by Lian Hearn
There were other conflicts within her that seemed impossible to resolve. The beliefs of the Hidden forbade the taking of life, yet the only way to set her daughter free and bring not only happiness to herself but peace and justice to the Three Countries was for Iida to die. She remembered the discussions she had had with Shigeru about assassination; must she now abandon all these plans and leave Iida’s punishment to the Secret One, who saw everything and dealt with everyone after death?
Heaven’s net is wide, but its mesh is fine, she said to herself.
She thought of Shigeru constantly, though she had little hope of meeting him or hearing from him. The narrow escape from discovery had alarmed and shocked her: she could not bear to take such a risk again. Yet she still longed for him, still loved him deeply, wanted now to tell him about the child and ask his forgiveness. She wrote letters to him all winter, which she hoped to send with Shizuka, and then tore them into scraps and burned them.
Spring came; the snows had melted: messengers, travelers, and peddlers once again began their journeys across the Three Countries. Naomi had little time to brood, luckily, for she was always busy. She had to resume the control and leadership of her clan, which had slipped from her a little while she was ill. Even when the weather was too bad to ride outside, there were many meetings held with the clan elders, many decisions that had to be made regarding trade, industry, mining and agriculture, military affairs and diplomacy.
When she had time, she liked to retreat in the afternoons with Sachie and Eriko and prepare tea for them in the teahouse built by her grandmother. The ritual took on some of the holy qualities of the shared meal of the Hidden. The maid, Mari, usually waited on them, bringing hot water and little cakes of sweetened chestnut or bean paste, and often Harada Tomasu joined them to pray with them.
One day in the fifth month, to Naomi’s delight, Shizuka’s name was announced to her, and Mari brought her into the garden.
Shizuka stepped into the teahouse and knelt before Naomi, then sat up and studied her face. “Lady Maruyama has recovered,” she said quietly, “and regained all her beauty.”
“And you, Shizuka, have you been well? Where did you spend the winter?” Naomi thought Shizuka looked unusually pale and subdued.
“I have been in Noguchi all winter with Lord Arai. I thought I would be able to go to Hagi now, but something just happened, here in Maruyama, that has alarmed me.”
“Can you tell me what it is?” Naomi said.
“It may be nothing. I am imagining things. I thought I saw my uncle Kenji in the street. Well, I didn’t see him, actually, I smelled him—he has quite a distinct smell—and then I realized there was someone using one of the Tribe skills to hide their presence. He was ahead of me and upwind, so I don’t think he saw me. But it worried me. Why would he be here? He rarely comes this far to the West. I am afraid he is watching me. I have aroused his suspicions in some way. I should not go to Hagi, for I will give away my friendship with Lord Shigeru, and if the Tribe find out . . .”
“Please go!” Naomi begged her. “I will write to him now. I will be quick; I won’t delay you.”
“I should not carry letters,” Shizuka said. “It is too dangerous. Tell me your message. If I think it is safe—not only for me but for us all—I will try to see Lord Shigeru before summer.”
“Sachie, prepare tea for Shizuka while I sit for a few moments and think of what I want to say,” Naomi requested, but before Sachie could move, Mari called quietly from the doorway.
“Lady Maruyama, Harada Tomasu has something to tell you. May I bring him here?”
Shizuka had gone still. “Who is Harada?” she whispered.
“He was one of Shigeru’s retainers,” Naomi replied. “You have nothing to fear from him.” Harada was the former Otori warrior who had once taken a message from her to Shigeru and had arranged their first meeting. She held him in great affection for that reason, and also because she had spoken to him many times about his beliefs. “Can he have brought a message from Hagi?” Her hands were trembling against the delicate pottery of the tea bowl, sending tiny ripples across the surface of the tea.
She called to Mari. “Yes, bring him at once.”
Mari bowed and left, and returned after a little while with Harada.
Naomi greeted the one-eyed man warmly. He looked thinner and more spare, as though the fire of his conviction was consuming him from within.
“Lady Maruyama, I feel I must go to Hagi and see Lord Otori.”
“What has happened?” she said with some alarm.
“I have had no news of Lord Otori for months,” he replied. “As far as I know, he is well. But I have a strong feeling I should take some information I’ve heard recently to him.”
“Can you tell me what it is?”
“There is a peddler who travels from Inuyama; he has been to Hagi often too. He is one of us and brings news of our people from the East and the Middle Country. The year before last, for the first time he went beyond the capital into the mountains—he will return there this summer. He let slip that there is a boy there who looks like one of the Otori.”
She stared at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“It may be nothing important. An illegitimate son . . . ?”
“Lord Shigeru’s?” she said in a forced voice.
“No, no, I would not suggest that. The boy must be fifteen or sixteen, nearly fully grown. But from the Otori, definitely.” His voice trailed away. “I am making too much of it: I thought Lord Shigeru would like to know.”
Shizuka had been kneeling quietly to one side. Now she said, “Lady Maruyama, may I ask this man a question?”
Naomi nodded, grateful for the interruption. He is too old to be Shigeru’s son, she was thinking in a mixture of relief and disappointment. But maybe they are related in some way.
“Did he notice anything else?” Shizuka said, her voice compelling. “He speaks of a facial likeness, no doubt. Did he see the boy’s hands?”
Harada stared at her. “As a matter of fact, he did.” He glanced at Naomi and said, “Lady Maruyama?”
“You may speak in front of her,” Naomi said.
“He noticed them because the boy is one of us, one of the Hidden,” Harada said quietly. “But he wanted to hold the sword. And his hands were marked across the palm.”
“Like mine?” Shizuka said, holding out her hands palm upward.
“I suppose so,” Haruda said. “The peddler took a liking to the family, and now he is worried about them. So many of us are dying in the East.”
They all stared at Shizuka’s hands, at the straight line that almost seemed to cut the palm in half.
“What does it mean?” Naomi asked.
“It means I have to go to Hagi at once,” Shizuka replied, “no matter how dangerous it is, and inform Lord Shigeru. You need not go,” she told Harada. “I must go! I must tell him this!”
The idea came to Naomi that she would present him with this boy; it seemed like a gift, to replace the child she had had to kill. She saw the hand of God in it. This was the message Shizuka must take for her. Amazed and grateful, she rose to her feet.
“Yes, you must go to Hagi and tell Lord Otori. You must go at once.”
46
Shigeru’s days were spent in overseeing his estate—the sesame crop had indeed proved successful—and his nights in sorting out the information Shizuka brought him about the Tribe. Chiyo had long since decided she was a woman from the pleasure district and approved wholeheartedly, while at the same time appreciating the need for secrecy and for the visits to be kept from Shigeru’s mother. She made sure they were left alone.
For years Shigeru had been leading many different lives, all separate from each other, all kept secret from each other. He developed a liking for deception, his whole life a series of pretences, a game that he knew he played with flair and skill. The tragedies of his life had hardened him—not to make him less compassionate toward others but certainly toward himself,
leading him to a detachment from self-concern that gave him a sense of freedom. There was no trace of self-pity in his nature. Many people wanted him dead, but he would not succumb to their malevolence or take on their hatred. He embraced life more wholeheartedly and took pleasure in all its joys. Fate could be said to have dealt with him harshly, but he did not feel like a victim of fate. Rather, he was grateful for his life and all that he had learned from it. He remembered what Matsuda had said to him after the defeat: You will learn what makes you a man.
It had been a harder battle than Yaegahara, but it had not ended in defeat.
“I THINK I have found your Kikuta nephew.” Shizuka hardly waited for him to greet her or to take her safely inside the house before she whispered the news. It was almost the end of the sixth month. He had not expected visitors during the plum rains, but now that they were nearly over, he had been hoping daily that she would come.
“It has been such a long time!” he said, astonished by his pleasure in seeing her, astounded by her words. She herself was trembling with emotion.
“I had been worried about you,” he went on. “I had heard nothing from you for so long, and I have not seen Kenji this year.”
“Lord Shigeru, I don’t think I will be able to come again. I am afraid I am being watched. I came now only because this news was so important. And because I have been in Maruyama.”
“Is she well?”
“She is now, but last year . . . after your meeting at Terayama . . .”
She did not need to explain it to him; it was what he had feared each time they met.
“No!” he said. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead. Small spots danced in front of his eyes. He heard Shizuka speak as if from a great distance.
“She asks you to forgive her.”
“I should be asking for her forgiveness! All the difficulty of choice, the suffering was hers! I did not even know about it!” He felt rage such as he had not felt in years sweep through him. “I must kill Iida,” he said, “or die myself. We cannot continue living like this.”
“That is why I came to tell you about this boy. I think he is your nephew and Isamu’s son.”
Shigeru said, “Who is Isamu?”
“I have told you about him. His mother did work in the Hagi castle when your father was young. She must have been your father’s lover. She was married to a Kikuta cousin. Isamu, who was born in the first year of the marriage, turned out to have unbelievable Tribe skills, but he left the Tribe. No one ever does that. And then he died, but no one will say why. I think the Tribe killed him—that’s the usual punishment for disobedience.”
“And would be for you,” Shigeru said, amazed again at her fearlessness.
“If they ever find out! That’s why I can’t come to you anymore. I don’t think there is much more I can tell you anyway. You have your records now. You know more about the Tribe than any outsider ever has. But now this boy has appeared, among the Hidden in the East. The village is called Mino. He has an Otori look and Kikuta hands: he can only be Isamu’s son.”
“He is my nephew!” Shigeru said with a sort of wonderment. “I can’t leave him there!”
“No, you must go and get him. If the Tribe hear of him, they will certainly try to claim him, and if they don’t, he may well be massacred by Iida who is determined to eradicate the Hidden from all his domains.”
Shigeru remembered the tortured men and children he had seen with his own eyes, and his skin crawled with horror.
“And who knows, he may have inherited his father’s skills,” Shizuka said.
“He would become our assassin?”
She nodded, and they gazed at each other with excited eyes. He wanted to take her in his arms; it was more than gratitude, he realized, as desire for her flooded through him. He saw something in her expression and knew he had only to reach out to her and she would give herself to him; that they both desired it equally; that neither of them would ever mention it again and that it would be no betrayal, just a recognition of deep need. Lust engulfed him, for a woman’s body, a woman’s scent—her hands, her hair—she would rescue him from loneliness and grief. She would share his excitement and his hopes.
Neither of them moved.
The moment passed. Shizuka said, “For this reason also, I must not come again. We are becoming too close; you know what I mean.”
He nodded without speaking.
“Go to Mino,” she said. “Go as soon as possible.”
“I can never thank you for all you have done for me,” Shigeru said, speaking formally to hide his emotions. “I am in your debt forever.”
“I have risked my life for you,” Shizuka said. “I only ask that you make good use of it.”
After she left, Shigeru went to sit for a while in the garden. The air was humid and hot: not a leaf moved. From time to time a fish splashed. Cicadas droned. He realized his heart was pounding with far more than the sudden and unfulfilled desire—with excitement and anticipation. The boy was the piece in the game that opened up the way for a new attack, the unforeseen move that led to the downfall of the enemy. But more than that, the boy was the link between each of the separate seams of his life, the catalyst that united them all and opened them one to another. He was Lord Shigemori’s grandson, Shigeru’s closest relative, after Takeshi, his heir. He was the Tribe assassin’s son with the skills that would destroy Iida.
He could not sit still. He thought he would take one of the horses out; he needed to feel the animal’s rhythm while he made his plans. He had to share this news with someone; he would tell Takeshi.
Takeshi was in the former Mori water meadows with the colts, who were now in their sixth summer. He had broken them in two years before; he was riding the bay, whom he had named Kuri.
Shigeru called to him and Takeshi rode over.
“This horse is so clever,” he said. “I wish he were better looking.”
Kuri put his ears back and Takeshi laughed. “See, he understands every word you say. He’ll be a good warhorse—not that there’s much chance of me ever fighting a battle!”
“Is he fast?”
“Raku’s faster,” Takeshi replied, looking affectionately at the gray with the black mane and tail.
“Let’s race Raku and Kyu,” Shigeru said. “See if the new blood can beat the old.”
Takeshi smiled and his eyes gleamed as he transferred bridle and saddle to Raku. It was the sort of challenge he loved. They rode to the end of the meadow and turned the horses. Takeshi counted down from five to one, and both horses sprang into a gallop, rejoicing in the loose rein and their riders’ shouts of encouragement.
Shigeru did not care if he won or lost. All he cared about was the release the gallop brought and the tears the wind whipped from his eyes.
Raku won by a head, to Takeshi’s pleasure. Kuri did not follow them but seemed to watch the contest with interest.
Takeshi appeared to have put the turmoil of the past behind him, and Shigeru was proud of his brother, impressed by the good looks and manners of the horses. On an impulse, he said, “Come and eat at home tonight. It will make Mother happy, and I have something to tell you.”
“I will,” Takeshi said, “if I can slip away after dinner.”
Shigeru laughed. “Who is she?”
“Tase—a very beautiful girl. A singer from Yamagata, home of beautiful women. She’s got lots of nice friends, if you’d like to meet one!”
“You know so many beautiful women,” Shigeru teased him. “I can’t meet them all.”