The Harsh Cry of the Heron

by Lian Hearn

  “It travels well by ship. I could accompany it to Akashi. Maybe Lord Gemba or Lord Hiroshi will come with me.”

  “The Emperor and his court will be dazzled by such a present,” Gemba said, his plump cheeks rosy with pleasure. “Just as Lord Saga will be disarmed by Lady Shigeko.”

  Shigeko, riding through the peaceful autumn countryside toward the domain that was to be hers, where she would see Hiroshi again, felt that they were indeed blessed by Heaven, and that the Way of the Houou, the way of peace, would prevail.

  22

  After Muto Kenji’s death, the old man’s body was flung into a pit and covered with earth. Nothing marked the spot, but Hisao never had any difficulty finding it, for his mother guided his feet there. Often rain would fall in a sudden shower while he passed by, refracting the sun’s light in fragments of rainbows on the high-floating clouds. He would gaze at them and pray silently for his grandfather’s spirit, that it would have a safe passage through the world of the dead and an auspicious rebirth into the next life, and then lower his eyes to the mountain ranges that unfolded to the east and north, to see if another stranger was approaching.

  He was half-relieved and half-sorry that the old man’s spirit had passed on. It did not hang at the edge of his awareness like his mother’s, making his head ache with incomprehensible demands. He had known his grandfather only for an hour, but he missed his presence. Kenji had taken his own life at the moment and in the manner of his own choosing; Hisao was glad his spirit had gone in peace, but he regretted the death, and though he never spoke of it resented Akio for causing it.

  The summer passed and no one came.

  Everyone in the village was anxious throughout the hot summer months, especially Kotaro Gosaburo, for nothing was heard about the fate of his children, who were still held in Inuyama castle. Rumors and speculation abounded—that they were half-dead from ill-treatment; that one or both had died; for a few days, thrillingly, that they had escaped. Gosaburo grew thin, his skin hanging in folds, his eyes dull. Akio was increasingly impatient with him; indeed, he was irritable and unpredictable with everyone. Hisao thought he would almost have welcomed news of the young people’s execution, for it would have extinguished Gosaburo’s hopes and hardened his resolve for revenge.

  Autumn lilies blossomed in scarlet profusion over Kenji’s body, though no one had planted the bulbs. Birds began their long flights south, and the nights were filled with the crying of geese and the beat of their wings. The moon of the ninth month was huge and golden. Maples and sumac turned crimson, beech copper, willow and ginkgo gold. Hisao’s days were spent in repairing dikes before winter, distributing rotten leaves and dung on the fields, gathering firewood from the forest. His watering system had been a success: The mountain field yielded a fine crop of beans, carrots, and squash. He developed a new rake, which spread the manure more evenly, and experimented with the blades of axes, their weight, angle, and sharpness. There was a forge in the village, and Hisao went there whenever he had time to watch the smith and help blow up the heat with the bellows in the mysterious process of turning iron to steel.

  Earlier in the seventh month, Imai Kazuo had been sent to Inuyama to discover the truth. He returned in mid-autumn with the welcome yet puzzling news that the hostages were still alive, still held in Inuyama castle. He had other news: that Lady Otori was with child and that Lord Otori was sending a splendid procession of messengers to the capital. The retinue had been in Inuyama at the same time as Kazuo, and was about to leave for Miyako.

  Akio was less pleased with the first piece of news than he pretended, bitterly envious at the second, and deeply uneasy at the third.

  “Why is Otori making approaches to the Emperor?” he questioned Kazuo. “What does it mean?”

  “The Emperor has appointed a new general, Saga Hideki, who has been busy for the last ten years extending his control over the East. It seems finally a warrior has appeared who can challenge the Otori.”

  Akio’s eyes gleamed with an unusual expression of emotion. “Something has changed; I sense it. Otori has become more vulnerable. He is responding to some threat. We must be part of his downfall—we cannot wait hidden away for someone else to bring the news of his death to us.”

  “There are signs of weakness,” Kazuo agreed. “Messages to the Emperor, the young people still alive…. He has never hesitated to kill Kikuta before.”

  “Muto Kenji sniffed us out,” Akio said thoughtfully. “Takeo must know where we are. I could not believe neither he nor Taku would let Kenji’s death go unchallenged unless they were preoccupied with other more urgent matters.”

  “It is time for you to travel again,” Kazuo said. “There are many Kikuta families in Akashi, and even here and there in the Three Countries, who need guidance, who will follow your lead if you are there in person.”

  “Then we will go first to Akashi,” Akio said.

  AS A CHILD Hisao’s father had taught him some of the traveling theater skills of the Kikuta—playing the drum, juggling, singing the ancient ballads that country people love, of old wars, feuds, betrayals, and acts of revenge—that they had always used in their journeys across the Three Countries. In the week after Kazuo’s return Akio started juggling training again; a large supply of straw sandals was prepared, dried persimmons and chestnuts were collected and packed, amulets taken out and dusted off, weapons sharpened.

  Hisao was not a gifted performer—he was too shy and did not enjoy attracting attention, but Akio’s combination of blows and caresses had made him skillful enough. He knew all the juggling routines and rarely made a mistake, just as he knew all the words to the songs, though people complained he mumbled and was hard to hear. The idea of traveling filled him with both excitement and trepidation. He looked forward to being on the road, leaving the village, seeing new things, but he was less enthusiastic about performing and uneasy about leaving his grandfather’s grave.

  Gosaburo had received Kazuo’s news with joy, and questioned him closely. He did not speak directly to Akio at the time, but the night before their departure, when Hisao was preparing for sleep, he came to the door of the room and asked Akio if he might speak privately to him.

  Akio was half-undressed, and Hisao could see his face scowl in the dim lamplight, but he made a slight gesture with his head, and Gosaburo stepped into the room, slid the door shut, and knelt nervously on the matting.

  “Nephew,” he said, as though trying to assert some authority of age. “The time has surely come for us to negotiate with the Otori. The Three Countries are growing rich and prosperous while we skulk here in the mountains with barely enough to feed ourselves and the prospect of another freezing winter ahead. We could be flourishing too—our influence could be extending with our trade. Call off the blood feud.”

  Akio said, “Never.”

  Gosaburo took a deep breath. “I am going to return to Matsue. I will leave in the morning.”

  “No one leaves the Kikuta family,” Akio reminded him, his voice expressionless.

  “I am rotting away here. We all are. Otori has spared the lives of my children. Let us accept his offer of truce. I will still be loyal to you. I’ll work for you in Matsue as I always did, provide funds, keep records…”

  “Once Takeo—and Taku, too—are dead, we will talk about truce,” Akio replied. “Now get out. I am tired, and your presense is repulsive to me.”

  As soon as Gosaburo left, Akio doused the lamp. Hisao already lay on the mattress; the night was mild and he had not pulled the cover over him. Little fragments of light danced behind his eyelids. He thought briefly about his cousins and wondered how they would die in Inuyama, but mostly he was listening to Akio’s movements, every cell, it seemed, aware, with a mixture of dread and arousal, physical longing for affection and an only half-acknowledged sense of shame.

  Akio’s anger made him rough and hasty. Hisao bit back any sound, conscious of the latent violence and afraid of provoking it against himself. Yet the act brought some fleeting
release. Akio’s voice was almost gentle when he told the boy to sleep, not to get up, no matter what he heard, and Hisao felt the brief moment of tenderness that he craved as his father caressed his hair, the back of his neck. After Akio left the room, Hisao buried himself under the quilt and tried to close his ears. There were a few muted sounds, someone gasping and struggling; a heavy thump, a dragging on boards, then on earth.

  I am asleep, he told himself, over and again, until suddenly, before Akio returned, he had fallen into a sleep as deep and dreamless as death.

  The next morning Gosaburo’s body lay slumped in the laneway. He had been garroted in the way of the Tribe. No one even dared mourn him.

  “No one leaves the Kikuta and goes unpunished,” Akio said to Hisao as they prepared to depart. “Remember that. Both Takeo and his father dared to leave the Tribe. Isamu was executed for it, and Takeo will be too.”

  AKASHI HAD SPRUNG from the years of conflict and confusion, when merchants had profited from the needs of warriors for provisions and weapons; once they had become rich, they saw no reason to lose their wealth to the depredations of these same warriors, and had banded together to protect their goods and their trade. The city was surrounded by deep moats, and each of its ten bridges was guarded by soldiers from its own army. It had several great temples that protected and encouraged trade, both in the material and the spiritual realm.

  As warlords rose to power, they sought beautiful objects and clothes, works of art, and other luxuries from Shin and beyond, and these the merchants of the free port gladly supplied. The Tribe families had once been more powerful merchants than any within the city, but the increasing prosperity of the Three Countries and the alliance with the Otori had led many of the Muto to move to Hofu, and even the remaining Kikuta had become more interested in trade and profit, during Akio’s self-imposed isolation in the mountains, than in espionage and assassination.

  “Those days are past,” Jizaemon, the owner of a busy importing business, told Akio after welcoming him somewhat less than wholeheartedly. “We must move with the times. We can be more successful and exercise more control over events by supplying arms and other necessities of life, by lending money. Let’s by all means encourage the preparation of war, while with luck avoiding its outbreak.”

  Hisao thought his father would react with the same violence as he had against Gosaburo, and he felt sorry. He did not want Jizaemon to die before he had shown Hisao some of the treasures he had acquired: mechanical gadgets that measured the hours, glass bottles and drinking vessels, mirrors, and delicious new foods, sweet and spicy, licorice and sugar—words he had never heard before.

  The journey had been tedious. Neither Akio nor Kazuo were young anymore, and their performance as actors lacked fire. Their songs were old-fashioned and no longer popular. Their reception on the road had been grudging, and in one village hostile—no one wanted to give them lodging, and they had been forced to walk all night.

  Hisao studied his father closely now, without appearing to, and saw that he was old. In the hidden village Akio had an innate power as the undisputed Master of the Kikuta family, feared and respected by everyone; here, in his old faded clothes, he looked like a nobody. Hisao felt a stab of pity, and then tried to extinguish it, since the pity, as always, opened him up to the voices of the dead. The familiar headache began—half the world slipped into mist; the woman was whispering, but he was not going to listen to her.

  “Well, maybe you’re right,” he heard Akio say, as if from a distance. “But surely war cannot be avoided forever. We had heard of Otori’s messengers to the Emperor.”

  “Yes, you only missed them by a few weeks; I’ve never seen such a lavish procession. Otori must be truly rich and, more than that, gifted with taste and refinement: They say that is his wife’s influence…”

  “And the Emperor has a new general?” Akio cut short the merchant’s enthusiasm.

  “Indeed, and what’s more, cousin, the general has new weapons—or very soon will have. They say that’s why Lord Otori is seeking the Emperor’s favor.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For years the Otori have kept a strict embargo on firearms. But recently the embargo was broken, and firearms were smuggled out of Hofu—it is said with the direct help of Arai Zenko! You know Terada Fumio?”

  Akio nodded.

  “Well, Fumio arrived two days after the arms to try to get them back. He was furious; first he offered large sums of money, then he threatened to come back with a fleet and burn the city if they weren’t returned. But it was too late—they were already on their way to Saga. And I can’t tell you what it’s done for the price of iron and niter. Sky high, cousin, sky high!”

  Jizaemon poured another cup of wine and urged them to drink with him.

  “No one cares about Terada’s threats.” He chuckled. “He’s nothing but a pirate. He’s smuggled far worse himself before now. And Lord Otori will never attack the free city, not while he needs his own merchants to feed and equip his army.”

  Hisao wondered at Akio’s lack of response. His father simply drank deeply, and nodded in agreement at everything Jizaemon said, though his scowl deepened and his face grew darker.

  Hisao woke in the night to hear his father whispering to Kazuo. He felt his whole body grow tense, and half-expected to hear again the dull sounds of murder, but the two men were talking about something else—about Arai Zenko, who had allowed firearms to escape the Otori net.

  Hisao knew of Zenko’s history—that he was the older son of Muto Shizuka, and Kenji’s great-nephew, some sort of cousin to himself. Zenko was the only member of the Muto family not execrated by the Kikuta—he had not been involved in Kotaro’s death, and was rumored to be not completely loyal to Takeo, despite being his brother-in-law. It was suspected that he blamed Takeo for his father’s death, and even nursed a secret desire for revenge.

  “Zenko is both powerful and ambitious,” Kazuo whispered. “If he is seeking to ingratiate himself with Lord Saga, he must be preparing to move against the Dog.”

  “It’s a perfect time to approach Zenko,” Akio murmured. “Takeo is looking to threats from the East; if Zenko attacks from the West he will be caught between them.”

  “I feel Zenko will welcome an approach from you,” Kazuo replied. “And, of course, since Muto Kenji’s death, Zenko must be the next Master of the Muto family. What better time to go to the Muto to mend the rift in the Tribe, to bring the families back together?”

  Jizaemon, glad perhaps to get rid of his visitors, provided them with letters of passage and fitted them out with the clothes and other appurtenances of merchants. He arranged for them to travel on one of his guild’s ships, and within a few days they set sail for Kumamoto by way of Hofu, taking advantage of the fine, calm weather of late autumn.

  23

  Maya did not travel as the daughter of Lord Otori, but in her other fashion, disguised in the Tribe way. She was younger sister to Sada, and they were going to Maruyama to see their relatives there and find work after the death of their parents. Maya liked playing the part of this orphaned child, and it gratified her to imagine her parents dead, for she was still angry with them, especially with her mother, and deeply wounded by their preference for Sunaomi. Maya had seen Sunaomi reduced to a sniveling child by what he thought was a ghost—in reality an unfinished statue of the all-merciful Kannon. She despised his fear all the more, for it was trivial compared to what she had seen that same starless night, the third night of the Festival of the Dead.

  It had been easy enough to follow Sunaomi using ordinary Tribe skills, but when she came to the beach something about the night and the smoldering fires, the intensity and grief of the Festival touched her deeply, and the cat’s voice spoke inside her, saying, “Look what I can see!”

  At first it was like a game—the sudden clarity of the dark scene, her huge pupils taking in every movement, the scuttling of small creatures and night insects, the quiver of leaves, the drops of spray borne by
the breeze. Then her body softened and stretched into the cat’s, and she became aware that the beach and the pine grove were full of phantoms.

  She saw them with the cat’s vision, their faces gray, their robes white, their pale limbs floating above the ground. The dead turned their gaze toward her and the cat responded to them, knowing all their bitter regrets, their unending grudges, their unfulfilled desires.

  Maya cried out in shock; the cat yowled. She struggled to return to her own familiar flesh; the cat’s claws scrabbled on the black shingle at the sand’s edge—it leaped into the trees around the house. The spirits followed her, pressing round her, their touch icy on her pelt. She heard their voices like the rustling of leaves in the autumn wind, full of sorrow and hunger.

  “Where is our Master? Take us to him. We are waiting for him.”

  Their words filled her with terror, though she did not understand them, as in a nightmare when a single obscure sentence chills the sleeper to the bone. She heard the snap of the branch breaking, and saw a man come out of the half-demolished house with a lamp in his hand. The dead retreated from the light, and it made her pupils narrow so that she could no longer see them clearly. But she heard Sunaomi scream, and heard the trickle of water as he pissed himself. Her contempt for his fear helped her master her own, enough to retreat into the shrubs and return unseen to the castle. She could not remember at what point the cat had left her and she had become Maya again, just as it was not clear to her what had made the cat shape manifest itself. But she could not rid herself of the memory of the cat’s ghost vision and the hollow voices of the dead.

  Where is our Master?

  She dreaded seeing and hearing that way again, and she tried to armor herself against the cat’s possession of her. She had inherited something of the implacable nature of the Kikuta along with many of their talents. But the cat came to her in dreams, demanding, terrifying, and enticing.