Part 5 (2/2)

Jo-An brought Shun back to me and I rode with Sugita into the forest where Kaede had been waiting. Manami had managed to set up camp with her usual efficiency and had lit a fire and boiled water. Kaede knelt on a carpet beneath the trees. We could see her figure through the silver-gray trunks of the beeches, cloaked by her hair, her back straight. As we drew nearer I saw that her eyes were closed.

Manami came to meet us, her eyes bright and red-rimmed. ”She has been praying,” she whispered. ”She has sat like that for hours.”

I dismounted and called her name. Kaede opened her eyes and joy and relief leaped into her face. She bowed her head to the ground, her lips moving in silent thanks. I knelt before her and Sugita did likewise.

”We have won a great victory,” he said. ”lida Nariaki is dead, and nothing now will stop you from taking possession of your domain at Maruyama.”

”I am immensely grateful to you for your loyalty and courage,” she said to him, and then turned to me.

”Are you hurt?”

”I don't think so.” The frenzy of battle was fading and I was aching all over. My ears were ringing, and the smell of blood and death that clung to me was nauseating me. Kaede looked unattainably clean and pure.

”I prayed for your safety,” she said, her voice low. Sugita's presence made us awkward with each other.

”Take some tea,” Manami urged us. I realized my mouth was completely dry, my lips caked with blood.

”We are so dirty...” I began, but she put the cup in my hand and I drank it gratefully.

It was past sunset and the evening light was clear and tinged with blue. The wind had dropped and birds were singing their last songs of the day. I heard a rustling in the gra.s.s and looked up to see a hare cross the clearing in the distance. I drank the tea and looked at the hare. It gazed back at me with its large, wild eyes for many moments before it bounded away. The tea's taste was smoky and bitter.

Two battles lay behind us, three ahead, if the prophecy was to be believed: Two now to win and one to lose Two now to win and one to lose.

4.

One month earlier, after s.h.i.+rakawa Kaede had left with the Miyos.h.i.+ brothers to go to the temple guest house at Terayama, Muto s.h.i.+zuka had set out for the secret village of her Tribe family, hidden in the mountains on the far side of Yamagata. Kaede had wept when they said farewell to each other, had pressed money on s.h.i.+zuka and insisted she take one of the packhorses and send it back when she could, but s.h.i.+zuka knew she would be quickly forgotten once Kaede was with Takeo.

s.h.i.+zuka was deeply uneasy about leaving Kaede and about the impetuous decision to marry Takeo. She rode silently, brooding on the madness of love and the disaster the marriage would be to them. She had no doubt they would marry: Now that fate had brought them together again, nothing would stop them. But she feared for them once Arai heard the news. And when her thoughts turned to Lord Fujiwara, a chill came over her despite the spring suns.h.i.+ne. She knew he could only be insulted and outraged, and she dreaded what he might do in revenge.

Kondo rode with her, his mood no better than hers. He seemed distressed and annoyed at being dismissed so suddenly. Several times he said, ”She could have trusted me! After all I've done for her! I swore allegiance to her, after all. I would never do anything to harm her.”

Kaede's spell has fallen on him too, s.h.i.+zuka thought. He's been flattered by her reliance on him. She turned to him He's been flattered by her reliance on him. She turned to him so so often; now she will turn to Takeo often; now she will turn to Takeo.

”It was Takeo's order that we leave,” she told him. ”He is right. He cannot trust any one of us.”

”What a mess,” Kondo said gloomily. ”Where shall I go now, I wonder. I liked it with Lady s.h.i.+rakawa. The place suited me.” He threw his head back and sniffed.

”The Muto family may have new instructions for both of us,” s.h.i.+zuka replied shortly.

”I'm getting on,” he grumbled. ”I wouldn't mind settling down. I'll make way for the next generation. If only there were more of them!” He turned his head and gave her his ironic smile. There was something in his look that unsettled her, some warmth behind the irony. In his guarded way he was making some kind of advance to her. Ever since he'd saved her life on the road to s.h.i.+rakawa the previous year, a tension had existed between them. She was grateful to him and had at one time thought she might sleep with him, but then the affair had begun with Dr. Is.h.i.+da, Lord Fujiwara's physician, and she had wanted no one but him.

Though, she thought ruefully, that was hardly being practical. Kaede's marriage to Takeo would effectively remove her from Is.h.i.+da forever. She had no idea how she could ever meet the doctor again. His farewells had been warm; he had pressed her to return as soon as possible, had even gone so far as to say he would miss her. But how could she return to him if she was no longer in Kaede's service and part of her household? Their affair had been conducted with great secrecy thus far, but if Fujiwara were to hear of it, she feared for the physician's safety. I am as bad as Kaede I am as bad as Kaede, she thought. Truly you never reach the age when you escape being scorched by love Truly you never reach the age when you escape being scorched by love.

They pa.s.sed through Yamagata and traveled another twenty miles to a village where they stayed the night. Kondo knew the innkeeper; they might even have been related, though s.h.i.+zuka did not care enough to find out. As she feared, he made it clear that he wanted to sleep with her, and she saw the disappointment in his eyes when she pleaded exhaustion, but he did not press her or force her as he might have done. She felt grateful and then annoyed with herself for so feeling.

However, the next morning, after they had left the horses at the inn and begun the steep climb on foot into the mountains, Kondo said, ”Why don't we get married? We'd make a good team. You've got two boys, haven't you? I could adopt them. We're not too old to have more children together. Your family would approve.”

Her heart sank at the thought, especially as she knew her family probably would approve.

”You're not married?” It seemed surprising, given his age. ”I was married when I was seventeen, to a Kuroda woman. She died several years ago. We had no children.”

s.h.i.+zuka glanced at him, wondering if he grieved for her. He said, ”She was a very unhappy woman. She was not completely sane. She had long periods when she was tormented by horrible imaginings and fears. She saw ghosts and demons. She was not so bad when I was with her, but I was frequently ordered to travel. I worked as a spy for my mother's family, the Kondo, who had adopted me. On one long trip away I was delayed by bad weather. When I did not return at the expected time, she hanged herself.”

For the first time his voice lost its irony. She perceived his real grief and found herself suddenly, unexpectedly moved by him.

”Maybe she was taught too harshly,” he said. ”I've often wondered what we do to our children. In many ways it was a relief to have none.”

”When you're a child, it's like a game,” s.h.i.+zuka said. ”I remember being proud of the skills I had, and despising other people for not having them. You don't question the way you're brought up; that's just how it is.”

”You are talented; you are the Muto masters' niece and grandchild. Being Kuroda, in the middle, is not so easy. And if you don't have natural talents, the training is very difficult.” He paused and went on quietly: ”Possibly she was too sensitive. No upbringing can completely eradicate a person's essential character.”

”I wonder. I'm sorry for your loss.”

”Well, it was a long time ago. But it certainly made me question a lot of things I'd been taught. Not that I tell most people. When you're part of the Tribe, you're obedient, that's all there is to it.”

”Maybe if Takeo had been brought up in the Tribe, he would have learned obedience as we all do,” s.h.i.+zuka said, as if thinking aloud. ”He hated being told what to do and he hated being confined. So, what do the Kikuta do? Give him to Akio for training as if he were a two-year-old. They've only themselves to blame for his defection. s.h.i.+geru knew how to handle him from the start. He won his loyalty. Takeo would have done anything for him.”

As we all would have done, she found herself thinking, and tried to suppress it. She had many secrets concerning Lord s.h.i.+geru that only the dead knew, and she was afraid Kondo might discern them.

”What Takeo did was quite considerable,” Kondo said, ”if you believe all the stories.”

”Are you impressed, Kondo? I thought nothing impressed you!”

”Everyone admires courage,” he replied. ”And, like Takeo, I am also of mixed blood, from both the Tribe and the clans. I was raised by the Tribe until I was twelve and then I became a warrior on the surface, a spy beneath. Maybe I understand something of the conflict he must have gone through.”

They walked in silence for a while, then he said, ”Anyway, I think you know I am impressed by you.”

He was less guarded today, more open in his feeling toward her. She was acutely aware of his desire and, once she had pitied him, less able to resist it. As Arai's mistress or as Kaede's maid, she had had status and the protection status gave her, but now nothing was left to her apart from her own skills and this man who had saved her life and would not make a bad husband. There was no reason not to sleep with him, so after they stopped to eat, around noon, she let him lead her into the shade of the trees. The smell of pine needles and cedar was all around them, the sun warm, the breeze soft. A distant waterfall splashed, muted. Everything spoke of new life and spring. His lovemaking was not as bad as she'd feared, though he was rough and quick compared to Is.h.i.+da.

s.h.i.+zuka thought, If this is what is to be, I must make the best of it If this is what is to be, I must make the best of it. And then she thought, What's happened to me? Have I suddenly got old? A year ago I would have given a man like Kondo short shrift, but a year ago I still thought I was Arai's. And so much has happened since then, so much intrigue, so many deaths: losing s.h.i.+geru and Naomi, pretending all the time I did not care; barely able to weep, not even when the father of my children tried to have me murdered, not even when I thought Kaede would die What's happened to me? Have I suddenly got old? A year ago I would have given a man like Kondo short shrift, but a year ago I still thought I was Arai's. And so much has happened since then, so much intrigue, so many deaths: losing s.h.i.+geru and Naomi, pretending all the time I did not care; barely able to weep, not even when the father of my children tried to have me murdered, not even when I thought Kaede would die...

It was not the first time that she had felt sickened by the constant pretense, the ruthlessness, the brutality. She thought of s.h.i.+geru and his desire for peace and justice, and of Is.h.i.+da, who sought to heal, not to kill, and felt her heart twist with more pain than she would have thought possible. I am old I am old, she thought. Next year I will turn thirty. Next year I will turn thirty.

Her eyes went hot and she realized she was about to weep. The tears trickled down her face, and Kondo, mistaking them, held her more closely. Her tears lay wet between her cheek and his chest, forming a pool on the vermilion and sepia pictures that were tattooed on his body.

After a while she stood up and went to the waterfall. Dipping a cloth into the icy water, she washed her face, then cupped her hands to drink. The forest around her was silent apart from the croaking of spring frogs and the first tentative cicadas. The air was already cooling. They must hasten if they were to reach the village before nightfall.

Kondo had already picked up their bundles and slung them onto the pole. Now he lifted it to his shoulder.

”You know,” he said as they walked on, raising his voice so she could hear him, for she, knowing the path, was in front, ”I don't believe you would hurtTakeo. I don't think it would be possible for you to kill him.”

”Why not?” she said, turning her head. ”I've killed men before!”

”I know your reputation, s.h.i.+zuka! But when you speak of Takeo, your face softens as if you pity him. And I don't believe you would ever bring grief to Lady s.h.i.+rakawa because of the strength of your affection for her.”

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