The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight (A Tiger Lily Novel Book 2)

by K. Bird Lincoln

  The pavilion drove home the reason behind all the frantic scurrying. The Emperor was coming here. The reputation of Ashikaga’s main branch would sink or rise based on today’s party. But even nature seemed on our side. The sun shone brightly on the cherry trees. Ashikaga’s great grandfather had planted a small grove of the double-blossomed variety. They were a burst of white, like frothy bubbles skimming the top of soapy water, amid the pale pink of the more common variety.

  Petals filled the garden like snow flurries every time the light breeze gathered a little steam. Perfect flower-viewing weather. Not one murmur came from the kami of the grove. At least none that I could hear.

  Beautiful tugged the zabuton out of my hand and replaced it with a thick rug made of dyed, piled cotton the same pale pink as the trees. “To cover the tatami mats in the Emperor’s pavilion,” she said.

  I nodded and draped the rug over a railing so I could set to work with my beater.

  “Are you going to be a close-mouthed clam all day?”

  “What?”

  “Kazue is pinch-faced with jealousy. The rumors keep getting wilder and wilder. Did you really travel back in the Kanze-za prop cart?”

  I nodded again, still half-tangled in thoughts about the Emperor and my lordling and what I might dare to ask as a boon. Beautiful kicked at my feet with the dull tread of her wooden geta. “Lord Ashikaga couldn’t let you go?”

  “Zeami Motokiyo brought me back. We ah . . . stopped an attack at Lord Ashikaga Yoshikazu’s memorial.”

  Little Turtle would have squealed and demanded every detail. Beautiful wouldn’t admit I had secrets she wanted, but somehow she pried details from me with each rug she put into my hands. By the time the pile of beaten rugs was waist-high, she knew the whole story form the temple to the yurei appearing last night. I’d skimmed over the Jindo parts mostly, even though Beautiful knew of my forbidden songs. We were still surrounded by handmaidens, house guards, and gardeners, and I had no idea what story Ashikaga was going to tell about the memorial or last night. I needn’t have worried. Beautiful latched on to the Daimyo’s promised boon with an excited sparkled in her eye.

  “Think of it, Lily, you could get land.”

  And with the land, my father would have a yearly koku allotment of rice. He could be raised to retainer. Little Brother could inherit. We need never fear for May’s or my upkeep after Father was gone. Of course, it was so simple. Beautiful was right. Land was the obvious choice.

  And then I would have to go back to Ashikaga Han in the North, leaving my lordling to Kyo no Miyako forever.

  I couldn’t.

  No more fooling myself. No more silly dreams. Separating from my lordling was harder to think about than anything—even May’s future or the possibility I’d broken that part of myself where kami indwelt. Worse than never singing a Jindo warding song again.

  “Lily?” Beautiful knelt gracefully to pluck the wicker beater from the dusty gravel where it had fallen from my nerveless fingers.

  “Not land,” I said. Beautiful blinked up at me. She motioned for me to pick up the corners of the pile of rugs so we could haul them over to the pavilion. “What would you ask for, then? Even the Lord Daimyo can’t make you a lady.”

  I gave a short, harsh laugh.

  After the rugs were delivered came last minute repairs to fraying partition cloth, and then another layer of ache added to my knees as we rubbed whale oil into all the verandah railings until they shone. A brief stop in the kitchen for rice balls and tea brought us under Jiro’s tyrannical eye. He gave us extremely sharp, delicate knives and a mountain of new carrots. Beautiful and I undertook the painstaking process of making shallow cuts into the sides of the carrots so that Jiro could slice them into flowers.

  An hour before the Emperor was to arrive with the court, I finally finished the last carrot. Pleading a call of nature, I escaped. Just a few minutes to myself, that was all I asked. I walked briskly out the backdoor of the kitchen outbuilding, pretending I was on an errand as I passed other, harried-looking servants.

  A lucky lull in the garden-preparations meant the back yard was momentarily empty. I escaped to the concealed safety of the overgrown trellis choked with morning glory outside Lady Ashikaga’s hall. I crouched, wrapping my arms around aching shoulders, breathing past the lump in my throat. The yurei’s home had become my haven.

  The empty dust of abandoned space had replaced the vaguely menacing spirit of the decaying thatch and rotting wood-posts. Without the yurei’s spark it was just sad. I sighed. We’d truly done it. Lady Ashikaga was at rest. I’d feared the yurei for so long; now that it was gone, I should have felt relief. My heart ached as heavily as my bones. They yurei’s danger was gone, yes, but the future was still uncertain.

  My eye caught on the sliding door. It was ajar. Someone had been inside, someone careless enough to leave the door open. An animal? It wouldn’t do to leave the door open. Mice or bats could get in.

  As soon as I put a hand to the metal door-pull, I heard a low rumble. Cherry tree kami? My heartbeat quickened. The low chanting came again. No, I realized with a rush of disappointment. This was a mortal voice. Male. I hesitated. The entire household was in an uproar preparing for the party. Only someone hiding, like me, would brave this haunted place.

  While I considered this, the door slid open. Zeami Motokiyo stood before me in a formal, black robe embroidered with the Ashikaga crest and a pleased expression. “Are you coming in?”

  I lowered my gaze and made to bow and slip away, but Zeami caught the hem of my sleeve and tugged. “You will drink tea with me,” said Zeami.

  Inside the hall’s main room someone had set up three lacquered, wood trays. The same kind I’d wiped or carried a hundred times for the Ashikagas, but never used myself. I followed Zeami inside, stepping out of my geta onto the tatami with bare feet. The rough edges of the matting tickled my soles.

  Zeami went straight to the opposite corner to a small, earthenware brazier and box. He took up a rough-formed bowl, still bearing the imprint of the artist’s thumbs along the sides, and with graceful masculine movements measured green powder, dipped water, and briskly whisked until a green liquid as vibrant as new moss steamed invitingly. Zeami presented the bowl with a flourish, holding back the drape of his long sleeve with the other hand.

  I nodded and took the bowl, almost painfully hot to the touch.

  The last time I’d had ceremonial green tea like this was almost a year ago. Before my lordling attacked the Pretender Emperor on Hell Mountain his ally, Lord Hojo, had contrived a ceremony so he could see what kind of shamaness I was before throwing in his support behind my lordling. I’d passed his test back then. Today was the same dangerous sense of stepping into a tangled net of noble politics, although it was only Zeami and I. And Zeami had proved his allegiance to the Ashikagas.

  That third tray. The actor did nothing carelessly. Who did he expect? And had he expected me? Or was I usurping someone’s place?

  I knelt at the open tray and carefully sipped as Zeami repeated the process of making tea in a thin, black porcelain bowl. The tea was deliciously bitter and fresh, conjuring an intense thirst even while it burnt the insides of my lips.

  “The great equalizer,” said Zeami, with a languid wave of the wrist at his own bowl. A year ago I wouldn’t have understood that the nobles considered ceremonial tea a temporary suspension of formalities between underlings and lords. Not that anyone truly forgot their station, but the tea-master did serve the other guests, even if those guests were peasants. Did Zeami think to put me at ease? Suggest we two were equal? Or was it the mysterious, absent third person he wanted to influence?

  I took another sip. Zeami regarded me, thoughtfully. “I’ve played many roles in life—noble, peasant, crone, and ghost. The essentials of my art reside in th
e spirit. I become the object of my performance and then develop the role.” He sipped his own tea, turning it carefully in his hand before setting it down on his tray. “Audience members have flattered me by describing how they forget the man behind the mask.” He looked up at me through lowered lashes, a decidedly feminine gesture in contrast with the stark, masculine planes of his face and formal robe. “Do you understand what the crone tried to teach you?”

  The crone? All that time mimicking Mitsusuke’s highfalutin movements in the back of the prop cart. What had she said? Pretend so hard and long that it didn’t matter anymore what folks knew was under that robe or under the mask. You act like one thing long enough, does it matter what you started out as?

  Zeami wanted me to believe he became something more than an actor? That pretending lasted beyond the stage? Or beyond a few moments singing with a kami indwelling in one’s heart? With the kami’s help, I had somehow banished the yurei with that pretended authority and Norinaga’s chant last night. Authority I’d put on like one of Zeami’s masks. But I was still just Tiger Lily inside—and now possibly less shamaness than I was before. My left hand crept over my belly, cupping my navel where I still felt raw and tender inside.

  I was who I was. “After the performance, an actor puts off the mask and returns to hemp robes.”

  Zeami smiled. “But the scent of chrysanthemums lingers.”

  Chrysanthemums? He most likely referenced some line from a famous poem any noble would know. All I could think of was funeral flower arrangements. Zeami was caught up in some wave of emotion. “Your roles have changed you, Lily. You have suffered and fought for the Ashikagas. You can no longer be merely a field worker with a dangerous habit of singing.”

  I raised my eyes to meet his, jaw stubbornly set against the truth in his words. Enough of this talking in circles. “What do you want from me this time?” I didn’t bother keeping the irritation from my tone.

  “What’s this?” came a voice from the entryway. Zeami’s face became a welcoming mask and he bowed deeply.

  Lord Ujimitsu.

  I backed towards the wall, skin hot and prickling like I stood too close to a fire.

  “Welcome,” said Zeami. “Your presence honors us.”

  Lord Ujimitsu blocked the doorway or I would have bolted. Zeami meant to plunge me head first into deep water. Any plot including this brute was not one I wanted part of. From the distaste on Lord Ujimitsu’s face, he wanted no part of me, either.

  “What’s she doing here?” After Zeami’s cultured court-speak, Lord Ujimitsu’s rough tone was boarlike. “It’s my father who schemes with forbidden magic.”

  “We three have common cause,” said Zeami. “Do me the honor of sitting down and partaking of tea while we discuss this.” Was Zeami purposefully using flowery talk to make Ujimitsu feel brutish? Or to make him less wary? Either way, why was I still here? I glanced at Zeami, and then the door. Lord Ujimitsu made no move. If he would just step up from the entryway onto the floor, I could slip out behind him.

  “I got nothing in common with the likes of her,” said Lord Ujimitsu, sounding like I had a contagious disease. I silently agreed, despite the insult.

  Zeami knelt and began to measure green powder with a scoop. “The three of us need to plan Ashikaga’s disqualification from, and Lord Ujimitsu’s ascendancy to, the heirdom of the Northern Daimyo.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  * * *

  UJIMITSU FELL BACK into a defensive stance, weight on his back leg, wakizashi withdrawn to a hand’s width of naked blade. “None of your tricks, player.”

  Zeami looked back over one shoulder, seemingly unconcerned by the hint of violence overtaking the dusty room. “I am deadly serious.”

  “Is she?” said Lord Ujimitsu, chin jerking my way.

  Zeami swiveled around, bowl of steaming tea in his hands. Deliberately unthreatening. I’d learned enough about managing hot-headed young lordlings to realize this. “She understands you are the better choice.”

  Lord Ujimitsu snorted at this obvious flattery, but slipped his sword all the way home with a click. He shed geta and stepped up into the hall. Here was my chance to escape, but my legs stayed frozen. Zeami schemed with Lord Ujimitsu just as Norinaga had. If I stayed, I could keep their plan from harming my lordling. If I left, I would be blameless, but Ashikaga might be in danger.

  Hesitation gave Lord Ujimitsu the chance to corner me against the wall. Dust sifted down through the air. He peered at me like I was a horse he was considering on a race track. “You don’t want Ashikaga to be heir?”

  I shook my head, not quite daring to meet his eyes.

  “Why? You’ve always fought on his side before. You’re a loyal wench.”

  “Lord Yoshinori’s heart is in the North. If we stayed in Kyoto, he would shrivel and waste away.” It wasn’t enough, I knew. I had to put it in terms of a danger even Ujimitsu could understand. “A shamaness would not survive long under the Emperor’s eye.”

  Lord Ujimitsu grunted, satisfied for now. He settled into a cross-legged warrior’s posture behind the third tray.

  “So what’s your plan?”

  Just like that, Zeami had snared us in his net. This tea made of us equal partners in betrayal.

  “Why can’t you just council the Lord Daimyo to make Lord Ujimitsu heir? Why all this plotting around Lord Yoshinori?” I sat seiza in front of my abandoned bowl of tea.

  “With the Daimyo’s legitimate son alive? Consolidating power in the North while I play lapdog for Emperor Cho-Kei?” said Lord Ujimitsu.

  “That’s not what Lord Yoshinori would do,” I protested, keeping my gaze on the tray table in front of Lord Ujimitsu. Lord Yoshinori was not a threat. I tried to make myself seem small and helpless.

  “How else would the court regard Lady Hisako’s alliance with the Hojo? Unless Lord Yoshinori loses eyes or legs, he will always be a threat to me.”

  I raised my bowl, wanting to draw Zeami’s attention, and spoke softly over the surface of the hot tea. “There is a sure way to make Lord Yoshinori unsuitable.” Meaning the unthinkable.

  “Besides the obvious scandal,” said Zeami, “that would leave the main branch Ashikagas too vulnerable after the Lord Daimyo’s death.” His voice was calm, but his eyes were narrowed and angry. It was dangerous to speak in front of Ujimitsu like this, of my lordling’s secret, but truly I couldn’t think of a less mortally dangerous way.

  “Scandal?” said Ujimitsu.

  “Revealing the Jindo connections,” said Zeami, and I had to admire the plausible lie. “The Ashikaga domain is a ripe plum. How long do you think the court would allow it to remain unplucked in a garden of Jindo iniquity?”

  Lord Ujimitsu nodded.

  Here we were back at my original problem.

  “What could we do that would cast Lord Yoshinori in a bad light without singeing the Ashikaga honor?” said Zeami.

  “Taking lovers doesn’t seem to matter to the court,” said Lord Ujimitsu, giving Zeami a meaningful look. I wondered if he knew about his own father and Lady Ashikaga. “Trotting out a Jindo shamaness at the party would be going too far.”

  “But today’s party is our best chance,” said Zeami.

  “What? Have him knock over the Emperor’s sake jar onto his robe? Let his horse piss on the picnic rug? Catch him cheating at a painted-shell matching game?” Irritation made his tone rough, but for the first time since entering the hall, Lord Ujimitsu’s hand was away from his sword hilt. That aggressive posture, much like a bristling hedgehog, or the wild boar of his birth year, melted into a formal court-posture with legs tucked underneath hips. Living in Kyoto had even diluted this firebrand. Ujimitsu was older than me by almost a decade, but he’d always seemed brash and young. Drinking powdered te
a from the bowl Zeami handed him with correct, measured sips, he became the seasoned courtier he was.

  “No,” I said. “We’re looking at this the wrong way. We don’t need to discredit Ashikaga, we just need to bring Ujimitsu to the Emperor’s attention.”

  “A duel,” said Lord Ujimitsu, too eager. He sipped the hot liquid in his bowl and winced, wiping greenish foam on his robe’s sleeve. “I could trounce him in a fair fight.”

  Zeami winced as well. “That’s not enough to convince the Lord Daimyo to choose you.”

  “If the Emperor wills it, the Lord Daimyo will have no choice.”

  Any duel between Ujimitsu and Ashikaga would end with death or mortal injury. That wasn’t the answer. “I can’t sing Jindo without casting suspicion on Lord Yoshinori because of our connection. But what if Lord Ujimitsu defended against a different Jindo threat?”

  I recalled Norinaga’s words at Otowa when he plotted. He’d told me to hang the fox netsuke over a wall-post as a sign for him to enter the compound. He wouldn’t have given up his plans so easily and left the capital even when the temple assassination failed. He still had to be out there, plotting, scheming somewhere.

  You understand you are the enemy now.

  Norinaga had always made the mistake of treating me like a naïve, young thing, fooled by his talk of Yamato and the kami. He would come, I knew it. He couldn’t resist invading the Ashikaga compound if I sent the signal. Especially if Lord Ujimitsu also sent for him.

  Despite Lord Ujimitsu’s distaste for Jindo magic, he readily agreed to the plan, even over Zeami’s insistence it was too chancy. In the end, Zeami had no better plan to discredit the Ashikagas and still keep Lord Yoshinori safe as steward of the Northern Han while Ujimitsu played Lord Daimyo here at court. Lord Ujimitsu would send a message to Hosokawa-Norinaga with vague talk about undermining Ashikaga prestige by sabotaging the flower-viewing party.