Grass for His Pillow

by Lian Hearn

  I pushed back the quilt and felt for the knife. As I picked it up the door slid open and Kenji came silently into the room. The false wall was locked into place behind him. He looked at me briefly, shook his head, and sat down cross-legged on the floor in the tiny space between the mattress and the wall.

  I recognized the voices; the men had been at Terayama with Arai. I heard Yuki calming the angry woman down, offering the men a drink.

  “We’re all on the same side now,” she said, and laughed. “Do you think if Otori Takeo were here we’d be able to hide him?”

  The men drank quickly and left. As their footsteps died away Kenji snorted through his nose and gave me one of his disparaging looks. “No one can pretend not to have heard of you in Yamagata,” he said. “Shigeru’s death made him a god; Iida’s has turned you into a hero. It’s a story the people are wild about.” He sniffed and added, “Don’t let it go to your head. It’s extremely annoying. Now Arai’s mounted a full-scale search for you. He’s taking your disappearance as a personal insult. Luckily your face is not too well known here, but we’ll have to disguise you.” He studied my features, frowning. “That Otori look . . . you’ll have to conceal it.”

  He was interrupted by a sound outside as the wall was lifted away. Kikuta Kotaro came in, followed by Akio, the young man who had been one of my captors in Inuyama. Yuki stepped after them, bringing tea.

  The Kikuta master gave me a nod as I bowed to him. “Akio has been out in the town, listening to the news.”

  Akio dropped to his knees before Kenji and inclined his head slightly to me. I responded in the same way. When he and the other Tribe members had kidnapped me in Inuyama, they had been doing their best to restrain me without hurting me. I had been fighting in earnest. I had wanted to kill him. I had cut him. I could see now that his left hand still bore a half-healed scar, red and inflamed. We had hardly spoken before; he had reprimanded me for my lack of manners and had accused me of breaking every rule of the Tribe. There had been little goodwill between us. Now when our eyes met I felt his deep hostility.

  Akio said, “It seems Lord Arai is furious that this person left without permission and refused a marriage that the lord desired. Lord Arai has issued orders for this person’s arrest, and he intends to investigate the organization known as the Tribe, which he considers illegal and undesirable.” He bowed again to Kotaro and said stiffly, “I’m sorry, but I do not know what this person’s name is to be.”

  The master nodded and stroked his chin, saying nothing. We had talked about names before and he had told me to continue using Takeo—though, as he said, it had never been a Tribe name. Was I to take the family name of Kikuta now? And what would my given name be? I did not want to give up Takeo, the name Shigeru had given me, but if I was no longer to be one of the Otori, what right did I have to it?

  “Arai is offering rewards for information,” Yuki said, placing a bowl of tea on the matting in front of each of us.

  “No one in Yamagata will dare to volunteer information,” Akio said. “They’ll be dealt with if they do!”

  “It’s what I was afraid of,” Kotaro said to Kenji. “Arai has had no real dealings with us, and now he fears our power.”

  “Should we eliminate him?” Akio said eagerly. “We—”

  Kotaro made a movement with his hand, and the young man bowed again and fell silent.

  “With Iida gone, there is already a lack of stability. If Arai should perish, too, who knows what anarchy would break out?”

  Kenji said, “I don’t see Arai as any great danger. Threats and bluster, perhaps, but no more than that in the long run. As things have turned out now, he is our best hope for peace.” He glanced at me. “That’s what we desire above all. We need some degree of order for our work to flourish.”

  “Arai will return to Inuyama and make that his capital,” Yuki said. “It is easier to defend and more central than Kumamoto, and he has claimed all Iida’s lands by right of conquest.”

  “Unh,” Kotaro grunted. He turned to me. “I had planned for you to return to Inuyama with me. I have matters to attend to there for the next few weeks, and you would have begun your training there. However, it may be better if you remain here for a few days. We will then take you north beyond the Middle Country, to another of the Kikuta houses, where no one has heard of Otori Takeo—where you will start a new life. Do you know how to juggle?”

  I shook my head.

  “You have a week to learn. Akio will teach you. Yuki and some of the other actors will accompany you. I will meet you in Matsue.”

  I bowed, saying nothing. I looked from under my lowered eyelids at Akio. He was staring downward, frowning, the line deep between his eyes. He was only three or four years older than I was, but at that moment it was possible to see what he would be like as an old man. So he was a juggler. I was sorry I had cut his clever juggler’s hand, but I thought my actions perfectly justified. Still, the fight lay between us, along with other feelings, unresolved, festering.

  Kotaro said, “Kenji, your association with Lord Shigeru has singled you out in this affair. Too many people know that this is your main place of residence. Arai will certainly have you arrested if you stay here.”

  “I’ll go to the mountains for a while,” Kenji replied. “Visit the old people, spend some time with the children.” He smiled, looking like my harmless old teacher again.

  “Excuse me, but what is this person to be called?” Akio said.

  “He can take a name as an actor for the time being,” Kotaro said. “What his Tribe name is depends—”

  There was some meaning behind his words that I did not understand, but Akio all too clearly did. “His father renounced the Tribe!” he burst out. “He turned his back on us!”

  “But his son has returned, with all the gifts of the Kikuta,” the master replied. “However, for now, in everything you are his senior. Takeo, you will submit to Akio and learn from him.”

  A smile played on his lips. I think he knew how hard that would be for me. Kenji’s face was rueful, as if he also could foresee trouble.

  “Akio has many skills,” Kotaro went on. “You are to master them.” He waited for my acceptance, then told Akio and Yuki to leave. Yuki refilled the tea bowls before she left, and the two older men drank noisily. I could smell food cooking. It seemed like days since I’d last eaten. I was sorry I had not accepted Yuki’s offer of food the previous night; I was faint with hunger.

  Kotaro said, “I told you I was first cousin to your father. I did not tell you that he was older than me and would have become master at our grandfather’s death. Akio is my nephew and my heir. Your return raises questions of inheritance and seniority. How we deal with them depends on your conduct in the next few months.”

  It took me a couple of moments to grasp his meaning. “Akio was brought up in the Tribe,” I said slowly. “He knows everything I don’t know. There must be many others like that. I’ve no wish to take his or anyone else’s place.”

  “There are many,” Kotaro replied, “and all of them more obedient, better trained, and more deserving than you. But none has the Kikuta gift of hearing to the extent that you have it, and no one else could have gone alone into Yamagata Castle as you did.”

  That episode seemed like something from a past life. I could hardly remember the impulse that had driven me to climb into the castle and release into death the Hidden who were encaged in baskets and hung from the castle walls, the first time I had killed. I wished I had never done it: If I had not drawn the Tribe’s attention to myself so dramatically, maybe they would not have taken me before . . . before . . . I shook myself. There was no point in endlessly trying to unravel the threads that had woven Shigeru’s death.

  “However, now that I’ve said that,” Kotaro continued, “you must know that I cannot treat you in any way differently from the others of your generation. I cannot have favorites. Whatever your skills, they are useless to us unless we also have your obedience. I don’t have to remin
d you that you have already pledged this to me. You will stay here for a week. You must not go outside or let anyone know you are here. In that week you must learn enough to pass as a juggler. I will meet you at Matsue before winter. It’s up to you to go through the training with complete obedience.”

  “Who knows when I will meet you again?” Kenji said, regarding me with his usual mixture of affection and exasperation. “My work with you is done,” he went on. “I found you, taught you, kept you alive somehow, and brought you back to the Tribe. You’ll find Akio tougher than I was.” He grinned, showing the gaps between his teeth. “But Yuki will look after you.”

  There was something in the way he said it that made the color rise in my face. We had done nothing, had not even touched each other, but something existed between us, and Kenji was aware of it.

  Both masters were grinning as they stood up and embraced me. Kenji gave me a cuff round the head. “Do as you’re told,” he said. “And learn to juggle.”

  I wished Kenji and I could have spoken alone. There was so much still unresolved between us. Yet, maybe it was better that he should bid me farewell as though he truly were an affectionate teacher whom I had outgrown. Besides, as I was to learn, the Tribe do not waste time on the past and do not like to be confronted with it.

  After they’d left, the room seemed gloomier than ever, airless and stuffy. I could hear through the house the sounds of their departure. The elaborate preparations, the long good-byes of most travelers, were not for them. Kenji and Kotaro just walked out the door, carrying everything they needed for the road in their hands: light bundles in wrapping cloths, a spare pair of sandals, some rice cakes flavored with salted plums. I thought about them and the roads they must have walked, tracing and retracing their way across the Three Countries and beyond, for all I knew, following the vast web the Tribe spun from village to village, town to town. Wherever they went they would find relatives; they would never be without shelter or protection.

  I heard Yuki say she would walk with them to the bridge, and heard the woman who’d been angry with the soldiers reply.

  “Take care of yourselves,” the woman called after them. The footsteps faded down the street.

  The room seemed even more depressing and lonely. I couldn’t imagine being confined in it for a week. Almost without realizing what I was doing, I was already planning to get out. Not to escape: I was quite resigned to staying with the Tribe. Just to get out. Partly to look at Yamagata again by night, partly to see if I could.

  Not long after, I heard someone approaching. The door slid back and a woman stepped in. She was carrying a tray of food: rice, pickles, a small piece of dried fish, a bowl of soup. She knelt, placing the tray on the floor.

  “Here, eat, you must be hungry.”

  I was famished. The smell of the food made me dizzy. I fell on it like a wolf. She sat and watched me while I ate.

  “So you’re the one who’s been causing my poor old husband so much trouble,” she remarked as I was polishing the bowl for the last grains of rice.

  Kenji’s wife. I shot a look at her and met her gaze. Her face was smooth, as pale as his, with the similarity that many long-married couples attain. Her hair was still thick and black, with just a few white hairs appearing at the center of her scalp. She was thickset and solid, a true townswoman with square, short-fingered, capable hands. The only thing I could remember Kenji saying about her was that she was a good cook, and indeed the food was delicious.

  I told her so, and as the smile moved from her lips to her eyes I saw in an instant that she was Yuki’s mother. Their eyes were the same shape, and when she smiled, the expression was the same.

  “Who’d have thought that you’d have turned up after all these years,” she went on, sounding garrulous and motherly. “I knew Isamu, your father, well. And no one knew anything about you until that incident with Shintaro. Imagine you hearing and outwitting the most dangerous assassin in the Three Countries! The Kikuta family were delighted to discover Isamu had left a son. We all were. And one with such talents too!”

  I didn’t reply. She seemed a harmless old woman—but then, Kenji had appeared a harmless old man. I felt in myself a faint echo of the mistrust I’d had when I first saw Kenji in the street in Hagi. I tried to study her without appearing to, and she stared openly at me. I felt she was challenging me in some way, but I had no intention of responding until I’d found out more about her and her skills.

  “Who killed my father?” I said instead.

  “No one’s ever found out. It was years before we even knew for certain that he was dead. He’d found an isolated place to hide himself in.”

  “Was it someone from the Tribe?”

  That made her laugh, which angered me. “Kenji said you trusted no one. It’s good, but you can trust me.”

  “Like I could trust him,” I muttered.

  “Shigeru’s scheme would have killed you,” she said mildly. “It’s important for the Kikuta, for the whole Tribe, to keep you alive. It’s so rare these days to find such a wealth of talent.”

  I grunted at that, trying to discern some hidden meaning beneath her flattery. She poured tea, and I drank it at a gulp. My head ached from the stuffy room.

  “You’re tense,” she said, taking the bowl from my hands, and placing it on the tray. She moved the tray to one side and came closer to me. Kneeling behind me, she began to massage my neck and shoulders. Her fingers were strong, pliant, and sensitive, all at the same time. She worked over my back and then, saying, “Close your eyes,” began on my head. The sensation was exquisite. I almost groaned aloud. Her hands seemed to have a life of their own. I gave my head to them, feeling as though it were floating off my neck.

  Then I heard the door slide. My eyes snapped open. I could still feel her fingers in my scalp, but I was alone in the room. A shiver ran down my spine. Kenji’s wife might look harmless but her powers were probably as great as her husband’s or her daughter’s.

  She’d also taken away my knife.

  IWAS GIVEN the name of Minoru, but hardly anyone called me by it. When we were alone Yuki occasionally called me Takeo, letting the word form in her mouth as if she were granting herself a gift. Akio only said “you,” and always in the form used when addressing inferiors. He was entitled to. He was my senior in years, training, and knowledge, and I’d been ordered to submit to him. It rankled, though: I hadn’t realized how much I had become accustomed to being treated with respect as an Otori warrior and Shigeru’s heir.

  My training began that afternoon. I had not known that the muscles in my hands could ache so much. My right wrist was still weak from my first fight with Akio. By the end of the day it was throbbing again. We started with exercises to make the fingers deft and supple. Even with his damaged hand Akio was far faster and far more dexterous than me. We sat opposite each other and time and again he rapped my hands before I could move them.

  He was so quick, I could not believe that I could not even see the movement. At first the rap was no more than a light tap, but as the afternoon turned to evening and we both grew tired and frustrated by my clumsiness, he began to hit me in earnest.

  Yuki, who had come into the room to join us, said quietly, “If you bruise his hands, it will take longer.”

  “Maybe I should bruise his head,” Akio muttered, and the next time, before I could move my hands away, he seized both in his right hand and, with the left, hit me on the cheek. It was a real blow, strong enough to make my eyes water.

  “Not so bold without a knife,” he said, releasing my hands and holding his own ready again.

  Yuki said nothing. I could feel anger simmering inside me. It was outrageous to me that he should hit an Otori lord. The confined room, the deliberate teasing, Yuki’s indifference—all combined to drive me toward loss of control. The next time Akio made the same move with opposite hands. The blow was even harder, making my neck snap back. My sight went black, then red. I felt the rage erupt just as it had with Kenji. I hurled mysel
f at him.

  It’s been many years since I was seventeen, since the fury seized me and threw me beyond self-control. But I still recall the way the release felt, as though my animal self had been unleashed, and then I’d have no memory of what happened after that, just the blind feeling of not caring if I lived or died, of refusing to be forced or bullied any longer.

  After the first moment of surprise, when I had my hands round Akio’s throat, the two of them restrained me easily. Yuki did her trick of pressing into my neck, and as I began to black out, she hit me harder than I would have thought possible in the stomach. I doubled over, retching. Akio slid out from beneath me and pinioned my arms behind my back.

  We sat on the matting, as close as lovers, breathing heavily. The whole episode had lasted no more than a minute. I couldn’t believe Yuki had hit me so hard. I’d thought she would have been on my side. I stared at her with rancor in my heart.

  “That’s what you have to learn to control,” she said calmly.

  Akio released my arms and knelt in readiness. “Let’s start again.”

  “Don’t hit me in the face,” I said.

  “Yuki’s right, it’s best not to bruise your hands,” he replied. “So be quicker.”

  I vowed inwardly I would not let him hit me again. The next time, though, I did not get close to rapping him; I moved head and hands away before he could touch me. Watching him, I began to sense the slightest intimation of movement. I finally managed to graze the surface of his knuckles. He said nothing, nodded as if satisfied, but barely, and we moved on to working with juggling balls.

  So the hours went: passing the ball from one palm to the other, from palm to mat to palm. By the end of the second day I could juggle three balls in the ancient style; by the end of the third day, four. Akio still sometimes managed to catch me off guard and slap me, but mostly I learned to avoid it, in an elaborate dance of balls and hands.