Part 14 (1/2)
”No. What's the matter? What have you done?”
”Tell me the worst sin you've ever committed. Before the G.o.ds.”
Demons flickered in her eyes. He searched his life, desperate for something that might satisfy her. There was no adultery, no theft. No dark evils lurked within him. He wanted to obey her, but he'd lived a clean life. He'd sought the priesthood; how else could it have been for him.
”Pride?” he said hopefully.
”Ah, pride.” She looked across the water, and seemed to see a great deal more in the distance than Yajiro did. ”Pride. If only that were the gravest sin I could muster. You're too good. Too good...” Her fingers brushed her heart, and the first beginnings of a breeze touched the calm surface of the water.
He tried again. ”Envy?”
Unexpectedly, she laughed. It was a jagged sound. ”You're a stone, Yajiro. I want to hate you, but how can I hate a stone? Or a sunset?”
Madness. It could only be madness. And he with no knowledge of even which sh.o.r.e was the closest. Yajiro reached cautiously forward to the mast, and saw that the golden box was lying in the bottom of the boat, closer to him than to her.
”What of my soul?” she said. ”What will become of my soul?”
”You make no sense at all. You should rest.”
But he could not focus on her. The box held his attention. All at once it seemed to become the center of the boat, the center of the world. The box was everything. The key to all he did not understand about this strange woman whose moods turned from suns.h.i.+ne to thunder and back as easily as he tacked back and forth across the water.
She saw where his eyes were fixed. ”Do you want it?” she whispered. ”If you like it, you can have it. I mean it.”
Anything with power like that was not for him. He forced himself to sit back. ”No. I don't want it.”
The box watched him like a dragon's eye.
There was no escape.
”Tell me about the box,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow with definitive middle-born imperiousness. ”You command me?” Amus.e.m.e.nt tinged the iron tone of her voice.
Yajiro set his jaw. ”Yes. You are a guest in my boat. You have lived in the mountains, where birth counts for nothing. You wanted to be my friend. Tell me.”
Ume nodded. ”Good. More than a peasant indeed. I will tell you, but the story is long.
”In the mountains to the north there is a stronghold of holy men and women. They cannot be found unless they wish for you to find them. They are the heart of j.a.pan, and perhaps its sole hope for the future.”
Yajiro nodded. It was not unusual for bands of warrior monks to take to the hills when they incurred the displeasure of the n.o.bility. All such bands thought they were j.a.pan's only hope.
”You think you understand, but you know nothing of them,” she said sharply. ”They have seen the future of j.a.pan, and I have seen it too.”
Yajiro felt uneasy. ”The future? Men will die, others be born. New leaders will replace the old. Winters will follow summers. What else is there?”
”Things change, Yajiro. j.a.pan will not always be ruled from Heian. The Fujiwaras will not marry their daughters into the Imperial line and rule from behind the throne forever. Power s.h.i.+fts, as it always has.”
”Life is hard, and worldly things are fleeting,” said Yajiro.
”But do you know what Buddha meant when he spoke of the latter clays of the law? People who truly keep the commandments of the Buddha are as rare as a tiger in the marketplace-you have heard that?
”It will get worse, Yajiro. Ten generations ago j.a.pan was a primitive place. Ten generations from now, everything will again be primitive, only different. There will be a whole warrior cla.s.s-men who exist only to fight, for whom blood and honor and the curve of their swords are more important than life or love. There will be two hundred years of war. Thousands will be murdered in public execution grounds just for the sin of serving a different daimyo. Generals will bury their enemies' children alive, and rivers of blood will flow through the streets. The ordinary people of j.a.pan will be worked until they die to produce rice for the warrior cla.s.s, to help them fight their wars. The G.o.ds will turn their backs, and the soul of j.a.pan will be scarred for ten times ten generations.”
A hundred generations. Yajiro had lived through barely one. His mind rebelled. ”You cannot know this!”
”It is already happening. When I was a girl, that gang of scoundrels at the market could not have existed. Honest men would not have permitted it. The latter days of the law are here, Yajiro.”
”Then, if the G.o.ds will it, nothing we can do will change it. We must live as best we can.'
She struck the thwart with her fist. ”That is not true, Yajiro! That is the lie that will ruin j.a.pan!” She calmed herself, her shaking fingers probing the pulse at her throat. ”Consider this. You knew I was going to be robbed, and the knowledge gave you the power to stop it. I know how j.a.pan will be despoiled by the warriors, and so maybe that can be stopped too.”
He looked away. ”You should rest now.”
”You think I am mad, talking of many generations when this body will not survive the first frost. But you forget the box.”
He had not forgotten. The box had begun to gleam as the rays of the sun burned through the roof of mist. Heaven and earth focused upon that box. Yajiro would not touch it now if his life depended upon it. Foreboding breathed upon his neck and chilled him.
”What of the box?” he said. ”What does it contain?”
”My soul,” she said simply.
The coldness spread to his heart and stomach. G.o.ds swirled about him in the remains of the morning mist. The gilded box waited in the bottom of the boat, unwinking.
He s.n.a.t.c.hed up an oar and retreated into the stern. The expanse of years, the heart of j.a.pan, the mysteries of a hundred monks hidden in the mountains of the North-the immensity of her words blinded him, but one thing he saw clearly; he was in mortal danger. He did not doubt her words. If a soul could be trapped in a box, his sukuse and eternal rebirth were at risk.
Help me, he muttered to the breezes. Help me. I am beyond what I know.
The Winds made no reply.
Ume sighed, and trailed her fingers over the side of the boat. ”Yajiro, Yajiro. If I wanted to steal your body away I would have done so by now.” The sadness in her voice told him it was true. ”I tried, but I could not do it. You're no wharf-rat.”
His body?
To the left the sh.o.r.eline appeared. A fis.h.i.+ng boat moved against the gray horizon.
”Set the sails,” she said. ”I won't steal from you.”
”Put your box in the sack.”
”You have no faith.”
”Please...”
She did it, and he watched the bulge in the bag for some time before he would put the oar down.
Dotted across the surface of the river Yajiro saw many boats, some already tacking cautiously, some being rowed downstream, others just hoisting sail. Another trader's boat was heading downriver towards them on close tack, obviously carrying goods that might spoil.
Ume was silent for two hours as he got the boat under way and set off into the freshening breeze across the water. She retreated into herself, and once Yajiro even thought she might have slipped into a trance. Comforted by the silence, some of his unease flowed out of him at the beauty of the day. He was making good time, even into the wind, and he thought that they might make Kenno-ji before dusk.
His boat was a fast one, and only lightly loaded. Yajiro was proud that he was preserving his lead on the other trading boat. He kept close to the wing and came about whenever he felt the effect of the current easing on his keel. The other boat took longer tacks and so wasted less time coming about, but her captain took her too far out of the quicker waters and too close to the trees.