experienced than he was, made fearless by desperation.

  None of the watching men made any attempt to help him and he realized he was being put to the test before them. If he won this combat, as a warrior not as a sorcerer, they would follow him unquestioningly.
/>   He had no time for any more thoughts. He was fighting for his life.

  Time halted. Everything else faded away. The only things that existed in the world were his opponent and the swords. He was no longer Shikanoko or Kazumaru or anyone. He was a being of pure instinct and inexhaustible energy, with only one desire—to live. His will flowed through every stroke and every step, unbreakable and irresistible. His opponent was older and stronger, a better fighter in every way, a man who would not give up, even when blood streamed from ten or more cuts. When Nobuto’s right arm was made useless by a slash to the wrist, he switched to the left.

  Shika was also bleeding, and beginning to tire. He hated Nobuto for not surrendering, wondering how long he himself could continue.

  Nobuto stumbled as something buzzed past his ear, distracting him.

  Shika thought, I must kill him before the bee does. He must die by my hand.

  With his last reserves of energy and strength he thrust forward, a clumsy, brutal stroke that, for once, Nobuto did not foresee. In fact, he was moving toward the sword, and his own force thrust himself onto it, taking it deep into his throat and out through the back of his neck.

  His eyes widened as blood gushed from his mouth. His legs gave way as the neck bones shattered. Hatred flashed briefly in his expression and then his soul fled his destroyed body.

  The sparrow bee hurtled toward Shika, making him think he had won the fight only to die the same choking death as his uncle. He stood still, determined to show no fear. The sparrow bee buzzed briefly around his head and, when he did not move, swooped once more over the kneeling men and then flew beyond the palisade toward the forest.

  * * *

  After the bodies were burned and the ashes buried before the ground froze, Shika cleared the fortress of all traces of his uncle, adding his clothes and all his possessions to the fire. Once Nobuto was dead, the men were all ready to serve Shika, and within a few days he took half of them with him to Kuromori. They surprised the small besieging Miboshi force, killing them all. After relieving Kongyo and his men, Shika would have advanced on Matsutani, but the first snowfall of the year made him retreat to Kumayama for the winter.

  As Kongyo had advised him, the snow would protect him, but, within the fortress, he had another problem, the women: Sademasa’s wife, several concubines, and children. He did not know what to do with them.

  “You should be ruthless,” advised Kiku, who seemed to have absorbed the essential elements of warrior culture in a few weeks. “They will only create more trouble for you later.”

  “Your uncle would have killed you,” Kuro added.

  “Yes!” Kiku exclaimed. “And look what happened because he did not. That proves my argument.”

  “They are my cousins,” Shika said. “If I spare them and bring them up, they will be grateful and loyal.”

  “I would hate any man who spared my life,” Kiku said.

  “Me, too,” Kuro agreed.

  “But why? Wouldn’t you be grateful?”

  Kiku frowned. “I would feel in his power, as if I owed him something. I couldn’t bear it.”

  “We could kill them,” Kuro offered. “It would be good practice and I could try out some of the other insects.”

  The fortress was freezing, despite braziers placed here and there, and the boys’ words and their calm faces made Shika feel even colder. He forbade them curtly to do any such thing, yet over the winter, one by one, the children died. Two suffered vomiting and diarrhea, one bled to death from mysterious puncture holes as if she had been attacked by leeches, one had convulsions, another croup. Of the women, two begged to be allowed to shave their heads and become nuns, one went mad after the death of her child and ran out into the forest. They found the body half-eaten by wolves in the spring. The others, including Sademasa’s wife, took their own lives, like warrior women, with a knife in the throat.

  From this Shika learned that the boys did not obey what he said but followed what they perceived were his secret desires and were themselves unmoved by compassion or pity. He was torn between regret at the deaths and relief that the problem was solved in a way that gave him a reputation for ruthlessness.

  9

  HINA

  Hina had been in Nishimi for four months. She was kept busy with the endless lessons that Takaakira had arranged for her: lute, poetry, classics, history, literature, genealogy. Mostly she enjoyed them, and she worked hard at her studies, practicing music daily and writing poems in reply to the ones Takaakira sent her. He returned hers with corrections and suggestions, which both annoyed and saddened her but also made her determined to write just one with which he could find no fault.

  He supervised her progress, coming to her rooms every afternoon to listen to her sing and play. He did not praise her often, with the result that she remained unaware of her gifts and retained the unself-consciousness of a child.

  Her teachers were the two elegant women who had come from Miyako, across Lake Kasumi. The younger one, Sadako, provided instruction in poetry and music, while Masako, older and stricter, was an expert in classics and history and had a passion for genealogy. Both women brought their own servants. Bara looked after Hina, and there were also cooks and maids, grooms and gardeners, and various warriors, Takaakira’s retainers, who had appropriated the long, low building to the left of the stables as their quarters. They challenged one another to horse races and archery competitions, went hunting in the forest and along the lakeshore, and kept themselves busy while waiting hopefully for orders to attack the Kakizuki forces, who had retreated to Rakuhara, several days’ journey farther west.

  The house was built in the style of a country palace, both rustic and luxurious. Its rooms stood around three sides of a square whose fourth side was open to the lake to capture cool breezes off the water in summer. On the west a bamboo grove, with a garden in front of it, shaded the residence from the setting sun. A stream had been diverted from the lake to flow through the garden. To the north was a stretch of pasture where many horses were kept; the stables stood on its edge, facing south to keep the horses warm in winter.

  The lake itself protected the house from the dangerous northeast, and a shrine stood on the shore where, Hina had learned, the Lake Goddess was worshipped and honored with offerings of wine, fruit, and rice.

  Mostly the shore was sandy, but the house was built on an elevated piece of land, where cliffs rose above the lake and the water below was deep. Wooden steps led down over the boulders to a jetty, where fishing vessels were tied up and trading boats came whenever the weather permitted.

  Lady Masako told Hina that the beautiful house had belonged to a nobleman, Hidetake, who was a close friend of the former Crown Prince, and held a high position in the court when it was under Kakizuki sway. His wife, Masako told her, had been wet nurse and foster mother to the Prince’s son, Yoshimori, who was now, some still dared think, though not say openly anywhere east of Rakuhara, the true emperor, if he was still alive.

  Masako was careful to emphasize that this was an error, that the current emperor, the nephew of the Prince Abbot, was legitimate and blessed by Heaven, but her devotion to the truth would not allow her to omit the other line altogether.

  Even in Nishimi, far removed from the capital, they could not escape the disasters that had afflicted the country since the death of the Crown Prince and the defeat of the Kakizuki. The estate had once been prosperous and had cultivated wet and dry fields of rice, millet, beans, and taro and hundreds of mulberry, apricot, persimmon, and mandarin trees. It had raised silkworms and woven silk, and had traded its own produce, and goods from the west, across the lake with the merchants of Miyako and Kitakami. Now it had fallen into disrepair, hit by the natural disasters and the defection of most of its stewards and managers. Takaakira spent the first months he was there trying to organize replacements, save what he could of the harvest, and prepare the house for winter.

  One day, in the eleventh month, a messenger came by horse from Miyako, wearing Lo
rd Aritomo’s crest on his surcoat.

  “His Lordship will be returning to the capital, no doubt,” Bara said as she combed Hina’s hair in preparation for Takaakira’s afternoon visit.

  “Why? I thought we were staying here all winter,” Hina said.

  “Lord Aritomo isn’t going to keep his most important retainer buried in the country forever, is he? But he won’t take you with him. You will stay here, where you are safe.”

  “I wish I could go home, to my real home,” Hina said wistfully.

  “Don’t fret, my chick—I mean, Lady Hina—you are luckier than most.”

  Bara often called her pet names and treated her like her younger sister, but not in the presence of the teachers or Takaakira.

  When Takaakira came, he seemed preoccupied and reluctant to leave. Hina played for him, and sang an imayo that Sadako told her had been popular in the court a few years before. She read to him from a book of poems, but nothing penetrated his dark mood.

  “Do you still have your Kudzu Vine Treasure Store?” he interrupted.

  “Yes,” she said. “I try to read a little every day. Shall I fetch it now?”

  “No, I just wanted to know it was safe. And the box, do you still have that?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He nodded, without saying anything. Then he remarked, “It has been very cold today. It will be snowing in the mountains, and in my country, in the north. Bara must take great care of you, so you do not fall sick. No one must come in here unless they have been purified and prayed over.”

  “I wish you did not have to go away,” Hina said.

  “I wish it, too, my dear child. I don’t want to leave you. I will find out what Lord Aritomo wants and return as soon as I can. But I am afraid it may not be before spring.”

  * * *

  Hina missed him. The palace seemed empty without his presence and, though her lessons continued in the same manner, she was less inspired to study hard without his criticism and occasional admiration. Apart from music, which she truly loved—she would play the lute all day if she could—her attention wandered. She began to dwell on the past in a way she had not allowed herself until now. She recalled her life at Matsutani, the games with her little brother, Tsumaru, and Haru’s children, Kaze and Chika. She missed the outdoor pastimes, the horses her father taught her to ride, the dogs that ran through the woods with them. She missed the Darkwood itself, its mysterious presence always around them. She began to sing the songs and ballads she had learned at Haru’s knee after her mother died, and often she included the lament for the dragon’s child, who in her mind had become one with Tsumaru.