Across the Nightingale Floor (15 page)

“It's up to Takeo to make that
choice when the time comes,” Shigeru said.

“I have sworn allegiance to the
Otori clan,” I said. “I will never leave you, and I will do anything you ask of
me.”

For I was already seeing myself in
Inuyama, where Lord Iida Sadamu lurked behind his nightingale floor.

Kaede left Noguchi castle with no
regrets and few hopes for the future, but since she had hardly been beyond its
walls in the eight years she had been a hostage with the Noguchi, and since she
was only fifteen, she could not help but be entranced by everything she saw.
For the first few miles she and Lady Maruyama were carried in palanquins by
teams of porters, but the swaying motion made her feel sick, and at the first rest
stop she insisted on getting out and walking with Shizuka. It was high summer;
the sun was strong. Shizuka tied a shady hat on her head, and also held up a
parasol over her.

“Lady Shirakawa must not appear
before her husband as brown as I am,” she giggled.

They traveled until midday, rested
for a while at an inn, and then went on for another few miles before evening.
By the time they stopped, Kaede's mind was reeling with all she had seen: the
brilliant green of the rice fields, as smooth and luxuriant as the pelt of an
animal; the white splashing rivers that raced beside the road; the mountains
that rose before them, range after range, clad in their rich summer green,
interwoven with the crimson of wild azaleas. And the people on the road, of
every sort and description: warriors in armor, bearing swords and riding
spirited horses; farmers carrying all manner of things that she'd never seen
before; oxcarts and packhorses, beggars and peddlers.

She was not supposed to stare at
them, and they were supposed to bow to the ground as the procession went past,
but she sneaked as many looks at them as they did at her.

They were accompanied by Lady
Maruyama's retainers; the chief among them, a man named Sugita, treated the
lady with the easy familiarity of an uncle. Kaede found that she liked him.

“I liked to walk when I was your
age,” Lady Maruyama said as they ate the evening meal together. “I still prefer
it, to be truthful, but I also fear the sun.”

She gazed at Kaede's unlined skin.
She had been kind to her all day, but Kaede could not forget her first
impression, that the older woman did not like her and that in some way she had
offended her.

“You do not ride?” she asked. She
had been envying the men on their horses: They seemed so powerful and free.

“Sometimes I ride,” Lady Maruyama
replied. “But when I am a poor defenseless woman traveling through Tohan land,
I allow myself to be carried in the palanquin.”

Kaede looked questioningly at her.
“Yet, Lady Maruyama is said to be powerful,” she murmured.

“I must hide my power among men,”
she replied, “or they will not hesitate to crush me.”

“I have not been on a horse since I
was a child,” Kaede admitted.

“But all warriors' daughters should
be taught to ride!” Lady Maruyama exclaimed. “Did the Noguchi not do so?”

“They taught me nothing,” Kaede
said with bitterness.

“No use of the sword and knife? No
archery?”

“I did not know women learned such
things.”

“In the West they do.” There was a
short silence. Kaede, hungry for once, took a little more rice.

“Did the Noguchi treat you well?”
the lady asked.

“In the beginning, no, not at all.”
Kaede felt herself torn between her usual guarded response to anyone who
questioned her, and a strong desire to confide in this woman, who was of the
same class as she was and who was her equal. They were alone in the room, apart
from Shizuka and Lady Maruyama's woman, Sachie, who both sat so still Kaede was
hardly aware of them. “After the incident with the guard, I was moved to the
residence.”

“Before that?”

“I lived with the servant girls in
the castle.”

“How shameful,” Lady Maruyama said,
her own voice bitter now. “How do the Noguchi dare? When you are Shirakawa . .
.” She looked down and said, “I fear for my own daughter, who is held hostage
by Lord Iida.”

“It was not so bad when I was a
child,” Kaede said. “The servants pitied me. But when the springtime began, and
I was neither child nor woman, no one protected me. Until a man had to die . .
.”

To her own astonishment, her voice
faltered. A sudden rush of emotion made her eyes fill with tears. The memory
came flooding back to her: the man's hands, the hard bulge of his sex against
her, the knife in her hand, the blood, his death before her eyes.

“Forgive me,” she whispered.

Lady Maruyama reached across the
space between them and took her hand. “Poor child,” she said, stroking Kaede's
fingers. “All the poor children, all the poor daughters. If only I could free
you all.”

Kaede wanted nothing more than to
sob her heart out. She struggled to regain control. “After that, they moved me
to the residence. I was given my own maid, first Junko, then Shizuka. Life was
much better there. I was to be married to an old man. He died, and I was glad.
But then people began to say that to know me, to desire me, brings death.”

She heard the other woman's sharp
intake of breath. For a moment neither of them spoke.

“I do not want to cause any man's
death,” Kaede said in a low voice. “I fear marriage. I do not want Lord Otori
to die because of me.”

When Lady Maruyama replied, her
voice was thin. “You must not say such things, or even think them.”

Kaede looked at her. Her face,
white in the lamplight, seemed filled with a sudden apprehension.

“I am very tired,” the lady went
on. “Forgive me if I do not talk more tonight. We have many days on the road
together, after all.” She called to Sachie. The food trays were removed and the
beds spread out.

Shizuka accompanied Kaede to the
privy and washed her hands when she had finished there.

“What did I say to offend her?”
Kaede whispered. “I don't understand her: One moment she is friendly, the next
she stares at me as if I were poison to her.”

“You're imagining things,” Shizuka
said lightly. “Lady Maruyama is very fond of you. Apart from anything else,
after her daughter, you are her closest female relative.”

“Am I?” Kaede replied and, when
Shizuka nodded emphatically, asked, “Is that so important?”

“If anything happened to them, it
is you who would inherit Maruyama. No one's told you this, because the Tohan
still hope to acquire the domain. It's one of the reasons why Iida insisted you
should go to the Noguchi as a hostage.”

When Kaede said nothing, Shizuka
went on, “My lady is even more important than she thought she was!”

“Don't tease me! I feel lost in
this world. I feel as if I know nothing!”

Kaede went to bed, her mind
swirling. She was aware of Lady Maruyama's restlessness through the night as
well, and the next morning the lady's beautiful face looked tired and drawn.
But she spoke to Kaede kindly and, when they set out, arranged for a gentle
brown horse to be provided for her. Sugita lifted her onto its back, and at
first one of the men walked at its head, leading it. She remembered the ponies
she had ridden as a child and the ability began to come back. Shizuka would not
let her ride for the whole day, saying her muscles would ache too much and she
would be too tired, but she loved the feeling of being on the horse's back, and
could not wait to mount again. The rhythm of its gait calmed her a little and
helped her to organize her thoughts. Mostly she was appalled at her lack of
education and her ignorance of the world she was entering. She was a pawn on
the board of the great game the warlords were playing, but she longed to be
more than that, to understand the moves of the game and to play it herself.

Two things happened to disturb her
further. One afternoon they had paused for a rest at an unusual time, at a
crossroads, when they were joined by a small group of horsemen riding from the
southwest, almost as if by some prearranged appointment. Shizuka ran to greet them
in her usual way, eager to know where they were from and what gossip they might
bring. Kaede, watching idly, saw her speak to one of the men. He leaned low
from the saddle to tell her something; she nodded with deep seriousness and
then gave the horse a slap on its flank. It jumped forward. There was a shout
of laughter from the men, followed by Shizuka's high-pitched giggle, but in
that moment Kaede felt she saw something new in the girl who had become her
servant, an intensity that puzzled her.

For the rest of the day Shizuka was
her usual self, exclaiming over the beauties of the countryside, picking
bunches of wildflowers, exchanging greetings with everyone she met, but at the
lodging place that night Kaede came into the room to find Shizuka talking earnestly
to Lady Maruyama, not like a servant, but sitting knee to knee with her, as an
equal.

Their talk immediately turned to
the weather and the next day's arrangements, but Kaede felt a sense of
betrayal. Shizuka had said to her, People like me don't really meet people like
her. But there was obviously some relationship between them that she had known
nothing about. It made her suspicious and a little jealous. She had come to
depend on Shizuka and did not want to share her with others.

The heat grew more intense and
travel more uncomfortable. One day the earth shook several times, adding to
Kaede's unease. She slept badly, troubled as much by suspicions as by fleas and
other night insects. She longed for the journey to end, and yet, she dreaded
arriving. Every day she decided she would question Shizuka, but every night
something held her back. Lady Maruyama continued to treat her with kindness,
but Kaede did not trust her, and she responded cautiously and with reserve.
Then she felt ungracious and childish. Her appetite disappeared again.

Shizuka scolded her at night in the
bath. “All your bones stick out, lady. You must eat! What will your husband
think?”

“Don't start talking about my
husband!” Kaede said hurriedly. “I don't care what he thinks. Maybe he will
hate the sight of me and leave me alone!”

And then she was ashamed again for
the childishness of the words.

They came at last to the mountain
town of Tsuwano, riding through the narrow pass at the end of the day, the
ranges already black against the setting sun. The breeze moved through the
terraced rice fields like a wave through water, lotus plants raised their huge
jade-green leaves, and around the fields wildflowers blossomed in a riot of
color. The last rays of the sun turned the white walls of the town to pink and
gold.

“This looks like a happy place!”
Kaede could not help exclaiming.

Lady Maruyama, riding just ahead of
her, turned in the saddle.

“We are no longer in Tohan country.
This is the beginning of the Otori fief,” she said. “Here we will wait for Lord
Shigeru.” The next morning Shizuka brought strange clothes instead of Kaede's
usual robes.

“You are to start learning the
sword, lady,” she announced, showing Kaede how to put them on. She looked at
her with approval. “Apart from the hair, Lady Kaede could pass for a boy,” she
said, lifting the heavy weight of hair away from Kaede's face and tying it back
with a leather cord.

Kaede ran her hands over her own
body. The clothes were of rough, dark-dyed hemp, and fitted her loosely. They
were like nothing she had ever worn. They hid her shape and made her feel free.
“Who says I am to learn?”

“Lady Maruyama. We will be here
several days, maybe a week, before the Otori arrive. She wants you to be
occupied, and not fretting.”

“She is very kind,” Kaede replied.
“Who will teach me?”

Shizuka giggled and did not answer.
She took Kaede across the street from their lodgings to a long, low building
with a wooden floor. Here they removed their sandals and put on split-toed
boots. Shizuka handed Kaede a mask to protect her face, and took down two long
wooden poles from a rack on the wall.

“Did the lady ever learn to fight
with these?”

“As a child, of course,” Kaede
replied. “Almost as soon as I could walk.”

“Then you will remember this.”
Shizuka handed one pole to Kaede and, holding the other firmly in both hands,
executed a fluid series of movements, the pole flashing through the air faster
than the eye could follow.

“Not like that!” Kaede admitted,
astonished. She would have thought Shizuka hardly able to lift the pole, let
alone wield it with such power and skill.

Shizuka giggled again, changing
under Kaede's eyes from concentrated warrior to scatterbrained servant. “Lady
Kaede will find it all comes back! Let's begin.”

Kaede felt cold, despite the warmth
of the summer morning. “You are the teacher?”

“Oh, I only know a little, lady.
You probably know just as much. I don't suppose there's anything I can teach
you.”

But even though Kaede found that
she did remember the movements, and had a certain natural ability and the
advantage of height, Shizuka's skill far surpassed anything she could do. At
the end of the morning she was exhausted, dripping with sweat and seething with
emotion. Shizuka, who as a servant did everything in her power to please Kaede,
was completely ruthless as a teacher. Every stroke had to be perfectly
executed: Time after time, when Kaede thought she was finally finding the
rhythm, Shizuka would stop her and politely point out that her balance was on
the wrong foot, or that she had left herself open to sudden death, had they
been fighting with the sword. Finally she signaled that they should finish,
placed the poles back in the rack, took off the face masks, and wiped Kaede's
face with a towel.

“It was good,” she said. “Lady
Kaede has great skill. We will soon make up for the years that were lost.”