by Lian Hearn
“I am grateful to you,” Shigeru replied. “I just don’t understand why you did it. You have been working for Iida as an informant and a go-between. Why return my sword to me and help me escape when your master wants my head?”
“No one is my master,” Kenji retorted. “My loyalty is to my family and to the Tribe.”
“Your family, like your double-faced niece. You speak of loyalty! You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Shigeru felt anger course through him, bringing renewed vigor. Kenji seemed equally enraged, but he said, trying to sound unmoved, “Loyalty for the Tribe may not mean the same as to the warrior, but we know its meaning. If I were going to sell you to Iida, I would have done so already.” Kenji went on, “I have been thinking about the future: Iida should not have everything his own way; we need to keep him a little unsettled; we need people to keep him awake at night while he worries about what they are up to.”
“So the Tribe control us all?” Shigeru said.
“More than any of you suspect,” Kenji admitted.
“And it suits you now to support me, to maintain some kind of check on Iida?”
“That’s my preliminary estimation.” Kenji glanced at him and then said, “But, of course, Shigeru, it is not the only reason.”
Shigeru did not correct him for the familiarity but said sarcastically, “Some bond between us from a former life?”
“Something like that. You know, I have never spoken to Iida. I have never even been admitted to his presence. I receive orders from his henchmen. But the first time we met, you spoke to me courteously, asked for my help, and thanked me.”
“I thought you were a fox-spirit. I did not want to offend you.”
Kenji laughed, and went on. “And a few days ago, you gave me your sword—a warrior does not do that lightly. Moreover, when I held your father’s sword, I felt something of its power. I know you are its true owner—and a worthy one. You must know your reputation in the Middle Country, the respect and affection you command. The Tribe have different notions of honor; nevertheless, I don’t want to be known as the man who sold Otori Shigeru to Iida Sadamu! So yes, there is a bond between us, for political and personal reasons.”
Shigeru said somewhat awkwardly, for Kenji’s praise embarrassed him, “I am more than grateful to you for saving my life and for your help. I hope I can call on that help in the future. But what can I offer you in return?”
“Maybe no more than your friendship. It would be an interesting thing, to be friends with a warrior.”
And all my friends are dead, Shigeru thought. “Would the Tribe work for me, as you have worked for Iida?”
“I am sure we can come to some mutually satisfactory arrangement.”
“Do you have any information now? Will Iida push on into the Middle Country? Do I need to reassemble my army immediately?”
“I don’t know much—only what I saw with my own eyes at Yaegahara. The Tohan also suffered terrible losses. The Otori may have gone down, but they took their enemies with them. Iida will almost certainly demand that large parts of the Middle Country be ceded to him: Chigawa, the southern part, possibly even Yamagata—but he will not be strong enough to attack again, and not for some time.”
“They were brave,” Shigeru said.
“That was never in question. Nor is your own courage. But if you’re going to survive, you need to acquire other qualities: discernment, deviousness, and above all patience.”
“Above all deviousness,” Shigeru remarked. “Maybe you can teach me that.”
“Maybe I can,” Kenji replied.
32
As reports began to come through from the battlefield, the city of Hagi went into mourning. People wept in the streets, rushed to the shrines to pray, beat gongs and bells to awaken the gods who had forgotten the Otori. The more courageous armed themselves with staves and knives, and villagers began to stream into the city from the surrounding districts.
After a few days, the remnants of the defeated army began to trickle back. Among the first was Miyoshi Satoru, with his oldest son, the fourteen-year-old Kahei. Miyoshi was one of Lord Shigemori’s closest advisers and one of Lord Shigeru’s teachers. It was with the deepest sorrow that he reported her husband’s death to Lady Otori.
“And Lord Shigeru?” she said, with no sign of grief.
“There is no clear knowledge of him: I cannot hide it from you. We fear the worst.”
Endo Chikara also returned, and the two retainers acted as swiftly as they could to protect what remained of the clan. Lady Otori, of course, was determined to secure Takeshi’s position as heir, but Takeshi was only fourteen: a regent would have to be decided upon. As soon as Lord Shoichi and Lord Masahiro heard the news, they hurried back to the castle to make sure no negotiations took place without them. The extent of the disaster could not be minimized. Their clan and its young heir had attracted the anger and enmity of the most powerful warlord in the Three Countries. They would all suffer severe punishment—there was no doubt of that—but their main objective was to do all they could to ensure the survival of the clan.
Shigemori was dead and Shigeru missing. Takeshi was still a minor and, anyway, was a week’s journey away in Terayama, which had every likelihood of becoming Tohan in the very near future. Shoichi and Masahiro, whatever their failings, were Otori lords: they were instated almost immediately as interim regents and given authority to begin negotiations with Iida Sadamu.
How to approach the conqueror was the next problem. Lord Shoichi himself suggested Tsuwano’s Kitano, who had kept himself and his men out of the battle—which could be interpreted as neutrality. Shoichi already knew of Kitano’s leanings toward Inuyama, the same leanings that had so offended Shigeru three years earlier.
Endo himself set out the next day for Tsuwano to make preliminary inquiries, while Shoichi and Masahiro made arrangements to move their wives and families back into the castle. However, while he was waiting for his wife’s return, Masahiro went to visit Akane.
Haruna had gone straight to Akane as soon as she had heard the first news of the defeat. Akane spent that day and the next soaring and plummeting between hope and despair.
“He is only missing!” she kept repeating to Haruna, who sat beside her holding her hand, combing out her hair, massaging her neck and temples, encouraging her to eat and drink, anything to keep her from careering downward into the deep pit of hopeless grief. “No one saw him die!”
Haruna did not say what was uppermost in her mind—that all those who might have witnessed Shigeru’s death were themselves dead. Mori Kiyoshige, for instance, murdered by his own clansmen—the name Noguchi had already become synonymous with traitor. She wept for the young man, so full of fierce vitality, and for all the others.
Akane bathed and changed her clothes over and over again, repeating, “He will need my love when he returns. I must look beautiful for him: he will need my comfort as never before.” However, by the evening of the third day, she was sinking into desperation, though she still did not give way to tears. Just after sunset they heard the sound of horses in the street outside: hope returned with a stab of physical pain; brushing aside the maids, she ran to the front entrance. Harnesses jingled; the horses stamped and snorted. Men entered the garden, the Otori heron clearly visible on their robes. She thought she would faint with joy, but it was not Shigeru who followed the men into the garden.
“Lord Masahiro?” she said, her speech faltering.
“May I come in?” He stood for a moment while one of the men knelt to undo his sandals, then stepped up into the house.
“Who is here?” he questioned.
“No one—just Haruna.”
“Tell her to leave. I want to speak to you alone.”
His manner had changed, and it alarmed her: he was less ingratiating, more openly bullying.
She made an effort to stand up to him. “I cannot receive you now. My deepest apologies—I must ask you to leave.”
“What are you going to do, Aka
ne? Throw me out?”
He came close to her, swaggering a little. She stepped back, her flesh already feeling his hands and recoiling. Masahiro laughed and shouted toward the interior of the house. “Haruna! I don’t want to see your face here. Make yourself scarce before I come in.” He nodded toward the maids, who were waiting nervously in the shadows. “Bring wine!” He strode into the main room.
The men stood at the front entrance. There was nothing Akane could do but follow him. He sat himself down and gazed out into the garden. The summer air was moist and soft, smelling of the sea and the tides, but Akane’s mouth was dry and she felt parched, as if a fever were setting in.
One of the girls came in with wine and cups. She placed them on the floor and poured wine for them both. Masahiro waved her away. She cast an anxious look at Akane and retreated to the rear door, sliding it shut behind her. Masahiro drank deeply.
“I came to offer you my condolences,” he said. The words were appropriate, but he could not hide the air of triumph behind them.
Akane whispered, “Lord Shigeru is dead?”
He was the last person she wanted to hear this news from; it added another level to the unbearable pain.
“Either dead or captured. For his sake, we must hope for the former.”
Never to see him again, never to feel his body against hers—the wave of grief started in her belly and swept through her. She thought she had felt grief at her father’s death; now she knew that it had been nothing compared to this, a teardrop against the whole ocean. Sounds came from her mouth that she did not recognize—a deep moaning like the winter sea on a stony beach, followed by a sharp mewling like a seabird’s cry.
She fell forward, hardly feeling the matting against her face, her hands tearing at it, then tearing at her own hair.
Masahiro leaned over and held her firmly, drawing her close to him as if to comfort her. She was hardly aware of his mouth against the nape of her neck, hardly felt his hands as they loosened her sash and lifted her robe. She knew what he would do: she could not stop him; she could not spare from her grief the energy or the will to resist him; she wanted him to get it over with as quickly as possible and then leave her alone. If he hurt her, it did not matter: no pain could come near what she already felt.
His lust made him clumsy and quick. Akane felt nothing but revulsion: men’s desire, which she had once pitied and then adored, now seemed to her to be contemptible. She loathed everything to do with it—the invasion, the wetness, the smell.
The matting will be stained, she thought. I will have to replace it. But she knew that she would never do it. Someone else would have to see to it, after her death.
Masahiro said, as he adjusted his clothes, “In a way, I have become the heir to the clan. So this house and its occupant are part of my inheritance.”
Akane said nothing.
“I am sure we will get used to each other, Akane. I know you are a very practical woman. I’ll leave you now. But don’t waste too much time grieving. Nothing will change in your life, if you are sensible.”
She heard him leave, heard the horses depart; then she gave herself over to grief, keening and rocking herself, tugging at her hair and driving her nails into her skin. Her reason abandoned her, and she felt herself being pulled into the dark world of sorcery and spells. From where she lay, her eyes were drawn constantly to one spot—the place in the garden where she had buried the charm the old priest had given her. She had wanted to bind Shigeru to her: it seemed she had cursed him instead. She had wanted to control his desire for her, but she had used the desire of men to do it and now she was trapped by her own sorcery. She ran barefoot into the garden, knelt in the dirt, scrabbling with her hands at the earth. The box smelled rank, like a coffin torn from a grave; when the maids came out, pleading with her to return inside, she raved at them and cursed them in a voice unlike her own, as if a demon had possessed her.
Haruna returned; the maids spoke to her in hushed voices, causing her to weep quietly. The women decided it would be better for Akane to be removed from the place where every room, every aspect and object spoke to her of her dead lover; and also from the scene of the unspeakable violation. She would not be separated from the box she had dug from the earth, but cradling it in her arms, she allowed Haruna to help her into a palanquin and take her to the House of the Camellias. The house was quiet, the women all in mourning; indeed, many of them had returned to their families for the funeral ceremonies that were taking place all over the city. Haruna led Akane to the room she had slept in when she was a girl, washed her and dressed her in a clean robe, and sat with her till dawn. The change of surroundings seemed to calm her a little, and finally she gave in to exhaustion and slept. Haruna lay down beside her, and soon her eyes closed too.
AKANE AWOKE WITH the dawn. Sparrows were chirping noisily from the camellias in the garden, and a bush warbler called piercingly. It was going to be another warm day. Soon the plum rains would begin. He will never feel sun or rain again, she thought, and grief tightened its vise around her heart.
She rose quietly, took the box from where she had left it beside the pillow block, and slipped from the room. The garden sparkled with dew: there was no one around to see her, but she left clear footprints on gravel and grass.
She went to the old priest’s dwelling, rousing him from sleep and demanding that he remove all the spells he had cast on her behalf. Half fuddled, he tried to calm her, but his touch unhinged her further. Her madness gave her inhuman strength. As if a demon possessed her, she ransacked the hut, searching for something that would ease her pain. She threw his flasks and potions to the ground, scattering the dried roots and seeds. When he bent to collect them, she picked up his paring knife and cut his throat. It seemed to her as if she was killing Masahiro as he violated her, and that nothing but his blood would moisten her parched lips. May he die thus and thus again through all his lives, she cursed him; may he never find peace or salvation; may his children hate him and seek his death. Then she put her lips to the newly carved mouth and sucked from it.
Picking up the box with the charm that had bound Shigeru to her and turned his wife against him, she went to the shrine and prayed for forgiveness, for them all to be released. She wept for her dead love, and the tears brought clarity. I did not mean to love you, she told him, but I did, completely. Now you are gone, I will not live without you. Forgive me for the part I played in your death. The salt of tears mingled in her mouth with the taste of blood.
Clasping the box to her like a child, she climbed to the edge of the sulfur-smelling crater and threw herself into the pit.
33
Kenji accompanied Shigeru to the south bank of the river. They arrived at the night ebb tide, when the air smelled of mud and salt. A new three-day moon hung low above the sea. Shigeru was a little reluctant to say good-bye; he would have liked to keep his companion longer. He felt there was indeed some inexplicable bond between them and suspected that he would be in need of help in the coming months, the sort of help only the Tribe could provide—above all, information.
“Where will you go now? You are welcome to stay at my mother’s house.”
“It’s better for our friendship to remain hidden for now,” Kenji replied. “There are places I can stay in Hagi.”
“Where can I reach you?” Shigeru asked.
“I’ll send someone to you. I’ll be in touch in some way through your household.”
Shigeru thought immediately of Muto Shizuka and was filled with misgivings—even if he had information from Kenji, how would he know if he could trust it? How could he control and use the Tribe when he knew nothing about them?
“Well, thank you again—for the sword, for all your help.”
“Lord Otori.” Kenji bowed formally. “Look after yourself,” he added in more familiar speech and turned to walk away.
Shigeru gazed after him for a moment and saw the figure split in two. Two identical men walked side by side. Both raised a hand in farewell.
They merged together, and Kenji, the Fox, vanished.