Part 17 (1/2)
”Well, nothing can ease it,” he said. ”I will never get over it. I must either follow her into death or live with it as we all must live with grief. In the meantime...” He sighed deeply.
The rest of the household had retired. It was a little cooler, and the screens stood open to catch the slight breeze that now and then crept down the mountain. A single lamp burned at Kenji's side. s.h.i.+zuka moved slightly so she could see something of his face.
”What?” she prompted.
He seemed to change the subject. ”I sacrificed s.h.i.+geru to the Kikuta for the sake of unity. Now they have taken my daughter from me too.” Again he fell silent.
”What do you plan to do?”
”The boy is my grandchild-the only one I'll ever have. I find it hard to accept that he's lost to the Muto completely. I imagine his father will have a certain interest in him, too, if I know Takeo. I said before that I would not seek Takeo's death; that's partly why I've been hiding out here all summer. Now I will go further: I want the Muto family to come to an agreement with him, to make a truce.”
”And go against the Kikuta?”
”I will never do anything in agreement with them again. If Takeo can destroy them, I will do everything in my power to help him.”
She saw something in his face and knew he was hoping Takeo would give him the revenge he craved. ”You will destroy the Tribe,” she whispered.
”We are already destroying ourselves,” he said bleakly. ”Moreover, everything is changing around us. I believe we are at the end of an era. When this war is over, whoever is the victor will rule over the whole of the Three Countries. Takeo wants to gain his inheritance and punish s.h.i.+geru's uncles, but whoever leads the Otori, Arai will have to fight them: Either the Otori clan must conquer or they must be utterly defeated and wiped out, for there will be no peace while they simmer on the border.”
”The Kikuta seem to be favoring the Otori lords against Takeo?”
”Yes, I've heard Kotaro himself is in Hagi. I believe in the long run, despite his apparent strength, Arai will not succeed against the Otori. They have a certain legitimacy to claim the Three Countries, you know, because of their ancestral link with the emperor's house. s.h.i.+geru's sword, Jato, was forged and given in recognition of that, hundreds of years ago.”
He fell silent and a slight smile curved his lips. ”But the sword found Takeo. It did not go to Shoichi or Masahiro.” He turned to her and the smile deepened. ”I'm going to tell you a story. You may know that I met s.h.i.+geru at Yaegahara. I was about twenty-five; he must have been nineteen. I was working as a spy and secret messenger for the Noguchi, who were allies of the Otori then. I already knew that they would change sides during the battle and turn on their former allies, giving the victory to Iida and causing the deaths of thousands of men. I've always been detached from the rights and wrongs of our trade, but the depths of treachery fascinate me. There is something appalling about the realization of betrayal that I like to observe. I wanted to see Otori s.h.i.+gemori's face when the Noguchi turned on him.
”So, for this rather base motive, I was there in the thick of the battle. Most of the time I was invisible. I have to say, there was something intensely exciting about being in the midst of the fray, unseen. I saw s.h.i.+gemori; I saw the expression on his face when he realized all was lost. I saw him fall. His sword, which was well known and which many desired, flew from his hands at the moment of death and fell at my feet. I picked it up. It took on my invisibility and seemed to cleave to my hand. It was still warm from its master's grip. It told me that I had to protect it and find its true owner.”
”It spoke to you?”
”That's the only way I can describe it. After s.h.i.+gemori died, the Otori went into a state of mad desperation. The battle raged for another couple of hours, which I spent looking for s.h.i.+geru. I knew him: I'd seen him once before, a few years earlier, when he was training in the mountains with Matsuda. It wasn't until the fighting was over that I came upon him. By then Iida's men were searching for him everywhere. If he could be declared dead in battle, it would be convenient for everyone.
”I found him by a small spring. He was quite alone and was preparing to take his own life, was.h.i.+ng the blood from his face and hands and scenting his hair and beard with perfume. He had taken off his helmet and loosened his armor. He seemed as calm as if he were about to bathe in the spring.
”The sword said to me, 'This is my master,' so I called to him, 'Lord Otori!' and when he turned I let him see me and held the sword out to him.
”'Jato,' he greeted it, took the sword in both hands, and bowed deeply. Then he looked at the sword and looked at me and seemed to come out of the trance he was in.
”I said something like 'Don't kill yourself,' and then, as if the sword spoke through me, 'Live and get revenge,' and he smiled and leaped to his feet, the sword in his hand. I helped him get away and took him back to his mother's house in Hagi. By the time we got there we had become friends.”
”I often wondered how you met,” s.h.i.+zuka said. ”So you saved his life.”
”Not I but Jato. This is the way it goes from hand to hand. Takeo has it because Yuki gave it to him in Inuyama. And because of her disobedience then the Kikuta started to distrust her.”
”How strange are the ways of fate,” s.h.i.+zuka murmured.
”Yes, there is some bond between us all that I cannot fight. It's mainly because Jato chose Takeo, through my daughter, that I feel we must work with him. Apart from that, I can keep my promise never to harm him and maybe make amends for the role I played in s.h.i.+geru's death.” He paused and then said in a low voice, ”I did not see the look on his face when Takeo and I did not return that night in Inuyama, but it is the expression he wears when he visits me in dreams.”
Neither of them said anything for a few moments. A sudden flash of lightning lit the room, and s.h.i.+zuka could hear thunder rolling in the mountains. Kenji went on: ”I hope your Kikuta blood will not take you from us now.”
”No, your decision is a relief to me because it means I can keep faith with Kaede. I'm sorry, but I would never have done anything to hurt either of them.”
Her admission made him smile again. ”So I have always thought. Not only because of your affection for Kaede-I know how strong your feelings were for both s.h.i.+geru and Lady Maruyama, and the part you played in the alliance with Arai.” Kenji was looking at her closely. ”s.h.i.+zuka, you did not seem completely surprised when I told you about s.h.i.+geru's records. I have been trying to deduce who his informant in the Tribe might have been.”
She was trembling despite herself. Her disobedience-treachery, to give it its true name-was about to be disclosed. She could not imagine what the Tribe would do to her.
”It was you, wasn't it?” Kenji went on.
”Uncle,” she began.
”Don't be alarmed,” he said quickly. ”I will never speak of it to another soul. But I would like to know why.”
”It was after Yaegahara,” she said. ”I gave the information to Iida that s.h.i.+geru was seeking alliances with the Seishuu. s.h.i.+geru confided in Arai, and I pa.s.sed the information on. It was because of me that the Tohan triumphed, because of me that ten thousand died on the battlefield and countless others afterward from torture and starvation. I watched s.h.i.+geru in the years following and was filled with admiration for his patience and fort.i.tude. He seemed to me the only good man I had ever met, and I had played a leading part in his downfall. So I resolved to help him, to make amends. He asked me many things about the Tribe, and I told him everything I could. It was not hard to keep it secret-it was what I had been trained to do.” She paused and then said, ”I am afraid you will be very angry.”
He shook his head. ”I should be, I suppose. If I had found out anytime before this, I would have had to order your punishment and death.” He was gazing at her with admiration. ”Truly you have the Kikuta gift of fearlessness. In fact I am glad you did what you did. You helped s.h.i.+geru, and now that legacy protects Takeo. It may even make amends for my own betrayal.”
”Will you go to Takeo now?”
”I was hoping to have a little more news. Kondo should return soon. Otherwise, yes, I will go to Maruyama.”
”Send a messenger-send me. It's too dangerous to go yourself. But will Takeo trust anyone from the Tribe?”
”Maybe we will both go. And we will take your sons.”
She gazed steadily at him. A mosquito was whining near her hair, but she did not brush it away.
”They will be our guarantee to him,” Kenji said quietly.
Lightning flashed again; the thunder was closer. Suddenly rain began to fall heavily. It poured from the eaves, and the smell of earth sprang from the garden.
The storm lashed the village for three or four days. Before Kondo returned, another message came, from a Muto girl who worked in Lord Fujiwara's residence in the South. It was brief and tantalizing, telling them none of the details they wanted to know, written in haste, and apparently in some danger, saying only that s.h.i.+rakawa Kaede was in the house and was married to Fujiwara.
”What have they done to her now?” Kenji said, shaken out of his grief by anger.
”We always knew the marriage with Takeo would be opposed,” s.h.i.+zuka said. ”I imagine Fujiwara and Arai have arranged this between them. Lord Fujiwara wanted to marry her before she left in the spring. I'm afraid I encouraged her to become close to him.”
She pictured Kaede imprisoned within the luxurious residence, rememberecd the n.o.bleman's cruelty, and wished she had acted differently.
”I don't know what's happened to me,” she said to her uncle. ”I used to be indifferent to all these things. Now I find I care deeply; I'm outraged and horrified, and filled with pity for them both.”
”Since I first set eyes on her I've been moved by Lady s.h.i.+rakawa's plight,” he replied. ”It's hard not to pity her even more now.”
”What will Takeo do?” s.h.i.+zuka wondered aloud. ”He will go to war,” Kenji predicted. ”And almost certainly be defeated. It may be too late for us to make peace with him.”
s.h.i.+zuka saw her uncle's grief descend on him again. She was afraid he would indeed follow his daughter into death and tried to make sure he was never left alone.