The Harsh Cry of the Heron (56 page)

/ must not condemn
him before I speak to him.

Bunta touched her
tentatively on the arm. ‘Is there anything I can do? Can I get you wine, or
tea?’

She recoiled from
him, reading something more than sympathy in the gesture, suddenly hating all
men for their lust and their murderous violence. ‘I would like to be alone. We
will leave at first light. Say nothing to Miki. I will decide when to tell her.’

‘I’m really very
sorry,’ he said. ‘Everyone liked Taku. It’s a terrible loss.’

When his footsteps
died away she sank down on the veranda, pulling the cloak around her, still
holding the knife in her hand, its familiar weight her only comfort, her means
of escape from the world of pain.

She heard the
lightest of footfalls on the boards. Miki crawled up against her and into her
arms.

‘I thought you were
asleep.’ Shizuka held the girl close and stroked her hair.

‘His footsteps woke
me, and then I couldn’t help listening.’ Her thin body was trembling. ‘Maya’s
not dead. I would know if she was.’

‘Where is she? Can
you find her?’ Shizuka thought if she concentrated on Maya, on the living, she
would not break down. And Miki, with her acute sensitivity, seemed to be aware
of this. She said nothing about Taku, but helped Shizuka to her feet.

‘Come and lie down,’
she said, as if she were the adult and Shizuka the child. ‘Even if you don’t
sleep, you will be resting. I want to sleep, because Maya talks to me in
dreams. Sooner or later she will tell me where she is, and then I’ll go and find
her.’

‘We should return to
Hagi. I should take you to your mother.’

‘No, we must go to
Hofu,’ Miki whispered. ‘Maya is still in Hofu. If one day you find I’m gone,
don’t worry about me. I’ll be with Maya.’

They lay down and
Miki curled into Shizuka’s side, her hand on her breast. She seemed to fall
asleep, but Shizuka lay awake, thinking about her son’s life. All women, among
the Tribe and in the warrior class, had to accustom themselves to the
likelihood of the early violent death of their male children. Boys were brought
up to have no fear of death, and girls were trained not to show weakness or
grief. To fear for someone else’s life was to attempt to bind them to you in
some way, and she had seen how a mother’s overprotective love turned boys into
cowards or drove them into recklessness. Taku was dead, she grieved for him,
but she was sure his death meant he had not betrayed Takeo: he had been killed
for his loyalty. His death had not been random or meaningless.

In this way she was
able to comfort and strengthen herself over the next few days as they rode
towards Hofu. She was determined she would go not as a distraught and grieving
mother but as head of the Muto family; she would show no weakness but she would
find out how her son had died and bring his murderers to justice.

The weather became
hot and sultry: even the sea breezes did not cool the port city. The spring
rains had been sparse, and people spoke apprehensively of an unusually hot
summer, possibly even drought, for there had been no drought in sixteen years
or more. The spring rains and the plum rains had arrived at the right time and
fallen heavily for so many years, many young people had never experienced the
hardships endured when the rains failed. There was an air of unrest in the
city, not only due to the oppressive weather. Various ominous signs were
reported daily; faces speaking of doom were seen in lanterns outside Daifukuji
temple; a flock of birds had traced characters of ill luck in the sky. As soon
as they arrived, Shizuka was aware of the real grief and anger of the
townspeople at Taku’s death. She did not go to the Arai mansion, but stayed in
an inn not far from the Umedaya, overlooking the river. On the first night the
innkeeper told her that Taku and Sada were buried at Daifukuji. She sent Bunta
to inform Zenko of her arrival, and rose early the next morning, leaving Miki
asleep, limbs twitching and lips moving in some vivid dream, to walk along the
riverbank to where the vermilion temple stood among the sacred trees, facing
out to sea to welcome sailors home to the Middle Country. The sound of chanting
came from within, and she heard the sonorous and holy words of the sutra for
the dead.

Two monks were
scattering water on the boardwalks before sweeping them. One of them recognized
Shizuka, and said to the other, ‘Take Lady Muto to the graveyard. I will inform
the abbot.’

She saw their
sympathy and was grateful for it.

Under the huge trees
there was a hint of coolness. The monk led her to the newly dug graves; no
stones yet covered them; lamps burned beside them and someone had laid an
offering of flowers - purple irises - before them. She forced herself to
picture her son’s ashes in the casket beneath the ground, his strong agile body
stilled, his quick sardonic mind silenced. His spirit must be wandering
restlessly between the worlds, demanding justice.

The second monk
returned with incense, and shortly afterwards, as Shizuka knelt in silent
prayer, the abbot himself came and knelt beside her. They remained in silence
for some time; then the man began to chant the same sutra for the dead.

Tears formed in her
eyes and traced their way down her cheeks. The ancient words rose into the
canopy of the trees, mingling with the morning song of sparrows and the gentle
cooing of doves.

Later, the abbot took
her to his room and served her tea. T have taken it upon myself to arrange for
the stone to be carved. I thought it was what Lord Otori would have desired.’

She stared at him.
She had known him for some years, but had always seen him in a merry mood, as
able to joke with the sailors in their rough dialect as to compose elegantly
humorous verses with Takeo, Kaede and Dr Ishida. Now his face was drawn, his
expression grave.

‘Surely his brother,
Lord Zenko, has dealt with all this?’

‘I’m afraid Lord
Zenko has become somewhat influenced by the foreigners: no formal announcement
has been made, but everyone’s talking about it. He has taken on their religion
and now professes it as the one true faith. This renders him unable to enter
our temples and shrines, and unable to perform the necessary ceremonies for his
brother.’

Shizuka stared at the
priest, hardly able to believe what she heard.

‘It’s caused a great
deal of unrest,’ he went on. ‘There have been signs and omens that the gods are
offended. People fear they will be punished for their lord’s actions. The
foreigners insist on the contrary that their great god, Deus, will reward Zenko
and anyone else who joins him.

‘Which includes most
of his personal retainers,’ he added, ‘who have been ordered to convert or die.’

‘What absolute
madness,’ Shizuka said, resolving to speak to Zenko as soon as possible. She
did not wait to be summoned to his presence, but on her return to the inn
dressed with care and ordered a palanquin.

‘Wait here for me,’ she
told Miki. ‘If I don’t return by evening, go to Daifukuji, and they will look
after you.’ The girl hugged her with unusual intensity.

Zenko came out to the
veranda steps as soon as the palanquin was set down inside the gates,
lightening her heart for a moment and making her think she had misjudged him.
His first words were of sympathy, followed by expressions of pleasure at seeing
her, surprise that she had not come directly to him.

Her eyes fell on the
prayer beads he wore round his neck, the symbol of the foreigners’ religion,
the cross, hanging from his chest.

‘This terrible news
is such a shock to us all,’ he said, as he led her into his private room,
overlooking the garden.

A little child, his
youngest son, was playing on the veranda, watched by his nurse.

‘Come and say hello
to your grandmother,’ Zenko called, and the boy obediently came into the room
and knelt before her. It was the first time she had seen him: he was about two
years old.

‘My wife, as you
know, has gone to Hagi to be with her sister. She was reluctant to leave little
Hiromasa, but I thought it best to keep at least one of my sons with me.’

‘You recognize then
that you are gambling with the lives of your other children?’ she said quietly.

‘Mother, Hana will be
with them within two weeks. I don’t think they are in any danger. Anyway, I
have done nothing wrong. My hands are clean.’ He held them up to her and then
took the child’s hands. ‘Cleaner than Hiro-masa’s,’ he teased him.

‘He has Kikuta palms!’
Shizuka exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Why did you not tell me?’

‘Interesting, isn’t
it? Tribe blood is never completely eradicated.’ He smiled broadly at her, and
gestured to the maid to take the child away.

‘He reminds me of
Taku,’ he said, wiping his eye with his sleeve. ‘It is some shred of comfort to
me that my poor brother lives on in my son.’

‘Perhaps you will
tell me who killed him,’ Shizuka said.

‘Bandits, obviously.
What other explanation can there be? I will pursue them and bring them to
justice. Of course, with Takeo out of the country, desperate men grow bold and
come out of hiding.’

It was obvious that
he did not care if she believed him or not.

‘What if I order you
to tell me the truth?’

His eyes flickered
away from her, and he hid his face in his sleeve again, but she had the feeling
he was not weeping but smiling, in surprise and glee at his own audacity.

‘Let us not speak
about ordering, Mother. I will observe all my filial duty towards you, but in
all other terms I believe it is now appropriate for you to obey me, both as Muto
and Arai.’

‘I serve the Otori,’
she replied. ‘So did Kenji, and so have you sworn to.’

‘Yes, you serve the
Otori,’ he said, his anger showing. ‘That has been the problem for years.
Wherever we look in the history of the Otori’s rise, we see your hand - in
Takeo’s persecution of the Tribe, in my father’s murder, even in Lord Fujiwara’s
death - what led you to betray the secrets of the Tribe to Shigeru?’

‘I will tell you! I
wanted a better world for you and Taku. I thought you should live in Shigeru’s world,
not the one of warlords and assassins that I saw around me. Takeo and Kaede
created that world. We will not let you destroy it.’

‘Takeo is already
finished. Do you think the Emperor will favour him? If he does return, we will
kill him, and I will be confirmed as ruler of the Three Countries. It is my
right, and I am ready for it.’

‘Are you prepared to
fight Takeo, and Kahei, Sugita, Sonoda - most of the warriors of the Three
Countries?’

‘It will not be a
battle but a rout. With Saga in the East, and the additional support we have
from the foreigners -’ he tapped the cross on his chest - ‘their weapons, their
ships, Takeo will be easily defeated. He is not really much of a warrior: all
his famous battles were won more by luck than skill.’

He lowered his voice.
‘Mother, I can protect you to a certain extent, but if you persist in defying
me I shall not be able to hold the Kikuta family back. They demand your
punishment, for your years of disobedience to the Tribe.’

T will take my own
life first,’ she exclaimed.

‘That may be the best
thing,’ he replied, looking directly at her. ‘What if I order you to, now?’

T carried you under
my heart for nine months.’ She recalled suddenly the day she had gone to Kenji
to seek the Tribe’s permission to have this child. He had been her gift to her
lover: how proud his father had been. Now both father and son had sought her
death. Anger and sorrow filled her: weeping for a year would not assuage them.
She could sense her reason tipping into madness. I wish I could kill myself,
she thought, deeply tempted by the annihilation of death; only the fate of the
twin girls prevented her. She wanted to ask after Maya, but was afraid to
reveal something that Zenko might not have known. Better to keep silent, to do
what she had done all her life, dissemble, while acting as she deemed best. She
made a huge effort to put her emotion away and assumed the gentle demeanour she
had used so often before.

‘Zenko, you are my
eldest son, and I want to be a good and dutiful mother to you. I will think
about all you have said. Give me a day or two. Let me make the arrangements for
your brother’s memorial. I cannot come to a decision while my mind is clouded
by grief.’

For a moment she
thought he would refuse her: she assessed the distance to the garden and over
the wall, but in the silence she thought she heard men breathing - there were
guards hidden behind the screens, in the garden. 7s he really afraid I came to
kill him? With Taku hardly buried? Her chances of escape were small. She would
go invisible: if the guards came after her she would disarm one, take his sword
. . .

Some vestige of
respect worked on him. ‘Very well,’ he conceded. ‘I will have my guards escort
you. Do not attempt to escape them, and on no account leave Hofu. When your
mourning period is over, you either join me or kill yourself.’

‘Will you come and
offer prayers for your brother?’