Across the Nightingale Floor (25 page)

“I deeply regret the harm I am
doing her,” Shigeru said.

“She fears to bring harm to you,”
Shizuka replied, and added in a low voice, “among all her other fears. I must
return to her. I am afraid to leave her alone.”

“What do you mean?” I exclaimed,
making them both look at me.

Shizuka hesitated. “She often
speaks of death,” she said finally.

I wanted to send some message to Kaede.
I wanted to run to the castle and pluck her out of it—take her away somewhere
where we would be safe. But I knew there was no such place, and never would be,
until all this was over . . .

I also wanted to ask Shizuka about
Kenji—what he was up to, what the Tribe had in mind—but maids came bringing the
midday meal, and there was no further opportunity to speak in private before
she left.

We spoke briefly of the
arrangements for the afternoon's visit while we ate. Afterwards, Shigeru wrote
letters while I studied my sketches of the castle. I was aware of his gaze
often on me, and felt there were many things he still wished to say to me, but
he did not say them. I sat quietly on the floor, looking out onto the garden,
letting my breathing slow, retreating into the dark silent self that dwelled
within me, setting it loose so that it took over every muscle, sinew, and
nerve. My hearing seemed sharper than ever. I could hear the whole town, its
cacophony of human and animal life, joy, desire, pain, grief. I longed for
silence, to be free of it all. I longed for night to come.

Kenji returned, saying nothing of
where he had been. He watched silently as we dressed ourselves in formal robes
with the Otori crest on the back. He spoke once to suggest that it might be
wiser for me not to go to the castle, but Shigeru pointed out I would draw more
attention to myself if I stayed behind. He did not add that I needed to see the
castle one more time. I was also aware that I needed to see Iida again. The
only image I had of him was of the terrifying figure I had seen in Mino a year
ago: the black armor, the antlered helmet, the sword that had so nearly ended
my life. So huge and powerful had this image become in my mind that to see him
in the flesh, out of armor, was a shock.

We rode with all twenty of the
Otori men. They waited in the first bailey with the horses while Shigeru and I
went on with Abe. As we stepped out of our sandals onto the nightingale floor,
I held my breath, listening for the birdsong beneath my feet. The residence was
dazzlingly decorated in the modern style, the paintings so exquisite that they
almost distracted me from my dark purpose. They were not quiet and restrained,
like the Sesshus at Terayama, but gilded and flamboyant, full of life and
power. In the antechamber, where we waited for over half an hour, the doors and
screens were decorated with cranes in snowy willow trees. Shigeru admired them,
and under Abe's sardonic eye we spoke in low voices of painting and of the
artist.

“To my mind, these are far superior
to Sesshu,” the Tohan lord said. “The colors are richer and brighter, and the
scale is more ambitious.”

Shigeru murmured something that was
neither agreement nor disagreement. I said nothing. A few moments later an
elderly man came in, bowed to the floor, and spoke to Abe. “Lord Iida is ready
to receive his guests.”

We rose and stepped out again onto
the nightingale floor, following Abe to the Great Hall. Here Lord Shigeru knelt
at the entrance, and I imitated him. Abe gestured to us to step inside, where
we knelt again, bowing right to the ground. I caught a glimpse of Iida Sadamu
sitting at the far end of the hall on a raised platform, his cream-and-gold
robes spread out around him, a red-and-gold fan in his right hand, a small
black formal hat on his head. He was smaller than I remembered but no less
imposing. He seemed eight or ten years older than Shigeru and was about a head
shorter. His features were ordinary, apart from the fine-shaped eyes that
betrayed his fierce intelligence. He was not a handsome man, but he had a
powerful, compelling presence. My old terror leaped fully awake inside me.

There were about twenty retainers
in the room, all prostrate on the floor. Only Iida and the little page boy on
his left sat upright. There was a long silence. It was approaching the hour of
the Monkey. There were no doors open, and the heat was oppressive. Beneath the
perfumed robes lay the rank smell of male sweat. Out of the corner of my eye I
could see the lines of concealed closets, and from them I heard the breathing
of the hidden guards, the faint creak as they shifted position. My mouth was
dry.

Lord Iida spoke at last. “Welcome,
Lord Otori. This is a happy occasion: a marriage, an alliance.”

His voice was rough and
perfunctory, making the polite forms of speech sound incongruous in his mouth.

Shigeru raised his head and sat
unhurriedly. He replied equally formally, conveyed greetings from his uncles
and the entire Otori clan. “I am happy that I may be of service to two great
houses.”

It was a subtle reminder to Iida
that they were of equal rank, by birth and blood.

Iida smiled entirely mirthlessly
and replied, “Yes, we must have peace between us. We do not want to see a
repeat of Yaegahara.”

Shigeru inclined his head. “What is
past is past.”

I was still on the floor, but I
could see his face in profile. His gaze was clear and straightforward, his
features steady and cheerful. No one would guess that he was anything other
than what he appeared: a young bridegroom, grateful for the favor of an older
lord.

They spoke for a while, exchanging
pleasantries. Then tea was brought and served to the two of them.

“The young man is your adopted son,
I hear,” Iida said as the tea was poured. “He may drink with us.”

I had to sit up then, although I
would have preferred not to. I bowed again to Iida and shuffled forward on my
knees, willing my fingers not to tremble as I took the bowl. I could feel his
gaze on me, but I did not dare meet his eyes, so I had no way of knowing if he
recognized me as the boy who had burned his horse's flank and landed him on the
ground in Mino.

I studied the tea bowl. Its glaze
was a gleaming iron-gray, filled with red lights, such as I had never seen
before.

“He is a distant cousin of my late
mother's,” Lord Shigeru was explaining. “It was her desire that he be adopted
into our family, and after her death I carried out her wishes.”

“His name?” Iida's eyes did not
leave my face as he drank noisily from his bowl.

“He has taken the name of Otori,”
Shigeru replied. “We call him Takeo.”

He did not say after my brother,
but I felt Takeshi's name hang in the air, as though his ghost had drifted into
the hall.

Iida grunted. Despite the heat in
the room, the atmosphere became chillier and more dangerous. I knew Shigeru was
aware of it. I felt his body tense, though his face was still smiling. Beneath
the pleasantries lay years of mutual dislike, compounded by the legacy of
Yaegahara, Iida's jealousy, and Shigeru's grief and his desire for revenge. I
tried to become Takeo, the studious artist, introverted and clumsy, gazing in
confusion at the ground.

“He has been with you how long?”

“About a year,” Shigeru replied.

“There is a certain family
resemblance,” Iida said. “Ando, would you not agree?”

He was addressing one of the
retainers who knelt sideways to us. The man raised his head and looked at me.
Our eyes met, and I knew him at once. I recognized the long, wolfish face with
its high, pale brow and deep-set eyes. His right side was hidden from me, but I
did not need to see it to know that his right arm was missing, lopped off by
Jato in Otori Shigeru's hand.

“A very strong resemblance,” the
man, Ando, said. “I thought that the first time I saw the young lord.” He
paused, and then added: “In Hagi.”

I bowed humbly to him. “Forgive me,
Lord Ando, I did not think we had had the pleasure of meeting.”

“No, we did not meet,” he agreed.
“I merely saw you with Lord Otori, and thought how much you resembled . . . the
family.”

“He is, after all, a relative,”
Shigeru said, sounding not in the least perturbed by these cat-and-mouse
exchanges. I was no longer in any doubt. Iida and Ando knew exactly who I was.
They knew it was Shigeru who had rescued me. I fully expected them to order our
arrest immediately, or to have the guards kill us where we sat, among the tea
utensils.

Shigeru moved very slightly, and I
knew he was prepared to leap to his feet, sword in hand, if it came to that.
But he would not throw away the months of preparation lightly. The tension
mounted in the room as the silence deepened.

Iida's lips curved in a smile. I
could sense the pleasure he took in the situation. He would not go for the kill
yet: He would toy with us a little longer. There was nowhere we could escape
to, deep in Tohan territory, constantly under watch, with only twenty men. I
had no doubt he planned to eliminate both of us, but he was going to savor the
delight of having his old enemy in his power.

He moved on to discuss the wedding.
Beneath the cursory politeness I could hear contempt and jealousy. “Lady
Shirakawa has been a ward of Lord Noguchi, my oldest and most trusted ally.”

He said nothing of Noguchi's defeat
by Arai. Had he not heard of it, or did he think we did not yet know?

“Lord Iida does me great honor,”
Shigeru replied.

“Well, it was time we made peace
with the Otori.” Iida paused for a while and then said, “She's a beautiful
girl. Her reputation has been unfortunate. I hope this does not alarm you.”

There was the slightest ripple from
the retainers—not quite laughter, just an easing of facial muscles into knowing
smiles.

“I believe her reputation is
unwarranted,” Shigeru replied evenly. “And while I am here as Lord Iida's
guest, I am in no way alarmed.”

Iida's smile had faded and he was
scowling. I guessed he was eaten up by jealousy. Politeness and his own self-esteem
should have prevented him from what he said next, but they did not. “There are
rumors about you,” he said bluntly.

Shigeru raised his eyebrows, saying
nothing.

“A long-standing attachment, a
secret marriage,” Iida began to bluster.

“Lord Iida astonishes me,” Shigeru
replied coolly. “I am not young. It is natural I should have known many women.”

Iida regained control of himself
and grunted a reply, but his eyes burned with malevolence. We were dismissed
with perfunctory courtesy, Iida saying no more than “I look forward to our
meeting in three days' time, at the marriage ceremony.”

When we rejoined the men, they were
tense and bad-tempered, having had to put up with the taunts and threats of the
Tohan. Neither Shigeru nor I said anything as we rode down the stepped street
and through the first gate. I was absorbed in memorizing as much as I could of
the castle layout, and my heart was smoldering with hatred and rage against
Iida. I would kill him, for revenge for the past, for his insolent treatment of
Lord Otori—and because if I did not kill him that night, he would kill us both.

The sun was a watery orb in the
west as we rode back to the lodging house, where Kenji awaited us. There was a
slight smell of burning in the room. He had destroyed the messages from Lady
Maruyama while we were away. He studied our faces.

“Takeo was recognized?” he said.

Shigeru was taking off the formal
robes. “I need a bath,” he said, and smiled as if releasing himself a little
from the iron self-control he had been exerting. “Can we speak freely, Takeo?”

From the kitchens came the sounds
of the servants preparing the evening meal. Steps crossed the walkway from time
to time, but the garden was empty. I could hear the guards at the main gate. I
heard a girl approach them with bowls of rice and soup.

“If we whisper,” I replied.

“We must speak quickly. Come close,
Kenji. Yes, he was recognized. Iida is full of suspicions and fears. He will
strike at any moment.”

Kenji said, “I'll take him away at
once. I can hide him within the city.”

“No!” I said. “Tonight I go to the
castle.”

“It will be our only chance,”
Shigeru whispered. “We must strike first.”

Kenji looked at each of us. He
sighed deeply. “Then I will come with you.”

“You've been a good friend to me,”
Shigeru said quietly. “You do not have to risk your life.”

“It's not for you, Shigeru. It's to
keep an eye on Takeo,” Kenji replied. To me he said, “You'd better look at the
walls and the moat again, before curfew. I'll walk down with you. Bring your
drawing materials. There will be an interesting play of light on the water.”

I gathered my things together and
we left. But at the door, just before he stepped outside, Kenji surprised me by
turning again to Shigeru and bowing deeply. “Lord Otori,” he said. I thought he
was being ironic; only later did I realize it was a farewell.

I made no farewells beyond the
usual bow, which Shigeru acknowledged. The evening light from the garden was
behind him and I could not see his face.

———«»———«»———«»———

The cloud cover had thickened. It
was damp but not raining, a little cooler now the sun had set, but still heavy
and muggy. The streets were filled with people taking advantage of the hour
between sunset and curfew. They kept bumping into me, making me anxious and
uneasy. I saw spies and assassins everywhere. The meeting with Iida had
unnerved me, turning me once again into Tomasu, into the terrified boy who had
fled from the ruins of Mino. Did I really think I could climb into Inuyama
Castle and assassinate the powerful lord I had just seen, who knew I was one of
the Hidden, the only one from my village to escape him before? I might pretend
to be Lord Otori Takeo, or Kikuta—one of the Tribe—but the truth was, I was
neither. I was one of the Hidden, one of the hunted.