Part 12 (1/2)
”What if I am?”
”Then we will get rid of it.”
When Kaede cried out in grief, he said, ”Lord Fujiwara is already making great concessions to you. He could have you put to death for your infidelity. He will forgive you and marry you, but he will not give his name to another man's child.”
She made no response other than renewed sobbing. The maid returned with the herbs and teakettle and Is.h.i.+da brewed the infusion.
”Drink it,” he told Kaede. ”It will calm you.”
”Suppose I refuse?” she said, sitting abruptly and s.n.a.t.c.hing the bowl from him. She held it out at arm's length as though she would pour it onto the matting. ”Suppose I refuse all food and drink? Will he marry a corpse?”
”Then you condemn your sisters to death-or worse,” he said.
”I'm sorry, I take no pleasure in the situation, nor am I proud of my part in it. All I can do is be utterly truthful with you. If you submit to His Lords.h.i.+p's will, you will preserve your honor and their lives.”
She gazed at him for a long moment. Slowly she brought the cup to her lips. ”I am not pregnant,” she said, and drained it.
Is.h.i.+da sat with her while her senses began to numb, and when she was calm, he told the maids to take her to the bathhouse and wash the blood from her.
By the time she was bathed and dressed, the infusion had dulled her grief and the brief murderous episode seemed like something she had dreamed. In the afternoon she even slept a little, hearing as if from another country the chanting of the priests lifting the pollution of death from the house and restoring it to its peace and harmony. When she woke and found herself in the familiar room, she forgot for a moment the past months and thought, lam at Fujiwara's. How long lam at Fujiwara's. How long have I stayed here? I must call s.h.i.+zuka and ash. her have I stayed here? I must call s.h.i.+zuka and ash. her.
Then she remembered but with no intensity, just a dull knowledge of what had been s.n.a.t.c.hed so violently from her.
It was twilight, the cool ending to a long, heavy day. She could hear the soft footsteps of the servants and their whispered voices. A maid came to the room with a tray of food. Kaede picked at it listlessly; the smell of food sickened her and she soon called for it to be taken away.
The maid returned with tea. She was followed into the room by another woman, middle-aged, with small sharp eyes and a severe look, obviously not a servant from her elegant clothes and refined manner. She bowed to the ground before Kaede and said, ”I am Ono Rieko, a cousin of Lord Fujiwara's late wife. I spent many years in Her Ladys.h.i.+p's household. His Lords.h.i.+p sent for me to make the preparations for the wedding ceremony. Please accept me with kindness.” She bowed her head formally to the floor again.
Kaede felt an instinctive dislike for the woman before her. Her appearance was not unpleasing-she could not imagine Fujiwara suffering any person around him who was not attractive-but she sensed both self-pride and mean-spiritedness in her character. ”Do I have any choice?” she said coldly.
Rieko gave a little trill of laughter as she sat up. ”I am sure Lady s.h.i.+rakawa will change her mind about me. I am only a very ordinary person, but there may be things I can advise you on.” She began to pour the tea, saying, ”Dr. Is.h.i.+da wants you to have a cup of this now. And as it is the first night of the moon, Lord Fujiwara will come shortly to welcome you, and view view the new moon with you. Drink your tea and I'll make sure your hair and dress are appropriate.” the new moon with you. Drink your tea and I'll make sure your hair and dress are appropriate.”
Kaede took a sip of tea and then another, trying not to gulp it down, for she was terribly thirsty. She was calm and could barely feel anything; yet she was aware of the slow thudding of blood behind her temples. She dreaded meeting him, dreaded the power he had over her. It was the power that men held over women everywhere, in every aspect of their lives. She must have been mad to think she could fight it. She remembered all too clearly Lady Naomi's words: / must appear a must appear a dejensehss woman, otherwise these warriors will crush me dejensehss woman, otherwise these warriors will crush me.
Now they were crus.h.i.+ng her. s.h.i.+zuka had warned her that her marriage would enrage the elders of her cla.s.s-that it would never be permitted. But if she had listened and done what she was told, she would never have had the months with Takeo. The thought of him now was so freshly painful, even with the calming tea, that she laid it it away in the secret recesses of her heart, as hidden as the records of the Tribe in the Sacred Caves. away in the secret recesses of her heart, as hidden as the records of the Tribe in the Sacred Caves.
She became aware that Rieko was studying her closely. She turned her face away and took another sip of tea.
”Come, come, Lady s.h.i.+rakawa,” Rieko said briskly. ”You must not brood. You are about to make a brilliant marriage.” She came a little closer, shuffling forward on her knees. ”You are as beautiful as they say, apart from being too tall, but your skin has a tendency to sallowness, and that heavy look does not become you. Your beauty is your greatest a.s.set: We must do all we can to preserve it.”
She took the cup and set it on the tray. Then she unloosened Kaede's hair from the ties that held it back and began to comb it out.
”How old are you?”
”Sixteen,” Kaede replied.
”I thought you were older, twenty at least. You must be the type that ages rapidly. We'll have to watch that.” The comb raked across Kaede's scalp, bringing tears of pain to her eyes.
Rieko said, ”It must be very difficult to dress your hair; it is very soft.”
”I usually tie it back,” Kaede said.
”It is the fas.h.i.+on in the capital to wear it piled on the head,” Rieko said, tugging in a way that hurt intentionally. ”Thicker, coa.r.s.er hair is more desirable.”
Whereas sympathy and understanding might have released Kaede's grief, Rieko's unkindness steeled her, making her determined never to break down, never to show her feelings. I slept in ice I slept in ice, she thought. The The G.o.ddess speaks to me. I will discover power of some sort here and use it until Takeo comes for me G.o.ddess speaks to me. I will discover power of some sort here and use it until Takeo comes for me. He would come, she knew, or die in the attempt, and when she saw his lifeless corpse she would be freed from her promise and she would join him in the shadows of the afterworld.
In the distance dogs began barking suddenly and excitedly, and a moment later the house shook in a tremor, longer and a little more severe than the previous day's.
Kaede felt what she always felt: shock, amazement that the earth could quiver like fresh bean curd, and a sort of elation that nothing was fixed or certain. Nothing lasted forever, not even Fujiwara and his house full of treasures.
Rieko dropped the comb and struggled to her feet. The maids came running to the door.
”Come outside quickly,” Rieko cried, her voice alarmed.
”Why?” Kaede said. ”The quake will not be a big one.”
Rieko had already left the room. Kaede could hear her ordering the maids to extinguish all the lamps, almost shrieking at them in her panic. Kaede remained where she was, listening to the running feet, the raised voices, the barking dogs. After a few moments she took up the comb and finished combing out her hair. Since her head ached, she left it loose.
The robe they had dressed her in earlier seemed quite suitable for moon viewing: It was dove gray, embroidered with bush clover and pale lemon warblers. She wanted to look at the moon, to be bathed in its silvery light, and to be reminded of how it came and went in the heavens, disappeared for three days, and then returned.
The maids had left the doors to the veranda open. Kaede stepped out and knelt on the wooden floor, gazing toward the mountain, recalling how she had sat here with Fujiwara, wrapped in bearskins as the snow fell.
Another slight tremor came, but she felt no fear. She saw the mountain tremble against the pale violet sky. The dark shapes of the garden trees were swaying, though there was no wind, and birds, disturbed, were calling as if it were dawn.
Slowly their calls subsided and the dogs fell quiet. The thin golden sickle of the new moon hung next to the evening star just above the peaks. Kaede closed her eyes.
She smelled Fujiwara's fragrance before she heard him. Then she caught the tread of feet, the rustle of silk. She opened her eyes.
He stood a few feet away from her, staring at her with the rapt, covetous look that she remembered so well. ”Lady s.h.i.+rakawa.”
”Lord Fujiwara.” She returned his gaze for longer than she should before slowly prostrating herself until her brow touched the floor.
Fujiwara stepped onto the veranda, followed by Mamoru, who was carrying carpets and cus.h.i.+ons. Not until the n.o.bleman was seated did he give Kaede permission to sit up. He reached out and touched the silk robe.
”It's very becoming. I thought it would be. You gave poor Murita quite a shock when you turned up on horseback. He nearly speared you by mistake.”
She thought she would faint from the fury that suddenly erupted through the herb-induced tranquillity. That he should allude so lightly, jokingly, to the murders of her men, of Amano, who had known her since she was a child...
”How dare you do this to me?” she said, and heard Mamoru's gasp of shock. ”I was married three months ago to OtoriTakeo atTerayama. My husband will punish you-” She broke off, trying to regain control. ”I thought we would enjoy the moon before we talked,” he replied, showing no response to the insulting way she had spoken. ”Where are your women? Why are you here alone?”
”They ran when the earth shook,” she replied shortly. ”Were you not afraid?”
”I have nothing to be afraid of. You have already done the worst anyone can do to me.”
”It seems we are to talk now,” he said. ”Mamoru, bring wine and then see that we are undisturbed.”
He looked meditatively at the moon without speaking for the next few minutes until Mamoru came back. When the young man had retired into the shadows again, Fujiwara indicated that Kaede should pour the wine. He drank and said, ”Your marriage to the person who calls himself Otori Takeo has been set aside. It was undertaken without permission and has been ruled invalid.”
”By whose authority?”
”Lord Arai; your own senior retainer, Shoji; and myself. The Otori have already disowned Takeo and declared his adoption illegal. The general opinion was that you should die for your disobedience to Arai and your infidelity to me, especially when your involvement in Iida's death became more widely known.”