Across the Nightingale Floor

by Lian Hearn

  After a while Kenji told Yuki to leave us alone for a few minutes and came to sit beside me. He said in a low voice, “The accusation of being connected with the Hidden—how far does that go?”

  “He never mentioned it to me, other than to change my name from Tomasu and warn me against praying.”

  “The rumor is that he would not deny it; he refused to defile the images.” Kenji’s voice was puzzled, almost irritated.

  “The first time I met Lady Maruyama, she traced the sign of the Hidden on my hand,” I said slowly.

  “He kept so much concealed from me,” Kenji said. “I thought I knew him!”

  “Did he know of the lady’s death?”

  “Apparently Iida told him with delight.”

  I thought about this for a few moments. I knew Shigeru would have refused to deny the beliefs Lady Maruyama held so deeply. Whether he believed them or not, he would never submit to Iida’s bullying. And now he was keeping the promise he had made to her in Chigawa. He would marry no other woman and he would not live without her.

  “I couldn’t know Iida would treat him like this,” Kenji said. I felt he was trying to excuse himself in some way, but the betrayal was too great for me to forgive. I was glad he was coming with me, and thankful for his skills, but after this night I never wanted to see him again.

  “Let’s go and bring him down,” I said. I got up and called quietly to Yuki. She came back into the room and the three of us put on the dark night attire of the Tribe, covering our faces and hands so no inch of skin showed. We took garrotes, ropes and grapples, long and short knives, and poison capsules that would give us a swift death.

  I took up Jato. Kenji said, “Leave it here. You can’t climb with a long sword.” I ignored him. I knew what I would need it for.

  The house I’d been hidden in was well to the west of the castle town, among the merchants’ houses south of the river. The area was crisscrossed with many narrow alleys and laneways, making it easy to move through unseen. At the end of the street we passed the temple, where lights still burned as the priests prepared for the midnight rituals. A cat sat beside a stone lantern. It did not stir as we slipped by.

  We were approaching the river when I heard the chink of steel and the tramp of feet. Kenji went invisible in a gateway. Yuki and I leaped silently onto the roof of the wall and merged into the tiles.

  The patrol consisted of a man on horseback and six foot soldiers. Two of them carried flaming torches. They progressed along the road that ran beside the river, lighting each alleyway and peering down it. They made a great deal of noise, and so did not alarm me at all.

  The tiles against my face were damp and slippery. The mild drizzle continued, muffling sound.

  The rain would be falling on Shigeru’s face. . . .

  I dropped from the wall, and we went on towards the river.

  A small canal ran alongside the alley. Yuki led us into it where it disappeared into a drain beneath the road. We crawled through it, disturbing the sleeping fish, and emerged where it flowed into the river, the water masking our footsteps. The dark bulk of the castle loomed in front of us. The cloud cover was so low that I could barely make out the highest towers. Between us and the fortification wall lay first the river, then the moat.

  “Where is he?” I whispered to Kenji.

  “On the east side, below Iida’s palace. Where we saw the iron rings.”

  Bile rose in my throat. Fighting it back, I said, “Guards?”

  “In the corridor immediately above, stationary. On the ground below, patrols.”

  As I had done at Yamagata, I sat and looked at the castle for a long time. None of us spoke. I could feel the dark Kikuta self rising, flowing into vein and muscle. So would I flow into the castle, and force it to give up what it held.

  I took Jato from my belt and laid it on the bank, hiding it in the long grass. “Wait there,” I said silently. “I will bring your master to you.”

  We slipped one by one into the river and swam beneath the surface to the far bank. I could hear the first patrol in the gardens beyond the moat. We lay in the reeds until it had passed, then ran over the narrow strip of marshland and swam in the same way across the moat.

  The first fortification wall rose straight from the moat. At the top was a small tiled wall that ran all the way round the garden in front of the residence and the narrow strip of land behind, between the residence walls and the fortification wall. Kenji dropped onto the ground to watch for patrols while Yuki and I crept along the tiled roof to the southeast corner. Twice we heard Kenji’s warning cricket’s chirp and went invisible on top of the wall while the patrols passed below us.

  I knelt and looked upwards. Above me was the row of windows of the corridor at the back of the residence. They were all closed and barred, save one, closest to the iron rings from which Shigeru was suspended, a rope around each wrist. His head hung forward on his chest, and I thought he was already dead, but then I saw that his feet were braced slightly against the wall, taking some of the weight from his arms. I could hear the slow rasp of his breath. He was still alive.

  The nightingale floor sang. I flattened myself back onto the tiles. I heard someone lean from the window above, and then a cry of pain from Shigeru as the rope was jerked and his feet slipped.

  “Dance, Shigeru, it’s your wedding day!” the guard jeered.

  I could feel the slow burn of rage. Yuki laid one hand on my arm, but I was not going to erupt. My rage was cold now, and all the more powerful.

  We waited there for a long time. No more patrols passed below. Had Kenji silenced them all? The lamp in the window flickered and smoked. Someone came there every ten minutes or so. Each time the suffering man at the end of the ropes found a foothold, one of the guards came and shook him loose. Each time the cry of pain was weaker, and it took him longer to recover.

  The window remained open. I whispered to Yuki. “We must climb up. If you can kill them as they come back, I’ll take the rope. Cut the wrist ropes when you hear the deer bark. I’ll lower him down.”

  “I’ll meet you at the canal,” she mouthed.

  Immediately after the next visit from the torturers, we dropped to the ground, crossed the narrow strip of land, and began to scale the residence wall. Yuki climbed in through the window while I, clinging to the ledge beneath it, took the rope from my waist and lashed it to one of the iron rings.

  The nightingales sang. Invisible, I froze against the wall. I heard someone lean out above me, heard the slightest gasp, the thud of feet kicking helplessly against the garrote, then silence.

  Yuki whispered, “Go!”

  I began to climb down the wall towards Shigeru, the rope paying out as I went. I had nearly reached him when I heard the cricket chirp. Again I went invisible, praying the mist would hide the extra rope. I heard the patrol pass below me. There was a sound from the moat, a sudden splash. Their attention was distracted by it. One of the men went towards the edge of the wall, holding his torch out over the water. The light shone dully off a white wall of mist.

  “Just a water rat,” he called. The men disappeared and I heard their footsteps fade slowly away.

  Now time speeded up. I knew another guard would soon appear above me. How much longer could Yuki kill them off one by one? The walls were slippery, the rope even more so. I slithered down the last few feet until I was level with Shigeru.

  His eyes were closed, but he either heard or felt my presence. He opened them, whispered my name without surprise, and gave the ghost of his openhearted smile, breaking my heart again.

  I said, “This will hurt. Don’t make a sound.”

  He closed his eyes again and braced his feet against the wall.

  I tied him to me as firmly as I could and barked like a deer to Yuki. She slashed the ropes that held Shigeru. He gasped despite himself as his arms were freed. The extra weight dislodged me from the slippery surface of the wall, and we both fell towards the ground as I prayed that my rope would hold. It brought us
up short but with a terrible jolt, with about four feet to spare.

  Kenji stepped out of the darkness and together we untied Shigeru and carried him to the wall.

  Kenji threw the grapples up and we managed to drag him over. Then we tied the rope to him again and Kenji lowered him down the wall while I climbed down alongside, trying to ease him a little.

  We could not stop at the bottom, but had to swim him straightaway across the moat, covering his face with a black hood. Without the mist we would have been immediately discovered, for we could not take him underwater. Then we carried him across the last strip of castle land to the riverbank. By this time he was barely conscious, sweating from pain, his lips raw where he had bitten them to prevent himself from crying out. Both shoulders were dislocated, as I had expected, and he was coughing up blood from some internal injury.

  It was raining more heavily. A real deer barked as we startled it, and it bounded away, but there was no sound from the castle. We took Shigeru into the river and swam gently and slowly to the opposite bank. I was blessing the rain, for it masked us, muffling every sound, but it also meant that when I looked back at the castle, I could see no sign of Yuki.

  When we reached the bank we laid him down in the long summer grass. Kenji knelt beside him and took off the hood, wiping the water from his face.

  “Forgive me, Shigeru,” he said.

  Shigeru smiled but did not speak. Summoning up his strength, he whispered my name.

  “I’m here.”

  “Do you have Jato?”

  “Yes, Lord Shigeru.”

  “Use it now. Take my head to Terayama and bury me next to Takeshi.” He paused as a fresh spasm of pain swept over him and then said, “And bring Iida’s head to me there.”

  As Kenji helped him to kneel he said quietly, “Takeo has never failed me.” I drew Jato from the scabbard. Shigeru stretched out his neck and murmured a few words: the prayers the Hidden use at the moment of death, followed by the name of the Enlightened One. I prayed, too, that I would not fail him now. It was darker than when Jato in his hand had saved my life.

  I lifted the sword, felt the dull ache in my wrist, and asked Shigeru’s forgiveness. The snake sword leaped and bit and, in its last act of service to its master, released him into the next world.

  The silence of the night was utter. The gushing blood seemed monstrously loud. We took the head, bathed it in the river, and wrapped it in the hood, both dry-eyed, beyond grief or remorse.

  There was a movement below the surface of the water, and seconds later Yuki surfaced like an otter. With her acute night vision she took in the scene, knelt by the body, and prayed briefly. I lifted the head—how heavy it was!—and put it in her hands.

  “Take it to Terayama,” I said. “I will meet you there.”

  She nodded, and I saw the slight flash of her teeth as she smiled.

  “We must all leave now,” Kenji hissed. “It was well done, but it’s finished.”

  “First I must give his body to the river.” I could not bear to leave it unburied on the bank. I took stones from the mouth of the canal and tied them into the loincloth that was his only garment. The others helped me carry him into the water.

  I swam out to the deepest part of the river and let go, feeling the tug and drift as the body sank. Blood rose to the surface, dark against the white mist, but the river carried it away.

  I thought of the house in Hagi where the river was always at the door and of the heron that came to the garden every evening. Now Otori Shigeru was dead. My tears flowed, and the river carried them away as well.

  But for me the night’s work was not finished. I swam back to the bank and picked up Jato. There was hardly a trace of blood on the blade. I wiped it and put it back in the scabbard. I knew Kenji was right—it would hamper my climbing—but I needed Jato now. I did not say a word to Kenji, and nothing to Yuki beyond “I’ll see you in Terayama.”

  Kenji whispered, “Takeo,” but without conviction. He must have known nothing would stop me. He embraced Yuki swiftly. It was only then that I realized that she was of course his daughter. He followed me back into the river.

  · 12 ·

  aede waited for night to come. She knew there was no other choice but to kill herself. She thought about dying with the same intensity she brought to everything. Her family’s honor had depended on the marriage—so her father had told her. Now in the confusion and turmoil that had surrounded her all day, she clung to the conviction that the only way to protect her family’s name was to act with honor herself.

  It was early evening on what should have been her wedding day. She was still dressed in the robes that the Tohan ladies had prepared for her. They were more sumptuous and elegant than anything she had ever worn, and inside them she felt as tiny and fragile as a doll. The women’s eyes had been red with weeping for the death of Lady Maruyama, but Kaede had been told nothing about this until after the massacre of the Otori men. Then one horror after another was revealed to her, until she thought she would go mad from outrage and grief.

  The residence with its elegant rooms, its treasures of art, its beautiful gardens, had become a place of violence and torture. Outside its walls, across the nightingale floor, hung the man she was supposed to have married. All afternoon she had heard the guards, their taunts and their foul laughter. Her heart swelled to breaking point, and she wept constantly. Sometimes she heard her own name mentioned, and knew that her reputation had grown worse. She felt she had caused Lord Otori’s downfall. She wept for him, for his utter humiliation at Iida’s hands. She wept for her parents and the shame she was bringing on them.

  Just when she thought she had cried her eyes dry, the tears welled and streamed down her face again. Lady Maruyama, Mariko, Sachie . . . they were all gone, swept away by the current of Tohan violence. All the people she cared about were either dead or vanished.

  And she wept for herself because she was fifteen years old and her life was over before it had begun. She mourned the husband she would never know, the children she would never bear, the future that the knife would put an end to. Her only consolation was the painting Takeo had given her. She held it in her hand and gazed on it constantly. Soon she would be free, like the little bird of the mountain.

  Shizuka went to the kitchens for a while to ask for some food to be brought, joining in the guards’ jokes with apparent heartlessness as she went past. When she returned the mask fell away. Her face was drawn with grief.

  “Lady,” she said, her bright voice belying her true feelings, “I must comb your hair. It’s all over the place. And you must change your clothes.”

  She helped Kaede undress and called to the maids to take the heavy wedding robes away.

  “I will put on my night robe now,” Kaede said. “I will see no one else today.”

  Clad in the light cotton garment, she sat on the floor by the open window. It was raining gently and a little cooler. The garden dripped with moisture as though it, too, were in deepest mourning.

  Shizuka knelt behind her, taking up the heavy weight of her hair and running her fingers through it. She breathed into Kaede’s ear, “I sent a message to the Muto residence in the city. I have just heard back from them. Takeo was hidden there, as I thought. They are going to permit him to retrieve Lord Otori’s body.”

  “Lord Otori is dead?”

  “No, not yet.” Shizuka’s voice trailed away. She was shaking with emotion. “The outrage,” she murmured, “the shame. He cannot be left there. Takeo must come for him.”

  Kaede said, “Then he, too, will die today.”

  “My messenger is also going to try to reach Arai,” Shizuka whispered. “But I do not know if he can arrive in time to help us.”

  “I never believed any one could challenge the Tohan,” Kaede said. “Lord Iida is invincible. His cruelty gives him power.” She gazed out of the window at the falling rain, the gray mist that enshrouded the mountains. “Why have men made such a harsh world?” she said in a low voice.
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  A string of wild geese flew overhead, calling mournfully. In the distance beyond the walls a deer barked.

  Kaede put her hand to her head. Her hair was wet with Shizuka’s tears. “When will Takeo come?”

  “If he does, late at night.” There was a long pause and then Shizuka said, “It is a hopeless venture.”

  Kaede did not reply. I will wait for him, she promised herself. I will see him once more.

  She felt the cool handle of the knife inside her robe. Shizuka noticed the movement, drew her close, and embraced her. “Don’t be afraid. Whatever you do, I will stay with you. I will follow you into the next world.”

  They held each other for a long time. Exhausted by emotion, Kaede slipped into the stage of bewilderment that accompanies grief. She felt as if she were dreaming and had entered another world, one in which she lay in Takeo’s arms, without fear. Only he can save me, she found herself thinking. Only he can bring me back to life.

  Later she told Shizuka she would like to bathe, and asked her to pluck her brow and eyebrows and scrub her feet and legs smooth. She ate a little and then sat in outwardly composed silence, meditating on what she had been taught as a child, remembering the serene face of the Enlightened One at Terayama.

  “Have compassion on me,” she prayed. “Help me to have courage.”

  The maids came to spread the beds. Kaede was getting ready to lie down and had placed the knife underneath the mattress. It was well into the hour of the Rat, and the residence had fallen silent, apart from the distant laughter of the guards, when they heard footsteps making the floor chirp. There was a tap on the door. Shizuka went to it and immediately dropped to the ground. Kaede heard Lord Abe’s voice.