Across the Nightingale Floor (6 page)

She weighed all these things
carefully, knowing that even the smallest of them added to her holding in the
currency of power.

All day the other girls avoided
her, talking together in huddled groups, falling silent when she passed them.
Two had red eyes; perhaps the dead man had been a favorite or a lover. No one
showed her any sympathy. Their resentment made her hate them more. Most of them
had homes in the town or nearby villages: They had parents and families they
could turn to. They were not hostages. And he, the dead guard, had grabbed her,
had tried to force her. Anyone who loved such a man was an idiot.

A servant girl she had never seen
before came to fetch her, addressing her as Lady Shirakawa and bowing
respectfully to her. Kaede followed her down the steep cobbled steps that led
from the castle to the residence, through the bailey, under the huge gate,
where the guards turned their faces away from her in anger, and into the
gardens that surrounded Lord Noguchi's house.

She had often seen the gardens from
the castle, but this was the first time she had walked in them since she was
seven years old. They went to the back of the large house, and Kaede was shown
into a small room.

“Please wait here for a few
minutes, lady.”

After the girl had gone, Kaede
knelt on the floor. The room was of good proportions, even though it was not
large, and the doors stood open onto a tiny garden. The rain had stopped and
the sun was shining fitfully, turning the dripping garden into a mass of
shimmering light. She gazed at the stone lantern, the little twisted pine, the
cistern of clear water. Crickets were singing in the branches; a frog croaked
briefly. The peace and the silence melted something in her heart, and she
suddenly felt near tears.

She fought them back, fixing her
mind on how much she hated the Noguchi. She slipped her arms inside her sleeves
and felt the bruises. She hated them all the more for living in this beautiful
place, while she, of the Shirakawa family, had been housed with servants.

The internal door behind her slid
open, and a woman's voice said, “Lord Noguchi wishes to speak with you, lady.”

“Then you must help me get ready,”
she said. She could not bear to go into his presence looking as she did, her
hair undressed, her clothes old and dirty.

The woman stepped into the room,
and Kaede turned to look at her. She was old, and although her face was smooth
and her hair still black, her hands were wrinkled and gnarled like a monkey's
paws. She studied Kaede with a look of surprise on her face. Then, without
speaking, she unpacked the bundle, taking out a slightly cleaner robe, a comb,
and hairpins.

“Where are my lady's other
clothes?”

“I came here when I was seven,”
Kaede said angrily. “Don't you think I might have grown since then? My mother
sent better things for me, but I was not allowed to keep them!”

The woman clicked her tongue. “It's
lucky that my lady's beauty is such that she has no need of adornment.”

“What are you talking about?” Kaede
said, for she had no idea what she looked like.

“I'll dress your hair now. And find
you clean footwear. I am Junko. Lady Noguchi has sent me to wait on you. I'll speak
to her later about clothes.”

Junko left the room and came back
with two girls carrying a bowl of water, clean socks, and a small carved box.
Junko washed Kaede's face, hands and feet, and combed out her long black hair.
The maids murmured as if in amazement.

“What is it? What do they mean?”
Kaede said nervously.

Junko opened the box and took out a
round mirror. Its back was beautifully carved with flowers and birds. She held
it so Kaede could see her reflection. It was the first time she had looked in a
mirror. Her own face silenced her.

The women's attentions and
admiration restored her confidence a little, but it began to seep away again as
she followed Junko into the main part of the residence. She had only seen Lord
Noguchi from a distance since her father's last visit. She had never liked him,
and now she realized she was afraid of the meeting.

———«»———«»———«»———

Junko fell to her knees, slid open
the door to the audience room, and prostrated herself. Kaede stepped into the
room and did the same. The matting was cool beneath her forehead and smelled of
summer grass.

Lord Noguchi was speaking to
someone in the room and took no notice of her whatsoever. He seemed to be
discussing his rice allowances: how late the farmers were in handing them over.
It was nearly the next harvest, and he was still owed part of the last crop.
Every now and then the person he was addressing would humbly put in a placatory
comment—the adverse weather, last year's earthquake, the imminent typhoon
season, the devotion of the farmers, the loyalty of the retainers—at which the
lord would grunt, fall silent for a full minute or more, and then start
complaining all over again.

Finally he fell silent for one last
time. The secretary coughed once or twice. Lord Noguchi barked a command, and
the secretary backed on his knees towards the door.

He passed close to Kaede, but she
did not dare raise her head.

“And call Arai,” Lord Noguchi said,
as if it were an afterthought.

Now he will speak to me , Kaede
thought, but he said nothing, and she remained where she was, motionless.

The minutes passed. She heard a man
enter the room and saw Arai prostrate himself next to her. Lord Noguchi did not
acknowledge him either. He clapped his hands, and several men came quickly into
the room. Kaede felt them step by her, one after another. Glancing at them
sideways, she could see they were senior retainers. Some wore the Noguchi crest
on their robes, and some the triple oak leaf of the Tohan. She felt they would
have happily stepped on her, as if she were a cockroach, and she vowed to
herself that she would never let the Tohan or the Noguchi crush her.

The warriors settled themselves
heavily on the matting.

“Lady Shirakawa,” Lord Noguchi said
at last. “Please sit up.”

As she did so, she felt the eyes of
every man in the room on her. An intensity that she did not understand came
into the atmosphere.

“Cousin,” the lord said, a note of
surprise in his voice, “I hope you are well.”

“Thanks to your care, I am,” she
replied using the polite phrase, although the words burned her tongue like
poison. She felt her terrible vulnerability here, the only woman, hardly more
than a child, among men of power and brutality. She snatched a quick glance at
the lord from below her lashes. His face looked petulant to her, lacking either
strength or intelligence, showing the spitefulness she already knew he
possessed.

“There was an unfortunate incident
this morning,” Lord Noguchi said. The hush in the room deepened. “Arai has told
me what happened. I want to hear your version.”

Kaede touched her head to the
ground, her movements slow, her thoughts racing. She had Arai in her power at
that moment. And Lord Noguchi had not called him captain, as he should have
done. He had given him no title, shown him no courtesy. Did he already have
suspicions about his loyalty? Did he already know the true version of events?
Had one of the guards already betrayed Arai? If she defended him, was she just
falling into a trap set for them both?

Arai was the only person in the
castle who had treated her well. She was not going to betray him now. She sat
up and spoke with downcast eyes but in a steady voice. “I went to the upper
guard room to give a message to Lord Arai. I followed him down the stairs: He
was wanted in the stables. The guard on the gate detained me with some pretext.
When I went to him he seized me.” She let the sleeves fall back from her arm.
The bruises had already begun to show, the purple-red imprint of a man's
fingers on her pale skin. “I cried out. Lord Arai heard me, came back, and
rescued me.” She bowed again, conscious of her own grace. “I owe him and my
lord a debt for my protection.” She stayed, her head on the floor.

“Unnh,” Lord Noguchi grunted. There
was another long silence. Insects droned in the afternoon heat. Sweat glistened
on the brows of the men sitting motionless. Kaede could smell their rank animal
odor, and she felt sweat trickle between her breasts. She was intensely aware
of her real danger. If one of the guards had spoken of the knife left behind,
the girl who took it and walked down the stairs with it in her hand . . . she
willed the thoughts away, afraid the men who studied her so closely would be
able to read them clearly.

Eventually Lord Noguchi spoke,
casually, even amiably. “How was the horse, Captain Arai?”

Arai raised his head to speak. His
voice was perfectly calm. “Very young, but fine-looking. Of excellent stock and
easy to tame.”

There was a ripple of amusement.
Kaede felt they were laughing at her, and the blood rose in her cheeks.

“You have many talents, Captain,”
Noguchi said. “I am sorry to deprive myself of them, but I think your country
estate, your wife and son, may need your attention for a while, a year or two.
. . .”

“Lord Noguchi.” Arai bowed, his
face showing nothing.

What a fool Noguchi is , Kaede
thought. I'd make sure Arai stayed right here where I could keep an eye on him.
Send him away and he'll be in open revolt before a year has passed. Arai backed
out, not looking even once towards Kaede. Noguchi's probably planning to have
him murdered on the road, she thought gloomily. I'll never see him again.

With Arai's departure the
atmosphere lightened a little. Lord Noguchi coughed and cleared his throat. The
warriors shifted position, easing their legs and backs. Kaede could feel their
eyes still on her. The bruises on her arms, the man's death had aroused them.
They were no different from him.

The door behind her slid open, and
the servant who had brought her from the castle came in with bowls of tea. She
served each of the men and seemed to be about to leave when Lord Noguchi barked
at her. She bowed, flustered, and set a cup in front of Kaede.

Kaede sat up and drank, eyes
lowered, her mouth so dry she could barely swallow. Arai's punishment was
exile; what would hers be?

“Lady Shirakawa, you have been with
us for many years. You have been part of our household.”

“You have honored me, lord,” she
replied.

“But I think that pleasure is to be
ours no longer. I have lost two men on your account. I'm not sure I can afford
to keep you with me!” He chuckled, and the men in the room laughed in echo.

He's sending me home! The false
hope fluttered in her heart.

“You obviously are old enough to be
married. I think the sooner the better. We will arrange a suitable marriage for
you. I am writing to inform your parents who I have in mind. You will live with
my wife until the day of your marriage.”

She bowed again, but before she did
so, she caught the glance that flickered between Noguchi and one of the older
men in the room. It will be to him, she thought, or a man like him, old,
depraved, brutal. The idea of marriage to anyone appalled her. Even the thought
that she would be better treated living in the Noguchi household could not
raise her spirits.

Junko escorted her back to the room
and then led her to the bathhouse. It was early evening and Kaede was numb with
exhaustion. Junko washed her and scrubbed her back and limbs with rice bran.

“Tomorrow I will wash your hair,”
she promised. “It's too long and thick to wash tonight. It will never dry in
time, and then you will take a chill.”

“Maybe I will die from it,” Kaede
said. “It would be the best thing.”

“Never say that,” Junko scolded
her, helping her into the tub to soak in the hot water. “You have a great life
ahead of you. You are so beautiful! You will be married, have children.”

She brought her mouth close to
Kaede's ear and whispered, “The captain thanks you for keeping faith with him.
I am to look after you on his behalf.”

What can women do in this world of
men? Kaede thought. What protection do we have? Can anyone look after me?

She remembered her own face in the
mirror, and longed to look at it again.

The heron came to the garden every
afternoon, floating like a gray ghost over the wall, folding itself improbably,
and standing thigh deep in the pool, as still as a statue of Jizo. The red and
gold carp that Lord Otori took pleasure in feeding were too large for it, but
it held its position motionless for long minutes at a time, until some hapless
creature forgot it was there and dared to move in the water. Then the heron
struck, faster than eye could follow, and, with the little wriggling thing in
its beak, reassembled itself for flight. The first few wing beats were as loud
as the sudden clacking of a fan, but after that it departed as silently as it
had come.

The days were still very hot, with
the languorous heat of autumn, which you long to be over and cling on to at the
same time, knowing this fiercest heat, hardest to bear, will also be the year's
last.

I had been in Lord Otori's house
for a month. In Hagi the rice harvest was over, the straw drying in the fields
and on frames around the farmhouses. The red autumn lilies were fading.
Persimmons turned gold on the trees, while the leaves became brittle, and spiny
chestnut shells lay in the lanes and alleys, spilling out their glossy fruit.
The autumn full moon came and went. Chiyo put chestnuts, tangerines, and rice
cakes in the garden shrine, and I wondered if anyone was doing the same in my
village.

The servant girls gathered the last
of the wildflowers, bush clover, wild pinks, and autumn wort, standing them in
buckets outside the kitchen and the privy, their fragrance masking the smells
of food and waste, the cycles of human life.