Part 8 (2/2)

”Was? She's no longer alive?”

In the silent, neglected garden, the fire smoking, the sea sighing, a tension grew between us. He wanted to know my deepest secrets; I wanted to open my heart to him. Now that everyone else slept and only we were awake in this eerie place, maybe desire also crept in. I was always aware of his love for me; it was something I had come to count on, like the loyalty of the Miyos.h.i.+ brothers, like my love for Kaede. Makoto was a constant in my world. I needed him. Our relations.h.i.+p might have changed since the night he had comforted me at Terayama, but at this moment I remembered how lonely and vulnerable I had been after s.h.i.+geru's death, how I had felt I could tell him anything.

The fire had died down so I could barely see his face, but I was aware of his eyes on me. I wondered what he suspected; it seemed so obvious to me that I thought at any moment he would come out with it himself. I said, ”My mother was one of the Hidden. I was brought up in their beliefs. She and all my family, as far as I know, were ma.s.sacred by the Tohan. s.h.i.+geru rescued me. Jo-An and this fisherman are also from the Hidden. We... recognize each other.”

He said nothing. I went on: ”I'm trusting you to tell no one.”

”Did our abbot know?”

”He never mentioned it to me, but s.h.i.+geru may have told him. Anyway, I am no longer a believer. I've broken all the commandments, particularly the commandment not to kill.”

”Of course I will never repeat it. It would do you irreparable harm among the warrior cla.s.s. Most of them thought Iida was justified in his persecution of them, and not a few emulated him. It explains many things about you that I did not understand.”

”You, as a warrior and a monk, a follower of the Enlightened One, must hate the Hidden.”

”Not hate so much as feel baffled by their mysterious beliefs. I know so little about them, and what I do know is probably distorted. Maybe one day we'll discuss it when we are at peace.”

I heard in his voice an effort to be rational, not to hurt me. ”The main thing I learned from my mother was compa.s.sion,” I said. ”Compa.s.sion and an aversion to cruelty. But my teaching since then has all been to eradicate compa.s.sion and reinforce ruthlessness.”

”These are the requirements of government and war,” he replied. ”That is the path fate leads us along. At the temple we are also taught not to kill, but only saints at the end of their active life can aspire to that. To fight to defend yourself, to avenge your lord, or to bring justice and peace is no sin.”

”So s.h.i.+geru taught me.”

There was a moment of silence when I thought he would reach out to me. To be honest, I would not have recoiled. I felt a sudden longing to lie down and be held by someone. I might even have made the slightest of movements toward him. But he was the one who withdrew. Rising to his feet, he said, ”Get some sleep. I'll watch for a while and wake the men shortly.”

I stayed close to the fire to keep the mosquitoes away, but they still whined around my head. The sea continued its ceaseless surge and ebb on the s.h.i.+ngle. I was uneasy about what I had revealed, about my own faithlessness, and about what Makoto would now think of me. Childishly, I would have liked him to rea.s.sure me that it made no difference. I wanted Kaede. I feared I would disappear into the dragon's lair at Os.h.i.+ma and never see her again.

Sleep finally came. For the first time since my mother's death I dreamed vividly of her. She stood in front of me, outside our house in Mino. I could smell food cooking and heard the c.h.i.n.k of the ax as my stepfather cut firewood. In the dream I felt a rush of joy and relief that they were after all still alive. But there was a scrabbling noise at my feet and I could feel something crawling over me. My mother looked down with empty, surprised eyes. I wanted to see what she was looking at and followed her gaze. The ground was a black, heaving ma.s.s of crabs, their sh.e.l.ls ripped from their backs. Then the screaming began, the sound I'd heard from another shrine, a lifetime away, as a man was torn apart by the Tohan.

I knew the crabs were going to tear me apart as I had torn the sh.e.l.ls from them.

I woke up in horror, sweating. Makoto was kneeling beside me. ”A man has come,” he said. ”He will speak only to you.”

The feeling of dread was heavy on me. I did not want to go with this stranger to Os.h.i.+ma. I wanted to return at once to Maruyama, to Kaede. I wished I could send someone else on what was most likely a fool's errand. But anyone else would probably be killed by the pirates before any message could be delivered. Having come this far, having been sent this man who would take me to Os.h.i.+ma and the Terada, I could not turn back.

The man was kneeling behind Makoto. I was unable to see much of him in the dark. He apologized for not coming earlier, but the tide was not right until the second half of the Hour of the Ox, and with the moon nearly full he thought I would prefer to go at night rather than wait for the afternoon tide. He seemed younger than the fisherman who'd sent him to me, and his speech was more refined and better educated, making him hard to place.

Makoto wanted to send at least one of the men with me, but my guide refused to take anyone else, saying his boat was too small. I offered to give him the silver before we left, but he laughed and said there was no point handing it over to the pirates so easily; he would take it when we returned, and if we did not return, someone else would come for it.

”If Lord Otori does not return, there will be no payment but the blade,” Makoto said grimly.

”But if I die, my dependents deserve some compensation,” he returned. ”These are my conditions.”

I agreed to them, overriding Makoto's misgivings. I wanted to get moving, to shake off the dread left by the dream. My horse, Shun, whickered to me as I left with the man. I'd charged Makoto to look after him with his life. I took Jato with me and, as usual, hidden under my clothes the weapons of the Tribe.

The boat was pulled up just above the high-water mark. We did not speak as we went to it. I helped him drag it into the water and jumped in. He pushed it farther out and then leaped in himself, sculling from the stern with the single oar. Later I took the oar while he hoisted a small square sail made of straw. It gleamed yellow in the moonlight, and amulets attached to the mast jingled in the offsh.o.r.e wind, which, together with the flow of the tide, would carry us to the island.

It was a brilliant night, the moon almost full throwing a silver track across the unruffled sea. The boat sang its song of wind and wave, the same song I remembered from the boats I'd been in with Fu-mio in Hagi. Something of the freedom and the illicit excitement of those nights came back to me now, dispelling the net of dread that the dream had caught me in.

Now I could see the young man standing at the end of the boat quite clearly. His features looked vaguely familiar; yet I did not think we had ever met before.

”What's your name?”

”Ryoma, sir.”

”No other name?”

He shook his head and I thought he was not going to say any more. Well, he was taking me to Os.h.i.+ma; he did not have to talk to me as well. I yawned and pulled my robe closer round me. I thought I might as well sleep for a while.

Ryoma said, ”If I had another name, it would be the same as yours.”

My eyes snapped open and my hand went to Jato, for my first thought was that he meant Kikuta-that he was another of their a.s.sa.s.sins. But he did not move from the stern of the boat and went on calmly but with a trace of bitterness. ”By rights I should be able to call myself Otori, but I have never been recognized by my father.”

His story was a common enough one. His mother had been a maid at Hagi Castle, twenty years or so earlier. She had attracted the attention of the youngest Otori lord, Masahiro. When her pregnancy had been discovered, he claimed she was a prost.i.tute and the child could be anyone's. Her family had no alternative but to sell her into prost.i.tution; she became what she had been called and lost all chance of her son ever being recognized. Masahiro had plenty of legitimate sons and had no interest in any others.

”Yet people say I resemble him,” he said. By now the stars had faded and the sky had paled. Day was breaking with a fiery sunrise as red as the previous night's sunset. I realized, now that I could see him properly, why he'd looked familiar. He had the Otori stamp on his features just as I did, marred like his father's by a slightly receding chin and cowed eyes.

”There is a likeness,” I said. ”So we are cousins.”

I did not tell Ryoma, but I recalled all too clearly Masahiro's voice when I had overheard him say If we were to adopt all our illegitimate chil~ If we were to adopt all our illegitimate chil~ dren dren... His son intrigued me; he was what I would have been but for the slightest divergences in our paths. I had been claimed by both sides of my ancestry, he by neither.

”And look at us,” he said. ”You are Lord Otori Takeo, adopted by s.h.i.+geru and rightful heir to the domain, and I am not much better than an outcast.”

”You know something of my history, then?”

”My mother knows everything about the Otori,” he said with a laugh. ”Besides, you must know your own fame.”

His manner was strange, ingratiating and familiar at the same time. I imagined his mother had spoiled him, bringing him up with unrealistic expectations and false ideas about his status, telling him stories about his relatives, the Otori lords, leaving him proud and dissatisfied, ill-equipped to deal with the reality of his life.

”Is that why you agreed to help me?”

”Partly. I wanted to meet you. I've worked for the Terada; I've been to Os.h.i.+ma many times. People call it the entrance to h.e.l.l, but I've been there and survived.” His voice sounded almost boastful, but when he spoke again it was with a note of pleading. ”I hoped you might help me in return.” He glanced at me. ”Are you going to attack Hagi?”

I was not going to tell him too much in case he was a spy. ”I think it's general knowledge that your father and his older brother betrayed Lord s.h.i.+geru to Iida. I hold them responsible for his death.”

He grinned then. ”That's what I hoped. I have a score to settle with them too.”

”With your own father?”

”I hate him more than I would have thought it possible to hate any man,” he replied. ”The Terada hate the Otori too. If you move against them, you may find allies at Os.h.i.+ma.”

This cousin of mine was no fool; he knew very well what my errand was. ”I'm in your debt for taking me there,” I said. ”I've incurred many debts in seeking to avenge s.h.i.+geru's death fully, and when I hold Hagi I'll repay them all.”

”Give me my name,” he said. ”That's all I want.”

As we approached the island he told me how he went there from time to time, taking messages and snippets of information about expeditions to the mainland or s.h.i.+pments of silver, silk, and other precious goods between the coastal towns.

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