by Lian Hearn
I went lean and hollow-eyed with desire, made worse by lack of sleep, for I reverted to my old Hagi ways and went exploring at night. Shigeru did not know, for I left while he was with Lady Maruyama, and Kenji either did not or pretended not to notice. I felt I was becoming as insubstantial as a ghost. By day I studied and drew; by night I went in search of other people’s lives, moving through the small town like a shadow. Often the thought came to me that I would never have a life of my own, but would always belong to the Otori or to the Tribe.
I watched merchants calculating the loss the water damage would bring them. I watched the townspeople drink and gamble in bars and let prostitutes lead them away by the arm. I watched parents sleep, their children between them. I climbed walls and drainpipes, walked over roofs and along fences. Once I swam the moat, climbed the castle walls and gate, and watched the guards, so close I could smell them. It amazed me that they did not see or hear me. I listened to people talking, awake and in their sleep, heard their protestations, their curses and their prayers.
I went back to the inn before dawn, drenched to the skin, took off my wet clothes, and slipped naked and shivering beneath the quilts. I dozed and listened to the place waking around me. First the cocks crowed, then the crows began cawing; servants woke and fetched water; clogs clattered over the wooden bridges; Raku and the other horses whinnied from the stables. I waited for the moment when I would hear Kaede’s voice.
The rain poured down for three days and then began to lessen. Many people came to the inn to speak to Shigeru. I listened to the careful conversations and tried to discern who was loyal to him and who would be only too eager to join in his betrayal. We went to the castle to present gifts to Lord Kitano, and I saw in daylight the walls and gate I had climbed at night.
He greeted us with courtesy and expressed his sympathy for Takeshi’s death. It seemed to be on his conscience, for he returned to the subject more than once. He was of an age with the Otori lords and had sons the same age as Shigeru. They did not attend the meeting. One was said to be away, the other unwell. Apologies were expressed, which I knew were lies.
“They lived in Hagi when they were boys,” Shigeru told me later. “We trained and studied together. They came many times to my parents’ house and were as close as brothers to Takeshi and myself.” He was silent for a moment, then went on: “Well, that was many years ago. Times change and we must all change with them.”
But I could not be so resigned. I felt bitterly that the closer we came to Tohan territory, the more isolated he was becoming.
It was early evening. We had bathed and were waiting for the meal. Kenji had gone to the public bathhouse, where a girl had taken his fancy, he said. The room gave on to a small garden. The rain had lessened to a drizzle and the doors were wide open. There was a strong smell of sodden earth and wet leaves.
“It will clear tomorrow,” Shigeru said. “We will be able to ride on, but we will not get to Inuyama before the festival. We will be forced to stay in Yamagata, I think.” He smiled entirely mirthlessly and said, “I shall be able to commemorate my brother’s death in the place where he died. But I cannot let anyone know my feelings. I must pretend to have put aside all thought of revenge.”
“Why go into Tohan territory?” I asked. “It’s not too late to turn back. If it’s my adoption that binds you to the marriage, I could go away with Kenji. It’s what he wants.”
“Certainly not!” he replied. “I’ve given my word to these arrangements and set my seal on them. I have plunged into the river now and must go where the current takes me. I would sooner Iida killed me than despised me.” He looked around the room, listening. “Are we completely alone? Can you hear anyone?”
I could hear the usual evening sounds of the inn: the soft tread of maids as they carried food and water; from the kitchen, the sound of the cook’s knife chopping; water boiling; the muttered conversation of the guards in the passageway and the courtyard. I could hear no other breath but our own.
“We are alone.”
“Come closer. Once we are among the Tohan, we will have no chance to talk. There are many things I need to tell you before . . .” He grinned at me, a real smile this time. “ . . . before whatever happens in Inuyama!
“I’ve thought about sending you away. Kenji desires it for your safety, and of course his fears are justified. I must go to Inuyama, come what may. However, I am asking an almost impossible service from you, far beyond any obligation you may have to me, and I feel I must give you a choice. Before we ride into Tohan territory, after you have heard what I have to say, if you wish to leave with Kenji and join the Tribe, you are free to do so.”
I was saved from answering by a faint sound from the passageway. “Someone is coming to the door.” We were both silent.
A few moments later the maids entered with trays of food. When they had left again, we began to eat. The food was sparse, because of the rain—some sort of soused fish, rice, devil’s tongue and pickled cucumbers—but I don’t think either of us tasted it.
“You may wonder what my hatred of Iida is based on,” Shigeru said. “I have always had a personal dislike for him, for his cruelty and double-dealing. After Yaegahara and my father’s death, when my uncles took over the leadership of the clan, many people thought I should have taken my own life. That would have been the honorable thing to do—and, for them, a convenient solution to my irritating presence. But as the Tohan moved into what had been Otori land, and I saw the devastating effect of their rule on the common people, I decided a more worthwhile response would be to live and seek revenge. I believe the test of government is the contentment of the people. If the ruler is just, the land receives the blessings of Heaven. In Tohan lands the people are starving, debt-ridden, harassed all the time by Iida’s officials. The Hidden are tortured and murdered—crucified, suspended upside down over pits of waste, hung in baskets for the crows to feed on. Farmers have to expose their newborn children and sell their daughters because they have nothing to feed them with.”
He took a piece of fish and ate it fastidiously, his face impassive.
“Iida became the most powerful ruler in the Three Countries. Power brings its own legitimacy. Most people believe any lord has the right to do as he pleases in his own clan and his own country. It’s what I, too, was brought up to believe in. But he threatened my land, my father’s land, and I was not going see it handed over to him without a fight.
“This had been in my mind for many years. I took on a personality for myself that is only partly my own. They call me Shigeru the Farmer. I devoted myself to improving my land and talked of nothing but the seasons, crops, and irrigation. These matters interest me anyway, but they also gave me the excuse to travel widely through the fief and learn many things I would not otherwise have known.
“I avoided Tohan lands, apart from yearly visits to Terayama, where my father and many of my ancestors are buried. The temple was ceded to the Tohan, along with the city of Yamagata after Yaegahara. But then the Tohan cruelty touched me personally, and my patience began to wear thin.
“Last year, just after the Festival of the Weaver Star, my mother fell ill with a fever. It was particularly virulent: She was dead within a week. Three other members of the household died, including her maid. I also became sick. For four weeks I hovered between life and death, delirious, knowing nothing. I was not expected to recover, and when I did, I wished I had died, for it was then that I learned my brother had been killed in the first week of my illness.
“It was high summer. He was already buried. No one could tell me what had happened. There seemed to be no witnesses. He had recently taken a new lover, but the girl had disappeared too. We heard only that a Tsuwano merchant had recognized his body in the streets of Yamagata and had arranged burial at Terayama. In desperation I wrote to Muto Kenji, whom I had known since Yaegahara, thinking the Tribe might have some information. Two weeks later a man came to my house late at night, bearing a letter of introduction with Kenji’s se
al. I would have taken him for a groom or a foot soldier; he confided in me that his name was Kuroda, which I knew can be a Tribe name.
“The girl Takeshi had fallen for was a singer, and they had gone together to Tsuwano for the Star Festival. That much I knew already, for as soon as my mother fell sick, I’d sent word to him not to return to Hagi. I’d meant for him to stay in Tsuwano, but it seems the girl wished to go on to Yamagata, where she had relatives, and Takeshi went with her. Kuroda told me that there were comments made in an inn—insults to the Otori, to myself. A fight broke out. Takeshi was an excellent swordsman. He killed two men and wounded several others, who ran away. He went back to the girl’s relatives’ house. Tohan men returned in the middle of the night and set fire to the house. Everyone in it burned to death or was stabbed as they tried to escape the flames.”
I closed my eyes briefly, thinking I could hear their screams.
“Yes, it was like Mino,” Shigeru said bitterly. “The Tohan claimed the family were Hidden, though it seems almost certain they were not. My brother was in traveling clothes. No one knew his identity. His body lay in the street for two days.”
He sighed deeply. “There should have been outrage. Clans have gone to war over less. At the very least, Iida should have apologized, punished his men, and made some restitution. But Kuroda reported to me that when Iida heard the news, his words were ‘One less of those Otori upstarts to worry about. Too bad it wasn’t the brother.’ Even the men who committed the act were astonished, Kuroda said. They had not known who Takeshi was. When they found out, they expected their lives to be forfeit.
“But Iida did nothing, nor did my uncles. I told them in private what Kuroda had told me. They chose not to believe me. They reminded me of the rashness of Takeshi’s behavior in the past, the fights he had been involved in, the risks he took. They forbade me from speaking publicly about the matter, reminding me that I was still far from well and suggesting I should go away for a while, make a trip to the eastern mountains, try the hot springs, pray at the shrines.
“I decided I would go away, but not for the purposes they suggested.”
“You came to find me in Mino,” I whispered.
He did not answer me at once. It was dark outside now, but there was a faint glow from the sky. The clouds were breaking up, and between them the moon appeared and disappeared. For the first time I could make out the outline of the mountains and the pine trees, black against the night sky.
“Tell the servants to bring lights,” Shigeru said, and I went to the door to call the maids. They came and removed the trays, brought tea, and lit the lamps in the stands. When they had left once more, we drank the tea in silence. The bowls were a dark blue glaze. Shigeru turned his in his hand and then upended it to read the potter’s name. “It’s not as pleasing to my mind as the earth colors of Hagi,” he said, “but beautiful nonetheless.”
“May I ask you a question?” I said, and then fell silent again, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.
“Go on,” he prompted.
“You have allowed people to believe we met by accident, but I felt you knew where to find me. You were looking for me.”
He nodded. “Yes, I knew who you were as soon as I saw you on the path. I had come to Mino with the express purpose of finding you.”
“Because my father was an assassin?”
“That was the main reason, but not the only one.”
I felt as if there were not enough air in the room for me to draw the breath I needed. I did not bother with whatever other reasons Lord Shigeru might have had. I needed to concentrate on the main one.
“But how did you know, when I myself did not know—when the Tribe did not know?”
He said, his voice lower than ever, “Since Yaegahara, I have had time to learn many things. I was just a boy then, a typical warrior’s son, with no ideas beyond the sword and my family’s honor. I met Muto Kenji there, and in the months afterwards he opened my eyes to the power that lay beneath the warrior class’s rule. I discovered something about the networks of the Tribe, and I saw how they controlled the warlords and the clans. Kenji became a friend, and through him I met many other Tribe members. They interested me. I probably know more about them than any other outsider. But I’ve kept this knowledge to myself, never telling anyone else. Ichiro knows a little, and now you do too.”
I thought of the heron’s beak plunging down into the water.
“Kenji was wrong, the first night he came to Hagi. I knew very well who I was bringing into my household. I had not realized, though, that your talents would be so great.” He smiled at me, the openhearted smile that transformed his face. “That was an unexpected reward.”
Now I seemed to have lost the power of speech again. I knew we had to broach the subject of Shigeru’s purpose in seeking me out and saving my life, but I could not bring myself to speak so baldly of such things. I felt the darkness of my Tribe nature rise within me. I said nothing and waited.
Shigeru said, “I knew I would have no rest under Heaven while my brother’s murderers lived. I held their lord responsible for their actions. And in the meantime, circumstances had changed. Arai’s falling-out with Noguchi meant the Seishuu were again interested in an alliance with the Otori against Iida. Everything seemed to point to one conclusion: that the time had come to assassinate him.”
Once I heard the words, a slow excitement began to burn within me. I remembered the moment in my village when I decided I was not going to die but live and seek revenge—the night in Hagi, under the winter moon, when I had known I had the ability and the will to kill Iida. I felt the stirrings of deep pride that Lord Shigeru had sought me out for this purpose. All the threads of my life seemed to lead towards it.
“My life is yours,” I said. “I will do whatever you want.”
“I’m asking you to do something extremely dangerous, almost impossible. If you choose not to do it, you may leave with Kenji tomorrow. All debts between us are canceled. No one will think the less of you.”
“Please don’t insult me,” I said, and made him laugh.
I heard steps in the yard and a voice on the veranda. “Kenji is back.”
A few moments later he came into the room, followed by a maid bringing fresh tea. He looked us over while she poured it and, once she had left, said, “You look like conspirators. What have you been plotting?”
“Our visit to Inuyama,” Shigeru replied. “I have told Takeo my intentions. He is coming with me of his own free will.”
Kenji’s expression changed. “To his death,” he muttered.
“Maybe not,” I said lightly. “I am not boasting, but if anyone can get near Lord Iida, it will be me.”
“You’re just a boy,” my teacher snorted. “I’ve told Lord Shigeru this already. He knows all my objections to this rash plan. Now I’ll tell you. Do you really think you’ll be able to kill Iida? He’s survived more assassination attempts than I’ve had girls. You are yet to kill anyone! Added to which, there’s every chance that you’ll be recognized either in the capital or along the way. I believe your peddler did talk about you to someone. It was no accident that Ando turned up in Hagi. He came to check out the rumor and saw you with Shigeru. It’s my guess Iida already knows who and where you are. You’re likely to be arrested as soon as you enter Tohan territory.”
“Not if he is with me, one of the Otori coming to make a friendly alliance,” the lord said. “Anyway, I’ve told him that he’s free to go away with you. It’s by his own choice that he comes with me.”
I thought I detected a note of pride in his voice. I said to Kenji, “There is no question of me leaving. I must go to Inuyama. And anyway, I have scores of my own to settle.”
He sighed sharply. “Then I suppose I’ll have to go with you.”
“The weather has cleared. We can move on tomorrow,” Shigeru said.
“There’s one other thing I must tell you, Shigeru. You astonished me by keeping your affair with Lady Maruyama hidden for so
long. I heard something in the bathhouse, a joke, that makes me believe it is no longer a secret.”
“What did you hear?”
“One man, having his back scrubbed, remarked to the girl that Lord Otori was in town with his future wife, and she replied, ‘His current wife as well.’ Many laughed as if they got her meaning, and went on to speak of Lady Maruyama, and Iida’s desire for her. Of course, we are still in Otori country; they have nothing but admiration for you, and they like this rumor. It enhances the Otori reputation and is like a knife in the ribs for the Tohan. All the more reason for it to be repeated until it reaches Iida’s ears.”
I could see Shigeru’s face in the lamplight. There was a curious expression on it. I thought I could read pride there as well as regret.
“Iida may kill me,” he said, “but he cannot change the fact that she prefers me over him.”
“You are in love with death, like all your class,” Kenji said, a depth of anger in his voice that I had never heard before.
“I have no fear of death,” Shigeru replied. “But it is wrong to say I am in love with it. Quite the opposite: I think I’ve proved how much I love life. But it is better to die than to live with shame, and that is the point I have come to now.”
I could hear footsteps approaching. I turned my head like a dog, and both men fell silent. There was a tap on the door and it slid open. Sachie knelt in the entrance. Shigeru immediately rose and went to her. She whispered something and went quietly away. He turned to us and said, “Lady Maruyama wishes to discuss tomorrow’s travel arrangements. I will go to her room for a while.”
Kenji said nothing, but bowed his head slightly.
“It may be our last time together,” Shigeru said softly, and stepped into the passage, sliding the door closed behind him.
“I should have got to you first, Takeo,” Kenji grumbled. “Then you would never have become a lord, never been tied to Shigeru by bonds of loyalty. You would be Tribe through and through. You wouldn’t think twice about taking off with me now, tonight.”