by Lian Hearn
“The Empress wants to move here as soon as possible,” he said to Masachika as they descended from the carriage. “See if there is anywhere suitable for temporary lodging. If she is to be believed, her presence here will speed the completion.”
Masachika went to speak to the head carpenter. Aritomo waited in the shade of the cloister, trying to sharpen all his senses, to discern what was really going on at Ryusonji.
The sound of a lute came to him, its mournful, plangent notes turning his spine cold. Masachika came back, saying enthusiastically, “This hall is nearly finished. It could be ready before the end of the month. I will start arranging furnishings and servants.”
“They will need many rooms,” Aritomo said. “And priests, guards, and so on. What happened to all the priests and monks who were here before?”
“Some died in the fire, I believe. The rest must have run away.”
“Well, the Empress will bring her own, no doubt. Consult the steward of the Imperial Household.”
Masachika inclined his head. “I will, lord.”
If he resented being given this tedious, if prestigious, responsibility, he gave no sign of it. Aritomo knew he could rely on him, that Masachika would complete the task as swiftly and efficiently as he did everything. Yet, no matter how competent Masachika was, Aritomo would never warm to him.
The notes of the lute trickled through the air as if they were summoning him.
“Let us inspect the other courtyards,” he said.
The sun beat down on the blindingly white stones, making his head ache. The new moss was an unnaturally brilliant green. The shadows under the cloisters were deep black.
The lute player sat cross-legged, the lute in his lap, his face turned to them as if he had been waiting for them.
Aritomo saw the hollow eye sockets, the shriveled lids.
Masachika exclaimed, “It is Master Sesshin!”
“The one whom your wife had blinded?”
“Yes, it was his eyes that I replaced at Matsutani and so subdued the guardian spirits.”
“I remember,” Aritomo said coldly. He could not take his eyes off the old man. So this was what immortality looked like! When the physical body could not die, did it simply mean endless pain and suffering? The deformed frailty before him tempted him briefly, savagely. He had often seen how under torture life persisted longer than he would have believed possible, but eventually it was extinguished. The Empress had told him the old man could not be killed and he wanted to put her claim to the test.
“Your lordship should not concern himself with the old lute player.” The head carpenter had followed them into the courtyard and stood beside them, regarding Sesshin with an indulgent smile. “He is our talisman, aren’t you, grandfather?”
He spoke in a loud voice and Sesshin nodded and smiled with senile glee.
“As long as he is left alone to play and sing, our work progresses. I bring him some food every day, not that he takes more than a mouthful. Since he returned there have been no accidents, no fires. The men say the dragon child must like his songs.”
“Does he have any books?” Aritomo said, remembering what the Empress had said.
The workman shook his head. “I don’t think so. What use would he have for books since he cannot see?”
Aritomo leaned over Sesshin and said loudly, “Where is the Book of the Future?”
“I will show it to you, one day,” Sesshin replied, his voice low and rational. “And you will see whose name is written in it. There is no need to shout. I am not deaf.”
Then he took up the lute and began to pluck the strings with his long fingernails.
“That’s the way,” the head carpenter said approvingly. “Keep playing for us!”
“I will come back and talk to him again,” Aritomo said. There was so much he did not understand, it was unsettling him. The feeble old man who was somehow immortal, the Book of the Future: none of it made sense. And it was too hot, the wind was too dry. He longed for the gray skies and constant drizzle of the plum rains. He decided he would make sure the old man stayed here so he knew where he was, and he would come to question him, alone, and discover his secrets.
7
HINA (YAYOI)
Yayoi grew taller and, in her third spring at the temple, her body began to change. Her breasts swelled and she bled monthly, like all the women, attuned to the cycle of the moon. She had seen first Yuri, and then Asagao, become women in the same way—indeed, Asagao made sure there was not a single detail in the process that Yayoi did not know about—so she was not shocked or frightened as young girls sometimes were. Mostly she accepted womanhood—what else could she do?—but she also grieved for that girl child, single-minded and courageous, now gone forever.
Yuri left the temple one spring, making the journey on her own, the palanquin waiting at the foot of the steps. Sada and Sen, the two sisters, wept for days. Asagao was now the oldest girl. She did not sing them to sleep as Yuri had. She teased them for their red eyes and, when no one else was around, she bullied them. She left the following year. Lady Fuji herself came for her, bringing another young girl, whom she entrusted to Yayoi’s care.
“You, yourself, will be ready soon,” she said with her familiar, appraising look.
The girls missed Asagao, her high spirits, her teasing ways. Even Sada and Sen wept for her, while Yayoi felt bereft, as though she had lost a limb.
In the sixth month of that year, when they had given up hoping for the plum rains, men came on horseback, demanding to speak to the Abbess. Their leader was obviously a warrior of high rank, though the nuns did not know him. He wore a crest of a sail above waves and the white stars of the Miboshi.
Men’s voices, their heavy tread, their sweaty smell, were so unusual, it threw the girls and the nuns, even the ginger cat, into a state of anxiety and agitation. The men spoke politely, yet there was an undertone of menace. The lord made it clear that the women’s temple survived only on his sufferance. One word from him and it would all be destroyed.
The Reverend Nun tried to hide the girls, but the men demanded to see every person living in the place. She rapidly tore off the robes they usually wore and made them put on nuns’ habits and servants’ clothes, rubbed dirt and ash on their faces and hands. They had never seen her so distressed and it alarmed them into silence.
Yayoi was terrified one of the men might be Masachika, her uncle. Would she even recognize the man who had killed Saburo in front of her eyes? Would he know her, after all these years? But all the men seemed strangers to her and, though they studied her intently, she did not think any of them knew her.
They did not lay hands on the girls, but they touched the older women, patting their breasts and feeling between their thighs, and one nun, taller than the others and somewhat masculine in look, was forced to disrobe to prove she was not a man.
Since the men hardly spoke, no one knew who or what they were looking for. They searched every corner of the temple, from the chests that held the sacred sutras to the woodpile stacked on the southern wall.
“Why did they spend so long at the fishpond?” Yayoi asked after they had left.
“People hide underwater,” the Reverend Nun replied, “and breathe through hollow reeds—or so I have heard.”
She helped the girls clean themselves, her hands shaking. “I suppose we were lucky. None of you has been harmed and nothing has been damaged that can’t be mended.”
Torn manuscripts, a broken statue, ripped hangings, a shattered ceiling, doors forced out of their tracks—the tall nun, weeping silently, set herself to repairing them.
Yayoi, now the oldest, undertook the task of calming and consoling the other girls. They all, like her, had fears from the past that had been reawakened by the armed men. She took out the lute and forced it to play soothing music, wondering where Yoshi was and if she and Genzo would ever be in his presence again. Several sutras needed recopying; Sada had quite a gift for writing, and she and Yayoi worked on them toge
ther, Yayoi reading them aloud.
When they were finished, she took them to the Abbess for her approval, kneeling quietly while the older woman read through them, reciting each syllable under her breath. Yayoi felt that peace was being restored with every precious word. Even the cat was calmed; she could hear its loud rhythmic purring.
The Abbess said suddenly, “They were looking for a man whom they called Shikanoko.”
Yayoi felt shock run tingling through her limbs. Her heart thumped.
“I did not understand why they thought such a man, an enemy of Lord Aritomo, a warrior and a sorcerer, would be here at our insignificant temple. They told me they had recently discovered he was my son, and therefore there was every reason to suspect I was hiding him.”
Yayoi said nothing, silenced by astonishment.
“My son, whom I have not seen since he was a young child, whom I believed to be dead. Not a day has passed that I have not prayed for him, but all my prayers, it seems, have gone unanswered. They say he has become a monster. He murdered his uncle through dark magic and then destroyed the Prince Abbot and the temple at Ryusonji. Now, these men say, Lord Aritomo believes it is his evil power that has cursed the realm and caused the rain to cease and the rivers to dry up. I told them if I knew where he was, I would have handed him over to them. But I do not know.”
She stopped speaking and stood abruptly. The cat, alarmed, ran out of the room.
“And now our temple has come to the attention of Lord Aritomo. He sent Arinori to investigate me. I could tell Lord Arinori was shocked that we had no priests overseeing us. He asked how we ran our affairs and I was forced to reveal our benefactress, Lady Fuji. She will not thank me for that. No doubt she will come under his scrutiny next. They also inquired to whom we paid tax and I had to admit that we pay no tax to anyone.” She went to the door and gazed out on the garden. “I cannot believe he has grown up to be so evil, but he had a fierce temper even as a baby. He screamed and bit my breasts. My women said that meant he would be a powerful warrior. But how did he fall into sorcery?”
Yayoi longed to reveal all she knew of Shikanoko, how he had served her father for a while, his kindness to her and her brother, the way he had cared for Sesshin after the old man had been blinded. She remembered the day he had arrived at Matsutani, riding Risu, the bad-tempered brown mare, and how he had been able to shoot down the werehawk that no one else could. But she did not dare open her mouth. Waves of emotion swept over her, so violent she feared she would faint. What is this? What is wrong with me?
“I must renew my prayers,” the Abbess was saying. “I will fast for the next week, while I endeavor to restore tranquillity to myself and my temple. Let no one disturb me.”
Through the next few weeks, Yayoi became aware that what had been a childish fantasy about Shikanoko—that she would grow up to marry him, cherish him, make him smile, wipe the sorrow from his heart—had become a true adult emotion. The knowledge sustained her. It was a secret as precious as a sutra to be carried in her heart, binding her spirit to his, in the same way the sacred words bound the earthly and the divine.
Lady Fuji came unexpectedly at the beginning of autumn. The typhoons had brought some rain, but less than usual. Summer crops had been sparse, and the shortage of food and the approach of winter had caused unrest among the farmers. It was being harshly suppressed, Lady Fuji told them, and Miboshi warriors were everywhere.
“That is why I need you, Yayoi, my dear,” she said, with a sigh. “It is earlier than I planned, but only by six months or so. And look at you, you are ready. Something has awakened you.”
The other girls wept bitterly and Yayoi could not prevent tears forming in her own eyes. She went to bid farewell to the Abbess and received back the text, the Kudzu Vine Treasure Store, that Master Sesshin had given her all those years ago.
“Let us read it together one last time,” the older woman said. “Really it is an honor that it has dwelled with us all these years. It has blessed us and so have you.”
Yayoi let the pages fall open where they willed.
The Abbess was studying her face. “What has it shown you today?”
“It tells of a stone that reveals sickness,” Yayoi said, deciphering the faded gold letters on the indigo dyed page. “Here is a picture—but now it is gone again!”
It had given her a tantalizing glimpse: a surface of perfect smoothness, a dark mirror that had allowed her just one brief glance into its depths.
“Ah, I wonder,” the Abbess murmured.
“What is it?” Yayoi asked.
“If you were staying here I would tell you, but there is no point now.” The Abbess could not hide her distress. “How I will miss you! I deeply regret the path you are being forced to follow.”
“I still don’t understand the truth of the world and why there is so much pain!” Yayoi could feel tears threatening. She did not want to leave; she wanted to stay and learn more about the mysterious stone, but she knew the peace and seclusion of the temple were no more than an illusion. Ever since the Miboshi warriors had come to search for Shikanoko, none of the women had felt entirely safe.
“I will always pray for you,” the Abbess continued.
“And I for you,” Yayoi replied.
“Use what you find in the text only for healing. Do not follow my son into sorcery.”
Yayoi bowed without speaking. I would follow him even into the realms of hell, she thought.
Fuji had brought a second palanquin with her. When Yayoi had arrived, she had been a child, small for her age. Now that she had reached her adult height she would no longer fit inside a palanquin with the other woman. But she also felt Fuji was glad to keep her distance, that she was not entirely comfortable with whatever plan she had for her. She did not look Yayoi in the eye or embrace her spontaneously as she had when she had come to collect Asagao. Alone in the palanquin, Yayoi had plenty of time to imagine what might be going to happen to her and to dread it.
It was dusk when they arrived at Aomizu and the boats on the dock were bright with red lanterns, the lights reflected in the still waters like a host of fireflies. The moon was a crescent in the sky, waxing toward its ninth-month fullness. Music was playing and Yayoi could hear singing. She thought she recognized Asagao’s voice and was slightly comforted. She longed to see Take, and then thought of the boy called Yoshi, and felt the lute in her lap begin to stir.
One of the women whispered to Fuji as they stepped onto the boat. “He is here.”
“What, already?” Fuji exclaimed, biting her lip. “We hardly have time to prepare her. Quick, bring some water. Let me wash her feet at least. How impatient these Miboshi are,” she muttered as she brushed dust from Yayoi’s robes and combed her hair until it fell silky and tangle-free down her back.
“Yayoi,” she said, her voice serious and cold. “You are a clever girl, they tell me. You know what is expected of you. Charm this warrior, do whatever he wants, please him in every way. My future, the future of all of us on the boats, depends on it.”
She led Yayoi to the stern of the boat where the bamboo blinds surrounded the largest of the separate spaces. She dropped to her knees, raised the blind on one side, and, bowing to the ground, said, “My lord, I have brought the one you requested.”
Yayoi found herself on her knees shuffling forward. The blind unrolled behind her with a slight rustle. The lanterns outside threw wavering shadows as the boat rocked slightly on the water of the lake.
A lamp burned in one corner, the scent of oil strong. By its light she saw him sitting cross-legged, a flask of wine and a bowl beside him. It was the lord, Arinori, who had come to the temple.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Here, drink a little wine, it will relax you.”
She took the bowl and sipped, the liquor flowing like fire into her throat and stomach. It did not relax her but had the opposite effect, making her heart pound with fear. Her whole being recoiled from the idea that this stranger, enemy even, should have intima
te access to her body. How is it possible, she thought, that men have such power over women? That even Fuji was complicit in this transaction, which probably bought her privileges, which was pleasing to all parties except Yayoi herself, without whom the transaction would never have taken place?
“They could not really turn such a little pearl into a serving girl,” he said, coming closer, putting his hand on the back of her neck, feeling her hair, pulling her face to his. His other hand was inside her robe, caressing her breast, and then reaching farther down, forcing her thighs apart.
He had the hard body, the iron muscles, of a warrior. He was nearly twice her size. When he thrust into her it was like being knifed. She could not help crying out from pain and fear. It excited him and she felt the gush of his release, alien in its smell and wetness.
Afterward he was kind to her, in a way. He stroked her hair and called her his little princess. He held the wine bowl close to her lips so she could drink, and kissed the tears from her eyes.
He wanted her to know he was a prize, how lucky she was to have attracted him. He was rich and powerful, he would always take care of her. Lord Aritomo himself had named him, he boasted. They were as close as brothers. That week he came every day, expressing his pleasure with gifts of silk robes, casks of wine, and the fine-quality rice that was otherwise almost impossible to obtain. Fuji was delighted and showered Yayoi with compliments and affection, any remorse she might have felt dispelled by the success of the transaction.
“Lord Arinori has become our protector. It is just as I hoped. But, Yayoi, you look so thin, you must not lose weight. Eat, eat, it’s the sweetest rice we’ve had all year. Don’t fret, don’t dwell on what might have been. This is your life now and, while it may not be what your parents might have hoped for you or what you would have chosen, it is better than being dead. Enjoy it, strive to please Lord Arinori, and one day he may even buy you from me for his own.”