The Shadow of Black Wings (The Year of the Dragon, Book 1)

by James Calbraith

  “My favourite!” said Nagomi, smiling. “Let’s go to the turtle pond, you can see the whole harbour from there.”

  “Is your father still away?” Satō asked, sipping from a cup of a salty, but refreshing, drink of pickled cherry petals.

  “Yes,” Nagomi replied, “and now Mom decided to pay him a visit. The house is all on Ine’s head.”

  “He’s not coming back soon then?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. The pox is still very bad in Ōwari and my father can only produce so much vaccine. It’s difficult to obtain all the equipment he needs in Nagoya.”

  “If only the Taikun would let my father travel,” said Satō with a sigh. “The Bataavians have been filling our house with all sorts of glass and copper apparatus that I’m sure Keisuke-sama could use in his laboratory.”

  “Have the rules of arrest been relaxed then?”

  “Only a little. The Overwizard is keen to have as close a relationship with my father as possible without attracting too much attention, so we are now being showered with more gifts than we know what to do with.” Satō laughed. “Blueprints, equipment, exotic ingredients… My old man rarely ever steps out of the laboratory these days.”

  “And how are the boys?”

  “The students? Not as annoying as they used to be, that’s for certain. Keinosuke can still be scary when he sits silently for an entire lesson and then comes up with some random question… but I think he knows now I’m not going to tell him anything really important or secret. He’s much too young for that!”

  “Must be his father’s influence‌—‌you said Sakuma-dono is a great scholar.”

  “He is,” Satō replied, nodding, “perhaps the greatest alive, or so my father says. He also says it will all end badly for him and his family one day.”

  “That may be. The times are dangerous.” Nagomi bit her lip. “That’s what Kazuko-hime told me. The Waters of Scrying are shrouded in shadow-” She stopped abruptly.

  Not even your friends… She recalled Lady Kazuko’s words. It was difficult to keep secrets from Satō, even more than it had been from her family. They had been the closest of friends for as long as she remembered. Satō was the only kid in the neighbourhood who hadn’t mocked the colour of her hair, and their friendship had grown ever closer since then. This was the first time she couldn’t tell the wizardess about something important.

  “Not until we know more,” the High Priestess had told her, “not until we’re certain you’re safe.”

  A sudden breeze from the sea shook the branches and the white flowers fell like fresh snow. The girls were both silent and solemn for a while, but then Nagomi giggled.

  “What is it?” Satō asked.

  “I just imagined… You’re the only daughter of the finest teacher of Rangaku, and Keinosuke is the only son of the greatest scholar in Kiyō… Isn’t that a perfect match?”

  “Don’t be absurd!” Satō was genuinely flabbergasted. “He’s three years younger than me‌—‌and a precocious little brat!”

  “But you have to admit, he does come from a great family, and your father’s dōjō-”

  “I will inherit the dōjō, not some arrogant idiot. Just because he’s a boy, doesn’t mean… Ugh, I can’t even think about it!”

  “All right, I was only joking.”

  “It’s easy for you to joke, you don’t have to worry about getting married to some random fool.”

  “I won’t be a maiden forever, you know. Priests can marry too.”

  “Yes, but only if they want to.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  “It’s all right,” Satō said, calming down, “I should not have lashed out like that. It does not behove a samurai to lose temper so easily.”

  “Have you gotten any further with the book?” Nagomi asked, quickly changing the subject.

  There could only have been one book she meant. Ever since Satō had discovered the Dragon Book in her father’s library, she spent every free moment trying to decipher as much of it as she could.

  “I’m barely past the first few pages. The language is somewhat similar to Bataavian, but not enough. I’m not even sure I’m doing it right.” She shook her head. “I’m getting an odd word here and there, but really, I could be wrong all the time. Oh, but the drawings! They come alive on touch, the scales start to glint in the lamplight, the wings flap, the flames burst from the page, scarlet and golden…” Satō’s eyes burned with passion as she described the book. “I have never seen anything like it. The drawings made by our chroniclers, when the Vasconians first brought the dorako‌—‌they might as well have been lizards and dried up newts. Oh, I’d give anything to see a real dorako…”

  “Can’t you get one from Dejima?” asked Nagomi.

  She did not share the wizardess’s fascination with the strange Western creatures. In truth, she was barely aware what they looked like. For all she knew, they were just big lizards.

  “Do you think these are chickens?” Satō was taken aback by her friend’s ignorance. “A grown-up dorako is as big as a merchant’s ship, and Bataavians would never dare to bring one to Yamato. They would be banned from Kiyō in an instant if they so much as mentioned the beasts.”

  “I didn’t know…”

  “No, of course, all this is secret knowledge. There are only a few scholars in the country who claim to know anything about these creatures.”

  “And none of them has a book like yours,” added Nagomi.

  “No, I don’t think they do,” Satō said with a grin. “That’s what makes the whole thing so great; this feeling of exploring a whole new uncharted land, a journey into the unknown.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  The apprentice felt a pang of guilt. Satō had no qualms about divulging forbidden knowledge, yet Nagomi could share none of her secrets in exchange.

  “And how about your apprenticeship?” asked the wizardess, biting off a piece of chewy, rubbery mochi cake.

  “Kazuko-hime said I’m making good progress,” said Nagomi. “I have already tried some Scrying under supervision.”

  Should I have said even that much?

  “That’s great, that’s really great.” Satō smiled brightly. “I’ve always known you’d make a great priestess.”

  Nagomi turned her eyes to the horizon, her cheeks suddenly hot.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “What are you talking about?” Satō protested. “You’re fifteen and already a skilled healer. You can commune with the Spirits, and that’s something I could never do. I can only banish them to the Otherworld.”

  “Any other girl in the shrine can do what I can do,” Nagomi said, shaking her head.

  “You’re better than any of them, I’m sure. Here, have another drink‌—‌to the two best girls in all of Kiyō!”

  Satō raised the cup with blossom water in a toast. Nagomi joined her, but turned her face towards the harbour to hide the tears welling up in her eyes.

  The wind picked up, once more showering them with the rain of white petals. The sun drifted beyond the mountain tops. The lunch box was empty. Satō rose and cast one last look at the sea.

  “I need to go back; I bet the old man forgot to eat his supper again.”

  A streak of bright white light appeared high over the horizon for a brief moment, like distant lightning. A shooting star crossed the sky, but it was unlike any shooting star she had ever seen. It fell straight down, silently, towards the city, eventually disappearing somewhere in the harbour area, beyond the warehouses lining the bay north of Dejima’s fan-shaped island.

  “Did you see that?” Satō exclaimed.

  “Yes…” whispered Nagomi piously. “It fell from Heavens…”

  “Let’s go see what it is.”

  “But…”

  “We won’t be long. It’s just by the beach. Come on!”

  “What now?” asked Nagomi, catching her breath after the long run.

  They were at the open beach near
the fishermen huts, having just run down the streets of the magistrate quarter, through the harbour, and past the quays and wharves full of foreign goods, fishing nets and crab pots. The sailors and workers watched them in surprise. What a sight we must be, she thought. A shrine maiden and a young samurai among the filthy warehouses and muddy alleyways. And my hair… The superstitious fishermen crooked their fingers and clapped their hands to repel evil, dropping their catch.

  The tide was coming in, but the beach was yet wide‌—‌and empty.

  “Look! Near the mackerel pier.”

  Satō pointed at something in the water beside bundles of old fishing nets. There was a faint glow, receding fast, barely discernible now, like the fluorescence in a boat’s wake.

  Before they reached it the glow was gone, but now they could easily see a shape lying at the edge of the water, half-submerged and tangled in the nets. Satō stumbled across the wet sand towards the puzzling object, dark now in the quickly falling twilight, and knelt down to examine it.

  “It’s a person!”

  It was a human being, face down in the sand, wearing odd foreign clothes, blue jacket and a shirt that was once white, all tattered and singed, and a buckled leather bag was slung over the shoulder. A strap with two round pieces of glass hung around his neck.

  The girls turned the castaway onto his back.

  “Gaikokujin!” Nagomi gasped. “A Westerner!”

  “A soldier,” said Satō, frowning. “Look at that sword!”

  Attached to the leather belt was a sword in a broad scabbard, with a sculpted hilt in the shape of a winged golden dragon. The foreigner seemed to be about their age. He had a gently hooked nose and deeply set eyes under thin brows. His short black hair was clumped with mud, his square face pale and bruised. Up close, his skin was still radiating a faint glow.

  “I thought they all had yellow or red hair like you,” remarked Satō, “or maybe he’s a Vasconian…”

  The apprentice put her head to the boy’s chest. “He’s alive,” she whispered, “what do we do?”

  “We need to take him away from here first. He’ll drown in the tide.”

  Nagomi waddled into the water and picked up the boy’s legs, clad in thick cloth trousers. Satō did the same with his arms. The sword dragged a deep line through the wet sand. Heaving, they carried their load into the shadow of the willow trees by the fishing pier.

  “I have to get my father, or, or Ine.” Satō stood up and paced about in confused excitement. “We need to hide him from the authorities. You stay here, I’ll get help.”

  “You are leaving me alone with him?”

  “Use this if he tries anything.”

  Satō handed Nagomi a dagger.

  “I didn’t mean that. All right, go. I will manage, but be quick.”

  The wizardess’s feet thumped on the sand as she disappeared into the darkness.

  Nagomi leaned over the boy, studying his face in the light of the Spirit flame she always carried in a small clay beaker. There were some cuts and bruises on his skin, which she cleaned up with water from a nearby stream, but there were no major injuries visible. The boy didn’t seem to need her healing. Where did he come from, and why? The sword by his side showed he was a soldier, but of what army?

  A will-o’-the-wisp of a lantern appeared on the beach. Nagomi stood up at first, thinking it was Satō returning with help, but the light moved towards the waterline then hopped along the waves. Nagomi hid farther into the shadow of the pier, blowing out the Spirit light. She could now see two men searching the beach. They wore brown vests with the city crest on their shoulders‌—‌the magistrate officials! The girls obviously weren’t the only ones who had seen the falling star…

  The boy stirred and moaned.

  “No! Not now!”

  Nagomi knelt down by the stranger. It would be a disaster if they were found out. The law was clear‌—‌no foreigners were allowed on the sacred soil of Yamato without permission. The punishment for trespassing was death by beheading. Even the castaways were not exempt.

  In desperation, she cradled the boy’s head in her arms, trying to muffle his groans with the sleeve of her kimono. The magistrate men were now very close. One stray sound and they would notice the apprentice and her secret. Nagomi prayed silently to all the Gods she could remember. The boy’s breath was distractingly warm against her hand.

  The men passed her by and the light of their lantern bobbed away. She sighed with relief. The boy stirred more strongly and Nagomi had to let go of his head. He opened his eyes slowly and painfully, squinting with effort. At that moment, the moon came out from behind the clouds and lit up the boy’s face. In a reflex, he reached out his hand trying to touch her hair, glistening red gold in the moonlight.

  “Eithne,” the boy whispered, and the strain caused him to lose consciousness again.

  His hand fell to the sand limply. Nagomi sat silent, awestruck. The boy’s eyes were as green as jade‌—‌as green as the jewel she had seen in the Waters of Scrying.

  CHAPTER XII

  Old Yoshō, the white-haired servant of the Takashimas, arrived at the Itō’s house in the middle of the night, requesting a palanquin. Doctor Itō Keisuke had sometimes been using one to bring in the sick from outside the city.

  “Did something happen to Shūhan-dono?” Ine enquired, looking worried, “or Satō-sama?”

  “The master and yun’ missus are in no danger,” the old servant mumbled a reply through toothless lips. “They ax’d me to fetch the palanquin to the beach.”

  Ine dispatched the old man with two of her porters and waited anxiously.

  “Who’s that?” she asked when, half an hour later, the porters brought out an unconscious boy with a face wrapped in bandages made of what Ine identified as cotton torn off the under-kimono.

  “I dun’ know nothing”, Ine-shiama,” the old servant mumbled. “Nagomi-shiama tol’me to bring the boy and not touch the bandages.”

  “And where is my dear little sister?”

  “She’s gon’ back to the shrine, Ine-shiama, she said she’ll come in the mornin’.”

  Ine frowned. Of all the annoyances her sister’s overt benevolence caused, this one was the most peculiar. Nagomi was like a misguidedly generous cat, constantly bringing dead mice and birds to the house as unwanted gifts‌—‌only her gifts were sick children, poor cripples, dying old men she kept finding on the streets of the deprived outer districts of Kiyō.

  “What do you expect me to do with all these people?” their father despaired. “We have no means to help everyone in need, and they are scaring away the paying customers.”

  But it was enough for the girl to look at Keisuke with her eyes of a doe and the doctor’s heart melted. He had dedicated a separate room in the attic for the treatment of Nagomi’s “strays”, and‌—‌to prevent them from mingling with the richer clientele‌—‌had a separate entrance and stairway built at the back of the house. Despite Keisuke and Ine’s best efforts, most of them never survived, and had to be carried away through the same entrance, preferably out of Nagomi’s sight.

  It was to this entrance that the porters now brought the mysterious boy. He seemed like none of the usual foundlings. The briny smell of seawater permeated his thick clothes. Underneath a blue jacket she noticed the bulge in the shape of a sword. In an instant Ine realised whom he was.

  “Bring him up, quick. Hurry.”

  She could only hope the porters failed to recognise the obvious. The boy was a castaway, a foreigner, a Gaikokujin soldier. This was too much. Damn that girl! What was Nagomi thinking? Why bring him here? If the authorities found out they were harbouring a castaway, their family would be finished. They would be happy to get away with exile.

  It was too late to do anything now. If Yoshō was sent to bring the foreigner, it meant that Master Takashima himself was aware of the situation. Ine had to trust the old wizard’s judgement. Perhaps it was only for one night. Perhaps tomorrow somebody from Dejima would appe
ar and take the dangerous guest away.

  The boy moaned as the servants put him on the floor. Ine waved them away and unwound the bandages from around his face. Cleaned up, he even looked quite handsome, for a Westerner, with symmetrical well-defined features and prominent cheekbones. He smelled faintly of butter and meat, like all of his kind, but not as much as most Ine had met. He had a sharp-edged, olive-coloured face, not a pale round one like those of the Bataavians, which always reminded Ine of a full moon. His chin was strong and slightly jutting, his lips wide and thin. His skin was covered with tiny splinter wounds, as if he had head-butted through a wooden plank, though they were all sealed up. His breath was regular and blood had returned to his face.

  She took his dirty clothes‌—‌the shirt and trousers almost fell apart in her hands, soaked and tattered‌—‌and covered him with a warm blanket. He sighed and his face mellowed in sleep.

  Bran opened his eyes slowly, achingly. For a moment he couldn’t see anything as his sight adjusted to the darkness. He was strangely weary. His bones ached, his head thumped and his entire skin burned with a myriad of tiny pinpricks.

  What an odd dream, he thought. The enormous mistfire ship, a journey to faraway exotic places with his father, the city of the narrow-eyed people… I must tell Mother about it in the morning.

  He turned on his side. A thin mattress filled with some hard husks or chaff rustled when he moved. There was no bed underneath, just soft floor. He realised he was naked, wrapped in a warm blanket.

  This is not my bed. This is not my house. How did I get here? What’s going on? He remembered. The ship was real. It was called MFS Ladon, and Bran had spent the last few months aboard it, sailing across half the world towards the land of Qin. Now they were on their way to some city to… He struggled to recall‌—‌fight the rebels, that’s it. I must’ve bumped myself on the head, he guessed, massaging his throbbing temples, and they put me in the infirmary. The room smelled strongly of medicaments and rubbing alcohol, but there was also another odour, a strange, nauseatingly sweet scent, like damp straw in the barn after the rain.