I lowered my shoulder and ran straight for him. We tumbled together away from Ashikaga into an azalea bush. Tangled together, Norinaga bit down hard on my left wrist, giving it an angry shake.
I sat up, pain lancing up my arm. Drops of blood welled up where Norinaga’s teeth sank through flesh. It hurt, but the fox general clearly wasn’t biting down full strength.
You can’t protect your lordling this time. Norinaga gave my wrist another shake. I hissed at the pain. You are uncharacteristically quiet. What are you hiding?
The pretty white gravel bit into my right palm. I scrabbled together a handful and crushed it into Norinaga’s muzzle. With a snarl, the fox general released me. I rolled away. Ashikaga still lay motionless, blood-flecked cheek pressed to the ground. A glance showed me the slight movement of ribs rising and falling with breath. A hot, heavy flare in my belly pulled my eyes back to Norinaga. Musk shimmered in the air, the sense of fox magic stinging my insides like water spitting in hot oil. The original Norinaga I’d first met in the forest outside Ashikaga Village appeared behind the shimmer—a gray-at-the-temples man dressed in the saffron robe and brown hakama of a wandering yamabushi warrior monk. In his hand was a smooth walking staff of hinoki cypress. Scratches seeped blood around the eyes of Norinaga’s human face.
Norinaga brought the end of his staff down hard on Ashikaga’s back. My lordling gave an anguished groan, curling like a poked woolly bear.
“No!” I threw myself in front of the next swing. Pain arched hotly across my shoulder. Lungs and throat seized up. The cherry tree kami’s low grumbling intensified to a dull roar, startling breath back into me, and making Norinaga hesitate on an upswing.
Why do you just sit there?
I couldn’t hide the flinch at the scrape of his words in my raw, inner place. Norinaga’s eyes widened. “You can’t answer?”
His head tilted back, tongue peeking out between strangely big canines. Sniffing the air like the fox he was, Norinaga slowly smiled. “You banished the evil spirit?”
For a fleeing instant I saw something like pride flash across Norinaga’s expression. But I must have been wrong, because he swung the staff again, hard. I managed to twist just in time, taking the blow like a hot poker across my shoulders with a cry of agony.
Oh, spirits, it hurt. The pain became all my world for an instant.
Ashikaga’s eyes opened at my scream. My lordling rolled out of the way of Norinaga’s next blow. Instead of ending the roll on two feet, Ashikaga’s left knee buckled.
Norinaga opened his mouth to sing, staff held parallel to the ground in front of him. Horribly, continuing the next verse of my mother’s warding song.
My garment’s hanging sleeves sodden with falling rain. . . .
The cherry tree kami poured into the song, joining its power to the fox general’s. My shoulder and arm throbbed hotly. Needles stung my fingers and palm. Tired, so hard even to raise an arm, so sleepy. So hard to keep my eyelids from closing. There was nothing I could do. Norinaga was too strong. I should give up . . .
This wasn’t me. I gave myself a little shake. The same magic Norinaga had used to cast sleep at Lord Motofuji’s residence when Lord Yoshikazu was murdered flooded my mind with a heavy haze of smoke. Norinaga couldn’t use the kami’s power to directly harm people, as his failed attempt to bring Hell Mountain tumbling down on Ashikaga’s army had proved.
But we were as good as dead if we succumbed to this sleep. Even the Imperial guard had no defense against fox magic. The only one here who had a chance to fight this was me, broken and raw as I was.
With a deep breath, I unclenched lungs, belly, and that place inside that was a door for the kami to enter and indwell. The well-loved words sung in Norinaga’s taunting voice flowed in.
It is for your sake, that I walk, careless, the fields in spring. . . .
If salt burned and smelt of fox-musk, rubbing it into an open wound would have produced the same searing agony the mix of cherry tree kami and fox magic inflicted as it poured into me. It hurt so badly.
Ashikaga gave a gulping sob. No, not my lordling, the sound was wrenched from my own throat. I was both outside of and bound by anguished flesh at the same time.
Ashikaga hauled up to a crouch. Staggering, my lordling lunged at Norinaga, arching under the staff to wrap strong, elegant hands around the general’s throat.
Norinaga swatted Ashikaga away like a pesky fly, never ceasing his song for an instant. His power grew. I let it pour in, gritting my teeth against the torrid stream of fire. Worse than Asama-yama’s ancient anger indwelling on Hell Mountain, worse than a hundred blows from Norinaga’s staff.
Give in. Sleep.
I wanted Ujimitsu, or even Zeami. I wanted Father with his frowns and sighs. Someone to help me. Even the uncertain aid of Whispering Brook. But the kami of the river where I’d spent my childhood, who saved me from Norinaga’s fox soldiers the first time we’d met, was too far away.
There was only me. And this pain that soaked so deeply into my flesh and bones I couldn’t imagine a time when I didn’t hurt.
Norinaga pushed, sending ripples of his kami-powered song outward in all directions. The song spread a layer of thick drowsiness, as insistent as a bee droning under the endless solstice sky. Crickets stopped whirring in the grass, and the swallows quit swooping between the tops of the pines. Sleep beckoned, offering the comfort of a well-worn robe. All was quiet, all was still.
Except for Norinaga.
Broken and raw as I was, the bit of song-power I’d endured must have given me a layer of protection. I was awake. With a bit of struggle, I could fight the urge to close my eyes. That, awful, searing pain ceased with the end of Norinaga’s song. I wiped streaks of blood and sweat from my cheek with the back of my hand and stood to face the fox general.
Norinaga gave a laugh and a jaunty, little salute. He regarded Ashikaga’s still form with a delighted smile that showed the tips of pointy canines. “And now for the fun part.”
I grabbed at his sleeve as he strode past me and under the morning glories, but Norinaga shook me away as easily as he had thrown Ashikaga to the ground. He stalked across the main yard and into the pavilion where the Emperor and the Daimyo of the Northern Han sat watching Zeami write poetry, now open and defenseless.
Were they slumped over, sleeping, too?
I leaned over Ashikaga. So pale. My lordling was beautiful and fierce even in this unnatural sleep. Cheeks flushed pink as Beautiful or Kazue after they’d applied safflower beni. I let my lips brush the smooth, smooth skin and wondered how everyone had been fooled into seeing just a head-strong lordling for so long.
Stay asleep. Stay safe. My whole being cried out to stay kneeling beside Ashikaga, my heart’s center, my lordling who’d plucked me from a stand of gorseberry brush in a forest and forced me, kicking and screaming, into a world I’d never dreamed I could be a part of.
Ujimitsu knew the fox general’s true nature, but I wasn’t confident that Norinaga would be so easily handled with a sword. I stood up, head reeling, air shimmering into a blur. A few deep breaths, and teeth gritted against the jabs of pain from my shoulder, cost me precious moments before I could regain my balance and follow after Norinaga.
The yard was deserted. The guards at the entrance to the main pavilion never stirred from their slumped, drowsing positions curled up on the ground. Streaks of gravel dust stained their dark robes like the footprints of restless spirits. Ahead, already through the first gate of rippling cloth, Ashikaga walked deeper into the pavilion.
Ashikaga? But my lordling was unconscious. How did my lordling awake and appear here?
The air had shimmered when I first stood up.
Maybe it wasn’t just vertigo. Norinaga shimmered when he used his fox magic.
I bit the inside of my cheek, hard, to keep from crying out. That wasn’t my lordling.
But everyone else would see Ashikaga Yoshinori, hot-headed hick from the far north.
A hand closed around my heart, squeezing tight. Ujimitsu couldn’t attack Norinaga, now, even if he realized the fox general was wearing Ashikaga’s form. My feet stumbled forward, desperate, clambering like a grumpy bear past sleeping ladies inside the maze of cloth walls.
In the last antechamber I lunged forward, desperate to reach the hanging edge of Norinaga’s sleeve. I missed. Norinaga looked over his left shoulder as I fell to the rice-straw covered ground, elbows taking my weight with a heavy jolt. He smiled, and entered the main enclosure. Face burning, I stood up, only to witness Norinaga make his way before the Emperor and kneel in formal seiza, forehead pressed to the triangle of his hands on the rug.
The Emperor, the Daimyo, and Zeami all looked on in mild surprise.
They were all awake?
Chapter Twenty-five
* * *
“PLEASE FORGIVE THIS intrusion into the restful contemplation of these fleeting blossoms,” Norinaga was saying. The cherry trees surrounding the pavilion suddenly greedily held on to their flowers. The showers of white petals ceased as Norinaga spoke, despite the insistent breezes curling through my hair and the Emperor’s voluminous robes. Drowsiness hovered, just outside the lightly rippling lengths of cloth surrounding the enclosure unseen and unfelt by the Emperor’s party.
I brushed off rice-straw and curious glances. The nobles gathered near the entrance covered my path to Ujimitsu with chatter dotted with speculations about Ashikaga. The Emperor said something very quietly to Norinaga-Ashikaga, which made the lady pouring sake for Ujimitsu titter. Not kindly.
“I have practiced a poem for the occasion, my Emperor,” Norinaga was saying. Subtle layers of amusement colored his voice in a way Ashikaga would never have managed. Two needle-pricks on my neck; the force of Zeami’s disapproving stare. Even the player couldn’t tell the farce Norinaga acted? He seemed to have some sensitivity to Jindo magic, did Zeami not sense the fox general’s song before? The player must think me either betrayer or dolt, bringing Ashikaga back to the enclosure before Ujimitsu enacted our agreed-upon plan. Ujimitsu’s blank stare showed the same uncomprehending surprise. When I made to kneel at his right side, Ujimitsu slurped sake while a smirk colored the sober face of the gray-haired noble next to him an ugly pink.
Anger flushed hot over prickles and squirming embarrassment. How could Zeami and Ujimitsu really think me so heedless and witless?
Norinaga was still trading quiet, flowery pronouncements with the Emperor. Norinaga perfectly mimicking Ashikaga’s hick warrior cross-legged position and awkward bow while the Emperor leaned forward, nostrils flaring. Everyone scented the acid tang of change in the air—either Ashikaga’s sudden disruption would solidify his claim to fully take Lord Yoshikazu’s place or my lordling would lose face to the Emperor’s displeasure.
I jostled Ujimitsu’s elbow. He scowled at me. “Hush!”
What could I do? But while I tried to grab Ujimitsu’s sake cup and throw it at the false Ashikaga, Norinaga began to recite.
It is for the hollyhock’s sake,
That I walk, careless, the Northern fields in spring,
My garment’s hanging sleeves sodden with falling rain.
A Jindo song? In front of the Emperor and his court? He was mad.
Gasps and titters almost drowned out the next verse—like the tweaked words in my mother’s song, a verse I’d never heard before.
Cherry blossoms bloom and fall
Passing so swiftly from this vain world
But not as quickly as the flower called a man’s heart.
Hours of silently enduring Kazue’s poetry readings late at night in the handmaiden’s room when I was desperate for sleep gave me enough insight into courtier words and phrases to understand the poem referenced a jilted lover. Hollyhock was the flower symbol of Kyo no Miyako’s public guardsmen, and Northern fields could only mean Ashikaga province. The Daimyo sat up stiffly. Ujimitsu made a sound low in the back of his throat like the warning huff of a pine marten.
Lord Motofuji ruled the public guardsmen. The poem somehow spoke of Lady Ashikaga and Ujimitsu’s father, and signified something that no doubt had repercussions a peasant like me could only guess at. But there was no doubt to the significance of singing a Jindo song before the Emperor.
Death.
And worse than death, disloyalty that stained the Daimyo’s pure-white record of service to the Emperor. Norinaga folded a double layer of revenge for Ashikaga’s killing of the false Emperor at Hell Mountain.
Unless I could prove this wasn’t Ashikaga at all.
The absence of breath suddenly charged the air. Every noble and handmaiden present held back gasps of outrage and disbelief. No one so much as stirred, cups held to trembling lips, eyes steadfastly downcast, waiting for the Emperor to unleash his anger.
The ticking seconds filled with desperation. I could claim the song as my own and pretend Ashikaga-Norinaga was drunk. Or sprint across the narrow corridor of white gravel and rugs between my position next to Ujimitsu and the Lord Daimyo’s platform and punch him in the nose. Every action I could imagine ended in dishonor, or worse.
While I hesitated, Norinaga smirked. “How do you like my poem, Lord Emperor?” he purred. Zeami’s eyes narrowed. Norinaga pushed it too far with that sure, smiling tone, but by the time the others figured things out it would be too late.
“That’s Norinaga,” I hissed in Ujimitsu’s ear. The Boar was stunned. I tugged at his sword-hand sleeve. Ujimitsu looked in horror from Ashikaga-Norinaga to the Lord Daimyo, mouth agape. Could it be? The implication of the poem was a revelation to him? Hadn’t he known of Lady Ashikaga’s affair? Ujimitsu was suddenly useless, reeling from the news of his new half-brother.
The Emperor fixed his gaze on the Lord Daimyo. “The rumors of Northern ardor reach even my ears, but I never gave them credence.” Northern ardor. Even I understood this oblique reference to Lady Ashikaga. Cups clattered and gasps leaked through hands pressed in devilish glee to noble lips. “Is this an example of the North’s educational deficiencies? Or is this young man suffering from mental illness?” Another round of gasps, followed by a quiet buzz as everyone commented on the Emperor’s pointed use of ‘young man’ instead of ‘your son’ or ‘Lord Yoshinori.’
Zeami spoke, projecting his words clearly across the clearing despite his prostrate position. “Look to the young man’s real father for the blame.”
Now I gasped. What was Zeami doing? He was supposed to be on our side, not pushing blame onto Lord Motofuji or inflaming Ujimitsu. A sick realization formed like bile in my stomach. Zeami’s true loyalty was only to the Daimyo. He would not let Norinaga endanger the person he loved most in the world—nothing the actor did was for the sake of my lordling, just the father. Zeami would throw my lordling, Ujimitsu, and even Lord Motofuji to the wolves if it would keep Imperial disfavor from staining the Daimyo.
I was on my own and out of time.
“For Yamato,” Norinaga cried out. He rose, left hand digging deep in his robe’s left sleeve. I leaped, toe catching on the unraveled edge of a rug, tumbled forward, and wildly grasped at Norinaga. I caught his ankle and held on for dear life.
Chaos erupted. Nobles jumped to their feet, upsetting dishes of Jiro’s painstakingly-cut fruit. Handmaidens screeched, scrambling backwards so that their long robes and hair tangled the men’s attempts to reach Norinaga. Over it all came the harsh voice of the Lord Daimyo, calling for guards.
You won’t stop me this time, traitor.
Norinaga jerked his leg back and forth, trying to dislodge me, but I held on with all the streng
th of my fieldworker hands. Abruptly, he turned, a concealed needle peeking out from one, long sleeve, and smashed the point into the back of my hand.
I screamed.
Rough hands tugged at me—nobles pulling me away, oblivious to the real danger. I held on, palms slippery from the blood now dripping from where Norinaga’s needle had pierced flesh between the fine bones of my hand. Norinaga’s voice in my head, laughing, felt like a daikon grater scraping me from the inside. Norinaga twisted, wrenching the needle out and up, and aimed it at the Emperor.
I opened my mouth and sang.
Like a statue,
I will wait for you
Till the long tale of my unbound hair
grows unbearable with frost and longing.
Not one of my mother’s warding songs, but a song of my own, carefully tended, secreted away inside me every night I had spent in my lordling’s room, watching that sleeping, beloved face.
The cherry tree kami answered immediately, as if it had been hovering at the outside of the clearing waiting for me. Power shook the last blossoms from the trees, swirling them into a wind-funnel that deposited a thick layer of white petals all over us. Agony pierced me with a thousand razor-sharp quills. More blood trickled from my nostrils, every muscle in my body strung bow-tight. I held on, welcoming the cherry tree kami despite pain, the image of my lordling, hair loose in the moonlight, sharp-planed features lit from within by that fierce wanting held like a beacon against Norinaga’s dark anger.
I forced the last syllable of “longing” through clenched teeth. The layer of cherry blossoms exploded outwards, revealing not Lord Ashikaga crouched before the Emperor, but an old man with gray hair in a low, old-fashioned queue and indigo-dyed overcoat.
Norinaga. His true face.
The Emperor flinched. “You!”
“For Go-Daigo,” said Norinaga and he lunged towards the Emperor, his ankle slipping through my slick grip, wielding the needle still streaked with my blood in his right fist. A shape flashed in the corner of my eye and suddenly someone was coming up from a forward tumble between Norinaga’s needle and the Emperor’s face. Ashikaga. The real one!
The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight (A Tiger Lily Novel Book 2) Page 30