Brilliance of the Moon (2 page)

The horses were rearing and cavorting, not only from the exertion
of the gallop, but also from alarm. Two of them were already bleeding from
wounds to their hindquarters. A mob of angry men poured from the narrow path,
armed with staves and sickles. I recognized some of them: they were farmers
from the nearest village. The warrior at the rear made a rush at them, sword
flailing, and they fell back slightly but did not disperse, maintaining their
threatening stance in a tight half circle.

The leader of the horsemen flung a look of contempt at them and
then called toward the gate in a loud voice.

“I am Fuwa Dosan of the Otori clan from Hagi. I bring a message
from my lords Shoichi and Masahiro for the upstart who calls himself Otori
Takeo.”

Makoto called back, “If you are peaceful messengers, dismount and
leave your swords. The gates will be opened.”

I already knew what their message would be. I could feel blind
fury building up behind my eyes.

“There’s no need for that,” Fuwa replied scornfully. “Our message
is short. Tell the so-called Takeo that the Otori do not recognize his claims
and that this is how they will deal with him and any who follow him.”

The man alongside him dropped the reins on his horse’s neck and
opened the container. From it he took what I dreaded to see. Holding it by its
topknot, he swung his arm and threw Ichiro’s head over the wall into the temple
grounds.

It fell with a slight thud onto the petaled grass of the garden.

I drew my sword, Jato, from my belt.

“Open the gate!” I shouted. “I am going out to them.”

I leaped down the steps, Makoto behind me.

As the gates opened, the Otori warriors turned their horses and
drove them at the wall of men around them, swords sweeping. I imagine they
thought the farmers would not dare attack them. Even I was astonished at what
happened next. Instead of parting to let them through, the men on foot hurled
themselves at the horses. Two of the farmers died immediately, cut in half by
the warriors’ swords, but then the first horse came down, and its rider fell
into the pack around him. The others met a similar fate. They had no chance to
use their swordsmanship: They were dragged from their horses and beaten to
death like dogs.

Makoto and I tried to restrain the farmers and eventually managed
to drive them back from the bodies. We restored calm only by severing the
warriors’ heads and having them displayed on the temple gates. The unruly army
threw insults at them for a while and then retired down the hill, promising in
loud voices that if any other strangers dared approach the temple and insult
Lord Otori Takeo, the Angel of Yamagata, they would be dealt with in the same
way.

Makoto was shaking with rage—and some other emotion that he
wanted to talk to me about—but I did not have the time then. I went back inside
the walls. Kaede had brought white cloths and water in a wooden bowl. She was
kneeling on the ground beneath the cherry trees, calmly washing the head. Its
skin was blue-gray, the eyes half-closed, the neck not severed cleanly but
hacked with several blows. Yet, she handled it gently, with loving care, as if
it were a precious and beautiful object.

I knelt beside her, put out my hand, and touched the hair. It was
streaked with gray, but the face in death looked younger than when I had last
seen it, when Ichiro was alive in the house in Hagi, grieving and haunted by
ghosts yet still willing to show me affection and guidance.

“Who is it?” Kaede said in a low voice.

“Ichiro. He was my teacher in Hagi. Shigeru’s too.”

My heart was too full to say more. I blinked away my tears. The
memory of our last meeting rose in my mind. I wished I had said more to him,
told him of my gratitude and my respect. I wondered how he had died, if his
death had been humiliating and agonizing. I longed for the dead eyes to open,
the bloodless lips to speak. How irretrievable the dead are, how completely
they go from us! Even when their spirits return, they do not speak of their own
deaths.

I was born and raised among the Hidden, who believe that only
those who follow the commandments of the Secret God will meet again in the
afterlife. Everyone else will be consumed in the fires of hell. I did not know
if my adopted father Shigeru had been a believer, but he was familiar with all
the teachings of the Hidden and spoke their prayers at the moment of his death,
along with the name of the Enlightened One. Ichiro, his adviser and the steward
of his household, had never given any such sign—in fact, rather the opposite:
Ichiro had suspected from the start that Shigeru had rescued me from the
warlord Iida Sadamu’s persecution of the Hidden, and had watched me like a
cormorant for anything that might give me away.

But I no longer followed the teachings of my childhood, and I
could not believe that a man of Ichiro’s integrity and loyalty was in hell. Far
stronger was my outrage at the injustice of this murder and my realization that
I now had another death to avenge.

“They paid for it with their lives,” Kaede said. “Why kill an old
man and go to all that trouble to bring his head to you?” She washed away the
last traces of blood and wrapped a clean white cloth around the head.

“I imagine the Otori lords want to draw me out,” I replied. “They
would prefer not to attack Terayama; they will run into Arai’s soldiers if they
do. They must hope to entice me over the border and meet me there,” I longed
for such a meeting, to punish them once and for all. The warriors’ deaths had
temporarily assuaged my fury, but I could feel it simmering in my heart.
However, I had to be patient; my strategy was first to withdraw to Maruyama and
build up my forces there. I would not be dissuaded from that.

I touched my brow to the grass, bidding my teacher good-bye.
Manami came from the guest rooms and knelt a little way behind us.

“I’ve brought the box, lady,” she whispered.

“Give it to me,” Kaede replied. It was a small container woven
from willow twigs and strips of red-dyed leather. She took it and opened it.
The smell of aloes rose from it. She put the white wrapped bundle inside and
arranged the aloes round it. Then she placed the box on the ground in front of
her, and the three of us bowed again before it.

A bush warbler called its spring song and a cuckoo responded from
deep in the forest, the first I had heard that year.

We held the funeral rites the following day and buried the head
next to Shigeru’s grave. I made arrangements for another stone to be erected
for Ichiro. I longed to know what had happened to the old woman, Chiyo, and the
rest of the household at Hagi. I was tormented by the thought that the house no
longer existed, that it would have been burned: the tea room, the upper room
where we had so often sat looking out onto the garden, the nightingale floor,
all destroyed, their song silenced forever. I wanted to rush to Hagi to claim
my inheritance before it was taken from me. But I knew this was exactly what
the Otori hoped I would do Five farmers died outright and two died later from
their wounds. We buried them in the temple graveyard. Two of the horses were
badly hurt, and Amano had them killed mercifully, but the other two were
unharmed; one I liked in particular, a handsome black stallion that reminded me
of Shigeru’s horse, Kyu, and could have been its half brother. At Makoto’s
insistence we buried the Otori warriors with full rites, too, praying that
their ghosts, outraged at their ignoble deaths, would not linger to haunt us.

That evening the abbot came to the guest room and we talked until
late into the night. Makoto and Miyoshi Kahei, one of my allies and friends
from Hagi, were also with us; Kahei’s younger brother Gemba had been sent to
Maruyama to tell the domain’s senior retainer, Sugita Haruki, of our imminent
departure. Sugita had assured Kaede the previous winter of his support for her
claim. Kaede did not stay with us—for various reasons, she and Makoto were not
at ease in each other’s presence and she avoided him as much as possible—
_r
but
I told her beforehand to sit behind the screen so she could hear what was said.
I wanted to know her opinion afterward. In the short time since our marriage I
had come to talk to her as I had never talked to anyone in my life. I had been
silent for so long, it seemed now I could not get enough of sharing my thoughts
with her. I relied on her judgment and her wisdom.

“So now you are at war,” the abbot said, “and your army has had
its first skirmish.”

“Hardly an army,” Makoto said. “A rabble of farmers! How are you
going to punish them?”

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“Farmers are not supposed to kill warriors,” he said. “Anyone
else in your situation would punish them with the utmost cruelty. They would be
crucified, boiled in oil, flayed alive.”

“They will be if the Otori get hold of them,” Kahei muttered.

“They were fighting on my behalf,” I said. Privately, I thought
the warriors had deserved their shameful end, though I was sorry I had not
killed them all myself. “I’m not going to punish them. I’m more concerned with
how to protect them.”

“You have let an ogre out,” Makoto said. “Let’s hope you can
contain it.”

The abbot smiled into his wine cup. Quite apart from his earlier
comments on justice, he had been teaching me strategy all winter and, having
heard my theories on the capture of Yamagata and other campaigns, knew how I
felt about my farmers.

“The Otori seek to draw me out,” I said to him, as I had said
earlier to Kaede.

“Yes, you must resist the temptation,” he replied. “Naturally
your first instinct is for revenge, but even if you defeated their army in a
confrontation, they would simply retreat to Hagi. A long siege would be a
disaster. The city is virtually impregnable, and sooner or later you would have
to deal with Arai’s forces at your rear.”

Arai Daiichi was the warlord from Kumamoto who had taken
advantage of the overthrow of the Tohan to seize control of the Three
Countries. I had enraged him by disappearing with the Tribe the previous year,
and now my marriage to Kaede would certainly enrage him further. He had a huge
army, and I did not want to be confronted by it before I had strengthened my
own.

“Then we must go first to Maruyama, as planned. But if I leave
the temple unprotected, you and the people of the district may be punished by
the Otori.”

“We can bring many people within the walls,” the abbot said. “I
think we have enough arms and supplies to hold the Otori off if they do attack.
Personally, I don’t think they will. Arai and his allies will not relinquish Yamagata without a long struggle, and many among the Otori would be reluctant to destroy
this place, which is sacred to the clan. Anyway they will be more concerned
with pursuing you.” He paused and then went on: “You can’t fight a war without
being prepared for sacrifice. Men will die in the battles you fight, and if you
lose, many of them, including you yourself, may be put to death very painfully.
The Otori do not recognize your adoption: They do not know your ancestry; as
far as they are concerned you are an upstart, not one of their class. You
cannot hold back from action because people will die as a result. Even your
farmers know that. Seven of them died today, but those who survived are not
sad. They are celebrating their victory over those who insulted you.”

“I know that,” I said, glancing at Makoto. His lips were pressed
together tightly, and though his face showed no other expression, I felt his
disapproval. I was aware yet again of my weaknesses as a commander. I was
afraid both Makoto and Kahei, brought up in the warrior tradition, would come
to despise me.

“We joined you by our own choice, Takeo,” the abbot went on,
“because of our loyalty to Shigeru and because we believe your cause is just.”

I bowed my head, accepting the rebuke and vowing he would never have
to speak to me in that vein again. “We will leave for Maruyama the day after
tomorrow.”

“Makoto will go with you,” the abbot said. “As you know, he has
made your cause his own.”

Makoto’s lips curved slightly as he nodded in agreement.

Later that night, around the second half of the Hour of the Rat,
when I was about to lie down beside Kaede, I heard voices outside, and a few
moments later Manami called quietly to us to say that a monk had come with a
message from the guardhouse.

“We have taken a prisoner,” he said when I went to speak to him.
“He was spotted skulking in the bushes beyond the gate. The guards pursued him
and would have killed him on the spot, but he called your name and said he was
your man.”

“I’ll come and talk to him,” I said, taking up Jato, suspecting
it could only be the outcast Jo-An. Jo-An had seen me at Yamagata when I had
released his brother and other members of the Hidden into death. It was he who
had given me the name of the Anael of Yamagata. Then he had saved my life on my
desperate journey to Terayama in the winter. I had told him I would send for
him in the spring and that he should wait until he heard from me, but he acted
in unpredictable ways, usually in response to what he claimed was the voice of
the Secret God.

It was a soft, warm night, the air already holding summer’s
humidity. In the cedars an owl was hooting. Jo-An lay on the ground just inside
the gate. He’d been trussed up roughly: His legs were bent under him, his hands
bound behind his back. His face was streaked with dirt and blood, his hair
matted. He was moving his lips very slightly, praying soundlessly. Two monks
were watching him from a careful distance, their faces twisted in contempt.