by Sarah Ash
“Thank you, Abbot; but I fear that this is a matter of such gravity that I must put my own comforts second…”
As the two men walked away toward the temple, Kai strained in vain to hear the rest of their conversation. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Master Seishi slowly shaking his head.
***
“The abbot has sent for me?” Kai almost dropped the length of clean bandage he was carefully winding into a roll.
“He wants you to play your flute to entertain Prince Hotaru.”
Kai looked questioningly at Master Seishi who nodded his assent. He fetched the ebony flute from his cell and set off toward the abbot’s quarters.
The first thing he noticed was an overwhelming waft of wisteria scent; the perfumed silks of the prince and his entourage had made the abbot’s austere room smell like a flower garden in spring.
Prince Hotaru was sampling the abbot’s best tea as Kai entered. He looked up, asking in the mildest of voices, “Who’s this, Abbot?” adjusting his spectacles to peer at him more closely.
“A talented flute-player; you may have heard Kaishin performing at the Tide Festival last year. I hope to use his talents again this year.”
“How delightful.” Prince Hotaru smiled at Kai, such a pleasant, gentle smile that Kai felt less nervous at playing before their illustrious guest.
The abbot nodded to Kai who positioned himself in the furthest corner of the room. He took out his flute, and moistening his dry lips, began to play softly.
“That’s assuming that the festival will take place, Abbot.” Prince Hotaru took a sip from his bowl and set it down. Kai understood now why the abbot had summoned him; this way he could hear the prince’s concerns without raising any unnecessary suspicions.
“Is there any reason it should not?”
“We recently received an unusual piece of intelligence at court. A very serious allegation. It claimed that the Tide Jewels have been stolen.”
Kai continued to play, eyes closed, as if lost in the music, yet all the while listening intently to the conversation.
“Is that true?”
It took all of Kai’s self control not to blow a wrong note. Surely the abbot could not lie; his whole life had been dedicated to the pursuit of the truth.
The abbot let out a slow sigh. “Your highness, it grieves me to admit that the claim is true. We suffered a vicious attack by shinobi using forbidden shadow jutsu.”
“I see.” The prince’s expression, behind his thick lenses, was difficult to read. “And what action have you taken to get the jewels back?”
Kai’s fingers stumbled and he spoiled the phrase. Blushing, he bowed his head and whispered an apology.
“Even now, the warrior monks are on their way to retrieve the stolen jewels. I have every confidence in Captain Kakumyo.” Abbot Genko spoke with such quiet authority that Kai almost felt his own worries dissolving.
“I can only hope that the captain proves himself worthy of your confidence,” said the prince, taking another sip from his bowl. “It would not do for the emperor to be unable to summon the Tide Dragons to the festival. It would reflect very badly on the honor of the clan of the Black Cranes.”
***
Since the Kite ships had left Tenryu Bay, Lord Toshiro had not said one word. He merely sat on his campaign stool on deck, staring fixedly at the Tide Jewels in their ebony casket.
Eventually the ship’s captain dared to ask him for his orders. “Shall I set a course for the island, my lord?”
Masao and the other retainers watched tensely, waiting for his reply.
Lord Toshiro slowly raised his head. “No,” he said at last. “We’re going to pay the Cranes a visit.”
“What manner of visit?” The ominous look that Okitane exchanged with Master Yūdai was not lost on Masao who felt a painful tightening in his throat.
“We’ve seen how well the eruptor works today. Let’s see what the Cranes make of a second blast of fire from our iron dragon. I wonder how long the mighty Castle Kurozuro could hold out against our new weapon.”
Perhaps Masao’s hearing was still damaged by the explosion, perhaps he had misheard. He wanted to rescue Naoki – but to mount a full-scale assault on the Cranes could end in disaster. Hostages had been murdered by their captors in similar circumstances when they became too much of a burden.
“You mean – attack the Cranes’ stronghold?” Okitane was one of the few Kite commanders who could openly challenge Lord Toshiro and for that Masao had to admit a grudging admiration. “With only two ships?”
Lord Toshiro seemed not to have heard him. “We’ll bring them to their knees. We’ll force them to hand Naoki back. Where’s Saburo?”
“Here, my lord.” Saburo came through the gathered warriors and knelt before him.
“Do we have enough fire drug on board to create another blast?”
“No, my lord. Master Kinkiyo judged it unwise to carry too much.”
“Let’s plan our strategy first, my lord,” pleaded Master Yūdai.
Lord Toshiro arose, his graying brows drawn together in an intimidating frown.
Once he’s set his mind on something, he doesn’t like to be frustrated. Masao became acutely aware of the silence that had fallen across the whole deck, broken only by the regular splash of the oars.
“Very well. Okitane, you’re in charge of the foot soldiers who’ll mount the main assault from the beach. Yoriaki: I want you to assemble an advance squad of our best shinobi to infiltrate the castle from the mountain. Masao and Saburo, the iron dragon is your responsibility. When we set sail again, you’ll make sure that we have enough fire drug to use it as often as I see fit. If the Cranes resist, we’ll just blast our way in.”
Masao hung his head. He had trained as a shinobi warrior, not an armorer. He felt demeaned and dishonored. This felt like a demotion.
“Remember, Masao, that true clan warriors don’t betray their feelings in front of their men,” said Okitane sternly. “They inspire them by setting an example of courage, even in the face of extreme danger. My elder brother – your father – was a formidable warrior; don’t dishonor his memory. And,” he added as he followed Lord Toshiro, “get yourself cleaned up.”
Cleaned up? Masao wiped one hand across his face and his fingers came away stained with smuts and half-dried blood.
“Here, my lord.” Saburo passed him a clean, damp rag. “Fire drug is messy stuff.”
Masao took the rag and wiped his face and hands. “What’s it made of, then?”
“Sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter mostly.”
Masao pulled a face. “No wonder it stinks.” Like everything that’s happened to me in the last few days. “Why did the Cranes play us false?” He just could not make sense of what had happened. And now Lord Toshiro was about to launch a full attack on the Cranes.
“But isn’t this what you warriors have spent all your lives training for?” Saburo said, taking out a rod and a cloth to clean the inside of the iron dragon. “Revenge.”
Chapter 9
Sakami turned back down the steep, wooded path behind the castle, her basket filled with fresh spring herbs and greens. Birds called in the branches high overhead. Yuna often sent her to gather food from the mountainside. Born a mountain child, Sakami knew where to find the sweetest berries and the tastiest mushrooms in autumn. Besides, she was always glad of an excuse to escape the drudgery of her daily chores and to breathe in the freshness of the mountain air, so clean after the smoky atmosphere of the castle kitchen.
As she saw the steeply sloping roofs of Castle Kurozuro through the trees, she caught a thin, high whimpering that pierced her like a needle.
“Someone’s in pain.” She stopped, trying to detect which direction the sound was coming from. One of the castle children might have wandered away from the compound and fallen, hurting itself.
The whimpering began again. It was so pitiful that she could hardly bear to listen to it. “It’s all right,” she call
ed out, weaving in and out of the tree trunks, “I’m coming.”
She could hear the sound of water close by; the cries were drawing her towards the stream that tumbled down the mountainside from the snow-crusted peak. As she emerged from the trees, she spotted the source of the frantic cries.
A ball of rusty fur lay in the stream, its paw trapped between two stones. And from its tiny mouth, filled with sharp white teeth, issued the agonized whimpering that had led her there.
A fox cub.
“Oh, you poor thing.” She put down her basket, hitched up her skirts, kicked off her sandals and began to climb down the steep bank, carefully testing for each foothold. “Don’t worry. Sakami’s here to rescue you.”
But the little cub was terrified, emitting louder cries that rang out above the rushing of the fast-flowing water.
“You don’t need to be scared of me,” she said in her most soothing tones as she reached the bottom of the bank. Her bare soles slipped on wet, moss-slimed stones worn smooth and treacherous by the mountain waters. Spray from the stream dampened her hair, cold as the snows that had melted higher up.
Blue eyes, wild with fear, blazed up at her. She shrugged off her yukata and, just in her shift, waded into the stream. The water felt so icy against her bare legs that she gritted her teeth not to cry out and alarm the little creature even more. Crouching down, she gripped one of the flat, smooth stones and lifted it until the cub’s trapped paw was free.
“Go on, then – off you run.”
The cub tried to make a bolt for freedom, but its paw was bleeding and despite its frantic attempts to get away on three legs it began to slither back down the bank toward the fast-flowing stream. Sakami caught it by the scruff of the neck, as she would have an errant kitten, and held it up, squirming, dripping wet, and defiant.
“You’re in a bad way, aren’t you, little one?” Father had once rescued a young tanuki and brought it back to their hut; Shun and Sakami had watched him bind its injured paw, ignoring its fierce attempts to bite its rescuer. They had helped him care for the little creature, naming it Stripey, coaxing it to eat, and nursing it back to health. But when Stripey’s paw had healed, Father, deaf to his children’s protests, had set him free on the mountainside. Sakami had sobbed bitterly, but Father had said it wasn’t right to keep a wild creature as a pet. “Stripey was pining for his own kind,” he had explained. A few weeks later, the Red Kites had torn across the mountain like a whirlwind, and she and Shun had been forced to flee for their lives.
“Where’s your mama?” she crooned to the cub. “She’s not very motherly to go off and leave you behind. Or maybe she’s dead and you’re all alone.” She tore a strip of cloth off the hem of her shift and began to bind the fox cub’s paw. It snarled and snapped at her, baring tiny white teeth. “That’s not nice, trying to bite me when I’m helping you,” she told it severely. But she could tell from the way it lay panting that it had already expended most of its energy and that this was mere instinctive bravado. When the paw was bound the little cub still lay there limply, exhausted.
“I can’t leave you alone out here. You’re easy prey.” Sakami sat back on her haunches. Even as she spoke the words aloud, she knew she had already made her plan.
Would anyone notice if I slipped you into the castle in my basket? I’ll keep you in the tunnel where no one will find you. It’d only be until your paw heals…
Picking the wriggling cub up, she popped him into the basket and covered him up to the nose in greens. Then, pulling her yukata over her damp shift, she set off toward the path that wound down to the castle, humming a tune under her breath. It was only as she came within sight of the guards at the drawbridge that she realized what she had been singing: ‘Three Cranes on the Shore,’ the clan song that young Lord Kaito used to play on his flute.
But it was seven years since the sound of his flute had last wreathed through the courtyards of the castle. Seven years since the young lord, her first true friend in her new life, had left, never to return.
***
The tunnel was dark, dank and musty – and yet she still thought of it as her special place.
This was where she had run to hide, sobbing, when Yuna, the housekeeper, had beaten her and called her a ‘stupid, worthless mountain child’ for spilling the rice she had been sent to fetch from the stores. She had not meant to be clumsy or wasteful. It was just that it was all so confusing for a nine-year-old, far from home and bewildered by the ways of the great castle. So she had crawled deep into the darkness of the tunnel, hoping that no one would tell big brother Shun how his stupid baby sister had brought shame on the family name.
There were ventilation grilles every hundred yards or so that let in thin slivers of daylight and a breath of fresh air. As Sakami set about making a shelter for the injured cub beneath one of them, memories began to crowd back. “I didn’t know then that no one but the soldiers are allowed to come down here,” she told him, settling his trembling little body in some straw to keep him warm. “I didn’t know then it was only for use in siege-time…or war.”
She delivered the greens to the kitchen and, as soon as she was certain that the courtyard was clear, hurried back to the tunnel with her bowl and the last of the delicious green tea that she’d been saving as a refreshing treat..
So foxes drink tea? Sakami sat back on her heels, watching as the cub thirstily lapped the cold liquid with his tiny pink tongue. She rarely came here now, but seven years ago the tunnel had been her only refuge.
“It was Lord Kaito who took me to see the foxes to cheer me up, little one,” she told the cub, who was settling down in the straw after drinking, fastidiously licking his russet coat. “Perhaps it was your mother and father that Lord Kaito and I saw playing by the stream. Or even your grandparents.” She smiled at the precious memory. “They were so bright, like leaping flames… Maybe that’s what I should call you. You need a name, so how about Honou?”
***
Every day Sakami contrived to sneak away from her kitchen duties for long enough to bring Honou water and scraps of food from her own rations. And although he still snapped his little white teeth at her, he had begun to recognize her voice and her scent, for he had learned to lie still and allow her to change his bandages.
One day it had been raining all morning, a heavy, soaking rain, and when the sun came out, well after midday, there were plenty of damp robes to be hung up to dry alongside the day’s laundry. It was late afternoon before Sakami had finished her work; only then could she try to sidle out of the kitchens without being noticed.
But just as she reached the courtyard doorway, a voice sang out, “Where are you off to, Sakami-chan?”
“Maybe she’s got a sweetheart. A secret sweetheart.”
Mai and Mami, her fellow kitchen maids, blocked the way out. Sakami’s heart sank; the twins liked nothing better than to torment her.
“You can tell us,” coaxed Mai. “Is it Kenta?”
“Euugh. Kenta’s got pimples.”
“And he eats too much. Are you smuggling food out for Kenta, Sakami?”
“It’d better not be Rikyu. He’s far too good for you.” Mami poked Sakami in the ribs. “Rikyu’s going to be mine.”
All the women in the castle liked Rikyu and he knew it; he was tall and good-looking, with an easy smile and a confident air. His friendship with Shun had begun when they were boys, after a spectacular punch-up in the training yard had resulted in a black eye apiece and a night in the castle cells to cool off.
“Just because Rikyu’s your brother’s friend doesn’t give you the right to throw yourself at him.”
Sakami tried to push past them but they weren’t done with their teasing.
“Or maybe she just wants us to think she’s got a sweetheart.” They looked at one another and giggled, eyes bright with malice. “Is that the truth, Sakami?”
“None of the boys give you a second glance because you’re too ug-ly.” More giggles.
Sakami had hid
den scraps of leftover food in a scrap of cloth. The fox cub was growing fast and his appetite was becoming harder to satisfy. If he started whining for his food, there was always the risk that someone might hear him…
“Look at you. You may think you’ve learned the castle ways, but you’re still a peasant.” Mami leaned forward and pinched her cheek. “Look at your skin! Burned brown as a field worker. You’ll never be chosen to serve Princess Asagao; she only selects girls with the palest, most fashionable complexions.”
“Like us.”
“So why don’t you go back to the fields?”
Their words were hurtful but Sakami had learned long ago to block them out. So she wasn’t interested in making herself look pretty? That was her business, not theirs. But maybe they were jealous because Rikyu and Shun had stopped to talk to her earlier when the archers returned at midday, hot and sweating from an arduous training session, and she’d brought them some cold tea to slake their thirst.
“Mai, have you set out the bowls for the day watch’s supper? They’ll be back soon, baying like hounds for their food.” Yuna’s voice rang out like a battle cry. A guilty look flickered briefly across Mai’s face and Sakami took advantage of her momentary distraction to escape.
It was steamy in the kitchen; they had been preparing rice for the evening meal and tendrils of damp hair stuck to Sakami’s forehead. She raised her face to the cool breeze as she went toward the outer courtyard. She loved this time of day, when the sun was sinking into the sea and the early summer heat faded with the golden light.
And yet she had the feeling that she was being watched. Sure enough, she spotted Mai and Mami shadowing her, hastily dodging behind a pile of firewood when she turned around.
They’re hoping to catch me with my ‘sweetheart.’ A superior little smile curled her lips. Well, I’m craftier than you give me credit for, girls. And wouldn’t you be surprised to discover that my sweetheart has fur and a tail?