Across the Nightingale Floor

by Lian Hearn

  In the late afternoons I returned to Ichiro with his other pupils, and we struggled to keep our eyes open while he tried to teach us the principles of Kung Tzu and the history of the Eight Islands. The summer solstice passed, and the Festival of the Weaver Star, and the days of the great heat began. The plum rains had ended, but it remained very humid, and heavy storms threatened. The farmers gloomily predicted a worse than usual typhoon season.

  My lessons with Kenji also continued, but at night. He stayed away from the clan hall, and warned me against revealing my Tribe skills.

  “The warriors think it’s sorcery,” he said. “They’ll despise you for it.”

  We went out on many nights, and I learned to move invisibly through the sleeping town. We had a strange relationship. I did not trust him at all in daylight. I’d been adopted by the Otori, and I’d given my heart to them. I did not want to be reminded that I was an outsider, even a freak. But it was different at night. Kenji’s skills were unparalleled. He wanted to share them with me, and I was mad with hunger to learn them—partly for their own sake, because they fulfilled some dark need that was born into me, and partly because I knew how much I had to learn if I was ever to achieve what Lord Shigeru wanted me to do. Although he had not yet spoken of it to me, I could think of no other reason why he had rescued me from Mino. I was the son of an assassin, a member of the Tribe, now his adopted son. I was going with him to Inuyama. What other purpose could there be but to kill Iida?

  Most of the boys accepted me, for Shigeru’s sake, and I realized what a high regard they and their fathers had for him. But the sons of Masahiro and Shoichi gave me a hard time, especially Masahiro’s oldest son, Yoshitomi. I grew to hate them as much as I hated their fathers, and I despised them, too, for their arrogance and blindness. We often fought with the poles. I knew their intentions towards me were murderous. Once Yoshitomi would have killed me if I had not in an instant used my second self to distract him. He never forgave me for it and often whispered insults to me: Sorcerer. Cheat. I was actually less afraid of him killing me than of having to kill him in self-defense or by accident. No doubt it improved my swordsmanship, but I was relieved when the time for our departure came and no blood had been shed.

  It was not a good time for traveling, being in the hottest days of summer, but we had to be in Inuyama before the Festival of the Dead began. We did not take the direct highway through Yamagata, but went south to Tsuwano, now the outpost town of the Otori fief, on the road to the West, where we would meet the bridal party and where the betrothal would take place. From there we would cross into Tohan territory and pick up the post road at Yamagata.

  Our journey to Tsuwano was uneventful and enjoyable despite the heat. I was away from Ichiro’s teaching and from the pressures of training. It was like a holiday, riding in Shigeru and Kenji’s company, and for a few days we all seemed to put aside our misgivings of what lay ahead. The rain held off, though lightning flickered round the ranges all night, turning the clouds indigo, and the full summer foliage of the forests surrounded us in a sea of green.

  We rode into Tsuwano at midday, having risen at sunrise for the last leg of the journey. I was sorry to arrive, knowing it meant the end of the innocent pleasures of our lighthearted travel. I could not have imagined what was going to take their place. Tsuwano sang of water, its streets lined with canals teeming with fat golden and red carp. We were not far from the inn when suddenly, above the water and the sounds of the bustling town, I clearly heard my own name spoken by a woman. The voice came from a long, low building with white walls and lattice windows, some kind of fighting hall. I knew there were two women inside but I could not see them, and I wondered briefly why they were there, and why one of them should have said my name.

  When we came to the inn I heard the same woman talking in the courtyard. I realized she was Lady Shirakawa’s maid, and we learned the lady was unwell. Kenji went to her and came back wanting to describe her beauty at length, but the storm broke, and I was afraid the thunder would make the horses restive, so I hurried off to the stables without listening to him. I did not want to hear of her beauty. If I thought about her at all, it was with dislike, for the part she was to play in the trap set for Shigeru.

  After a while Kenji caught up with me in the stables, and brought the maid with him. She looked like a pretty, good-natured, scatterbrained girl, but even before she grinned at me in a less than respectful way and addressed me as “Cousin!” I’d picked her as a member of the Tribe.

  She held her hands up against mine. “I am also Kikuta, on my mother’s side. But Muto on my father’s. Kenji is my uncle.”

  Our hands had the same long-fingered shape and the same line straight across the palm. “That’s the only trait I inherited,” she said ruefully. “The rest of me is pure Muto.”

  Like Kenji, she had the power to change her appearance so that you were never sure you recognized her. At first I thought she was very young; in fact she was almost thirty and had two sons.

  “Lady Kaede is a little better,” she told Kenji. “Your tea made her sleep, and now she insists on getting up.”

  “You worked her too hard,” Kenji said, grinning. “What were you thinking of, in this heat?” To me he added, “Shizuka is teaching Lady Shirakawa the sword. She can teach you too. We’ll be here for days in this rain.”

  He turned back to her. “Maybe you can teach him ruthlessness,” he said. “It’s all he lacks.”

  “It’s hard to teach,” Shizuka replied. “You either have it, or not.”

  “She has it,” Kenji told me. “Stay on her right side!”

  I didn’t reply. I was a little irritated that Kenji should point out my weakness to Shizuka as soon as we met her. We stood under the eaves of the stable yard, the rain drumming on the cobbles before us, the horses stamping behind.

  “Are these fevers a common thing?” Kenji asked.

  “Not really. This is the first of its kind. But she is not strong. She hardly eats; she sleeps badly. She frets over the marriage and over her family. Her mother is dying, and she has not seen her since she was seven.”

  “You have become fond of her,” Kenji said, smiling.

  “Yes, I have, although I only came to her because Arai asked me to.”

  “I’ve never seen a more beautiful girl,” Kenji admitted.

  “Uncle! You are really smitten by her!”

  “I must be getting old,” he said. “I find myself moved by her plight. However things work out, she will be the loser.”

  A huge clap of thunder broke over our heads. The horses bucked and plunged on their lines. I ran to quiet them. Shizuka returned to the inn and Kenji went in search of the bathhouse. I did not see them again until evening.

  Later, bathed and dressed in formal robes, I attended on Lord Shigeru for the first meeting with his future wife. We had brought gifts, and I unpacked them from the boxes, together with the lacquer-ware that we carried with us. A betrothal should be a happy occasion, I suppose, although I had never been to one before. Maybe for the bride it is always a time of apprehension. This one seemed to me to be fraught with tension and full of bad omens.

  Lady Maruyama greeted us as if we were no more than slight acquaintances, but her eyes hardly left Shigeru’s face. I thought she had aged since I’d met her in Chigawa. She was no less beautiful, but suffering had etched her face with its fine lines. Both she and Shigeru seemed cold, to each other and to everyone else, especially to Lady Shirakawa.

  Her beauty silenced us. Despite Kenji’s enthusiasm earlier, I was quite unprepared for it. I thought then that I understood Lady Maruyama’s suffering: At least part of it had to be jealousy. How could any man refuse the possession of such beauty? No one could blame Shigeru if he accepted it: He would be fulfilling his duty to his uncles and the demands of the alliance. But the marriage would deprive Lady Maruyama of not only the man she had loved for years but also her strongest ally.

  The undercurrents in the room made me uncomfortable an
d awkward. I saw the pain Lady Maruyama’s coldness caused Kaede, saw the flush rise in her cheeks making her skin lovelier than ever. I could hear her heartbeat and her rapid breath. She did not look at any of us, but kept her eyes cast down. I thought, She is so young, and terrified. Then she raised her eyes and looked at me for a moment. I felt she was like a person drowning in the river, and if I reached out my hand I would save her.

  “SO, SHIGERU, you have to choose between the most powerful woman in the Three Countries and the most beautiful,” Kenji said later while we were sitting up talking, and after many flasks of wine had been shared. Since the rain seemed likely to keep us in Tsuwano for some days, there was no need to go to bed early in order to rise before dawn. “I should have been born a lord.”

  “You have a wife, if only you stayed with her,” Shigeru replied.

  “My wife is a good cook, but she has a wicked tongue, she’s fat, and she hates traveling,” Kenji grumbled. I said nothing, but laughed to myself, already knowing how Kenji profited from his wife’s absence: in the pleasure quarter.

  Kenji continued to joke, with, I thought, some deeper purpose of sounding Shigeru out, but the lord replied to him in the same vein, as if he truly were celebrating his betrothal. I went to sleep, fuddled by the wine, to the sound of rain pelting on the roof, cascading down the gutters and over the cobbles. The canals ran to the brim; in the distance I could hear the song of the river grow to a shout as it tumbled down the mountain.

  I woke in the middle of the night and was immediately aware that Shigeru was no longer in the room. When I listened I could hear his voice, talking to Lady Maruyama, so low that no one could hear it but me. I had heard them speak like that nearly a year before, in another inn room. I was both appalled at the risk they were taking and amazed at the strength of the love that sustained them through such infrequent meetings.

  He will never marry Shirakawa Kaede, I thought, but did not know if this realization delighted me or alarmed me.

  I was filled with unease and lay awake till dawn. It was a gray, wet dawn, too, with no sign of any break in the weather. A typhoon, earlier than usual, had swept across the western part of the country, bringing downpours, floods, broken bridges, impassable roads. Everything was damp and smelled of mold. Two of the horses had hot, swollen hocks, and a groom had been kicked in the chest. I ordered poultices for the horses and arranged for an apothecary to see the man. I was eating a late breakfast when Kenji came to remind me about sword practice. It was the last thing I felt like doing.

  “What else do you plan to do all day,” he demanded, “sit around and drink tea? Shizuka can teach you a lot. We might as well make the most of being stuck here.”

  So I obediently finished eating and followed my teacher, running through the rain to the fighting school. I could hear the thump and clash of the sticks from outside. Inside, two young men were fighting. After a moment I realized one was not a boy but Shizuka: She was more skillful than her opponent, but the other, taller and with greater determination, was making it quite a good match. At our appearance, though, Shizuka easily got beneath the guard. It wasn’t until the other took off the mask that I realized it was Kaede.

  “Oh,” she said angrily, wiping her face on her sleeve, “they distracted me.”

  “Nothing must distract you, lady,” Shizuka said. “It’s your main weakness. You lack concentration. There must be nothing but you, your foe, and the swords.”

  She turned to greet us. “Good morning, Uncle! Good morning, Cousin!”

  We returned the greeting and bowed more respectfully to Kaede. Then there was a short silence. I was feeling awkward: I had never seen women in a fighting hall before—never seen them dressed in practice clothes. Their presence unnerved me. I thought there was probably something unseemly about it. I should not be here with Shigeru’s betrothed wife.

  “We should come back another time,” I said, “when you have finished.”

  “No, I want you to fight with Shizuka,” Kenji said. “Lady Shirakawa can hardly return to the inn alone. It will profit her to watch.”

  “It would be good for the lady to practice against a man,” Shizuka said, “since if it comes to battle, she will not be able to choose her opponents.”

  I glanced at Kaede and saw her eyes widen slightly, but she said nothing.

  “Well, she should be able to beat Takeo,” Kenji said sourly. I thought he must have a headache from the wine, and indeed, I myself felt a little the worse for wear.

  Kaede sat on the floor, cross-legged like a man. She untied the ties that held back her hair and it fell around her, reaching the ground. I tried not to look at her.

  Shizuka gave me a pole and took up her first stance.

  We sparred a bit, neither of us giving anything away. I’d never fought with a woman before, and I was reluctant to go all out in case I hurt her. Then, to my surprise, when I feinted one way she was already there, and a twisting upwards blow sent the pole out of my hands. If I’d been fighting Masahiro’s son, I’d have been dead.

  “Cousin,” she said reprovingly. “Don’t insult me, please.”

  I tried harder after that, but she was skillful and amazingly strong. It was only after the second bout that I began to get the upper hand, and then only after her instruction. She conceded the fourth bout, saying, “I have already fought all morning with Lady Kaede. You are fresh, Cousin, as well as being half my age.”

  “A little more than half, I think!” I panted. Sweat was pouring off me. I took a towel from Kenji and wiped myself down.

  Kaede said, “Why do you call Lord Takeo ‘Cousin’?”

  “Believe it or not, we are related, on my mother’s side,” Shizuka said. “Lord Takeo was not born an Otori, but adopted.”

  Kaede looked seriously at the three of us. “There is a likeness between you. It’s hard to place exactly. But there is something mysterious, as though none of you is what you seem to be.”

  “The world being what it is, that is wisdom, lady,” Kenji said, rather piously, I thought. I imagined he did not want Kaede to know the true nature of our relationship: that we were all from the Tribe. I did not want her to know either. I much preferred her to think of me as one of the Otori.

  Shizuka took up the cords and tied back Kaede’s hair. “Now you should try against Takeo.”

  “No,” I said immediately. “I should go now. I have to see to the horses. I must see if Lord Otori needs me.”

  Kaede stood. I was aware of her trembling slightly, and acutely aware of her scent, a flowery fragrance with her sweat beneath it.

  “Just one bout,” Kenji said. “It can’t do any harm.”

  Shizuka went to put on Kaede’s mask, but she waved her away.

  “If I am to fight men, I must fight without a mask,” she said.

  I took up the pole reluctantly. The rain was pouring down even more heavily. The room was dim, the light greenish. We seemed to be in a world within a world, isolated from the real one, bewitched.

  It started like an ordinary practice bout, both of us trying to unsettle the other, but I was afraid of hitting her face, and her eyes never left mine. We were both tentative, embarking on something utterly strange to us whose rules we did not know. Then, at some point I was hardly aware of, the fight turned into a kind of dance. Step, strike, parry, step. Kaede’s breath came more strongly, echoed by mine, until we were breathing in unison, and her eyes became brighter and her face more glowing, each blow became stronger, and the rhythm of our steps fiercer. For a while I would dominate, then she, but neither of us could get the upper hand. Did either of us want to?

  Finally, almost by mistake, I got around her guard and, to avoid hitting her face, let the pole fall to the ground. Immediately, Kaede lowered her own pole and said, “I concede.”

  “You did well,” Shizuka said, “but I think Takeo could have tried a little harder.”

  I stood and stared at Kaede, open-mouthed like an idiot. I thought, If I don’t hold her in my arms now, I wi
ll die.

  Kenji handed me a towel and gave me a rough push in the chest. “Takeo . . .” he started to say.

  “What?” I said stupidly.

  “Just don’t complicate things!”

  Shizuka said, as sharply as if she were warning of danger, “Lady Kaede!”

  “What?” Kaede said, her eyes still fixed on my face.

  “I think we’ve done enough for one day,” Shizuka said. “Let’s return to your room.”

  Kaede smiled at me, suddenly unguarded. “Lord Takeo,” she said.

  “Lady Shirakawa.” I bowed to her, trying to be formal, but utterly unable to keep myself from smiling back at her.

  “Well, that’s torn it,” Kenji muttered.

  “What do you expect, it’s their age!” Shizuka replied. “They’ll get over it.”

  As Shizuka led Kaede from the hall, calling to the servants who were waiting outside to bring umbrellas, it dawned on me what they were talking about. They were right in one thing, and wrong in another. Kaede and I had been scorched by desire for each other, more than desire, love, but we would never get over it.

  For a week the torrents of rain kept us penned up in the mountain town. Kaede and I did not train together again. I wished we had never done so: It had been a moment of madness, I had never wanted it, and now I was tormented by the results. I listened for her all day long, I could hear her voice, her step, and at night—when only a thin wall separated us—her breathing. I could tell how she slept (restlessly) and when she woke (often). We spent time together—we were forced to by the smallness of the inn, by being in the same traveling party, by being expected to be with Lord Shigeru and Lady Maruyama—but we had no opportunity to speak to each other. We were both, I think, equally terrified of giving our feelings away. We hardly dared look at each other, but occasionally our eyes would meet, and the fire leaped between us again.