The Harsh Cry of the Heron (30 page)

‘I suppose she can do
all those tricks you used to tease me with,’ Hiroshi said, smiling.

‘Those tricks, as you
call them, have saved my life more than once!’ Taku retorted. ‘Besides, I
believe the Way of the Houou has a few tricks of its own!’

‘The Masters, like
Miyoshi Gemba, and Makoto himself, have many skills that seem supernatural, but
are the result of years of training and self-mastery.’

‘Well, it’s more or
less the same with the Tribe. Our skills may be inherited, but they’re nothing
without training. But your Masters have prevailed on Takeo not to go to war,
either in the East or the West?’

‘Yes, when he comes he
will inform Lord Kono that our emissaries are on their way to Miyako to prepare
for next year’s visit.’

‘Do you think this
visit is wise? Isn’t Takeo simply placing himself in the power of this new
general, the Dog Catcher?’

‘Anything that avoids
war is wise,’ Hiroshi replied.

‘Forgive me, but
these are strange words from the mouth of a warrior!’

‘Taku, we both saw
our fathers die in front of our eyes . . .’

‘My father, at least,
deserved to die! I will never forget that moment when I thought Takeo must kill
Zenko . . .’

‘Your father acted
correctly, according to his beliefs and his code,’ Hiroshi said calmly.

‘He betrayed Takeo
after swearing alliance with him!’ Taku exclaimed.

‘But if he had not,
sooner or later Takeo would have turned on him. It is the very nature of our
society. We fight until we tire of war, and after a few years we tire of peace
and so we fight again. We mask our bloodlust and our desire for revenge with a
code of honour, which we break when it seems expedient.’

‘Have you truly never
killed a man?’ Taku said abruptly.

‘I was taught many
ways to kill, and learned battle tactics and war strategy before I was ten
years old, but I have never fought in a real battle, and I have never killed
anyone. I hope I never will.’

‘Find yourself in the
midst of a fight and you’ll change your mind,’ Taku said. ‘You’ll defend
yourself like all men do.’

‘Maybe. In the
meantime I’ll do everything in my power to avoid war.’

‘I’m afraid that
between them my brother and the Emperor will bring you to it. Especially if
they now have firearms. You can be sure they will not rest until they have
tried out their new weapons for themselves.’

There were signs of
movement at the far end of the garden, and a guard ran forwards and knelt
before Hiroshi.

‘Lord Kono is coming,
Lord Sugita!’

In the nobleman’s
presence they both changed a little: Taku became more guarded, Hiroshi
apparently more open and genial. Kono wanted to see as much of the town and the
surrounding countryside as possible, and they made many excursions, the
nobleman carried in his elaborate gilded lacquer palanquin, the two young men
riding the horses, Raku’s sons, who were as much old friends as they were. The
autumn weather continued clear and brilliant, the leaves more deeply coloured
every day. Hiroshi and Taku took every opportunity to apprise Kono of the
wealth of the domain, its secure defences and number of soldiers, the
contentment of its people, and its absolute loyalty to Lord Otori. The nobleman
received all this information with his usual unperturbed courtesy, giving no
indication of his real feelings.

Sometimes Maya went
on these trips, riding on the back of Sada’s horse, occasionally finding
herself close enough to Kono and his advisers to catch what they murmured to
each other. The conversations seemed uninteresting and trivial, but she
memorized them and repeated them word for word to Taku when he came to the
house where she and Sada stayed, as he did every two or three days. They took
to sleeping in a small room at the end of the house, for sometimes he came late
at night, and no matter how late the hour he always wanted to see Maya, even if
she was already asleep. She was expected to wake immediately, in the way of the
Tribe, who control their need for sleep in the same way they control all their
needs and desires, and she had to summon up all her energy and concentration
for these night-time sessions with her teacher.

Taku was often tired
and tense, his patience short; the work was slow and demanding. Maya wanted to
cooperate, but she was afraid of what might happen to her. Often she longed to
be home in Hagi with her mother and sisters. She wanted to be a child; she
wanted to be like Shigeko, with no Tribe skills and no twin. Being a boy all
day exhausted her, but that was nothing compared with the new demands. She had
found her earlier Tribe training easy: invisibility, the use of the second self
came naturally to her, but this new path seemed far more difficult and more
dangerous. She refused to let Taku lead her down it, sometimes with a cold
sullenness, sometimes with fury. She came to regret bitterly the cat’s death
and its possession of her spirit; she begged Taku to remove it.

‘I cannot,’ he
replied. ‘All I can do is help you learn to control it and master it.’

‘You did what you
did,’ Sada said. ‘You have to live with it.’

Then Maya was ashamed
of her weakness. She had thought she would like being the cat, but it was
darker and more frightening than she had expected. It wanted to take her into
another world, where ghosts and spirits lived.

‘It will give you
power,’ Taku said. ‘The power is there: you must grasp it and exploit it!’

But though under his
gaze and with his guidance she became familiar with the spirit that lived
within her, she could not do what she knew he expected: take on its form and
use it.

The full moon of the
tenth month approached, and everywhere preparations began for the Autumn
Festival. The excitement was heightened this year by the fact that Lord Otori
himself and his eldest daughter, heir to Maruyama, Lady Shigeko, would be
present for the festival. Dancing began, the townspeople taking to the streets
in throngs every evening in bright clothes and new sandals, singing, waving
their hands above their heads. Maya had known that her father was popular,
beloved even, but she had not fully realized to what extent until she heard it
from the mouths of the people she now mingled with. The news also spread that
the domain of Maruyama was to be formally presented to Shigeko now that she was
of age. She would become Lady Maruyama.

It was like something
from a legend, a name Maya had heard all her life, from Chiyo, from Shizuka,
from the balladeers who sang and recited the tales of the Otori on street
corners and riverbanks.

‘It seems my mother
is to lead the Tribe, Lady Shigeko will one day rule the Three Countries; you
had better become a girl again before you are much older!’ Taku teased her.

‘I’m not interested
in the Three Countries, but I would like to lead the Tribe!’ Maya replied.

‘You will have to
wait until I am dead!’ Taku laughed.

‘Don’t say such
things!’ Sada warned him, touching him on the arm. He turned his head at once
and looked at her in the way that both thrilled Maya and filled her with
jealousy. The three of them were alone in the small room at the end of the
Tribe house. Maya had not expected Taku so soon - he had been there the
previous night.

‘You see, I cannot
stay away from you,’ he had said to Sada when she expressed her surprise, and
then it was she who could not hide her pleasure, who could not keep herself
from touching him.

The night was cold
and clear, the moon, four days from full, already swollen and yellow. Despite
the frosty air the shutters were still open; they sat close together near the
small charcoal brazier, the bed quilts wrapped around them. Taku was drinking
rice wine, but neither Sada nor Maya liked its taste. One small lamp barely
dinted the room’s darkness, but the garden was filled with moonlight and dense
shadows.

‘And then there is my
brother,’ Taku whispered to Sada, no longer joking, ‘who believes it is his
right to lead the Tribe, as Kenji’s eldest male relative.’

‘I am afraid there
are others, too, who feel it is wrong for Shizuka to be the Muto Master. A
woman has never acted in this way before; people do not like to break with
tradition. They mutter that it offends the gods. It is not that they want
Zenko: they would prefer you, certainly, but your mother’s appointment has
caused divisions.’

Maya listened
carefully, saying nothing, aware of the heat of the fire on one side of her
face, the chill air on the other. From the town came sounds of music and singing,
drums beating with an insistent rhythm, sudden guttural shouts.

‘I heard a rumour
today,’ Sada went on. ‘Kikuta Akio has been seen in Akashi. He left for Hofu
two weeks ago.’

‘We’d better send
someone to Hofu at once,’ Taku said. ‘And find out where he is going and what
his intentions are. Is he travelling alone?’

‘Imai Kazuo is with
him, and his son.’

‘Whose son?’ Taku sat
upright. ‘Not Akio’s?’

‘Apparently, a boy of
about sixteen years. Why are you so shocked?’

‘You don’t know who
this boy is?’

‘He is Muto Kenji’s
grandson, everyone knows that,’ Sada replied.

‘Nothing else?’

Sada shook her head.

‘I suppose it is a
Kikuta secret,’ Taku muttered. Then he seemed to recall Maya’s presence.

‘Send the girl to
bed,’ he said to Sada.

‘Maya, go and sleep
in the maids’ room,’ Sada ordered. A month ago Maya would have protested, but
she had learned to obey Sada and Taku in everything.

‘Goodnight,’ she
murmured, and rose to her feet.

‘Close the shutters
before you go,’ Taku said. ‘It’s getting chilly.’

Sada stood to help
her. Away from the fire Maya was cold, and once in the maids’ room even colder.
Everyone seemed to be already asleep; she found a space between two girls and
crawled between them. Here in the Tribe house everyone knew she was female: it
was only in the outside world that she had to keep up her disguise as a boy.
She was shivering; she wanted to hear what Taku said, she wanted to be with him
and Sada: she thought of fur, of the cat’s thick, soft coat covering her,
warming her through and through, and the shivering turned into something else,
a ripple of power that ran over her, as the cat flexed its muscles and came to
life.

She slipped from the
covers and padded silently from the room, aware of her huge pupils and acute
vision, remembering how the world looked, full of little movements that she’d
never noticed before, listening all the time in part-dread for the empty voices
of the dead. She was halfway down the passageway when she realized she was
moving above the ground, and cried out a little in fear.

Men and women turned
in their sleep, shuddering as they saw unbearable dreams.

I cannot open the
doors, she thought, but the cat spirit knew better, and leaped at the shutters,
flowing through them, floating across the veranda and entering the room where
Sada and Taku lay entwined. She thought she would show herself to them, that
Taku would be pleased with her and would praise her. She would lie down between
them and be warmed by them.

Sada spoke half
lazily, resuming the earlier conversation, words that shocked Maya more deeply
than anything in her life, but that resonated in the cat’s undead spirit.

‘The boy is truly
Takeo’s son?’

‘Yes, and according
to the prophecy will be the only person who can bring death to him.’

So Maya learned of
her brother’s existence, and of the threat to her father. She tried to keep
silent but could not prevent the yowl of horror and despair that forced itself
from her throat. She heard Taku call, ‘What’s there?’ and heard Sada’s cry of
astonishment, and then she leaped through the screen and out into the garden as
though she could run for ever, away from everything. But she could not run from
the spirits’ voices that rustled through her pricked ears and into her fragile,
liquid bones. Where is our master?

Otori Takeo and Arai
Zenko arrived in Maruyama \within hours of each other, the day before the full
moon. Takeo had come from Yamagata and brought most of the Otori court with
him, including Miyoshi Kahei and his brother Gemba, a train of horses carrying
the records of administration that needed to be dealt with while he was in the
West, a large number of retainers and his eldest daughter, Lady Shigeko. Zenko
was accompanied by an equally large group of retainers, horses bearing baskets
packed with lavish gifts and sumptuous clothes, Lady Arai’s hawks and lapdog,
and Lady Arai herself, in an exquisitely carved and decorated palanquin.

The arrival of these
great lords, their retinues blocking the streets and filling the lodging
houses, delighted the townspeople, who for the last month had been laying in
extra supplies of rice, fish, beans, wine and the delicacies of the region, and
now hoped to make a great profit. The summer had been benign, the harvest
particularly fruitful; Maruyama was to be given to a female heir: there was
much to celebrate. Everywhere banners, floating in the gentle breeze, displayed
the round hill of the Maruyama together with the Otori heron, and cooks vied
with each other to create inventive meals of round shapes to honour the full
moon.