Part 8 (1/2)

He glanced up at me, disbelief written in his face. One of the men holding him cuffed him hard.

”Speak when His Lords.h.i.+p questions you!”

”His Lords.h.i.+p? Being a lord won't save him from Terada. You know what we call Os.h.i.+ma? The entrance to h.e.l.l.”

”h.e.l.l or not, I have to go there,” I replied. ”And I'll pay for it.”

”What good is silver to us?” he said, bitterly. ”If anyone knows I have silver, they'll kill me for it. I'm only alive because I have nothing left worth stealing. Bandits have already taken my wife and my daughters. My son was not weaned when they kidnapped his mother. I nursed him on rags dipped in water and brine. I chewed fish and fed him from my own mouth like a seabird. I cannot leave him to go with you to certain death at Os.h.i.+ma.”

”Then find us someone who will take me,” I said. ”When we return to Maruyama we'll send soldiers to destroy the bandits. The domain now belongs to my wife, s.h.i.+rakawa Kaede. We will make this place safe for you.”

”Doesn't matter who it belongs to, Your Lords.h.i.+p will never return from Os.h.i.+ma.”

”Take the child,” Makoto ordered the men angrily, saying to the fisherman, ”He will die unless you obey!”

”Take him!” the man shrieked. ”Kill him! I should have done so myself. Then kill me and my suffering will be over!”

Makoto leaped from his horse to seize the child himself. It clung to its father's neck like a monkey, sobbing noisily.

”Leave them,” I said, dismounting, too, and giving the reins to Jiro. ”We cannot force them.” I studied the man, taking care not to meet his gaze; after his first quick glance he did not look at me again. ”What food do we have?”

Jiro opened the saddlebags and brought out rice wrapped in kelp and flavored with pickled plums, and dried fish.

”I want to talk to you alone,” I said to the man. ”Will you and the child sit down and eat with me?”

He swallowed hard, his gaze fixed on the food. The child smelled the fish and turned its head. It held out one hand toward Jiro.

The father nodded.

”Let him go,” I said to the men, and took the food from Jiro. Outside one of the hovels was an upturned boat. ”We'll sit there.”

I walked toward it and the man followed. I sat and he knelt at my feet, bowing his head. He placed the child on the sand and pushed its head down too. It had stopped sobbing but sniffed loudly from time to time.

I held out the food and whispered the first prayer of the Hidden over it, watching the man's face all the time.

His mouth formed words. He did not take the food. The child reached out for it, beginning to wail again. The father said, ”If you are trying to trap me, may the Secret One forgive you.” He said the second prayer and took the rice ball. Breaking it into pieces, he fed it to his son. ”At least my child will have tasted rice before he dies.”

”I am not trying to trap you.” I handed him another rice ball, which he crammed into his mouth. ”I am Otori Takeo, heir to the Otori clan. But I was raised among the Hidden and my childhood name was Tomasu.”

”May he bless and keep you,” he said, taking the fish from me. ”How did you pick me?”

”When you said you should have killed yourself and your son, your eyes flickered upward as if you were praying.”

”I have prayed many times for the Secret One to take me to him. But you know it is forbidden for me to kill myself or my son.”

”Are you all Hidden here?”

”Yes, for generations, since the first teachers came from the mainland. We've never been persecuted for it as such. The lady of the domain who died last year used to protect us. But bandits and pirates grow bolder and more numerous all the time, and they know we cannot fight back.”

He broke off a piece of fish and gave it to the child. Holding it in his fist, the boy stared at me. His eyes were red-rimmed and sticky, his face filthy and streaked with tears. He suddenly gave me a small, wavering smile.

”As I told you, my wife inherited this domain from Lady Maruyama. I swear to you we will clear it of all bandits and make it safe for you. I knew Terada's son in Hagi and I need to speak to him.”

”There's one man who may help you. He has no children, and I've heard he's been to Os.h.i.+ma. I'll try to find him. Go to the shrine. The priests ran away, so there's no one there, but you can use the buildings and leave your horses and men there. If he's willing to take you, he'll come to you tonight. It's half a day's sailing to Os.h.i.+ma, and you'll need to leave on the high tide-morning or evening, I'll leave that to him.”

”You won't regret helping us,” I said.

For the first time a smile flickered across his face. ”Your Lords.h.i.+p may regret it once you get to Os.h.i.+ma.”

I stood and began to walk away. I'd gone no more than ten paces when he called to me, ”Sir! Lord Otori!”

When I turned he ran to me, the child toddling after him, still sucking on the fish. He said awkwardly, ”You will kill, then?”

”Yes,” I said, ”I have killed and I will kill again, even if I am d.a.m.ned for it.”

”May He have mercy on you,” he whispered.

The sun was setting in a blaze of vermilion, and long shadows lay across the black s.h.i.+ngle. Seabirds called in harsh mournful voices like lost souls. The waves sucked and dragged at the stones with a heavy sighing.

The shrine buildings were decaying, the timbers coated in lichen, rotting away beneath the moss-covered trees, which had been twisted into grotesque shapes by the north winds of winter. Now, though, the night was windless, oppressive, and still, the sighing of the waves echoed by the shrill of cicadas and the whine of mosquitoes. We let the horses graze in the unkempt garden and drink from the ponds. These were empty of fish, which had all been eaten long since; a solitary frog croaked forlornly and occasionally owls hooted.

Jiro made a fire, burning green wood to keep the insects away, and we ate a little of the food we'd brought with us, rationing ourselves since we obviously would not find anything to eat here. I told the men to sleep first; we would wake them at midnight. I could hear their voices whispering for a while and then their breathing became even.

”If this man doesn't show up tonight, what then?” Makoto asked.

”I believe he will come,” I replied.

Jiro was silent by the fire, his head rolling forward as he fought sleep.

”Lie down,” Makoto told him, and when the boy had fallen into the sudden slumber of his age, he said quietly to me, ”What did you say to tame the fisherman?”

”I fed his child,” I replied. ”Sometimes that's enough.”

”It was more than that. He was listening to you as though you spoke the same language.”

I shrugged. ”We'll see if this other fellow turns up.”

Makoto said, ”It is the same with the outcast. He dares approach you as if he has some claim on you, and speaks to you almost as an equal. I wanted to kill him for his insolence at the river, but you listened to him and he to you.”

”Jo-An saved my life on the road to Terayama.”

”You even know his name,” Makoto said. ”I have never known an outcast by name in my entire life.”

My eyes were stinging from the smoky fire. I did not reply. I had never told Makoto that I'd been born into the Hidden and raised by them. I had told Kaede but no one else. It was something I'd been brought up never to speak of and maybe the only teaching I still obeyed.

”You've talked about your father,” Makoto said. ”I know he was of mixed Tribe and Otori blood. But you never mention your mother. Who was she?”

”She was a peasant woman from Mino. It's a tiny village in the mountains on the other side of Inuyama, almost on the borders of the Three Countries. No one's ever heard of it. Perhaps that's why I have a strong bond with outcasts and fishermen.”

I tried to speak lightly. I did not want to think about my mother. I had traveled so far from my life with her, and from the beliefs I had been raised in, that when I did think of her it made me uneasy. Not only had I survived when all my people had died, but I no longer believed in what they had died for. I had other goals now-other, far more pressing concerns.