The Harsh Cry of the Heron (55 page)

When they gathered in
the kitchen to prepare the evening meal, she asked Kana, ‘Has Miki been unwell?’
for spring was often the time of sudden fevers and stomach troubles.

‘You should not be in
here with us!’ Kana scolded her. ‘You are the honoured guest: you should be
sitting with the men.’

‘I’ll join them soon
enough. Tell me about Miki.’

Kana turned to look
at the girl, who was sitting by the hearth, stirring the soup in an iron pot
which hung over the fire on a fish-shaped iron hook.

‘She’s grown very
thin,’ Kana agreed. ‘But she hasn’t complained of anything, have you, child?’

‘She never does,’
Miyabi added, laughing. ‘She’s as tough as a man. Come here, Miki, let Shizuka
feel your arms.’

Miki came and knelt
close to Shizuka without speaking. Shizuka closed her hands round the girl’s
upper arm. She felt like steel, no flesh at all, just muscle and bone.

‘Is everything all
right?’

Miki gave the
slightest shake of her head.

‘Come take a walk
with me: you can tell me what’s troubling you.’

‘She will talk to you
when she will not talk to anyone else,’ Kana said in a low voice.

‘Shizuka,’ Miyabi
whispered even more quietly. ‘Be on your guard. The young men . . .’ She
glanced towards the main room of the house where the male voices could be heard,
muffled and indistinct, though Shizuka could pick out Bunta’s. ‘There is some
discontent,’ she said vaguely, obviously afraid of being overheard.

‘So I have been told.
It is the same in Yamagata, and Tsuwano. I am going on to Hofu, where I will
discuss the whole situation with my sons. I will leave within a day or two.’

Miki was still
kneeling close to her, and Shizuka heard the slight intake of breath and felt
the increased tension as the girl stiffened. She put her arm round Miki’s
shoulders, shocked by the sharpness and fragility of the bones beneath the
skin, like a bird’s wing.

‘Come, get your
sandals. We’ll walk down to the shrine and greet the gods.’

Kana gave Miki some
rice cakes as an offering for the gods. Shizuka threw the hooded cloak over her
shoulders; it had grown even colder. The moon shone dimly through the misty
air, a huge halo around it, casting shadows across the street and beneath the
trees that surrounded the shrine. Even though it was two days past the full
moon of the fourth month, it was still too cold, high in the mountains, for
frogs or cicadas to be heard. Only the owls called in their fractured mating
song.

The shrine was lit
with two lamps on either side of the altar. Miki placed the rice cakes in front
of the statue of Hachiman, and they both clapped their hands and bowed three
times. Shizuka had prayed here long ago for Takeo and Kaede, and now she made
the same request, and she prayed for Kondo’s spirit and told him of her
gratitude.

‘Will the gods
protect Maya?’ Miki said, staring up at the carved features of the statues.

‘Did you ask them to?’

‘Yes, I always do.
And Father. But I don’t see how they can answer everyone’s prayers, when
everyone wants different things. I pray for Father’s safety, but many others
pray for his death.’

‘Is it this that has
made you so thin, worrying about your father?’

‘I wish I was with
him. And that Maya was too.’

‘Last time I saw you,
you were so content, and doing so well. What’s happened since then?’

‘I don’t sleep well.
I am afraid of the dreams.’

‘What dreams?’
Shizuka prompted her when she fell silent.

‘Dreams where I am
with Maya. She is the cat and I am its shadow. It takes everything from me and
I have to follow it. Then I try to stay awake and I hear the men talking: they
always talk about the same thing, about the Muto family, and whether the Master
should be a woman, and Zenko, and the Kikuta. I used to love being here. I felt
safe and everyone liked me. Now the men fall silent when I walk past, the other
children avoid me. What’s going on, Shizuka?’

‘Men always grumble
about something or other. They’ll get over it,’ Shizuka replied.

‘It’s more than that,’
Miki said with great intensity. ‘Something bad is happening. Maya is in some
terrible trouble. You know how we are together: we know what’s happening to
each other. We always have done. Now I can feel her calling for help, but I don’t
know where she is.’

‘She is in Hofu with
Taku and Sada,’ Shizuka said with a confidence that masked her own unease, for
it was true that the twins had always had an almost supernatural link with each
other, had seemed to know each other’s thoughts from afar.

‘Will you take me
with you when you go there?’

‘Maybe I should.’

Indeed, she thought,
J must. I cannot leave her here now, to be used against Takeo in any way. The
sooner I speak to Taku and Zenko, the better. We must settle the question of
leadership before this discontent gets out of hand.

‘We will leave the
day after tomorrow.’

Shizuka spent the
next day in consultation with the young men who now formed the core of the Muto
family. They treated her with deference and listened to her politely, for her
lineage, history and talents all commanded their respect, and in some cases,
their fear. She was relieved that despite her age and her slight physical stature
she could still exercise power and control over them. She repeated her
intention of discussing the leadership question with Zenko and Taku, and
emphasized that she would not relinquish her position as Master before Lord
Takeo returned from the East, that it had been Kenji’s wish and that she
expected full obedience from them all according to the traditions of the Muto.

No one dissented, and
no one argued when she told them Miki would be going with her, but on the road
two days later, after they had retrieved the horses and were on their way back
to Yamagata, Bunta said, ‘Of course, they know in the village now that you don’t
trust them. If you trusted them you’d have left Miki there.’

‘I trust no one at
the moment.’ They rode side by side, Miki ahead on the back of the boy’s horse.
Shizuka planned to borrow another horse for her from Lord Miyoshi’s stables in
Yamagata. It would make them both more flexible, safer.

She turned and looked
at Bunta directly, challenging him. ‘Am I wrong? Should I trust you?’

‘I’ll be honest with
you. It’s all a question of what the Tribe decides. I’m not going to cut your
throat while you sleep, if that’s what you mean. I’ve known you for a long time
- and anyway, I’ve never liked killing women.’

‘So you’ll inform me
before you betray me,’ she said.

His eyes crinkled
slightly. ‘I will.’

‘Send Bunta and his
son back,’ Miki said later, when they had arrived at Yamagata and were alone.
Rather than stay in the Muto house with Yoshio, Shizuka had gone to the castle,
where Kahei’s wife made them welcome, tried to persuade them to stay longer,
and when that failed offered to provide an escort as well as the extra horse.

‘It’s difficult to
judge,’ Shizuka said to Miki. ‘If I send them back, I no longer have any
contact with the Muto family on the road, and I’ll drive Bunta further away
from me; if I accept Lady Miyoshi’s offer we go openly - you as Lord Otori’s
daughter.’

Miki made a face at
this suggestion. Shizuka laughed. ‘Decisions are never as simple as you think.’

‘Why can’t we go
together, just the two of us?’

‘Two women,
travelling alone, with no servants or escort only attract attention - usually
of the undesirable kind!’

‘If only we had been
born boys!’ Miki said, and though she made an effort to speak lightly, Shizuka
glimpsed the sadness behind the words. She thought of Kaede’s adoration of her
baby son, the intense love that she had never shown to her twin daughters, saw
the loneliness of the girls, growing up in two worlds. If the Muto family
turned against their father they would reject the girls too, would do their
utmost to eliminate them along with Takeo.

‘Bunta and his son
will come with us to Hofu. When we get there, Taku will look after us; you will
be with Maya, and we will all be safe!’

Miki nodded and
forced a smile, but though she had spoken the words to comfort her Shizuka
found herself regretting them. They seemed to have fanned into flame some tiny
spark of unease. She felt she had tempted the gods, and that they would turn
and strike her.

There was a small
earthquake that night, making buildings shake and causing fires in some parts
of the city. The air was still filled with dust and smoke as they left with two
extra horses, one ridden by a groom from the Miyoshi household. They met Bunta
and his son as arranged, on the bank of the moat, just outside the castle
gates.

‘Do you have any word
from Taku?’ Shizuka asked Bunta, thinking her son might have made contact with
the Muto family.

‘Yoshio’s heard
nothing since the last new moon, and then only a report that he was still in
Hofu.’ Bunta grinned suggestively as he said this, and winked at his son, who
laughed.

Does everyone know of
his infatuation with Sada? Shizuka asked herself, feeling a wave of irritation
against her younger son.

However, on the first
night of their journey, after Shizuka and Miki had gone to bed, Bunta came to
the door, calling softly to her. He had been drinking with other travellers in
a tavern in the small post town. She could smell the wine on his breath.

‘Come outside. I’ve
just heard some bad news.’

He was not drunk, but
the wine had dulled his sensibilities and loosened his tongue.

She took her knife
from beneath the mattress and tucked it inside her night robe, pulling her
cloak around her. She followed him to the end of the veranda. There was no
moon; the town had fallen silent as travellers snatched a few hours’ sleep
before dawn saw them on the road again. It was too dark to make out any
expression on his face.

‘It may be just a
rumour, but I thought you’d want to hear it.’ He paused and said clumsily, ‘It’s
not good news: you should prepare yourself.’

‘What?’ she said,
more loudly than she intended.

‘Taku, your son, has
been attacked on the road: by bandits, apparently. He and his woman, Sada, were
both killed.’

‘It can’t be true,’
she said. ‘What bandits are there in the Middle Country?’

‘No one knows the
details. But people were talking about it in the tavern.’

‘Tribe people? Muto?’

‘Muto and Kuroda.’ He
added awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry.’

He knows it is true,
she thought, and knew it herself. When she had felt such sadness on the way to
Kagemura, when she had felt Kondo’s spirit near her, the dead had been calling
out to her, and now Taku was among them. This will kill me, was her next
thought, for the pain was already so intense she did not see how she could
survive it, how she could keep living in a world in which he did not exist. She
felt inside her robe for the knife, meaning to plunge it into her throat,
welcoming the physical pain that would put an end to her anguish. But something
prevented her.

She lowered her
voice, aware of Miki sleeping nearby. ‘Lord Otori’s daughter Maya was in Taku’s
care. Is she also dead?’

‘No one’s mentioned
her,’ Bunta said. ‘I don’t think anyone knew she was with them, apart from the
Muto family in Maruyama.’

‘Did you know?’

‘I heard that the
child they called the Kitten was with Taku. I worked out who it must be.’

Shizuka did not
reply. She was fighting for self-mastery. Into her mind came an image from the
past, of her uncle, Kenji, on the day he heard the news of his daughter’s death
at the hands of the Kikuta. Uncle, she called to his spirit. You know what I am
suffering and now I feel your pain. Give me the strength to carry on living, as
you did.

Maya. I must think of
Maya. I will not think of Taku, not yet. I must save Maya.

‘Will we go on to
Hofu?’ Bunta said.

‘Yes, I must find out
the truth.’ She thought of all the rituals that would need to be performed for
the dead, wondered where the bodies were buried, felt the anguish tighten its
bands of steel around her chest at the thought of the corpse that had been her
son, in the earth, in the dark. ‘Is Zenko in Hofu?’ she said, amazed that the
words emerged calm and intelligible.

‘Yes, his wife left
for Hagi by ship a week ago, but he is still there. He is overseeing the trade
arrangements with the foreigners. He has become very close to them, it is
reported.’

‘Zenko must know. If
it was bandits, he is responsible for capturing and punishing them, and
rescuing Maya if she is still alive.’

But even as she spoke
she knew her son had not been killed randomly by bandits. And no one from the
Tribe would touch Taku - no one but the Kikuta. Akio had spent the winter in
Kumamoto. Akio had been in touch with Zenko.

She could not believe
Zenko was involved in his brother’s murder. Were both her sons to be lost to
her?