The Harsh Cry of the Heron (35 page)

‘And then you will be
alone in your domain,’ he said to Shigeko before they retired.

‘Hiroshi will be here
to advise me, at least until next year,’ she replied. ‘But what happened to you
last night, Father? Who gave you that wound?’

‘I must have no
secrets from you,’ he said. ‘But I do not want to disturb your mother at this
time, so make sure she does not hear of it.’ He told her briefly about Maya,
about the possession and its results. She listened in silence, expressing
neither shock nor horror, and he felt curiously grateful to her.

‘Maya will be in Hofu
with Taku for the winter,’ he said.

‘Then we will keep in
touch with them. And we will watch Zenko carefully too. You must not worry too
much, Father. In the Way of the Houou we often encounter things like this
animal possession. Gemba knows much about them, and he has taught me.’

‘Should Maya go to
Terayama?’

‘She will go there
when the time is right.’ Shigeko was smiling gently as she continued. ‘All
spirits seek the higher power that can control them and give them peace.’

A shiver ran down his
spine. She seemed like a stranger, enigmatic and wise. He was suddenly reminded
of the blind woman who had spoken the prophecy, who had called him by his water
name and known him for who he was. I must go back there, he thought. I will
make a pilgrimage to the mountain, next year after my child is born, after my
journey to the capital.

He felt Shigeko had
the same spiritual power. His own spirit lightened as he embraced his daughter
and bade her goodnight.

‘I think you should
tell Mother,’ Shigeko said. ‘You should have no secrets from her. Tell her
about Maya. Tell her everything.’

Kumamoto, the castle
town of the Arai, lay to the far south-west of the Three Countries, surrounded
by mountains rich in iron ore and coal. These resources had led to the establishment
of a flourishing industry of all forms of ironware, pots and tea kettles and
above all sword-making, with many renowned swordsmiths and forges, as well as,
in recent years, the even more profitable business of making firearms.

‘At least,’ grumbled
the old man, Koji, ‘It would be profitable if the Otori permitted us to produce
enough to meet the demand. Blow up the heat, boy.’

Hisao pumped at the
handle of the huge bellows and the furnace glowed even more fiercely, with a
white heat that scorched his face and hands. He did not mind, for winter had
come since they had arrived at Kumamoto two weeks before; a biting wind blew
off the iron-grey sea, and every night was frosty.

‘What right do they
have to dictate to the Arai what we can and can’t make, what we’re allowed to
sell and what’s forbidden!’ Koji went on.

Hisao heard the same
discontent everywhere. His father told him, with some glee, that Arai’s
retainers fomented rumours constantly, stirring up old grievances against the Otori,
questioning why Kumamoto now obeyed Hagi when Arai Daiichi had won the whole of
the Three Countries in battle, unlike Otori Takeo, who had simply been lucky,
taking advantage of a convenient earthquake, and bringing about the shameful
death of Lord Arai by the same firearm that he now denied to the clan.

Akio and Hisao
learned on their arrival in Kumamoto that Zenko was not there - he had been
summoned to Maruyama by Lord Otori.

‘Treats him like a
servant,’ the innkeeper said on their first night, at the evening meal. ‘Expects
him to drop everything and come running. Isn’t it enough that Otori holds his
sons as hostages?’

‘He likes to
humiliate both his allies and his enemies,’ Akio said. ‘It gratifies his own
vanity. But he has no real strength. He will fall, and the Otori with him.’

‘There will be
celebrations in Kumamoto on that day,’ the other man replied, taking up the
dishes and returning to the kitchen.

‘We will wait until
Arai Zenko returns,’ Akio said to Kazuo.

‘Then we will need
some funds,’ Kazuo said. ‘Especially with winter at hand. Jizaemon’s money is
almost gone.’

Hisao already knew
that there were few Kikuta families this far West, and those that remained had
lost much of their power and influence during the years of the Otori rule.
However, a few days later a sharp-featured young man came to call on Akio one
evening, greeting him with both deference and delight, addressing him as Master
and using the secret language and signs of the Kuroda family. His name was
Yasu; he was from Hofu and had fled to Kumamoto after some unpleasantness there
involving the smuggling of firearms.

‘I became a dead man!’
he joked. ‘Lord Arai was to have me executed on Otori’s orders; but luckily he
valued me too much, and made a substitution.’

‘Are there many like
you who serve Arai?’

‘Yes, many. The
Kuroda have always gone with the Muto, as you know, but we’ve many links with
the Kikuta too. Look at the great Shintaro! Half Kuroda, half Kikuta.’

‘Murdered by the
Otori, like Kotaro,’ Akio observed quietly.

‘There are many
deaths still unavenged,’ Yasu agreed. ‘It was different while Kenji was alive,
but since his death, when Shizuka became the head of the family - everything’s
changed. No one’s happy. Firstly because it’s not right to be led by a woman,
and secondly because Otori arranged it. Zenko should be the head, he’s the
eldest male heir, and if he doesn’t want to take it on, being a great lord,
then it should be Taku.’

‘Taku is hand in
glove with Otori, and was involved in Kotaro’s death,’ Kazuo said.

‘Well, he was only a
child, and can be forgiven - but it’s wrong for the Muto and Kikuta to be so
estranged. That’s Otori’s doing too.’

‘We are here to mend
bridges and heal wounds,’ Akio told him.

‘That’s exactly what
I hoped. Lord Zenko will be delighted, I can tell you.’

Yasu paid off the
innkeeper and took them to his own lodgings, at the back of the shop where he
sold knives and other kitchen utensils, cooking pots, kettles, hooks and chains
for hearths. He loved knives, from the great cleavers cooks used in the castle
to tiny blades of exquisite sharpness for taking the living flesh from fish.
When he discovered. Hisao’s interest in all kinds of tools, he took him to the
forges he bought from; one of the smiths, Koji, needed an assistant, and Hisao
found himself apprenticed to him. He liked it, not only for the work itself -
he was skilful at it, and it fascinated him - but also because it gave him more
freedom and took him away from Akio’s oppressive company. Since leaving home,
he saw his father with new eyes. He was growing up. He was no longer a child to
be dominated and bullied. In the new year he would turn seventeen.

In some complex
scheme of debts and obligations, his work for Koji paid for their food and
lodging, though Yasu often professed he would take nothing from the Kikuta
Master, that the honour of being allowed to be of assistance was sufficient.
Yet Hisao thought he was a calculating man who gave away nothing: if Yasu
helped them now, it was because he saw some profit in it in the future. And
Hisao also saw how old Akio had become, and how antiquated his thinking was, as
if it had been frozen in time during the years of isolation in Kitamura.

He realized how Akio
was flattered by Yasu’s attention, that his father craved respect and status in
a way that seemed almost old-fashioned in the bustling, modern city, which had
flourished in the long years of peace. The Arai clan were full of confidence
and pride. Their lands now stretched right across the West. They controlled the
coast and the shipping lanes. Kumamoto was full of traders -and even a handful
of foreigners, not only from Shin and Silla, but also, it was said, from the
Isles of the West, the barbarians with their acorn eyes and thick beards, and
their utterly desirable goods.

Their presence in
Kumamoto was hinted at, whispered of, for the whole city knew of Otori’s
unreasonable prohibition on anyone dealing with the barbarians directly: all
trade had to go through the Otori clan’s central government, administered from
Hofu - the only port where foreign ships were allowed officially to land. This
was widely believed to be because the Middle Country wished to keep the profits
to itself, as well as the inventions, so practical and useful, and the
armaments, so effective, so deadly. The Arai smouldered beneath the unfairness.

Hisao had never seen
a barbarian, though the artefacts he had been shown by Jizaemon had sparked his
interest in them. Yasu often called by the forge at the end of the day to give
new orders, collect a fresh supply of knives, deliver wood for the furnaces;
one day he was accompanied by a tall man in a long cloak with a deep hood that
hid his face. They came at the end of the day; dusk was falling and the leaden
sky threatened snow. It was around the middle of the eleventh month. The blaze
of the fire was the only colour in a world turned black and grey by winter.
Once off the street, the stranger let his hood fall back and Hisao realized
with surprise and curiosity that he was a barbarian.

The barbarian could
hardly talk to them - he knew only a few words, but both he and Koji were the
sort of men who spoke with their hands, who understood machinery better than
language, and as Hisao followed them round the forge he realized he was like
that too. He grasped the barbarian’s meaning as quickly as Koji did. The
stranger was absorbed by all their methods, studied everything with his quick
light eyes, sketched their fireplaces, bellows, cauldrons, moulds and pipes;
later, when they drank hot wine, he brought out a book, folded in a strange
way, printed, not written, and showed pictures, which were clearly of forging.
Koji pored over them, his brow furrowed, his fingers scratching behind his
ears. Hisao, kneeling to one side, peering in the dim light, could feel his own
excitement increasing as the pages turned. His head was spinning with all the
possibilities revealed before his eyes. The details of forging techniques gave
way to careful illustration of the products. On the final pages were several
firearms: most were the long cumbersome muskets he was already familiar with,
but one, at the bottom of the page, slipped in among them like a foal between
its mother’s legs, was small, barely a quarter of their length. He could not
prevent his forefinger from reaching out and touching it.

The barbarian
chuckled. ‘Pistola!’ He mimed hiding it inside his clothes, then brought it out
and aimed it at Hisao.

‘Pa! Pa!’ He laughed.
lMorto>:

Hisao had never seen
a more beautiful thing, and instantly desired it.

The man rubbed his
fingers together, and they all understood him. Such weapons were expensive. But
they could be made, Hisao thought, and he determined to learn how to make one.

Yasu sent Hisao away
while he discussed financial matters. The boy tidied up the forge, damped down
the fire and prepared all the materials for the following day. He made tea for
the men, and filled their wine bowls and then went home, his mind full of ideas
- but either the ideas themselves, the unaccustomed wine, or the bitter wind
after the heat of the forge had set his head aching, and by the time he got to
Yasu’s house he could see only half the building, only half the display of
knives and axes.

He stumbled over the
step, and as he recovered his balance he saw the woman, his mother, in the
misty void where half the world should have been.

Her face was
pleading, full of tenderness and horror. He felt sick as the strength of her
appeal hit him. The pain became unbearable. He could not help groaning, and
then he realized he was going to vomit, fell to his hands and knees, crawled to
the threshold and heaved into the gutter.

The wine was sour in
his mouth; his eyes watered painfully, the sleety wind freezing the tears on
his cheeks.

The woman had
followed him outside and hung above the ground, her outline blurred by the haze
and the sleet.

Akio, his father,
called from inside. ‘Who’s there? Hisao? Close the door, it’s freezing.’

His mother spoke, her
voice inside his mind as piercing as ice. ‘You must not kill your father.’

He had not known that
he wanted to. He was frightened, then, that she knew all his thoughts, his
hatred as well as his love.

The woman said, ‘I
will not let you.’

Her voice was
intolerable, jangling all the nerves in his body, setting them on fire. He
tried to scream at her. ‘Go away! Leave me alone!’

Through his own
moaning, he was aware of footsteps approaching, and heard Yasu’s voice.

‘What on earth!’ the
man exclaimed, and then called to Akio, ‘Master! Come quickly! Your son . . .’

They carried him
inside and washed the vomit from his face and hair.

‘The fool drank too
much wine,’ Akio said. ‘He should not drink. He has no head for it. Let him
sleep it off.’

‘He hardly had any
wine,’ Yasu said. ‘He can’t be drunk. Maybe he is sick?’

‘He gets headaches
now and then. He’s had them since he was a child. It’s nothing. They go away in
a day or two.’

‘Poor lad, growing up
without a mother!’ Yasu said, half to himself, as he helped Hisao lie down and
covered him with the quilt. ‘He’s shivering, he’s freezing. I’ll brew something
for him to help him sleep.’