Cloud of Sparrows (43 page)

Emily turned away and stared intently at a distant rosebush. She hoped he had not seen the color that had risen into her face.

“Oh, rumors. You know how those are. Someone who knows nothing says something, and the nothing grows and grows.”

“Heiko doesn’t seem the type to gossip. She said Lord Shigeru told her he found you and Genji in a snow house you’d built. Did you really build a snow house?”

“It was just a shelter of branches upon which snow happened to fall.”

“She said Lord Genji told her you kept him and yourself warm with knowledge you learned from Eskimos.”

“I have never met an Eskimo in my life,” Emily said, as adamantly as she could.

“I didn’t think you had,” Stark said. “She must have misunderstood him. Or I misunderstood her. So how did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Stay alive. You were lost for almost two days in a raging snowstorm. You did something to keep from freezing, didn’t you?”

“The shelter shielded us from the wind,” Emily said. She could not lie. Nor, God help her, could she tell the whole truth. That would be more embarrassing than she could bear. “Though the walls around us were of snow, they were nonetheless walls. They separated us sufficiently from the elements such that it was noticeably warmer within than without.”

“That’s good to know,” Stark said, “if we’re ever in a similar situation.”

“I am sure we will not be,” Emily said. She reached out to a brilliant red blossom. “I wonder what variety this is?”

Genji said, “American Beauty.”

Emily turned and saw him standing a short distance away. His obvious amusement told her he had been there long enough to hear at least some of her excruciating conversation with Stark. Seeing the distress in her face, he immediately effected a more serious mien. He stepped up to the flower she had caressed, drew his short sword, and barely grazed the stem with its edge. The blossom separated from the bush and fell into his hand. Thorns dropped away as he touched them lightly with his weapon.

He bowed and offered the tamed rose to Emily.

“Thank you, my lord.”

“That’s a strange name for a Japanese flower,” Stark said.

“It is the name here only,” Genji said. “One of my ancestors had a—” He was about to say, vision. Remembering how much his use of the term had disturbed Emily, he said instead, “—dream. The following morning, he issued a proclamation declaring the most splendid roses blossoming within the castle would henceforth be known as American Beauty roses.”

Emily thought Genji’s explanation sounded suspiciously like another visionary claim. But her curiosity was aroused.

“Of what did he dream?”

“He never revealed its exact nature. That very day, he joined his army to that of the Takeda clan. He was with them when they attacked the palisades at Nagashino, perhaps the most famous cavalry charge in our nation’s history. He died in a firestorm loosed from the massed muzzles of enemy muskets, along with thousands of other mounted warriors. No one has made such a charge since.”

“His dream led him to that folly?”

“Yes. Before the attack, he told his vassals to have no fear. The arrival of American Beauty within the walls of Cloud of Sparrows signaled the ultimate triumph of our clan. His dream, he said, guaranteed it.”

Before she could stop herself, Emily said, “Why, that was quite mad.” She wished she could bite her tongue off. “I’m sorry, my lord, I misspoke.”

Genji laughed. “He tried to force reality to fit what he dreamed. Madmen often do. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon failing in my family. Neither is a tendency to fatally misinterpret dreams. His successor let the proclamation stand as a cautionary reminder.”

“That was wise of him,” Emily said, trying to make up for her clumsy gaffe with compensatory praise.

“And it would have been even wiser if he had remembered it himself,” Genji said. “His own dreams convinced him to side against the Tokugawas at Sekigahara. He was killed, our clan nearly destroyed, and here we are today, on the permanent list of the Shogun’s most untrustworthy adversaries.”

Emily felt both sympathy and disapproval. The clash between them put an unfamiliar scowl on her face. She said, “These are surely signs that such dreams should be seen for what they are. Dreams only. It is written in the Holy Bible, ‘Prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.’ ”

“Perhaps. It doesn’t trouble me very much, one way or the other. I dream much less frequently than my predecessors.”

While his tongue, lips, lungs, and larynx formed these words, the world around him vanished, and Genji found himself elsewhere.

A gentle wind cools his somewhat feverish skin.

White blossoms fill the branches above and imbue the air with their sweetness.

Apple Valley is in bloom.

It must be spring.

The enveloping beauty tightens his chest and brings tears to his eyes. He is happy, and yet—

What conflicting emotions are these he feels? He isn’t sure. The future Genji may know. The visionary one does not. Just as it was in his first experience, he inhabits the person he is yet to be. The hands holding the reins, resting on the pommel, are not so different from the hands that gave the rose to Emily. If this day is distant from the present one, it is not so distant that he has entered old age.

Genji lets his horse go where it will. He has no destination. He waits. For what? Impatience drives him from his saddle. He paces back and forth. Looking up, he sees the branch upon which Emily sat when he gave her this valley. Heiko made her confession to him on the same day. He thinks of the two women and smiles.

The beautiful geisha who knows more than she should.

The naive outsider who knows only what she wants to know.

He thinks of them and is reminded once more of the cruel limitations of prophetic vision.

He senses the vibration in the ground before he hears the hooves of the galloping horse. When he looks toward the rise at the mouth of the valley, he sees a steep-roofed building with a bell tower. Atop the tower is a white Christian cross. Hidé rides past Emily’s church at top speed. Without waiting for him to arrive and deliver the message, Genji leaps back onto his horse and spurs it toward Cloud of Sparrows.

Servants are gathered in the courtyard. They bow as he arrives. He rushes into the castle. From the far end of the corridor, he hears the cries of a newborn infant coming to him from his own bedroom. His urgent steps quickly take him there.

A maid holds the baby for him to see. It is the mother he is concerned about, not the child. He gives it only a cursory glance. Before he can enter the inner room, Dr. Ozawa steps out and closes the door behind him.

“How is she?”

“The birth was a very difficult one,” Dr. Ozawa says. His face is grim.

“Is she out of danger?” Genji says.

Dr. Ozawa shakes his head. His bow is deep. “I am sorry, my lord.”

A single unalloyed emotion surges through him at the doctor’s words. Grief. He drops to his knees.

Dr. Ozawa kneels with him. “You are a father, Lord Genji.”

Genji is too broken by his sorrow to resist as the baby is placed in his arms. Something sparkles at its throat. Though tears obscure his vision, he recognizes it immediately. He has seen it twice before.

Once in another vision.

Once in a mound of snow.

A small silver locket marked with a cross upon which is emblazoned a single stylized flower, perhaps a lily.

Dr. Ozawa said sternly, “I warned you against overexertion, my lord.”

Genji rested on a bed in a room overlooking the rose garden. He didn’t remember coming here. He did remember falling unconscious.

“I was only talking.”

“Then you were talking too much. Please talk less.”

Genji sat up. “I’m fine.”

“People who are fine do not collapse without reason.”

“Vision,” Genji said.

“Ah.” Dr. Ozawa faced the door. “Hanako.”

The door slid open and Hanako looked in. “Yes, Doctor.” She smiled at Genji through her worried expression and bowed to him.

“Bring tea,” Dr. Ozawa said.

“Sake would be better,” Genji said.

“Tea,” Dr. Ozawa said again.

“Yes, Doctor,” Hanako said, and withdrew.

“Shall I tell you?”

“If you wish,” Dr. Ozawa said. He had been the clan doctor for nearly forty years. Kiyori and Shigeru were his patients before Genji. He knew all about the visions. “I doubt I can provide any useful insights. I never have so far.”

“There is always a first time.”

“Not necessarily. Sometimes, there is not even a first time.”

Genji described what he had seen in as much detail as he could. He waited for Dr. Ozawa to speak, but he only sat quietly and drank his tea.

“This one is like the first,” Genji said. “It confuses more than enlightens. Who is the child’s mother? It must be the Lady Shizuka of my first vision. The child wears the mother’s locket. But in the first, Lady Shizuka is alive, and I am dying, and in this one the reverse seems true. An irresolvable contradiction.”

“So it seems.”

“Do you believe I have seen what must be, or what could?”

“Everything your grandfather shared with me has come to pass.” Dr. Ozawa sipped his tea. “However, I know he did not share everything. Nothing your uncle has said has materialized. So far. Yours is yet another, entirely different situation. You have had two visions and will only have one more. And that will be the end of it for you. That is a more fortunate circumstance, I think, than either Kiyori’s or Shigeru’s. You have neither too much clarity nor too little. Rather, just enough to increase your alertness.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“How can I?” Dr. Ozawa said. “What do I know of the future? I am a mere physician, not a prophet.”

“Such philosophical neutrality is not helpful,” Genji said. “I need counsel.”

“I hesitate to offer what could only be opinion and not considered advice,” Dr. Ozawa said.

“I would welcome it nonetheless.”

“Then you should speak to a woman.”

“Yes,” Genji said, “but which one?”

“That should be obvious.”

“Oh? Please tell me.”

Dr. Ozawa bowed. “I meant it should be obvious to you, my lord. You are the one with the vision.”

Heiko listened without interrupting. When he was finished, she remained silent. Genji understood. It must not be easy for her to learn that he would father a child with another woman. But with whom could he share his experience? He trusted no one else as much.

“One thing alone is clear to me,” he said. “Before any of this can come to pass, Shizuka must meet Emily, because the locket she wears, the one she gives to our child, is the one that is presently Emily’s. Beyond that, I am at a complete loss.”

She said, “Did you not once tell me of an outsider master and his blade? I cannot recall his name.”

“Are you thinking of the story of Damocles and the suspended sword?”

“That is not it.” Heiko thought. “His name was not entirely unlike that of Zen Master Hakuin Zenji. Hakuo. Hokuo. Okuo. Okkao. Okkao’s Blade. Something like that.”

“Occam’s Razor?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“What of it?”

“When you say one thing is clear to you, you are not using Occam’s Razor.”

“Oh? You have mastered outsider thinking?”

“There is little to master here. As I recall, Occam’s Razor says, when faced with multiple possibilities, the one requiring the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. You have not chosen the simplest explanation.”

“I have limited myself to only that part of the vision that can be explained. How have I not applied Occam’s Razor?”

“You are assuming Shizuka, whom you have yet to meet, will be the mother. That the identifying locket somehow comes to her from Emily, and then goes to the child. There is a simpler explanation.”

“I fail to see it.”

Heiko said, “The child gets the locket directly from Emily.”

“Why would Emily give her locket to my child?”

“Because it is her child, too,” Heiko said.

Genji was shocked. “That is utterly preposterous. Also, insulting. And neither is it in conformity with the rule of simplicity. For her to be the mother of my child, we must first sleep together. I do not see a simple, direct path to that, do you?”

“Love tends to simplify the most complex and difficult of situations,” Heiko said.

“I am not in love with Emily, and she certainly is not in love with me.”

“Perhaps not yet, my lord.”

“Not ever,” Genji said.

“And how do you feel about her?”

“I have no feelings for her, not the kind of which you speak.”

“I have seen you laughing with her,” Heiko said, “and she smiles often in your company.”

“We nearly died together,” Genji said. “Because of that, we have a bond we did not have before, yes. A bond of friendship, not a bond of love.”