Part 4 (1/2)

”Just to see if I could.”

She sighed in exasperation, sounding like her husband.

”I don't like being shut in,” I muttered.

”It's madness,” Akio said angrily. ”He's a danger to us all. We should-”

She interrupted him swiftly. ”That decision can only be taken by the Kikuta master. Until then, our task is to try to keep him alive and out of Arai's hands.” She gave me another cuff round the head, but a less serious one. ”Who saw you?”

”No one. Just an outcast.”

”What outcast?”

”A Leather worker. Jo-An.”

”Jo-An? The lunatic? The one who saw the angel?” She took a deep breath. ”Don't tell me he saw you.”

”We talked for a while,” I admitted.

”Arai's men have already picked the outcast up,” Akio said. ”I hope you realize just what a fool you are,” she said. I bowed my head again. I was thinking about Jo-An, wis.h.i.+ng I'd seen him home-if he had any home in Yamagata-wondering if I could rescue him, demanding silently to know what his G.o.d's purpose was for him now. I am often afraid, I am often afraid, he had said. he had said. Terrified. Terrified. Pity and remorse twisted my heart. Pity and remorse twisted my heart.

”Find out what the outcast gives away,” Kenji's wife said to Akio. ”He won't betray me,” I said.

”Under torture, everyone betrays,” he replied briefly. ”We should hasten your journey,” she went on. ”Perhaps you should even leave today.”

Akio was still kneeling behind me, holding me by the wrists. I felt the movement as he nodded.

”Is he to be punished?” he said.

”No, he has to be able to travel. Besides, as you should have realized by now, physical punishment makes no impression on him. However, make sure he knows exactly what the outcast suffers. His head may be stubborn but his heart is soft.”

”The masters say it is his main weakness,” Akio remarked. ”Yes, if it weren't for that we might have another s.h.i.+ntaro.”

”Soft hearts can be hardened,” Akio muttered. ”Well, you Kikuta know best how to do that.” I remained kneeling on the floor while they discussed me as coldly as if I were some commodity, a vat of wine, perhaps, that might turn out to be a particularly fine one or might be tainted and worthless.

”What now?” Akio said. ”Is he to be tied up until we leave?”

”Kenji said you chose to come to us,” she said to me. ”If that's true, why do you try to escape?”

”I came back.”

”Will you try again?”

”No.”

”You will go to Matsue with the actors and do nothing to endanger them or yourself?”

”Yes.”

She thought for a moment and told Akio to tie me up anyway. After he'd done so, they left me to make the preparations for our departure. The maid came with a tray of food and tea and helped me to eat and drink without saying a word. After she had taken away the bowls, no one came near me. I listened to the sound of the house and thought I discerned all the harshness and cruelty that lay beneath its everyday song. A huge weariness came over me. I crawled to the mattress, made myself as comfortable as I could, thought hopelessly of Jo-An and my own stupidity, and fell asleep.

I woke suddenly, my heart pounding, my throat dry. I had been dreaming of the outcast, a terrible dream in which, from far away, an insistent voice, as small as a mosquito's, was whispering something only I could hear.

Akio must have had his face pressed up against the outside wall. He described every detail of Jo-An's torture at the hands of Arai's men. It went on and on in a slow monotone, making my skin crawl and my stomach turn. Now and then he would fall silent for long periods; I would think with relief it was over, then his voice would begin again.

I could not even put my fingers in my ears. There was no escape from it. Kenji's wife was right: It was the worst punishment she could have devised for me. I wished above all I had killed the outcast when I first saw him on the riverbank. Pity had stayed my hand then, but that pity had had fatal results. I would have given Jo-An a swift and merciful death. Now, because of me, he was suffering torment.

When Akio's voice finally died away, I heard Yuki's tread outside. She stepped into the room carrying a bowl, scissors, and a razor. The maid, Sadako, followed her with an armful of clothes, placed them on the floor, and then went silently out of the room. I heard Sadako tell Akio that the midday meal was ready and heard him get to his feet and follow her to the kitchen. The smell of food floated through the house, but I had no appet.i.te.

”I have to cut your hair,” Yuki said. I still wore it in the warrior-style, restrained as Ichiro, my former teacher in s.h.i.+geru's household, had insisted, but unmistakable, the forehead shaved, the back hair caught up in a topknot. It had not been trimmed for weeks, nor had I shaved my face, though I still had very little beard.

Yuki untied my hands and legs and made me sit in front of her. ”You are an idiot,” she said as she began to cut.

I didn't answer. I was already aware of that but also knew I would probably do the same thing again.

”My mother was so angry. I don't know which surprised her more: that you were able to put her to sleep, or that you dared to.”

Bits of hair were falling around me. ”At the same time she was almost excited,” Yuki went on. ”She says you remind her of s.h.i.+ntaro when he was your age.”

”She knew him?”

”I'll tell you a secret: She burned for him. She'd have married him, but it didn't suit the Tribe, so she married my father instead.

Anyway, I don't think she could bear for anyone to have that power over her. s.h.i.+ntaro was a master of the Kikuta sleep: No one was safe from him.”

Yuki was animated, more chatty than I'd ever known her. I could feel her hand trembling slightly against my neck as the scissors snipped cold on my scalp. I remembered Kenji's dismissive words about his wife, the girls he'd slept with. Their marriage was like most, an arranged alliance between two families.

”If she'd married s.h.i.+ntaro, I would have been someone else,” Yuki said pensively. ”I don't think she ever stopped loving him, in her heart.”

”Even though he was a murderer?”

”He wasn't a murderer! No more than you are.”

Something in her voice told me the conversation was moving onto dangerous ground. I found Yuki very attractive. I knew she had strong feelings for me. But I did not feel for her what I had felt for Kaede, and I did not want to be talking about love.

I tried to change the subject. ”I thought the sleep thing was something only Kikuta do. Wasn't s.h.i.+ntaro from the Kuroda family?”

”On his father's side. His mother was Kikuta. s.h.i.+ntaro and your father were cousins.”

It chilled me to think that the man whose death I'd caused, whom everyone said I resembled, should have been a relative.

”What exactly happened the night s.h.i.+ntaro died?” Yuki said curiously.

”I heard someone climbing into the house. The window of the first floor was open because of the heat. Lord s.h.i.+geru wanted to take him alive, but when he seized him, we all three fell into the garden. The intruder struck his head on a rock, but we thought he also took poison in the moment of the fall. Anyway, he died without regaining consciousness. Your father confirmed it was Kuroda s.h.i.+ntaro. Later we learned that s.h.i.+geru's uncles, the Otori lords, had hired him to a.s.sa.s.sinate s.h.i.+geru.”

”It's extraordinary,” Yuki said, ”that you should have been there and no one knew who you were.”

I answered her unguardedly, disarmed, perhaps, by the memories of that night. ”Not so extraordinary. s.h.i.+geru was looking for me when he rescued me at Mmo. He already knew of my existence and knew my father had been an a.s.sa.s.sin.” Lord s.h.i.+geru had told me this when we had talked in Tsuwano. I had asked him if that was why he had sought me out, and he had told me it was the main reason but not the only one. I never found out what the other reasons might have been, and now I never would.