by Nick Lake
Hiro made a face at her back.
Outside, Taro joined his friends at the bottom of the steps lined with prayer wheels. Sighing, he stepped up, gripped the first wheel, and set it spinning. Each wheel said the same prayer, when spun – om mane padme hum, the characters writing the words on the air as they revolved, the mysterious Sanskrit letters an incantation to the bodhisattva of compassion. A person didn’t need to say anything, just spin the wheel. All the same, to the prayer encapsulated in the symbols carved on it, he added his own silent one.
Please, keep my mother safe forever, he thought. He looked up at the peak, so close now. All these months he had been separated from his mother, and now only a set of steps lay between him and her. He felt light as air, as though he could fly up them, though he could see from Hiro’s expression that his friend didn’t share his excitement.
Hiro spun the wheel on the other side of the path. ‘One down,’ he said grimly.
CHAPTER 12
EVEN TARO WAS panting when they reached the top of the path, the wheels behind him hissing as they spun on their axes. He stepped forward onto the grassy summit. When he turned round, he gasped. Hills lay in gentle folds below him, like kimonos that had been discarded on the floor. Far away to the east lay the sea, glittering in the late-day sunlight. The town of Kyoto, capital of Japan, was spread out before it. This was the town where the boy shogun lived, the child who technically ruled the country, and who every daimyo secretly wanted to replace – none more so than Taro’s own real father, Lord Tokugawa.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Hana.
Taro nodded. He could understand why the monks would have found this a good place to come, and meditate.
‘It’s just as Abbot Jien said,’ she went on.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Taro.
Hana was always forgetting that he was only a peasant by nature. She recited:
From the monastery
On Mount Hiei I look out
On this world of tears,
And though I am unworthy,
I protect it with my black sleeves.
Hana swept her hand over the distant hills.
‘He meant that when he looked at this view, he felt a desire to shield the world, and the people in it, from harm. Even though it was useless.’
Taro looked at the tiny pillars of smoke rising from houses, the trees like bonsai, the rivers gleaming in the light. Yes. He could understand what the poet meant.
Hiro came slogging up the steps to stand next to them. He glanced at the view. ‘This is it?’ he said.
Taro looked at Hana and smiled.
Just below them, on a plateau below the peak, was a large structure similar to the Hokke-do, its roof a sweeping upturned parabola, dragons leaping from either end. From this building came the abbot.
‘Irasshaimase,’ he said, giving Taro a little bow. ‘Welcome to the monastery.’
‘Thank you,’ said Taro. He was looking round the monk, trying to see if his mother was there.
The abbot smiled. ‘Of course. Come with me.’ He led the way down a path that ran past the building.
They descended through a rockery, the stones planted with many beautiful flowers and interspersed with many circles of carefully combed sand. At one point they turned, startled, as a muffled bang echoed from somewhere over to the west, followed by another.
‘Thunder?’ said Hana.
‘No,’ said the abbot. ‘Only our unruly neighbours, the Ikkoikki.’ He pointed to another mountain, closer to the sea – on the other side to the direction from which the friends had approached. It was a tall, dark mountain, topped by a cliff. And perched on the cliff was a building like a castle.
‘Ikko-ikki?’ said Taro.
‘They call themselves monks,’ said the abbot dismissively. He set off again, apparently not in the mood to explain further. Behind his back, Hana shrugged at Taro.
The abbot indicated the vast hall that lay before them, its four open sides surrounded by a grassy space filled with ume trees. ‘Our residence,’ he said.
Before the residence hall the lawn extended to cliffs, presided over by a wooden framework containing a single enormous bell. Monks were gathered here and there on the grass, talking quietly. A few sat alone, cross-legged, contemplating the view, while others sat with their heads down, contemplating only something that lay within.
Taro was looking around with wonder, stunned by the beauty of this place. Then, as if by some sixth sense, his head snapped around; perhaps he had heard a familiar footstep, something just below the level of his consciousness, that told him everything was about to change.
A woman stepped from the shadow of the hall and onto the grass, and Taro would know that step anywhere, that slight turning of the heel, that way of walking so carefully, as if the ground might at any moment rear up to bite her.
He broke away from the abbot, and then he was running, ignoring the monks as they looked up at him with irritation. She was turning then, and her mouth fell open, and then she was moving too, heedless of the ground and the imaginary dangers it might pose, just rushing towards her son.
He flung his arms out as she did, and they swung each other round in their embrace, laughing.
‘Taro!’ she said. ‘My son! You came. I was so worried, when I left Mount Fuji, that you would not know where I had gone. . .’
When the world was no longer spinning, Taro pulled away to look at her, to see her face. There were a few more wrinkles, perhaps, around her eyes, but otherwise she was unchanged, and he could hardly believe that the last time he’d seen her was that night in Shirahama, in their hut, when his father had just been murdered.
But then her words penetrated his consciousness.
‘What do you mean, Mount Fuji?’ he said.
‘Isn’t that where you’ve come from?’ his mother asked.
Taro frowned. ‘No. We came from. . . somewhere else.’ He wasn’t ready to talk about the ninja mountain, not yet. ‘From where Shusaku – he’s the one who saved us – used to live. Your note said Mount Hiei.’
She shook her head. ‘No, it didn’t. It said Mount Fuji, because that was where I was. Then I had to leave – the monks heard that Lord Tokugawa was going to destroy the monastery. It was in his province, and he was ridding himself of all enemies, so—’
‘Wait,’ said Taro. ‘You sent me a note saying you were at Mount Fuji? When was this?’
‘Nearly a year ago,’ said his mother. ‘As soon as I arrived there.’
Taro was experiencing an unpleasant sinking feeling. ‘Oh, no,’ he said.
‘When I left,’ his mother continued, not realizing the danger yet, ‘a monk accompanied me. They felt Mount Hiei would be safe – there are ten thousand monks here, all well armed, and the daimyo are concerned with the Ikko-ikki, on the other mountain. But I left word for you – I thought that was how you came to me.’
‘No,’ said Taro. ‘I came because someone sent me a note saying you were here.’ He dug in the folds of his cloak, handed his mother the note. ‘Is this what you sent?’ he asked, though he already knew the answer.
‘No,’ said his mother.
Taro stared at her. ‘But that – it doesn’t—’ He puzzled over it. ‘Did you send another one? Could one of the monks have sent it?’
‘No,’ said his mother.
He shivered. Clearly it was a trap. Someone had intercepted her message, killed the pigeon, and sent another one much later, giving his mother’s new location. But who? And for what reason? He looked around him. As his mother said, there were ten thousand monks here, and they would all fight to the death to protect the monastery. His mother was a valued guest here; so was he, it seemed. And the abbot had possessed ample opportunity to kill him back there in the woods, where they’d been ambushed.
He couldn’t work it out.
It didn’t make sense, but he didn’t have long to worry about it. Hana and Hiro had come up behind him. Hiro pulled Taro’s mother off the ground and spun h
er round. ‘It’s good to see you!’ he boomed. Taro’s mother giggled as she twirled through the air.
‘You too, Hiro,’ she said. When he finally put her down, she looked him up and down appraisingly. ‘You look different,’ she said. ‘Stronger.’
‘A lot has happened since we left Shirahama,’ said Taro. ‘I’ll tell you all about it, I promise.’ He thought about this for a moment. No, perhaps not all. He could tell her he was a vampire, maybe – but to tell her that he had killed Lord Oda? Perhaps not. And then there was the question of his true parentage. He had some difficult questions to ask of her. Right now, though, she was standing in front of him, smiling, and he could think of nothing but the fact that he had found his mother again, after all this time.
The abbot walked over. ‘I am pleased you have been reunited with your son,’ he said to Taro’s mother. He turned to Taro. ‘I have heard so much about you, these last few months. Of course, you’re not quite. . . what I expected.’
‘Why is that?’ asked Taro’s mother.
The abbot spread his hands. ‘I am sure Taro can explain later,’ he said. He gave Taro a sharp look, one that seemed to say, I hope you can, anyway. Taro nodded at him. He knew he was here on the abbot’s forbearance, to some extent. He was a vampire, and this was a holy place. He had known, from the moment the abbot recognized his name in the grove, that he would have some explaining to do.
‘For now, though,’ said the abbot, ‘let us rejoice that a mother and son have found each other again.’ He turned to Hana and Hiro. ‘I imagine you are hungry, no?’
Hiro grinned. ‘Ravenous,’ he said.
‘Well,’ said Taro’s mother, ‘some things never change, at least.’
That night the monks honoured their new guests with a feast. Taro could not eat the food, of course, but he was touched and surprised when the abbot led him to the back of the dining hall and showed a squealing pig. Taro drank enough to sustain him, without doing the pig any lasting harm. Then he returned to the hall and laughed with the others as Hiro imitated the surprise on Taro’s face when the monks dropped from the trees. There was little chance to talk to his mother, to find out what had happened to her since they last met, but for then Taro was satisfied to be close to her, after so long.
Midway through the feast, Taro took the abbot aside. He didn’t explain anything about the ninja mountain, but he told the elderly monk about the note, and how he suspected this might be some kind of trap.
‘But what trap?’ said the abbot. ‘We will not harm you here. If I wanted you dead, you would be dead.’
‘Yes,’ said Taro. ‘I thought of that myself.’
‘It’s a mystery,’ said the abbot. ‘But who is to say the note was not sent by a kind spirit? That it was not the action of some bodhisattva, of some kami, of the turning of the wheel of dharma?’
‘Er. . .,’ said Taro. ‘Yes, perhaps.’ But he was not convinced. He was nervous, and he couldn’t stop looking around the hall, startled whenever anyone moved their hands too quickly to their robes.
There’s danger here, he thought. I know it. His instincts had not let him down before, and so he remained always tense and on guard, though smiling at his mother and Hiro to help them to relax.
CHAPTER 13
THE NEXT DAY Taro sat with his mother and Hiro under an ancient plum tree. Hana had gone off with the abbot to look at the scrolls – he had promised to take one out of its gold casing and show her the actual text written so many centuries before by the monastery’s founder, Seido. Taro had suggested to Hiro that he accompany her, so that he could sit alone with his mother, but Hiro had looked at him as if he was mad.
‘I’m just worried,’ said Taro, ‘that it might be a trap.’ He didn’t like the fact that the pigeon had taken so many months to reach him, and that the message had changed. And yet there didn’t seem to be any threat here. His mother was safe, and the mountain was crawling with well-armed monks.
‘The monks at Mount Fuji might have sent it,’ said his mother. ‘It’s just strange that it took so long.’
Taro sighed. ‘Perhaps. Except your first bird never reached the ninja mountain, so why did this one?’ He’d told his mother about his training at the mountain, as if he’d gone straight there from Shirahama, and from there to Mount Hiei. Anything to do with Lord Oda, or his castle, he had left out. He and Hiro and Hana had left it to be understood that Hana, too, came from the ninja mountain.
His mother put her hand on his. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you’re here at last.’
Taro smiled at her. He was glad to be here too. He could sit and hold her hand forever, he thought. She had developed more lines, yes, but she also seemed healthier, now that she was not diving any more. The work had been hard, and the sea claimed its price too. It got into the ears of the ama, salting them up, turning them slowly into coral, as if the sea were invading – bit by bit – their bodies. And their eyes were always bloodshot, their skin always wrinkled by the water.
Now, though, Taro’s mother’s eyes were a clear, light brown, like the leaves of the maples and cedars that still lay on the ground, and her skin was plumper, firmer. A vein throbbed, healthily, in her neck.
Taro looked away. He was better at controlling his urges, but the thirst still grabbed him sometimes like a ferocious wind that wanted to strip away his identity and leave a beast in his stead, desperate only for blood.
‘—girl,’ said his mother, and Taro realized he had missed something.
‘Sorry?’ he said.
‘The girl, Hanako. Do you love her?’
It took Taro a moment to think who his mother meant. Then he realized she was speaking of Hana. They had changed her name, just slightly – they didn’t want anyone knowing she was Lord Oda’s daughter. Taro looked down again, out of embarrassment this time, not the controlling of his blood-thirst. ‘I – ah—’
‘Yes,’ said Hiro. ‘He does. He moons over her all the time. He’s always looking at her, then going red.’
Taro hit his friend’s arm. ‘I—,’ he began. ‘That is to say. . . I felt, when I met her, that I knew her. ‘
His mother nodded, a faraway look in her eye. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is the way it is.’ Taro wished he could know if she spoke of his father – the father who raised him – or Lord Tokugawa. He could see no way of asking.
‘Tell me about this place,’ he asked instead. ‘How you got here.’
His mother touched the trunk of the tree. ‘When I left Shirahama, I didn’t know where I was going. But then I heard someone on the road mention the Fuji monastery, and how the power plays of the daimyos were still being frustrated by the warrior monks. I thought it would be a safer place than any, so I made my way there. But then we heard Lord Tokugawa was about to attack, and so I moved here, as I told you. I expected it to be a refuge. But when I arrived. . . I found something I hadn’t quite foreseen.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I was looking for safety. But what I found was. . . peace, I suppose.’ She smiled, embarrassed, and looked down at a blossom that had fallen into the palm of her hand. ‘It was obon when I arrived, and the spirits of the dead were loose in the world. My husband had just been killed. It could have been a difficult time, but the monks helped me. They taught me meditation. They taught me to see that this world of tears is only temporary and shallow – like the reflection of the moon on the surface of the water.’
Taro raised his eyebrows. ‘And to think you were just a simple ama once. . .,’ he said playfully.
She laughed, getting to her feet. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you around.’ She led Taro and Hiro through the hall, then past the giant bell to the grassy meditation area. Heading downhill, she showed them the various buildings: the initiation hall, the baths, and the watchtowers. Taro feigned interest, his mind on the mystery of the slow pigeon – and Hana’s face – while Hiro kept up a constant chatter.
As they walked, though, Taro felt himself relaxing, despite his distr
action. He was in the company of his mother, long lost, and his best friend. He should enjoy it while it lasted. Slowly he began to talk of some of the harder things – things he had not wanted to bring up straightaway. They spoke at length about Taro’s father, conjuring the man from the air before them, seeing him together, remembering his strength and kindness. And Taro told his mother everything that had happened to him – or almost everything, anyway.
It was enough, though, to walk with her, through the shade of the pine trees, and watch the many-clouded sky above, always moving and always the same. Finally they returned to the meditation area, where Taro’s mother led them to another ume tree, even more gnarled and ancient than the one they’d been sitting under. The sun was low, and its light filtered through the pink blossoms, creating the impression that they stood within a canopy of intricate latticework, designed to refract and colour the light. A builder of temples could not have emulated it.
‘The monks sit by this tree all day sometimes,’ Taro’s mother said. ‘They say that watching the plum rain is a kind of meditation.’
‘Huh,’ said Hiro. ‘Sounds like a nice way to spend your life.’
‘They say not. They call it mono no aware. What they are trying to do is to understand, completely, that nothing in the world lasts. That everything is. . . transient. They say that the plum rain is a symbol of the unreality of the world. It always falls, you see. And then there is only the bare branch. They say that if they can only grasp this idea firmly in their minds, the world will for them take on its essential lack of form, and they will be only light. That is liberation.’
Taro nodded. ‘I see.’ He didn’t, really, but his mother had a far-off look in her eye, as if what the monks had told her accorded with some secret intuition of her own. ‘You would like to stay here,’ he said. It was more a statement than a question.