Part 23 (1/2)

”I don't know. Be on your guard and don't cross the bridge.”

As I urged the black forward slightly, Endo said, ”I am the senior retainer of the Otori clan. Let me take news of our surrender to you to Lord Arai.”

”Very well,” I said. ”Tell him to encamp his army on that side of the river and bring him into the town. Then we can enforce peace with no further bloodshed on either side.”

Endo rode forward onto the bridge and Arai halted and waited on the other side. Endo was almost halfway across when Arai held up his hand with the black war fan in it.

There was a moment of silence. Zenko cried at my side, ”They are arming their bows.”

The war fan dropped.

Though it was happening right in front of my eyes, I could not believe it. For several moments I stared incredulous as the arrows be-aan to fall. Endo went down at once, and the men on the bank, un-armed and unprepared, fell like deer to the hunter.

”There,” Kenji said, drawing his sword. ”That's what's wrong.”

Once before I had been so betrayed-but that had been by Kenji himself and the Tribe. This betrayal was by a warrior to whom I had sworn allegiance. Had I killed Jo-An for this? Fury and outrage turned my vision red. I had taken the impregnable castle, kept the bridge whole, pacified the men. I had handed Hagi, my town, to Arai like a ripe persimmon, and with it the Three Countries.

Dogs were howling in the distance. They sounded like my own soul.

Arai rode onto the bridge and came to a halt in the center. He saw me and lifted off his helmet. It was a derisive gesture. He was so sure of his own strength, of victory. ”Thank you, Otori,” he called. ”What a good work you did. Will you surrender now or shall we fight it out?”

”You may rule over the Three Countries,” I shouted back, ”but your falsehood will be remembered long after your death.” I knew I was about to fight my last battle, and it was, as I had known it must be, with Arai. I just had not realized it would come so quickly.

”There will be no one left to record it,” he sneered in reply, ”because I intend now to wipe out the Otori once and for all.”

I leaned down and seized Zenko, pulling him up onto the horse in front of me. I took my short sword and held it to his neck.

”I have both your sons here. Will you condemn them to death? I swear to you, I will kill Zenko now andTaku after him before you can reach me. Call off your attack!”

His face changed a little and paled. Taku stood motionless next to Kenji. Zenko did not move, either. Both boys stared at the father they had not seen for years.

Then Arai's features hardened and he laughed. ”I know you, Takeo.

I know your weakness. You were not raised as a warrior; let's see if you can bring yourself to kill a child.”

I should have acted immediately and ruthlessly, but I did not. I hesitated. Arai laughed again.

”Let him go,” he called. ”Zenko! Come here to me.”

Fumio called in a low, clear voice, ”Takeo, shall I shoot him?”

I can't remember replying. I can't remember letting go of Zenko. I heard the m.u.f.fled report from the firearm and saw Arai recoil in the saddle as the ball hit him, piercing his armor above the heart. There was a cry, of rage and horror, from the men around him and a scuffle as his horse reared; Zenko screamed, but these sounds were as nothing to the roar that followed them as the world beneath my horse's feet tore itself apart.

The maples on the far sh.o.r.e rose almost gracefully and began to march down the hillside. They gathered up Arai's army as they went, wrapping them in stones and soil and rolling them into the river.

My horse backed in terror, reared, and fled from the bridge, throwing me sideways onto the road. As I got to my feet, winded, the bridge groaned with a human voice. It cried out in its efforts to hold itself together and then flew apart, taking everyone on it down into the river. Then the river itself went mad. From the confluence upstream came a yellow-brown flood of water. It drained away from the bank on the town side, gathering up boats and living beings impartially, and raced over the opposite bank, where it swept away the remnants of two armies, breaking the boats like eating sticks, drowning men and horses and carrying their corpses out to sea.

The ground shook fiercely again, and from behind me I heard the crash of collapsing houses. I felt as if if I'd been stunned: Everything around me was hazy with dust and m.u.f.fled so I could no longer hear distinct sounds. I was aware of Kenji beside me andTaku kneeling by his brother, who had also fallen when the horse reared. I saw Fumio coming toward me through the haze, the firearm still in his hand. I'd been stunned: Everything around me was hazy with dust and m.u.f.fled so I could no longer hear distinct sounds. I was aware of Kenji beside me andTaku kneeling by his brother, who had also fallen when the horse reared. I saw Fumio coming toward me through the haze, the firearm still in his hand.

I was shaking from some mixture of emotions close to elation: a recognition of how puny we humans are when confronted with the great forces of nature, combined with grat.i.tude to heaven, to the G.o.ds I'd thought I did not believe in, who once again had spared my life.

My last battle had begun and ended in a moment. There was no further thought of fighting. Our only concern now was to save the town from fire.

Much of the district around the castle burned to the ground. The castle itself was destroyed in one of the aftershocks, killing the remaining women and children who were being held there. I was relieved, for I knew I could not let them live, but I shrank from ordering their deaths. Ryoma also died then, his boat sunk by falling masonry. When his body was washed up days later, I had him buried with the Otori lords at Daishoin, their name on his gravestone.

In the next few days I hardly slept or ate. With Miyos.h.i.+ and Kenji's help I organized the survivors to clear the rubble, bury the dead, and care for the wounded. Through the long sorrowful days of work and cooperation and grief, the rifts in the clan began to heal. The earthquake was generally held to be heaven's punishment on Arai for his treachery. Heaven clearly favored me, I was s.h.i.+geru's adopted son and nephew by blood, I had his sword, I resembled him, and I had avenged his death: The clan accepted me unreservedly as his true heir. I did not know what the situation was in the rest of the land; the earthquakes had shattered much of the Three Countries and we heard nothing from the other cities. All I was aware of was the enormity of the task that faced me in restoring peace and preventing famine in the coming winter.

I did not sleep at s.h.i.+geru's house the night of the earthquake, nor for many days following. I could not bear to go near it in case it had been destroyed. I camped with Miyos.h.i.+ in what remained of his residence. But about four days after the earthquake, Kenji came to me one evening after I had eaten and told me there was someone to see me. He was grinning, and for a moment I imagined it might be s.h.i.+zuka with a message from Kaede.

Instead it was the maids from s.h.i.+geru's house, Chiyo and Haruka. They looked exhausted and frail, and when they saw me I was afraid Chiyo would die from emotion. They both knelt at my feet, but I made them get up and I embraced Chiyo as tears streamed down her face. None of us could speak.

Finally, Chiyo said, ”Come home, Lord Takeo. The house is waiting for you.”

”It's still standing?”

”The garden is ruined-the river swept through it-but the house is not badly damaged. We'll get it ready for you tomorrow.”

”I will come tomorrow evening,” I promised. ”You will come, too, sir?” she said to Kenji. ”Almost like old times,” he replied, smiling, though we all knew it could never be that.

The following day Kenji and I took Taku and some guards and walked down the familiar street. I did not take Zenko. The circ.u.mstances surrounding Arai's death had left his older son deeply disturbed. I was concerned for him, seeing his confusion and grief, but did not have time to deal with it. I suspected that he thought his father had died ign.o.bly and blamed me for it. Maybe he even blamed or despised me for sparing his life. I myself was not sure how to treat him: as the heir to a mighty warlord or as the son of the man who had betrayed me. I thought it best for him to be kept out of my way for the time being and put him in the service of Endo Chikara's family. I still hoped his mother, s.h.i.+zuka, was alive; when she returned we would discuss her son's future. Taku I had no doubts about; I would keep him with me, the first of the child spies I had dreamed of training and employing. The district around my old house had been hardly touched by the earthquake, and birds were singing blithely in the gardens. As we walked through it I was thinking about how I used to wait for the exact moment when I heard the house's song of the river and the world, and remembering how I had first seen Kenji on the corner. The song was altered now; the stream was clogged, the waterfall dry, but the river still lapped at the dock and the wall.

Haruka found the last of the wildflowers and a few chrysanthemums to put in buckets outside the kitchen, as she always had, and their sharp autumn scent mingled with the smell of mud and decay from the river. The garden was ruined, the fish all dead, but Chiyo had washed and polished the nightingale floor, and when we stepped onto it, it sang beneath our feet.

The downstairs rooms were damaged by water and mud, and she had already started stripping them and having new mats laid, but the upstairs room was untouched. She had cleaned and polished it until it looked just as it had the first time I had seen it when I had fallen in love with s.h.i.+geru's house and with him.

Chiyo apologized that there was no hot water for a bath, but we washed in cold water and she managed to find enough food for an adequate meal as well as several flasks of wine. We ate in the upper room, as we so often had before, and Kenji made Taku laugh by describing my poor efforts as a student and how impossible and disobedient I had been. I was filled with an almost unbearable mixture of sorrow and joy, and smiled with tears in my eyes. But whatever my grief, I felt s.h.i.+geru's spirit was at peace. I could almost see his quiet ghost in the room with us, smiling when we smiled. His murderers were dead and Jato had come home.

Taku fell asleep at last, and Kenji and I shared one more flask of wine as we watched the gibbous moon move across the garden. It was a cold night. There would probably be a frost, and we closed the shutters before going to bed ourselves. I slept restlessly, no doubt from the wine, and woke just before dawn, thinking I had heard some unfamiliar sound. The house lay quiet around me. I could hear Kenji and Taku breathing alongside me, and Chiyo and Haruka in the room below. We had put guards on the gate, and there were still a couple of dogs there. I thought I could hear the guards talking in low voices. Perhaps it was they who had awakened me.

I lay and listened for a while. The room began to lighten as day broke. I decided I had heard nothing unusual and would go to the privy before I tried to sleep for another hour or two. I got up quietly and crept down the stairs, slid open the door, and stepped outside.

I did not bother masking my footsteps, but as soon as the floor sang I realized what it was I had heard: one light step onto the boards. Someone had tried to come into the house and had been discouraged by the floor. So where was he now?

I was thinking rapidly, I should wake Kenji, should at least get a weapon I should wake Kenji, should at least get a weapon, when the Kikuta master Kotaro came out of the misty garden and stood in front of me.

Until tonight I had seen him only in his faded blue robes, the disguise he wore when traveling. Now he was in the dark fighting clothes of the Tribe, and all the power that he usually kept hidden was revealed in his stance and in his face, the embodiment of the Tribes hostility toward me, expert, ruthless, and implacable. He said, ”I believe your life is forfeit to me.”

”You broke faith with me by ordering Akio to kill me,” I said. ”All our bargains were annulled then. And you had no right to demand anything from me when you did not tell me that it was you who killed my father.”

He smiled in contempt. ”You're right, I did kill Isamu,” he said. ”I've learned now what it was that made him disobedient too: the Otori blood that flows in you both.” He reached into his jacket and I moved quickly to avoid the knife I thought was coming, but what he held out was a small stick. ”I drew this,” he said, ”and I obeyed the orders of the Tribe, even though Isamu and I were cousins and friends, and even though he refused to defend himself. That's what obedience is.”

Kotaro's eyes were fixed on my face and I knew he was hoping to confuse me with the Kikuta sleep, but I was certain I could withstand it, though I doubted I could use it on him as I had once before in Matsue. We held each other's gaze for several moments, neither of us able to dominate.

”You murdered him,” I said. ”You contributed to s.h.i.+geru's death too. And what purpose did Yuki's death serve?”

He hissed impatiently in the way I remembered and with a lightning movement threw the stick to the ground and drew a knife. I dove sideways, shouting loudly. I had no illusions about my ability to take him on alone and unarmed. I would have to fight bare-handed as I had with Akio until someone came to my help.

He jumped after me, feinting at me, and then moved faster than the eye could follow in the opposite direction to take my neck in a stranglehold; but I'd antic.i.p.ated the move, slipped under his grasp, and kicked at him from behind. I caught him just over the kidney and heard him grunt. Then I leaped above him and with my right hand hit him in the neck.

The knife came upward and I felt it slash deep into the side of my right hand, taking off the two smallest fingers and opening up the palm. It was my first real wound and the pain was terrible, worse than anything I'd ever experienced. I went invisible for a moment, but my blood betrayed me, spurting across the nightingale floor. I shouted again, screaming for Kenji, for the guards, and split myself. The second self rolled across the floor while I drove my left hand into Kotaro's eyes.