The Harsh Cry of the Heron (12 page)

It was on this point
that the Secret One and Deus seemed to differ, for Don Joao told her that his
countrymen were both believers and great warriors - if she understood him
properly, for she knew that she often understood every word yet did not quite
grasp the meaning. Was it both or neither, always or never, already or not yet?
He was always armed, with a long thin blade, its helm curved and guarded,
inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, and he boasted that he had had cause to
use this sword many times. He was surprised that torture was forbidden in the
Three Countries, and told her how it was used in his country and on the natives
of the Southern Islands to punish, to extract information and to save souls.
This last she found hard to understand, though it interested her that the soul
should be female and she wondered if all souls were like wives to the male
Deus.

‘When the priest
comes you must be baptized,’ Don Joao told her, and when she understood the
concept she remembered what her mother used to say: born by water, and she told
him her water name.

‘Madalena!’ he
repeated, astonished, and made the sign of the cross in the air in front of
him. He was fiercely interested in the Hidden, and wanted to meet more of them;
she caught this interest and they began to meet with believers in the shared
meal of the Hidden. Don Joao asked many questions and Madaren translated them,
and the answers. She met people who had known of her village and heard of the
massacre so long ago in Mino; they thought her escape a miracle, and declared
she had been spared by the Secret One for some special purpose. Madaren took up
the lost faith of her childhood with fervour, and began to wait for her mission
to be revealed to her.

And then Tomasu was
sent to her, and she knew it had something to do with him.

The foreigners
understood very little of manners and politeness, and Don Joao expected Madaren
to accompany him everywhere he went, especially as he came to depend on her for
translating. With the single-minded determination with which she had escaped
from Inuyama and learned the foreign tongue, she studied the unfamiliar
surroundings, always kneeling humbly a little behind the foreigners and their
interlocutors, speaking quietly and clearly, and embellishing her translation
if it did not seem courteous enough. She often found herself in merchants’
houses, aware of the disdainful and suspicious glances from their wives and
daughters, and sometimes even in higher places, recently even to Lord Arai’s
mansion. It amazed her to see herself, one day in the same room as Lord Arai
Zenko, and the next in some inn like the Umedaya. She had been right in her
instincts: she had learned the foreigners’ language and it had given her access
to some of their power and freedom. And some of that power she used over them:
they needed her and began to rely on her.

She had seen Dr Ishida
several times, and had acted as interpreter in long discussions; Ishida
sometimes brought texts and read them for Madaren to translate, for she could
not read or write; Don Joao read to her also from the holy book and she
recognized fragments of phrases from childhood prayers and blessings.

That night Don Joao
had spotted Ishida and called to him, hoping to talk with him, but Ishida had
pleaded the demands of a patient. Madaren had guessed he meant his companion
and had looked at the other man, noting the crippled hand and the furrows
between the eyes. She had not recognized him immediately, but her heart had
seemed to stop and then it started hammering, as though her skin had known his
and had known at once they had been made by the same mother.

She had hardly been
able to sleep, had found the foreigner’s body next to hers unbearably hot, and
had crept away before daybreak to walk by the river beneath the willows. The
moon had traversed the sky and now hung in the west, swollen and watery. The
tide was low and crabs scuttled on the mudflats, their shadows like clutching
hands. Madaren did not want to tell Don Joao where she was going: she did not
want to have to think in his language or have to worry about him. She went
through the dark streets to the house where she used to work, woke the maid,
washed and dressed there; then sat quietly drinking tea until the morning was
fully light.

As she walked towards
Daifukuji she was seized by misgivings: it had not been Tomasu; she had been
mistaken, had dreamed the whole thing; he would not come; he had obviously
risen in the world, he was a merchant now - albeit not apparently a very
successful one - who would want nothing to do with her. He had not come to her
help: he had been alive all this time and had not sought her out. She walked
slowly, oblivious to the bustle of the river around her as the tide swept in,
bringing the beached boats back to life.

Daifukuji faced the
sea: its red gates could be seen from far across the waves, welcoming sailors
and traders home and reminding them to give thanks to Ebisu, the sea god, for
protecting them on their voyages. Madaren looked at its carvings and statues
with dislike, for she had come to believe like Don Joao that such things were
hateful to the Secret God and equal to devil worship. She wondered why her
brother should have chosen such a place to meet, feared that he was no longer a
believer, slid her hand inside her robe to touch the cross Don Joao had given
her, and realized that this must be her mission: to save Tomasu.

She hovered just
inside the gate, waiting for him, partly uneasy at the sound of chanting and
bells from within, partly, despite herself, charmed and lulled by the beauty of
the garden. Irises fringed the pools, and the first summer azaleas were bursting
into vermilion flower. The sun grew hotter and the shade of the garden drew her
in. She walked towards the back of the main hall. On her right stood several
ancient cedars, each girdled with gleaming straw ropes, and just beyond them
was a white- walled enclosure around a garden of much smaller trees, cherries
she thought, though the blossom was long fallen, replaced by green foliage. A
small crowd of men, mainly monks with shaved heads and subdued coloured robes,
stood outside the wall, staring upwards. Madaren followed their gaze and saw
what they were looking at: another strange carving, she thought at first, a
depiction of some avatar or demon - and then it blinked its long-lashed eyes,
flapped its patterned ears, and ran its dark grey tongue over its soft fawn
nose. It turned its horned head and looked benignly down at its admirers. It
was a living creature: yet what creature ever had a neck so long that it could
look over a wall higher than the tallest man?

It was the kirin.

As she gazed at the
extraordinary animal, her tiredness and the confusion of her thoughts suddenly
made her feel as if she were in a dream. There was a bustle of activity from
the main gate of the temple, and she heard a man’s voice call excitedly, ‘Lord
Otori is here!’ She felt the shock of the dream as she sank to her knees and
looked at the ruler of the Three Countries as he came into the garden,
surrounded by a retinue of warriors. He was dressed in formal summer robes of
cream and gold, with a small black hat on his head, but she saw the damaged
hand in the silk glove, and recognized the face, and realized it was Tomasu,
her brother.

Takeo was aware of
his sister kneeling humbly in the shade at the side of the garden, but he took
no notice of her. If she stayed, he would speak to her in private: if she left
and disappeared again from his life, whatever his personal feelings of sadness
and regret he would not look for her. It would be better, probably, simpler, if
she were to disappear. It would be easy enough to arrange it: he considered the
idea briefly but put it from him. He would deal with her justly, as he would
Zenko and Kono: by negotiation, according to the law he himself had
established.

As if in confirmation
of Heaven’s approval, the gate to the walled garden opened and the kirin
appeared. Ishida held it by a red silken cord attached to a collar beaded with
pearls. Ishida’s head came barely to its withers, but it followed him in a
manner that was both confident and dignified. Its coat was a pale chestnut
colour, broken into cream-outlined patterns the size and shape of a man’s palm.

It smelled water and
stretched its long neck towards the pool. Ishida allowed it to approach, and it
spread its legs sideways so it could bend to drink.

The small crowd of
monks and warriors laughed in delight, for it looked as if the marvellous
animal had bowed to Lord Otori.

Takeo was no less
delighted with it. When he approached it, it allowed him to stroke its soft and
amazingly patterned coat. It seemed quite unafraid, though it preferred to stay
close to Ishida.

‘Is it male or
female?’ he enquired.

‘Female, I believe,’
Ishida replied. ‘It does not have any external male parts, and it is more
gentle and trusting than I would expect a male animal of this size to be. But
it is still very young. Maybe it will show some changes as it grows older, and
then we will be sure.’

‘Wherever did you
find it?’

‘In the south of
Tenjiku. But it came from another island, further west still; sailors talk
about a huge continent where animals like this graze in vast herds, along with
elephants of both land and river, huge golden lions and rose-pink birds. The
men are twice our size and as black as lacquer in colour, and can bend iron in
their bare hands.’

‘And how did you
acquire it? Surely such a creature is beyond price?’

‘It was offered to
me, as a sort of payment,’ Ishida replied. ‘I was able to perform some small
service for the local prince. I thought immediately of Lady Shigeko and how
much she would like it, so I accepted it and made arrangements for it to
accompany us home.’

Takeo smiled,
thinking of his daughter’s skill with horses and love for all animals.

‘Was it not hard to
keep it alive? What does it eat?’

‘Luckily the voyage
home was calm, and the kirin is placid and easy to please. It eats leaves from
the trees in its own land, apparently, but it is happy to accept grass, fresh
or dried, and other palatable green stuff.’

‘Would it be able to
walk to Hagi?’

‘Perhaps we should
transport it around the coast by ship. It can walk for miles without getting
tired, but I do not think it can go over mountains.’

When they had
finished admiring the kirin, Ishida took it back to the enclosure, and then
went with Takeo to the temple, where a short ceremony was performed and prayers
made for the health of the kirin and of Lord Otori. Takeo lit incense and
candles and knelt before the statue of the god; he carried out all the
necessary religious practices expected of him with reverence and respect; all
sects and beliefs were permitted in the Three Countries as long as they did not
threaten the social order, and while Takeo himself did not believe in any one
god, he recognized the need of humans for a spiritual ground to their
existence, and indeed shared that need himself.

After the ceremonies,
in which the Enlightened One, the great teacher, and Ebisu, the sea god, were
both honoured and thanked, tea was brought with sweets of bean paste, and
Takeo, Ishida and the abbot of the temple spent a merry time exchanging stories
and composing poems full of puns about the kirin.

A little before
midday Takeo rose to his feet, said he would sit alone in the garden for a
while, and walked along the side of the main hall to the smaller one behind it.
The woman still knelt patiently in the same spot. He made a slight movement
with his hand as he went past, indicating that she should follow.

The building faced
east: its southern side was bathed in sunlight, but on the veranda, in the deep
shade of the curved roof, the air was still cool. Two young monks were engaged
in cleaning the statues and sweeping the floor; they retreated without a word.
Takeo sat on the edge of the veranda: the wood was weathered silver-grey and
still warm from the sun. He heard Madaren’s hesitant tread on the pebbles of
the path, heard her rapid, shallow breathing. In the garden, sparrows were
chirping and doves murmured in the cedars. She dropped to her knees again,
hiding her face.

‘There is no need to
be afraid,’ he said.

‘It is not fear,’ she
replied after a moment. ‘I. . . don’t understand. Perhaps I have made a stupid
mistake. But Lord Otori is speaking alone with me, which would never happen
unless what I believe is true.’

‘We recognized each
other last night,’ Takeo said. ‘I am indeed your brother. But it is many years
since anyone has called me Tomasu.’

She looked directly
at him; he did not meet her gaze, but turned his eyes away towards the deep
shade of the grove of trees, and the distant wall where the kirin’s head swayed
above the tiles like a child’s toy.

He realized his
calmness seemed like indifference to her, and he was aware of a kind of rage
smouldering within her. Her voice when she spoke was almost accusing.

‘For sixteen years I
have heard ballads and stories made up about you. You seemed like some remote
and legendary hero: how can you be Tomasu from Mino? What happened to you while
I was sold from one pleasure house to another?’

‘I was rescued by
Lord Otori Shigeru: he adopted me as his heir and desired me to marry Shirakawa
Kaede, the heir to Maruyama.’