Kenji nodded. “Unless I have misjudged her terribly, nor do I.”
I hesitated. “There is one more thing—all we have discussed, assuming we are on the right path, depends on our understanding Prince Kanemore has known both of us long enough to predict our behavior, correct?”
“Yes,” Kenji said. “What is your point?”
“Just this: everything that has happened since we left Kamakura points to the reality that, as difficult as our part may be, we are simply two pieces of a very complex puzzle, and the orchestration of such a puzzle does not fit what I know of Prince Kanemore.”
Kenji could not have looked more stunned if I had grown an extra head. “Are . . . are you saying our instructions did not come from the prince?”
I doused that fire immediately. “Impossible. Only Prince Kanemore could have prevailed upon Lady Kuzunoha to deliver his message. What I am saying is that Prince Kanemore is not acting alone. There are more people involved, I do not claim to know who, but this is much greater than we imagined.”
“So what does this mean?”
It meant that, once we reached Kyoto, I was going to need a very long conversation with a very old friend. Yet, in order for that to happen, first we had to reach Kyoto alive.
“It means if we die before we reach the Capital, my ghost is going to haunt Prince Kanemore until he comes up with a very convincing explanation.”
While we were still in the garden, one of Princess Tagako’s servants, a girl probably no more than twelve years old, found us.
“Her Highness desires your attendance,” she said, very seriously. “Would you please follow me?”
Kenji and I exchanged glances. “There’s a small temple located within the compound,” Kenji said. “I think I’d like to see it.”
He left us; I followed the girl back to the main hall, but we didn’t stop there. She led me through the hall and out the back to a smaller courtyard. This was an area normally reserved for the owner’s family. There Tagako’s attendants had set up a small pavilion with gossamer netting for the sides. The servant directed me to a cushion set just outside the veil and then withdrew to the rear veranda. There were a few other attendants there, but so far as I could see, Tagako was in the pavilion alone.
“You summoned me, Highness?” I asked.
She sounded surprised. “I said I desired your presence,” she said. “Is that the same thing?”
I smiled. “For a princess of the royal house? I would say so.”
“In a way, that is why I wanted to speak to you. I said once I was nothing, and you were polite enough to demur. Yet I am beginning to wonder if you were serious. I am not blind, Lord Yamada—I have taken note of the measures Master Kenji and you have taken on my behalf since the . . . incident. You still believe someone wants to harm me?”
“I did not mean to worry you in our previous conversation, Highness. I was merely hoping you could shed light on the current situation. I can discover no reason anyone would wish you harm, yet there is much going on here I do not understand. I think you can see why we must be cautious.”
“I wish I could enlighten you, but I am at a loss. I did receive some communication from Kanemore through Kuzunoha, as I told you, but she conveyed only what I told you. I will admit, a fox demon is an odd choice for messenger, but I am sure he had his reasons.”
“Since we are on the subject, let me ask you one more question, if I may.”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Did nothing at all about his instructions strike you as odd, other than the messenger?”
I heard her laugh. When the moment had passed, she spoke again. “Only everything.”
That was something new. “Might I be impertinent to request an example?”
“It was the entirety of it. Nothing about the message spoke to me of Prince Kanemore. He asked me to do something for him, which I did and gladly, as I owe him so much. Yet not once did he explain why I was telling you to meet someone at the shrine. He didn’t say who you would meet, or the purpose, only that you would understand once you did meet him. Prince Kanemore is normally much more straightforward. In some ways it did not feel like a message from him at all.”
“Yet you are certain the message was from him,” I said.
“Just as you were, I would be willing to wager. I may or may not trust Lady Kuzunoha, but the assurance she gave was something only I and Prince Kanemore could know. It was impossible the message was not sent by him.”
“But perhaps,” I said, “not written by him?”
The curtain stirred as a delicate hand pushed the fabric aside. I was again privileged to look upon Princess Tagako directly, and I saw a look of puzzlement on her face.
“That is possible. Lord Yamada, do you know something you have not told me?”
“Unlikely, Highness, but my thoughts have perhaps drifted in the same direction as your own in this.”
She hesitated, but after a few moments she seemed to come to a decision and continued. “At court even one such as I had to be very aware of the political winds, but in the Bamboo Palace I was free from the necessity of considering such things. Princess Teiko was never so fortunate, nor was Prince Kanemore. As for Takahito, he was already a young man by the time I left court, but I can tell you this much, Lord Yamada—I saw much of his mother in him, even then, and he has since become emperor, the first such in over a hundred years not born to a Fujiwara mother. And the Fujiwara, for all their power, could not prevent it.”
While it was true I did have some hand in that regard, much of what I had accomplished was all because I followed the path marked by Princess Teiko. I was not fool enough to believe everything that happened since was all because of my efforts. I had played one part, and flattered myself it was an important one, but I was not alone. Prince Kanemore, for one, kept Takahito safe through his childhood, despite Kanemore’s own desire to renounce his title, leave court, and found his own clan. He had remained in Heian-kyo for the sake of his sister’s son. As for how much of Teiko survived in her son, perhaps one day I would find out for myself. For the time being, however, none of this speculation—which was all it was—made a jot of difference.
“All that is true, Highness, but none of it solves our immediate issue. You have one more duty to perform before returning to the Capital. It is my remit to make certain both acts are safely accomplished.”
Princess Tagako looked at me for a few moments, expressionless. I was beginning to think I had offended her somehow before she spoke again.
“He is still there. I see him,” she said.
I blinked. “Him? I do not understand, Highness. Who do you see?”
At first I wondered if the soon-to-be former saiō had seen a ghost roaming Kanmore’s Uji estate, but she was looking right at me.
“The man Princess Teiko saw in you.”
“Highness—”
She waved my protest aside. “I know. There are things that should not be discussed, but there is only the two of us now, Lord Yamada. Yes, I was very young, but at court that was no excuse for not understanding what went on around one. Failure to do so was dangerous. A minor official of the household and the daughter of an emperor . . . You left the court and she became an imperial consort, the mother to a future emperor. Neither one of you had a choice, and I suppose none of it is relevant now. Even so, I wonder.”
I knew I should not have asked, but I did anyway. “What do you wonder, Highness?”
“If she did have a choice, what would she have done?”
I took a long breath. “Princess, whatever you may believe about events that did or did not happen in the long gone past, the end would have been the same. Fate cannot be changed.”
She looked solemn. “Fate is the word we use for the way things happen, Lord Yamada, but does it really mean anything more than this?”
“I think it does,” I said.
She looked solemn. “I am not as certain of that as you are.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I suppose there are always at once greater and fewer numbers of secrets than one presumes,” Kenji said.
“Gossip at court is better than gold, to the right people. To the wrong ones, it is worse than poison. Princess Teiko knew how to use it to her advantage. Regardless, it was long ago. History.”
“The presence of Teiko’s ghost would appear to argue otherwise,” Kenji said dryly.
“Perhaps, but once Teiko’s ambitions for her son are fulfilled, that will be the end of it.”
Kenji formed his right hand into the funnu-in gesture, meant to expel demons and negative thought. “I sincerely hope you are right. Her continued presence in this plane is not good. For either of you.”
We had ridden a little ways to the right flank of the procession, far enough to speak privately but not so far as to encounter the outlying scouts. The southwestern road was open enough that there were few places for ambush, and Akimasa and his detachment had ridden ahead and thoroughly scoured those already. The patrols had turned up a few ragged bandits but no organized forces of any size, but oddly enough I was not reassured.
“Now that a magical attack has failed,” I said, “I would expect a more direct approach.”
“In the right place and time, an army is not as valuable as one well-placed archer, and this is neither the right place nor time.”
Kenji had a point. Traveling in her shuttered carriage, Princess Tagako made an extremely difficult target, even for a master archer. Yet her final ceremony would be conducted by the water of Osaka Bay, likely with clear lines of sight in most directions. There were ways to mitigate this, of course, and I would see that Morofusa and Akimasa carried them out, if indeed they had not already planned as much. There were only a few clear opportunities remaining to any potential assassin, and it was my firm intention that those particular doors be spiked shut.
“We also shouldn’t discount the potential of another magical attack,” I said.
“Not another inugami, I hope,” Kenji muttered. “We barely survived the first one.”
“Very possible. It’s not that a great deal of magical skill is required, only that one have no conscience whatsoever and no regard for the potential consequences.”
“Such people are never in short supply,” Kenji said. “More is the pity.”
We reached the village in sight of Osaka Bay by mid-afternoon. Princess Tagako was keen to finish her ceremony that day, but Morofusa and I examined the site and persuaded her to wait until the following morning, to allow us to make all reasonable preparation. We would still have time to return to Prince Kanemore’s estate in Uji before nightfall the next day, so Tagako agreed.
Morofusa and I stood on the stretch of beach where the ceremony was to be performed.
“It is as I feared, Lord Yamada. While fortunately all the houses of the village proper are out of bowshot, there are some storage buildings and covered docks that must be secured. Yet even that doesn’t concern me as much as the harbor itself.”
I frowned. “Why? No one could reach her from that direction without giving us ample warning,” I said, but Morofusa shook his head.
“You don’t understand. It is customary for the villagers to attend, to share in the high priestess’s blessing. It is also customary for the fishing boats to gather just offshore here for the same reason. They could easily conceal archers, or worse.”
“Then we must make certain this does not happen. Speak to the headman of the village. If it cannot be prevented—as I suspect will be the case—we will need to interpose a perimeter of boats with our own bushi aboard. Those remaining on shore will need to stay close, for obvious reasons.”
“I am in agreement. I will see to it,” Morofusa said.
When he was gone, I went with Kenji on a walk around the village. The mood of the villagers was festive. Of course word had long since reached them of the former emperor’s passing and thus the saiō’s imminent arrival. “If one were planning anything,” Kenji said, “they would have had ample time to prepare.”
“The thought did occur to me. If you can think of anything else we should do, I am open to suggestions,” I said.
Kenji looked thoughtful. “I do have something in mind. A rather drastic measure that one of my calling should never even consider. Yet I understand the need to adapt to the situation.”
“What is it?”
“I would rather not say. If the need never arises, then it won’t need to be said at all. If it does . . . well, you’ll see.”
I was more than curious, but I knew better than to press him. “Fair enough.”
The next morning dawned bright and sunny, with scarcely a cloud visible other than a few dark ones far out over the bay to the west. Princess Tagako was brought to the site in a closed palanquin carried by four of Akimasa’s bushi and surrounded by her attendants, who cleared her path through the crowd of villagers and helped her emerge near the appointed spot. Kenji and I met her on the shore and bowed low.
It seemed odd to see her there without a screen between us, but the necessities of the blessing ceremony required Tagako appear in full view, with no veils to hide her face as was the normal custom for any noble lady. She wore the formal jūnihitoe court dress of twelve silk layers in alternating colors of gold and green and orange and yellow. I immediately understood why she wanted the ceremony held in early morning. The last few days had been warm for early autumn, and the afternoon heat would have been stifling. As it was, the sun was warm but Tagako showed little sign of discomfort, and I had to admire the effect. She appeared little less than magnificent, as befitting the high priestess and the emperor’s representative.
She glanced at the sky. “It seems we may expect rain,” Tagako said.
I looked in the direction she had looked, and noticed more clouds where at first there had only been a few, and they were dark as well.
“With good fortune, your duties will be completed before the rain comes,” I said.
Kenji said nothing, but he kept his eyes on the western sky. I waited until Princess Tagako glided past to take her place on a prepared dais. Only two attendants followed onto the platform. They knelt just behind her on the left and right. Akimasa’s four bushi surrounded the platform on all four sides, and the rest were distributed at the edge of the thronging villagers. Out on the bay I could see the skiffs where some of Morofusa’s bushi were keeping the fishermen’s boats at a safe distance. There had been some grumbling, but no one was attempting to move closer, for which I was grateful. Morofusa’s instructions to his bushi had been succinct: “This is a joyous event, but if anyone disobeys your orders and attempts to close in, kill them.” I fervently hoped no one would be fool enough to try, because I knew he was not joking.
“Is something bothering you?” I asked Kenji once the priestess was out of earshot.
“Those clouds. They’re moving too quickly. Something feels wrong.”
I looked again. So far as I could see, the clouds still appeared to be ordinary rain clouds but moving extremely fast.
“That is strange, I agree,” I said.
“Clouds can be portents, as can rain,” Kenji muttered. “It is their nature to be drawn to the supernatural or to events of religious significance such as this. Yet the nature of this ceremony seems to preclude what we are seeing. A blessing for the gods does not call for a storm!”
Kenji was right. It was a storm, now, with flashes of lightning and a distant rumble of thunder. One could almost taste the lightning on the air, and it was coming straight for us, but as I looked closer I thought I saw something else.
“Kenji-san, what if it isn’t the ceremony pulling the clouds in? Look!”
I pointed at the darker shadow I had spotted at the leading edge of the storm, and now I finally understood what I was seeing—it was a shadow with wings.
A daitengu?
After a moment or two I realized the shape of the creature was purely that of a bird, not a tengu. But a very large, dark bird, and it was flyin
g straight for the shore and dais. The ceremony had already begun. I looked at the throng and knew we would have a riot on our hands if we attempted to stop it now. Nor was there time to move Tagako to a place of safety. Kenji had apparently come to the same conclusion. He moved down to the water in front of the dais, and I followed. He had his prayer beads out and his staff in his left hand as he muttered a chant under his breath. I spotted Akimasa near the edge of the throng of villagers, some of whom were now whispering and pointing at the western sky. I motioned him over.
“Do you see it?” I asked.
“Yes, my lord. I’ve sent for my best archers, but we cannot allow the crowd to come forward.”
I understood. For all we knew, what we were seeing over the water was a diversion, not the real threat, which could just as easily come from the crowd. Four archers appeared through the throng, and Akimasa led them down to the shore. I knew Morofusa had archers out on the boats, but with the movement of the sea under them, they were at a disadvantage. We tried to keep our activities quiet, but that was impossible. If Princess Tagako noticed our actions, she appeared to take no heed. The blessing ceremony proceeded as if nothing at all was out of the ordinary.
Kenji interrupted his chanting and came over to me. “Nothing is having any effect. There are only so many flying youkai, and I know them all. What I did should have slowed it. This isn’t a normal monster.”
Or, perhaps, not a monster at all.
“Shikigami,” I said.
“Che . . . I should have realized.”
Kenji reached into the pouch on his belt and produced a strip of paper. I assumed for a moment it was a ward, but I didn’t know of anything of the sort that was effective against a shikigami. In a moment I realized how wrong I was. Kenji held the paper in front of him, closed his eyes and muttered something I didn’t overhear. Then he threw the paper into the air.
“Fly!”
In that instant the paper transformed into an owl and flew out to meet the dark bird.
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