by Lian Hearn
I must not condemn him before I speak to him.
Bunta touched her tentatively on the arm. “Is there anything I can do? Can I get you wine, or tea?”
She recoiled from him, reading something more than sympathy in the gesture, suddenly hating all men for their lust and their murderous violence. “I would like to be alone. We will leave at first light. Say nothing to Miki. I will decide when to tell her.”
“I’m really very sorry,” he said. “Everyone liked Taku. It’s a terrible loss.”
When his footsteps died away, she sank down on the veranda, pulling the cloak around her, still holding the knife in her hand, its familiar weight her only comfort, her means of escape from the world of pain.
She heard the lightest of footfalls on the boards. Miki crawled up against her and into her arms.
“I thought you were asleep.” Shizuka held the girl close and stroked her hair.
“His footsteps woke me, and then I couldn’t help listening.” Her thin body was trembling. “Maya’s not dead. I would know if she was.”
“Where is she? Can you find her?” Shizuka thought if she concentrated on Maya, on the living, she would not break down. And Miki, with her acute sensitivity, seemed to be aware of this. She said nothing about Taku, but helped Shizuka to her feet.
“Come and lie down,” she said, as if she were the adult and Shizuka the child. “Even if you don’t sleep, you will be resting. I want to sleep, because Maya talks to me in dreams. Sooner or later she will tell me where she is, and then I’ll go and find her.”
“We should return to Hagi. I should take you to your mother.”
“No, we must go to Hofu,” Miki whispered. “Maya is still in Hofu. If one day you find I’m gone, don’t worry about me. I’ll be with Maya.”
They lay down and Miki curled into Shizuka’s side, her hand on her breast. She seemed to fall asleep, but Shizuka lay awake, thinking about her son’s life. All women, among the Tribe and in the warrior class, had to accustom themselves to the likelihood of the early violent death of their male children. Boys were brought up to have no fear of death, and girls were trained not to show weakness or grief. To fear for someone else’s life was to attempt to bind them to you in some way, and she had seen how a mother’s over-protective love turned boys into cowards or drove them into recklessness. Taku was dead, she grieved for him, but she was sure his death meant he had not betrayed Takeo—he had been killed for his loyalty. His death had not been random or meaningless.
In this way she was able to comfort and strengthen herself over the next few days as they rode toward Hofu. She was determined she would go not as a distraught and grieving mother but as head of the Muto family; she would show no weakness, but she would find out how her son had died and bring his murderers to justice.
THE WEATHER BECAME hot and sultry—even the sea breezes did not cool the port city. The spring rains had been sparse, and people spoke apprehensively of an unusually hot summer, possibly even drought, for there had been no drought in sixteen years or more. The spring rains and the plum rains had arrived at the right time and fallen heavily for so many years, many young people had never experienced the hardships endured when the rains failed.
There was an air of unrest in the city, not only due to the oppressive weather. Various ominous signs were reported daily; faces speaking of doom were seen in lanterns outside Daifukuji temple; a flock of birds had traced characters of ill-luck in the sky. As soon as they arrived, Shizuka was aware of the real grief and anger of the townspeople at Taku’s death. She did not go to the Arai mansion, but stayed in an inn not far from the Umedaya, overlooking the river. On the first night the innkeeper told her that Taku and Sada were buried at Daifukuji. She sent Bunta to inform Zenko of her arrival, and rose early the next morning, leaving Miki asleep, limbs twitching and lips moving in some vivid dream, to walk along the riverbank to where the vermilion temple stood among the sacred trees, facing out to sea to welcome sailors home to the Middle Country. The sound of chanting came from within, and she heard the sonorous and holy words of the sutra for the dead.
Two monks were scattering water on the boardwalks before sweeping them. One of them recognized Shizuka, and said to the other, “Take Lady Muto to the graveyard. I will inform the Abbot.”
She saw their sympathy and was grateful for it.
Under the huge trees there was a hint of coolness. The monk led her to the newly dug graves. No stones yet covered them, lamps burned beside them, and someone had laid an offering of flowers—purple irises—before them. She forced herself to picture her son’s ashes in the casket beneath the ground, his strong agile body stilled, his quick sardonic mind silenced. His spirit must be wandering restlessly between the worlds, demanding justice.
The second monk returned with incense, and shortly afterward, as Shizuka knelt in silent prayer, the Abbot himself came and knelt beside her. They remained in silence for some time, then the man began to chant the same sutra for the dead.
Tears formed in her eyes and traced their way down her cheeks. The ancient words rose into the canopy of the trees, mingling with the morning song of sparrows and the gentle cooing of doves.
Later, the Abbot took her to his room and served her tea. “I have taken it upon myself to arrange for the stone to be carved. I thought it was what Lord Otori would have desired.”
She stared at him. She had known him for some years, but had always seen him in a merry mood, as able to joke with the sailors in their rough dialect as to compose elegantly humorous verses with Takeo, Kaede, and Dr. Ishida. Now his face was drawn, his expression grave.
“Surely his brother, Lord Zenko, has dealt with all this?”
“I’m afraid Lord Zenko has become somewhat influenced by the foreigners—no formal announcement has been made, but everyone’s talking about it. He has taken on their religion and now professes it as the one true faith. This renders him unable to enter our temples and shrines, and unable to perform the necessary ceremonies for his brother.”
Shizuka stared at the priest, hardly able to believe what she heard.
“It’s caused a great deal of unrest,” he went on. “There have been signs and omens that the gods are offended. People fear they will be punished for their lord’s actions. The foreigners insist, on the contrary, that their great god, Deus, will reward Zenko and anyone else who joins him.
“Which includes most of his personal retainers,” he added, “who have been ordered to convert or die.”
“What absolute madness,” Shizuka said, resolving to speak to Zenko as soon as possible. She did not wait to be summoned to his presence, but on her return to the inn dressed with care and ordered a palanquin.
“Wait here for me,” she told Miki. “If I don’t return by evening, go to Daifukuji, and they will look after you.” The girl hugged her with unusual intensity.
Zenko came out to the veranda steps as soon as the palanquin was set down inside the gates, lightening her heart for a moment and making her think she had misjudged him. His first words were of sympathy, followed by expressions of pleasure at seeing her, surprise that she had not come directly to him.
Her eyes fell on the prayer beads he wore round his neck, the symbol of the foreigners’ religion, the cross, hanging from his chest.
“This terrible news is such a shock to us all,” he said, as he led her into his private room overlooking the garden.
A little child, his youngest son, was playing on the veranda, watched by his nurse.
“Come and say hello to your grandmother,” Zenko called, and the boy obediently came into the room and knelt before her. It was the first time she had seen him—he was about two years old.
“My wife, as you know, has gone to Hagi to be with her sister. She was reluctant to leave little Hiromasa, but I thought it best to keep at least one of my sons with me.”
“You recognize then that you are gambling with the lives of your other children?” she said quietly.
“Mother, Hana
will be with them within two weeks. I don’t think they are in any danger. Anyway, I have done nothing wrong. My hands are clean.” He held them up to her and then took the child’s hands. “Cleaner than Hiromasa’s,” he teased him.
“He has Kikuta palms!” Shizuka exclaimed in astonishment. “Why did you not tell me?”
“Interesting, isn’t it? Tribe blood is never completely eradicated.” He smiled broadly at her, and gestured to the maid to take the child away.
“He reminds me of Taku,” he said, wiping his eye with his sleeve. “It is some shred of comfort to me that my poor brother lives on in my son.”
“Perhaps you will tell me who killed him,” Shizuka said.
“Bandits, obviously. What other explanation can there be? I will pursue them and bring them to justice. Of course, with Takeo out of the country, desperate men grow bold and come out of hiding.”
It was obvious that he did not care if she believed him or not.
“What if I order you to tell me the truth?”
His eyes flickered away from her, and he hid his face in his sleeve again, but she had the feeling he was not weeping but smiling, in surprise and glee at his own audacity.
“Let us not speak about ordering, Mother. I will observe all my filial duty toward you, but in all other terms I believe it is now appropriate for you to obey me, both as Muto and Arai.”
“I serve the Otori,” she replied. “So did Kenji, and so have you sworn to.”
“Yes, you serve the Otori,” he said, his anger showing. “That has been the problem for years. Wherever we look in the history of the Otori’s rise, we see your hand—in Takeo’s persecution of the Tribe, in my father’s murder, even in Lord Fujiwara’s death—what led you to betray the secrets of the Tribe to Shigeru?”
“I will tell you! I wanted a better world for you and Taku. I thought you should live in Shigeru’s world, not the one of warlords and assassins that I saw around me. Takeo and Kaede created that world. We will not let you destroy it.”
“Takeo is already finished. Do you think the Emperor will favor him? If he does return, we will kill him, and I will be confirmed as ruler of the Three Countries. It is my right, and I am ready for it.”
“Are you prepared to fight Takeo, and Kahei, Sugita, Sonoda—most of the warriors of the Three Countries?”
“It will not be a battle but a rout. With Saga in the East and the additional support we have from the foreigners”—he tapped the cross on his chest—“their weapons, their ships, Takeo will be easily defeated. He is not really much of a warrior: All his famous battles were won more by luck than skill.”
He lowered his voice. “Mother, I can protect you to a certain extent, but if you persist in defying me I shall not be able to hold the Kikuta family back. They demand your punishment, for your years of disobedience to the Tribe.”
“I will take my own life first,” she exclaimed.
“That may be the best thing,” he replied, looking directly at her. “What if I order you to, now?”
“I carried you under my heart for nine months.” She recalled suddenly the day she had gone to Kenji to seek the Tribe’s permission to have this child. He had been her gift to her lover—how proud his father had been. Now both father and son had sought her death. Anger and sorrow filled her; weeping for a year would not assuage them. She could sense her reason tipping into madness. I wish I could kill myself, she thought, deeply tempted by the annihilation of death; only the fate of the twin girls prevented her. She wanted to ask after Maya, but was afraid to reveal something that Zenko might not have known. Better to keep silent, to do what she had done all her life, dissemble, while acting as she deemed best. She made a huge effort to put her emotion away and assumed the gentle demeanor she had used so often before.
“Zenko, you are my oldest son, and I want to be a good and dutiful mother to you. I will think about all you have said. Give me a day or two. Let me make the arrangements for your brother’s memorial. I cannot come to a decision while my mind is clouded by grief.”
For a moment she thought he would refuse her. She assessed the distance to the garden and over the wall, but in the silence she thought she heard men breathing—there were guards hidden behind the screens, in the garden. Is he really afraid I came to kill him? With Taku hardly buried? Her chances of escape were small. She would go invisible—if the guards came after her, she would disarm one, take his sword…
Some vestige of respect worked on him. “Very well,” he conceded. “I will have my guards escort you. Do not attempt to escape them, and on no account leave Hofu. When your mourning period is over, you either join me or kill yourself.”
“Will you come and offer prayers for your brother?”
He gave her a chilling look, followed by an impatient shake of the head. She did not want to press him, for she was afraid he would detain her there, using force if necessary. She bowed submissively, feeling fury burn impotently in her gut. As she left, she heard voices at the far end of the main veranda. She turned her head and saw Don João with his interpreter, Madaren, coming toward her. They were dressed in new, splendid clothes, even Madaren, and they walked with a new confidence.
Shizuka greeted Don João coldly and then spoke to Madaren, using no courtesies, voicing the anger it had cost her so much to contain. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
Madaren flushed at her tone, but collected herself and replied, “I am doing God’s will, as are we all.”
Shizuka did not answer, but stepped into the palanquin. As it was borne away at a sharp trot followed by six of Zenko’s men, she cursed the foreigners for intruding with their weapons and their God. She hardly knew what the words were that came pouring from her mouth—rage and grief made her incoherent; she could feel them tug her toward madness.
When the palanquin stopped and was lowered to the ground outside the inn, she did not descend immediately, wishing she could remain inside this tiny space, so like a coffin, and never engage with the living again. Finally the thought of Miki drove her to emerge into the bronze glare.
Bunta squatted on his heels on the veranda, just as when she had left him, but the room was empty.
“Where’s Miki?” she demanded.
“She’s inside,” he replied, surprised. “No one’s come past me, in or out.”
“Who’s taken her?” Shizuka’s heart was beginning to stammer in dread.
“No one, I swear to you.”
“You had better not be lying,” she said, going back into the room again, searching vainly for the thin body that could fold itself up and hide in the tiniest of places. The room was empty, but in one corner she found a new scratching in the wooden beam. Two half circles facing away from each other, and below them a full circle.
“She has gone to find Maya.”
Shizuka knelt on the floor, trying to still her heart. Miki had gone—taken on invisibility, slipped past Bunta and out into the city. It was what her years spent in the Tribe had trained her for. There was nothing Shizuka could do for her now.
She sat for a long time, feeling the heat of the day build around her and the sweat form between her breasts and in her armpits. She heard the guards call impatiently to each other, and realized her choices were dwindling. She could not vanish away and leave Taku unmourned, but was she to stay in Hofu until either her son or the Kikuta arranged her death? There was no time to reach the Muto family and call them to her aid—and anyway, would they respond to her, now Zenko had claimed the leadership of the family?
She called to the dead to counsel her: to Shigeru, Kenji, Kondo, and Taku. Grief and sleeplessness began to exact their toll. She felt their cold breath on her as they sighed to her, Pray for us. Oh, pray for us.
Her exhausted mind fastened on this. She would go to the temple and mourn the dead, until either she became one of them, or they told her what to do.
“Bunta,” she called. “There is one last task I must ask of you. Go and find me sharp scissors and a white robe.”<
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He appeared on the threshold, his face ashen with shock.
“What has happened? Don’t tell me you are to kill yourself.”
“Just do as I say. I must go to the temple and arrange for Taku’s headstone and funeral rites. After you have brought me what I request, do as you please. I release you from my service.”
When he returned, Shizuka told him to wait outside. She unwrapped the bundles and took out the scissors. She untied her hair, divided it into two strands and cut through each strand, laying the long tresses carefully on the matting, noticing with detached surprise how many threads were white. Then she clipped the rest of her hair short, feeling the pieces fall around her like dust. She brushed them away and dressed herself in the white robe. She took her weapons—sword, knife, garrote, and throwing knives—and placed them on the floor, between the two strands of her hair. She bowed her head to the ground, giving thanks for the weapons and for all her life till this point. Then she called for a bowl of tea, drank it, and broke the empty cup in two with a quick movement of her strong hands.
“I will not drink again,” she said aloud.
“Shizuka!” Bunta protested from the threshold, but she ignored him.
“Have her senses deserted her?” she heard his son whisper. “Poor woman!”
Moving slowly and deliberately, she went to the front of the inn. News of her visit to Zenko had spread and a small crowd had gathered outside. When she stepped into the palanquin, they followed it down the road along the riverbank to Daifukuji. Zenko’s guards were made uneasy by this procession, and several times tried to beat the crowd back, but it grew in size, and became more unruly and more hostile. Many ran down to the river, for it was low tide, and, prising stones from the silt, began to throw them at the guards, managing to draw them back from the temple gates. The porters set Shizuka down outside the gates, and she went slowly into the main courtyard, moving as if floating. The crowd milled in the entrance. She sat down on the ground, her legs folded like a divine being on a lotus flower, and finally she allowed herself to weep for one son’s death and the other son’s treachery.