by Lian Hearn
“You know about these things. You said you have two sons?”
“Yes. Arai’s children.”
“Where are they?”
“With my grandparents. He does not know where they are.”
“Hasn’t he acknowledged them?”
“He was interested enough in them until he married and had a son by his legal wife,” Shizuka said. “Then, since my sons are older, he began to see them as a threat to his heir. I realized what he was thinking and took them away to a hidden village the Muto family have. He must never know where they are.”
Kaede shivered despite the heat. “You think he would harm them?”
“It would not be the first time a lord, a warrior, had done so,” Shizuka replied bitterly.
“I am afraid of my father,” Kaede said. “What will he do to me?”
Shizuka whispered, “Suppose Lord Shigeru, fearing Iida’s treachery, insisted on a secret marriage at Terayama, the day we visited the temple. Your kinswoman, Lady Maruyama, and her companion, Sachie, were the witnesses, but they did not live.”
“I cannot lie to the world in that way,” Kaede began.
Shizuka hushed her. “You do not need to say anything. It has all been hidden. You are following your late husband’s wishes. I will let it be known, as if inadvertently. You’ll see how these men can’t keep a secret among themselves.”
“What about documents, proof?”
“They were lost when Inuyama fell, along with everything else. The child will be Shigeru’s. If it is a boy, it will be the heir to the Otori.”
“That is too far in the future to think about,” Kaede said quickly. “Don’t tempt fate.” For Shigeru’s real unborn child came into her mind, the one that had perished silently within its mother’s body in the waters of the river at Inuyama. She prayed that its ghost would not be jealous, she prayed her own child would live.
Before the end of the week the sickness had eased a little. Kaede’s breasts swelled, her nipples ached, and she became suddenly, urgently hungry at unexpected times, but otherwise she began to feel well, better than she had ever felt in her life. Her senses were heightened almost as if the child shared its gifts with her. She noted with amazement how Shizuka’s secret information spread through the men as, one by one, they began to address her as Lady Otori, in lowered voices and with averted eyes. The pretense made her uneasy, but she went along with it, not knowing what else to do.
She studied the men carefully, trying to discern which was the member of the Tribe who would protect Shizuka when the moment came. Shizuka had regained her cheerfulness and laughed and joked with them all equally, and they all responded, with different emotions ranging from appreciation to desire, but not one of them seemed to be particularly vigilant.
Because they rarely looked at Kaede directly, they would have been surprised at how well she came to know them. She could distinguish each of them in the dark by his tread or his voice, sometimes even by his smell. She gave them names: Scar, Squint, Silent, Long Arm.
Long Arm’s smell was of the hot spiced oil that the men used to flavor their rice. His voice was low, roughly accented. He had a look about him that suggested insolence to her, a sort of irony that annoyed her. He was of medium build, with a high forehead and eyes that bulged a little and were so black he seemed to have no pupils. He had a habit of screwing them up and then sniffing with a flick of his head. His arms were abnormally long and his hands big. If anyone were going to murder a woman, Kaede thought, it would be him.
In the second week a sudden storm delayed them in a small village. Confined by the rain to the narrow, uncomfortable room, Kaede was restless. She was tormented by thoughts of her mother. When she sought her in her mind she met nothing but darkness. She tried to recall her face but could not. Nor could she summon up her sisters’ appearance. The youngest would be almost nine. If her mother, as she feared, was dead, she would have to take her place, be a mother to her sisters, run the household, overseeing the cooking, cleaning, weaving, and sewing that were the year-round chores of women, taught to girls by their mothers and aunts and grandmothers. She knew nothing of such things. When she had been a hostage she had been neglected by the Noguchi family. They had taught her so little; all she had learned was how to survive on her own in the castle while she ran around like a maid, waiting on the armed men. Well, she would have to learn these practical skills. The child gave her feelings and instincts she had not known before: the instinct to take care of her people. She thought of the Shirakawa retainers, men like Shoji Kiyoshi and Amano Tenzo, who had come with her father when he had visited her at Noguchi Castle, and the servants of the house, like Ayame, whom she had missed almost as much as her mother when she had been taken away at seven years old. Was Ayame still alive? Would she still remember the girl she had looked after? Kaede was returning, ostensibly married and widowed, another man dead on her account, and she was pregnant. What would her welcome be at her parents’ home?
The delay irritated the men too. She knew they were anxious to be done with this tiresome duty, impatient to return to the battles that were their real work, their life. They wanted to be part of Arai’s victories over the Tohan in the East, not far away from the action in the West, looking after women.
Arai was only one of them, she thought wonderingly. How had he suddenly become so powerful? What did he have that made these men, each of them adult, physically strong, want to follow and obey him? She remembered again his swift ruthlessness when he had cut the throat of the guard who had attacked her in Noguchi Castle. He would not hesitate to kill any one of these men in the same way. Yet, it was not fear that made them obey him. Was it a sort of trust in that ruthlessness, in that willingness to act immediately, whether the act was right or wrong? Would they ever trust a woman in that way? Could she command men as he did? Would warriors like Shoji and Amano obey her?
The rain stopped and they moved on. The storm had cleared the last of the humidity and the days that followed were brilliant, the sky huge and blue above the mountain peaks where every day the maples showed more red. The nights grew cooler, already with a hint of the frost to come.
The journey wound on and the days became long and tiring. Finally one morning Shizuka said, “This is the last pass. Tomorrow we will be at Shirakawa.”
They were descending a steep path, so densely carpeted with pine needles the horses’ feet made no noise. Shizuka was walking alongside Raku while Kaede rode. Beneath the pines and cedars it was dark, but a little ahead of them the sun slanted through a bamboo grove, casting a dappled, greenish light.
“Have you been on this road before?” Kaede asked.
“Many times. The first time was years ago. I was sent to Kumamoto to work for the Arai family when I was younger than you are now. The old lord was still alive then. He kept his sons under an iron rule, but the oldest—Daiichi is his given name—still found ways to take the maids to bed. I resisted him for a long time; it’s not easy, as you know, for girls living in castles. I was determined he would not forget me as quickly as he forgot most of them. And naturally I was also under instructions from my family, the Muto.”
“So you were spying on him all that time,” Kaede murmured.
“Certain people were interested in the Arai allegiances, particularly in Daiichi, before he went to the Noguchi.”
“Certain people meaning Iida?”
“Of course. It was part of the settlement with the Seishuu clan after Yaegahara. Arai was reluctant to serve Noguchi. He disliked Iida and thought Noguchi a traitor, but he was compelled to obey.”
“You worked for Iida?”
“You know who I work for,” Shizuka said quietly. “Always in the first instance for the Muto family, for the Tribe. Iida employed many of the Muto at that time.”
“I’ll never understand it,” Kaede said. The alliances of her class were complex enough, with new ones being formed through marriage, old ones maintained by hostages, allegiances being broken by sudden insults or feud
s or sheer opportunism. Yet, these seemed straightforward compared to the intrigues of the Tribe. The unpleasant thought that Shizuka only stayed with her on orders from the Muto family came to her again.
“Are you spying on me?”
Shizuka made a sign with her hand to silence her. The men rode ahead and behind, out of earshot, Kaede thought.
“Are you?”
Shizuka put her hand on the horse’s shoulder. Kaede looked down on the back of her head, the white nape of her neck beneath the dark hair. Her head was turned away so Kaede could not see her face. Shizuka kept pace with the horse as it stepped down the slope, swinging its haunches to keep its balance. Kaede leaned forward and tried to speak quietly. “Tell me.”
Then the horse startled and plunged suddenly. Kaede’s forward movement turned into a sudden downward dive.
I’m going to fall, she thought in amazement, and the ground rushed up toward her as she and Shizuka fell together.
The horse was jumping sideways as it tried not to step on them. Kaede was aware of more confusion, a greater danger.
“Shizuka!” she cried.
“Keep down,” the girl replied, and pushed her to the ground, but Kaede struggled to look.
There were men on the path ahead, two of them; wild bandits by the look of them, with drawn swords. She felt for her knife, longed for a sword or a pole at least, remembered her promise, all in a split second before she heard the thrum of a bowstring. An arrow flew past the horse’s ears, making it jump and buck again.
There was a brief cry and one man fell at her feet, blood streaming from where the arrow had pierced his neck.
The second man faltered for a moment. The horse plunged sideways, knocking him off balance. He swung his sword in a desperate sideways slice at Shizuka, then Long Arm was on him, coming up under the blow with almost supernatural speed, his sword’s tip seeming to find its own way into the man’s throat.
The men in front turned and ran back, those behind came milling forward. Shizuka had caught the horse by the bridle and was calming it.
Long Arm helped Kaede to her feet. “Don’t be alarmed, Lady Otori,” he said in his rough accent, the smell of pepper oil strong on his breath. “They were just brigands.”
Just brigands? Kaede thought. They had died so suddenly and with so much blood. Brigands, maybe, but in whose pay?
The men took their weapons and drew lots for them, then threw the bodies into the undergrowth. It was impossible to tell if any one of them had anticipated the attack or was disappointed in its failure. They seemed to show more deference to Long Arm, and she realized they were impressed by the swiftness of his reaction and his fighting skills, but otherwise they acted as if it was a normal occurrence, one of the hazards of travel. One or two of them joked with Shizuka that the bandits wanted her as a wife, and she answered in the same vein, adding that the forest was full of such desperate men, but even a bandit had more chance with her than any of the escort.
“I would never have picked your defender,” Kaede said later. “In fact, quite the opposite. He was the one I suspected would kill you with those big hands of his.”
Shizuka laughed. “He’s quite a clever fellow, and a ruthless fighter. It’s easy to misjudge or underestimate him. You were not the only person surprised by him. Were you afraid at that moment?”
Kaede tried to remember. “No, mainly because there was no time. I wished I had a sword.”
Shizuka said, “You have the gift of courage.”
“It’s not true. I am often afraid.”
“No one would ever guess,” Shizuka murmured. They had come to an inn in a small town on the border of the Shirakawa domain. Kaede had been able to bathe in the hot spring, and she was now in her night attire, waiting for the evening meal to be brought. Her welcome at the inn had been perfunctory, and the town itself made her uneasy. There seemed to be little food, and the people were sullen and dispirited.
She was bruised down one side from the fall, and she feared for the child. She was also nervous about meeting her father. Would he believe she had married Lord Otori? She could not imagine his fury if he discovered the truth.
“I don’t feel very brave at the moment,” she confessed.
Shizuka said, “I’ll massage your head. You look exhausted.”
But even as she leaned back and enjoyed the feeling of the girl’s fingers against her scalp Kaede’s misgivings increased. She remembered what they had been talking about at the moment of the attack.
“You will be home tomorrow,” Shizuka said, feeling her tension. “The journey is nearly over.”
“Shizuka, answer me truthfully: What’s the real reason you stay with me? Is it to spy on me? Who employs the Muto now?”
“No one employs us at the moment. Iida’s downfall has thrown the whole of the Three Countries into confusion. Arai is saying he will wipe out the Tribe. We don’t know yet if he is serious or if he will come to his senses and work with us. In the meantime my uncle, Kenji, who admires Lady Shirakawa greatly, wants to be kept informed of her welfare and her intentions.”
And of my child, Kaede thought, but did not speak it. Instead she asked, “My intentions?”
“You are heir to one of the richest and most powerful domains in the West, Maruyama, as well as to your own estate of Shirakawa. Whoever you marry will become a key player in the future of the Three Countries. At the moment everyone assumes you will maintain the alliance with Arai, strengthening his position in the West while he settles the Otori question; your destiny is closely linked with the Otori clan and with the Middle Country too.”
“I may marry no one,” Kaede said, half to herself. And in that case, she was thinking, why should I not become a key player myself?
·3·
The sounds of the temple at Terayama, the midnight bell, the chanting of the monks, faded from my hearing as I followed the two masters, Kikuta Kotaro and Muto Kenji, down a lonely path, steep and overgrown, alongside the stream. We went swiftly, the noise of the tumbling water hiding our footsteps. We said little and we saw no one.
By the time we came to Yamagata, it was nearly dawn and the first cocks were crowing. The streets of the town were deserted, though the curfew was lifted and the Tohan no longer there to patrol them. We came to a merchant’s house in the middle of the town, not far from the inn where we had stayed during the Festival of the Dead. I already knew the street from when I had explored the town at night. It seemed a lifetime ago.
Kenji’s daughter, Yuki, opened the gate as though she had been waiting for us all night, even though we came so silently that not a dog barked. She said nothing, but I caught the intensity in the look she gave me. Her face, her vivid eyes, her graceful, muscular body, brought back all too clearly the terrible events at Inuyama the night Shigeru died. I had half-expected to see her at Terayama, for it was she who had traveled day and night to take Shigeru’s head to the temple and break the news of his death. There were many things I would have liked to have questioned her about: her journey, the uprising at Yamagata, the overthrow of the Tohan. As her father and the Kikuta master went ahead into the house, I lingered a little so that she and I stepped up on to the veranda together. A low light was burning by the doorway.
She said, “I did not expect to see you alive again.”
“I did not expect to live.” Remembering her skill and her ruthlessness, I added, “I owe you a huge debt. I can never repay you.”
She smiled. “I was repaying debts of my own. You owe me nothing. But I hope we will be friends.”
The word did not seem strong enough to describe what we already were. She had brought Shigeru’s sword, Jato, to me and had helped me in his rescue and revenge: the most important and most desperate acts of my life. I was filled with gratitude for her, mingled with admiration.
She disappeared for a moment and came back with water. I washed my feet, listening to the two masters talking within the house. They planned to rest for a few hours, then I would travel on with Kot
aro. I shook my head wearily. I was tired of listening.
“Come,” she said, and led me into the center of the house, where, as in Inuyama, there was a concealed room as narrow as an eel’s bed.
“Am I a prisoner again?” I said, looking around at the windowless walls.
“No, it’s only for your own safety, to rest for a few hours. Then you will travel on.”
“I know; I heard.”
“Of course,” she said. “I forgot: You hear everything.”
“Too much,” I said, sitting down on the mattress that was already spread out on the floor.
“Gifts are hard. But it’s better to have them than not. I’ll get you some food, and tea is ready.”
She came back in a few moments. I drank the tea but could not face food. “There’s no hot water to bathe,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll live.” Twice already she had bathed me. Once here, in Yamagata, when I did not know who she was and she had scrubbed my back and massaged my temples, and then again in Inuyama, when I could barely walk. The memory came flooding over me. Her gaze met mine, and I knew she was thinking of the same thing. Then she looked away and said quietly, “I’ll leave you to sleep.”
I placed my knife close to the mattress and slid beneath the quilt without bothering to undress. I thought of what Yuki had said about gifts. I did not think I would ever be as happy again as I had been in the village where I was born, Mino—but in Mino I was a child, and now the village was destroyed, my family all dead. I knew I must not dwell on the past. I had agreed to come to the Tribe. It was because of my gifts that they wanted me so badly, and it was only with the Tribe that I would learn to develop and control the skills I had been given.
I thought of Kaede, whom I had left sleeping at Terayama. Hopelessness came over me, followed by resignation. I would never see her again. I would have to forget her. Slowly the town started to wake around me. Finally, as the light brightened beyond the doors, I slept.
I woke suddenly to the sound of men and horses in the street beyond the walls of the house. The light in the room had changed, as though the sun had crossed above the roof, but I had no idea how long I’d slept. A man was shouting and in reply a woman was complaining, growing angry. I caught the gist of the words. The men were Arai’s, going from house to house, looking for me.