I smiled. “Morofusa-san, I think you’ve just crystallized the issue brilliantly.”
He blinked. “I have?”
I was close to an answer. Perhaps not the answer, but something useful to understand. “Indeed, ‘why now?’ is one important question, and ‘why’ even more so. Yet the answer to the first, I now see, is obvious. Why now? Because the reason, whatever it may be, did not exist before. The Fujiwara discovered Princess Tagako was a threat to them only recently.”
“This explains why they did not strike sooner,” Kenji said. “It does not explain why they did not wait.”
“My assumption is the threat Princess Tagako posed to them was time-related. If they struck in haste, this was likely because they felt they had no choice.”
There was more to it, I knew, and some I could not yet express, not even in front of Kenji, who I trusted more than most people in the world. It was not a coincidence that Prince Kanemore ordered additional bushi via Akimasa for Princess Tagako’s escort. Prince Kanemore knew Princess Tagako was in danger.
“This brings us no closer to ‘why,’ you know,” Kenji pointed out.
“No, but it does steer us toward recent events. Something happened between Prince Takahito’s ascension and Princess Takago’s return. Something involving the now-former high priestess that the Fujiwara could not foresee. That is where we need to look.”
I wished very much just then that I could talk to Prince Kanemore. There were many things I needed to ask him, but first and foremost, why he had concealed the truth from me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“We’re here,” Morofusa said.
“Here” was the late Princess Shigeko’s mansion. At first glance, one would not think it the abode of a princess. It was located in the desirable third ward, yes, but the compound was nearly at the edge of the city. At one time this might have been for greater privacy, but there was an aura of desolation about the place that made its separation from the other great houses of the ward more poignant.
“This is a place for shoro,” Kenji said. “And not just one.”
While Kenji was much more sensitive than I was when it came to ghosts, this much certainty was unusual even for him.
“Have you already sensed something?” I asked. “We haven’t even passed the gate yet.”
“Yes. I can’t be more precise until we get closer, but I don’t think Princess Shigeko is alone.”
That was curious. From what Fujiwara no Yorinobu had told me, I expected only one ghost, Princess Shigeko. According to Kenji, that was not the case.
A pair of Fujiwara bushi stood on watch at the gate, but they were expecting us. Before we entered, I had a few questions.
“May I ask if you gentlemen have heard anything from within the compound?”
They glanced at each other, and the eldest spoke. “There have been strange sounds from within, and especially in the evening, as other guards have reported. We had strict instructions not to investigate.”
This was understandable, considering what had happened to other people within. “And you have seen nothing outside the walls?”
“Only an occasional onibi, usually in the distance. Nothing else, my lord.”
The Capital, as I well knew, had its share of ghosts and demons just in the normal course of things. As the man implied, a distant onibi was not strange. It would have been stranger had they seen nothing. I thanked them, and they opened the gate for us. Inside was a garden going to weeds and a fine home in shinden style starting to show signs of neglect. Several of the screens showed tears that had not been repaired, and a few tiles had fallen off the roof of the western wing corridor.
“The spirits will not be at their strongest during the day,” I said to Morofusa and Ujiyasu, “but dusk is approaching. While this is a scouting mission and I do not plan to venture inside this evening, that time will come, and likely very soon. Ghosts can be dangerous, and these have already proven so. We cannot risk blessing our weapons, as harming Princess Shigeko would undo our purpose here. It would probably be best if, when that time does come, Master Kenji and I go in alone.”
“My instructions are clear,” Morofusa said. “So, with respect, I cannot allow that, but we are prepared to accompany you unarmed.”
Considering that Morofusa was far more concerned with keeping me alive than being gentle with anything that might threaten me, I knew what it had cost him to offer even this much compromise.
“That is acceptable. We’ll take our kodachis, but under no circumstances are you to draw them without an order directly from me or Master Kenji. Is that understood?”
“Hai, Lord Yamada,” Morofusa and Ujiyasu said together.
The buildings were off limits for the moment, but there were substantial grounds within the walls to cover. We made a slow circuit of the walls, noting the layout of the mansion. It was fairly typical: one large audience hall, one sleeping hall for the family, two wings on the east and west, the west consisting of a long corridor ending in a pavilion such as where we’d encountered the inugami. The eastern wing led to a storage building, as did two corridors off of the main building. Other sleeping quarters were situated off of the easternmost hall directly. All showed signs of slow decay.
Kenji studied the buildings intently. “This is puzzling. I know there are ghosts inside, yet something feels . . . odd. As if there are ghosts but other things as well.”
“Since the place is essentially abandoned, it would seem likely that smaller demons and youkai would take shelter there,” I said.
Kenji demurred. “But it is not abandoned. Princess Shigeko walks these halls, and the testimony of the two guards outside implies that she does not leave it. Which suggests that she is a jibakurei, a spirit bound to a place—this place. A few have tried to enter and some were harmed in the attempt. Even Lord Yorinobu himself was denied entry, by his own account. So. Why would a ghost as powerful as Princess Shigeko is alleged to be deny her own family but allow incursions from such riff-raff as youkai into her home?”
“The obvious answer is that she wouldn’t,” I said. “So what does that leave us?”
Kenji shrugged. “Lord Yamada, I wish I knew, but whatever it is, it must have a close association with the late princess.”
Princess Shigeko was one unknown, but now Kenji had added another. I knew we could find out only so much from those who knew her. Eventually we must, prepared or not, venture in.
We finished our circuit of the mansion and its walls and returned to the garden. “I want to get a little closer,” I said. “Perhaps the full scope of the area she is protecting might yield some information.”
“By which you mean you’re going to try to see how close you can get without getting killed?” Morofusa asked.
The way Morofusa said it, the whole endeavor sounded a little mad. Even so, understanding the limits of the haunting could be invaluable later. Especially if one avoided being killed.
“Well, yes, more or less,” I said.
“Which means that you or anyone might well be attacked, and so anyone could serve the purpose. I will do it, Lord Yamada.”
I frowned. “I cannot ask you to do such a thing. It is dangerous.”
“Which is precisely why I must do it in your stead,” Morofusa replied, infuriatingly impassive. “It is my duty.”
“What my companion says is true,” Ujiyasu chimed in. “Either one or both of us must attempt this, my lord, not you.”
“I trust neither of you will attempt to stop me when I do need to enter the mansion? I already told you that such was inevitable.”
“As long as we can lead the way and accompany you, we will not stop you,” Morofusa said.
“I have your word? Then very well, but be careful, and if we order you to return, you must do so.”
“Understood. I do think it wise that only one of us makes the attempt. Ujiyasu-san, I will go. If anything happens to me, make sure nothing happens to Lord Yamada.”
“Good luck,” Ujiya
su said.
I was thinking the same thing, though I believed it would embarrass Morofusa for me to say so. I kept silent as he carefully approached the sliding screen that served as the main entrance. When he was no farther than the length of a man from the door, an onibi flared within the mansion, and in its cold light there was the shadow of a woman on the screen.
A kage-onna? No.
“Morofusa-san, that is close enough. Please return.”
Morofusa paused with his hand outstretched to touch the screen, but as we agreed, he turned then and made his way back to us.
“I assume you saw it too,” he said.
“The shadow of a woman. I thought perhaps it was no more than a kage-onna, but then I realized it was the ghost light that had cast the shadow,” I said.
Ujiyasu frowned. “What is a kage-onna?”
“Just a youkai,” Kenji said. “It appears as the shadow of a woman on the back of a screen, but when you open the screen there is no one there. Startling, perhaps, but harmless. A kage-onna needs no light, as it is a shadow itself. This shadow didn’t appear until the onibi flared, so it was casting a shadow from someone or something. The presence of the ghost-light suggests it was Princess Shigeko.”
“One more step and I likely would have been attacked,” Morofusa said.
“If you’d opened that screen, I can almost guarantee it,” I said. What I didn’t think needed to be said was how much of a problem it was going to be to discover the source of Princess Shigeko’s anger if she wouldn’t allow us to make contact. I had an idea. I wasn’t sure if it was a good one, but it was better than nothing. I hoped we might be able to uncover something useful from another source before I was reduced to trying this particular idea.
“Let’s return to my house,” I said. The words still seemed odd to me. “My house.” In a city I had lived most of my life and yet never had a house of my own before. So much had changed, but so much had not, and here I was in Heian-kyo again, chasing ghosts.
“Agreed. We’re not accomplishing anything here,” Kenji said.
We walked out the gate and back down the street. As we passed within sight of Prince Kanemore’s town mansion again I did not feel the need to second-guess Prince Kanemore’s arrangements for Princess Tagako’s safety. I felt a little melancholy as I realized my chances discovering why she was being targeted or how to negate the threat seemed to be diminishing by the day.
Perhaps, once the matter of Princess Shigeko’s ghost is settled . . .
Assuming, of course, that I survived this little undertaking. I called myself the fool I was and tried to concentrate on the issue at hand. Nothing could be resolved until Shigeko-hime’s spirit was at peace.
As soon as we arrived in my new compound, Takamasa presented himself.
“You’ve received a letter, my lord,” he said, and held it up to me. “The courier returned not more than an hour hence.”
It was my reply from Abbot Daiwu:
Old Friend. I would be delighted to meet with you. I will be at leisure for the next three days. Please call upon me at your convenience.
The irony of his salutation was the first thing that got my attention, for once we had been mortal enemies. Yet the man who triggered the events that led to Princess Teiko’s death was not the same man who now served as Abbot at Enryaku Temple. I understood this better than anyone. I informed Morofusa and Ujiyasu of my intention of visiting Enryaku-ji the next day and sent them off for a meal and rest. Kenji suggested the same for us, and I was not inclined to argue. We ate on the south veranda, and Kenji then left to find his assigned room, after a partly joking warning from me to leave the maids in peace. He sighed and shook his head.
“At my age . . . ”
“At your age,” I confirmed. “Behave yourself.”
After he was gone, I remained on the veranda. The moon had since risen. Even though it was only a few days past new, I had to look at it for a little while. It did not cast a great deal of light, so when the onibi appeared in the garden, I noticed it immediately. There was only the one, and I knew even before the thought manifested itself completely in my mind who was responsible.
Princess Teiko.
We had not seen any evidence of her since my dream. Perhaps the effort of appearing to me then had forced her spirit to rest, to the extent that it could, for a little while. I started to rise, wondering if Princess Teiko had something else to say to me, but I had no sooner gotten to my feet again than the light winked out. I didn’t need its absence to understand she was gone. Princess Teiko’s spirit had already communicated what it wished to me.
A reminder. No more than this. Perhaps no more than she was capable of at this time, but not less important.
I was not done. Whether this concerned Princess Shigeko’s ghost, or some further desire on Teiko’s behalf for her son, it was not over. I was starting to wonder if it ever would be. Even though Teiko’s ghost was now gone, I was still not alone. I had heard a gasp from the doorway when the onibi first appeared.
“You can come out now, Takamasa-san.”
The screen slid aside, and there he was. “Lord Yamada, I didn’t mean . . . ”
To eavesdrop, had there been anything to hear? Of course you did.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” I asked.
He gulped, then nodded. “A ghost. Here . . . ”
I sighed. “Do not worry, Takamasa-san. When I depart, the ghost will either be at rest, or it will follow me.”
“My lord?”
“This house isn’t haunted, Takamasa-san. I am.”
The next morning Kenji and I and our two shadows departed for Enryaku-ji. The temple was about four leagues to the northeast atop Mount Hiei, so we went on horseback. As we were preparing to depart I received another letter, this time from one of my own messengers from Kamakura.
“It’s from Taro. All is well . . . perhaps even better than well. Taro met a young woman while he was in Mino . . . a daughter of the Seiwa Genji. If I’m reading this correctly, he seems quite smitten. Perhaps I will soon have an official daughter-in-law.”
“And another tie to the Minamoto clan,” Kenji said.
“I’m sure Lord Yoriyoshi would be pleased,” Morofusa added.
I frowned. I hadn’t thought of it in terms of political alliance, any more than I had considered this in the case of my adopted daughter Mai’s marriage into the Hino clan, but then such a union inevitably would be, whatever clan one married into. “Yes . . . well, there is that. He also says we have a visitor. He did not say who, so I suppose it is of no consequence, and he is as capable of showing hospitality as I am.”
“Better, I would think,” Kenji said, but I ignored him.
Kenji looked thoughtful. “He handles your horse breeding operations, he administers your estate in your absence, yet you still call him Taro. That is a child’s name.”
I sighed. “An old habit I’ve had difficulty breaking. His proper name is Yamada no Kiyomichi. I still call him Taro, and he indulges me.”
“He’s what . . . seventeen?”
“Probably eighteen, as close as we’ve been able to determine. He was perhaps seven or eight when he entered Prince Kanemore’s service in the stables, fourteen or fifteen when I adopted him.”
Kenji raised an eyebrow. “I trust you’ve never regretted that decision?”
“Only that one time, when he rode a stallion through my garden at Kamakura. He claims it was because the horse was still being broken, but I have my doubts.”
Both of the bushi chuckled; Kenji just sighed and glanced toward heaven.
“For someone who claims to be unlucky, you have more than your share of happiness,” he said.
“I only claim to be unlucky so the gods don’t presume I need more worries.”
Which was a lie of sorts, except for the part about not needing more worries. As I had told Tagako-hime, I was genuinely unlucky in many ways, and especially in the lives of those nearest to me, nearly all gone too soon. But my adop
tive children had never been among them. I prayed this never changed.
The trip to Mount Hiei was not trivial, but we arrived in good time. We left the horses at a guest station near the base with Ujiyasu looking after them, and then Kenji, Morofusa, and I made the climb up to the temple complex near the summit. The last time I had been on the temple grounds, I had barely prevented a double execution—which was the reason I now had a home within the city and soon, I hoped, more information about the unfortunate Princess Shigeko.
Abbot Daiwu received us by the dais in the cavernous lecture hall. Behind him was a statue of Thousand-Armed Kannon and other figures that I didn’t pretend to know, though I was certain Kenji could name them all. As for the abbot, I had not seen the man in several years. He had aged a bit but was otherwise the serene, gentle soul that I remembered. This had not always been the case, but sometimes even the greatest darkness could be banished—something I tried to remember, especially when dealing with people who seemed more shadow than light.
He indicated the cushions prepared for us, and we all kneeled.
“I’m delighted to see you, Lord Yamada, as well as Master Kenji, but I know you too well to believe this is strictly a social visit,” he said.
“Your Eminence, I must admit to the truth of that. I am here because I am hoping you can help me.”
“Anything I can do, of course. You need only ask.”
It came to the moment when I had to make a decision. The fewer people who knew of my mission, of course, the better, and yet there were questions I needed to ask which of themselves would reveal it. Events at Princess Shigeko’s mansion had convinced me that there really was no choice at all.
“It is my understanding that Princess Shigeko was very fond of this holy place. I believe you knew her personally?”
He frowned. “Of course. She was a generous patron as well as a most pious woman. Her death was a great loss. Why do you ask?”
I took a breath. “I have some reason to believe she was deeply unhappy about something in her life. There is a . . . circumstance that has arisen, perhaps because of it.”
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