The Harsh Cry of the Heron (65 page)

Hiroshi had been
moved into Kahei’s shelter, which offered the greatest comfort and the most
protection from the rain. Takeo found his daughter there, barely recognizable,
still in her fighting garb, her face still covered in mud, her foot roughly
bandaged.

‘How is he?’ he
asked, kneeling beside Hiroshi, noting the pale face and shallow breath.

‘He is still alive,’
Shigeko replied in a low voice. ‘I think he is a little better.’

‘We will transport
him to Inuyama tomorrow. Son-oda’s physicians will take care of him.’

He spoke with
confidence, though privately he did not think Hiroshi would last the journey.
Shigeko nodded without speaking.

‘Were you wounded?’
Takeo said.

‘An arrow struck me
in the foot. It’s not serious.

I didn’t realize till
afterwards. I could hardly walk back. Mai almost had to carry me.’

He did not understand
what she was saying.

‘Where did you and
Mai go? I thought you were with Gemba.’

Shigeko looked at him
and said quickly, ‘She took me to where Lord Saga was. I shot him in the eye.’
Tears suddenly filled her eyes. ‘He will never want to marry me now!’ The tears
turned to a kind of shocked laughter.

‘So we have you to
thank for his sudden retreat?’ Takeo was overwhelmed by a sense of the justice
of this outcome. Saga had not accepted his defeat in the peaceful contest, but
had sought conflict: now Shigeko had dealt him a serious, possibly fatal wound,
and had ensured their victory.

‘I tried not to kill
him, only to wound him,’ she said. ‘Just as I tried all the time, all through
the battle, to disable but not to kill.’

‘You have acquitted
yourself marvellously,’ he replied, masking his emotion with formal language. ‘You
are a true heir to the Otori and to the Maruyama.’

His praise brought
the tears again.

‘You are exhausted,’
he said.

‘No more than anyone
else; no more than you. You must sleep, Father.’

‘I will, as soon as I
have checked on Tenba. I want to ride on ahead to Inuyama. Kahei will bring the
men. You and Gemba must escort Hiroshi and the other wounded. I hope Tenba is
fit: if not I will leave him with you.’

‘And the kirin,’
Shigeko said.

‘Yes, and the poor
kirin. It did not know what a journey it was coming on, or what impact it would
have in this strange land.’

‘You cannot ride
alone, Father. Take someone with you. Take Gemba. And you can ride Ashige; I do
not need a horse.’

The clouds were
breaking up slightly, and there was a faint glow in the west as the sun set,
the hint of a rainbow in the opposite sky. He hoped it would mean a drier day
tomorrow, though now the rains had begun they were likely to continue for
weeks.

Tenba stood next to
the kirin, back to the drizzle, head lowered. He gave a small whicker of
greeting as Takeo approached. The wound on his chest had already closed over,
and seemed clean, but when Takeo led him out he was lame on the right side,
though his feet seemed unharmed. Takeo concluded the shoulder muscles were inflamed,
took the horse to the pool and spent some time applying cold water, but Tenba
still favoured the right foreleg, and could probably not be ridden. Takeo then
recalled Hiroshi’s horse, Keri. He could not find it among the living horses.
The black-maned, pale grey horse, Raku’s son, must have been killed in the
battle, just a few weeks after its half-brother, Taku’s horse Ryume. The horses
had reached seventeen years, a fine age, yet their death saddened him. Taku was
gone, Hiroshi near death. His mood was sombre as he returned to the shelter. It
was dim inside, the light pallid. Shigeko had fallen asleep next to Hiroshi,
her face close to his. Like a married couple.

Takeo looked at them
with deep affection. ‘Now you may marry as you desire,’ he said aloud.

He knelt beside
Hiroshi and placed his hand on his brow. The young man felt cooler; his
breathing had slowed and deepened. Takeo had thought he was unconscious, but
Hiroshi suddenly opened his eyes and smiled.

‘Lord Takeo . . .’ he
whispered.

‘Don’t try to talk.
You are going to be all right.’

‘The battle?’

‘It’s over. Saga is
in retreat.’

Hiroshi closed his
eyes again, but the smile did not leave his lips.

Takeo lay down, his
spirits a little lightened. Despite the pain, sleep fell on him at once, like a
dark, obliterating cloud.

He left for Inuyama
the following morning, with Gemba, as Shigeko had suggested, and Minoru, who
rode on his own placid mare. Both the mare and Gemba’s black were as fresh as
Ashige, and their passage was swift. By the third day a mild wound fever had
hit Takeo, and the hours passed in slow agony as his body fought its effects;
he was plagued by dreams and hallucinations; he alternately burned and
shivered, but refused to abandon the journey. At each stopping place they
spread the word of the battle and its outcome, and soon a stream of people
began to make their way up into the High Cloud Range to take food to the
warriors and help bring the wounded home.

The rain had fallen
heavily throughout the Three Countries, making the rice grow and swell, but it
had come late and the harvest would suffer because of it. The roads were muddy
and frequently flooded. Often Takeo forgot where he was, and thought he was
back in the past, riding Aoi alongside Makoto towards a flooded river and a broken
bridge.

Kaede must be cold,
he thought. She has not been well. I must get to her and warm her.

But he was shivering
himself, and suddenly Yuki was beside him. ‘You look cold,’ she said. ‘Shall I
bring tea?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But
I must not lie with you, because I am married.’

Then he remembered
Yuki was dead and would never lie with him or anyone else again, and felt
piercing regret for her fate and the part he had played in it.

By the time they
reached Inuyama the fever had abated and he was lucid again, but his anxieties
remained. They were not even dispelled by the heartfelt welcome he received
from the townspeople, who celebrated his return and the news of victory with
dancing in the streets. Kaede’s sister, Ai, came out to greet him in the castle
bailey, where he was helped down from the horse by Min-oru and Gemba.

‘Your husband is
safe,’ he told her at once, and saw her face lighten with relief.

‘Heaven be thanked,’
she replied. ‘But you are wounded?’

T believe I am over
the worst of it. Do you have news from my wife? I have heard nothing since we
left in the fourth month.’

‘Lord Takeo  ... ‘
she began, and his heart fell in dread. It had begun to rain again, and
servants ran forward with umbrellas, gleaming in the grey air.

‘Dr Ishida is here,’
she went on. ‘I will send for him at once. He will take care of you.’

‘Ishida is here? Why?’

‘He will tell you
everything,’ Ai said, her gentleness terrifying him. ‘Come inside. Will you
bathe first? And we will prepare food for you all.’

‘Yes, I will bathe,’
he replied, wanting both to delay the news and to face it prepared and
strengthened. The recent fever and pain had left him light-headed: his hear- ing
seemed more than usually acute, each sound ringing painfully distinct in his
ears.

He and Gemba went to
the hot spring pools and stripped off their filthy robes. Gemba carefully took
away the bandage from Takeo’s shoulder and arm and washed the wound with
scalding water, turning him even more faint.

‘It’s healing well,’
Gemba said, but Takeo made no reply beyond nodding in assent; nor did they
speak as they washed and rinsed themselves and entered the bubbling, sulphurous
water. The rain fell gently on their faces and shoulders, surrounding them as
if they had been transported to another world.

‘I cannot stay here
for ever,’ Takeo said finally. ‘Will you come with me to hear what has brought
Ishida to Inuyama?’

‘Of course,’ Gemba
said. ‘To know the worst is to know how to go forward.’

Ai brought soup and
grilled fish, rice and summer vegetables, and served them herself. They ate
quickly: she told the maids to remove the trays and bring tea. When they
returned, Dr Ishida was with them.

Ai poured the tea
into the dark-blue glazed bowls. ‘I will leave you now.’ As she knelt to slide
open the door, Takeo saw her put her sleeve to her eyes to wipe away tears.

‘Not another wound?’
Ishida said, after they had exchanged greetings. ‘Let me look at it.’

‘Later,’ Takeo said. ‘It
is healing now.’

He took a sip of tea,
barely tasting it. ‘You have not come all this way with good news, I imagine.’

‘I thought you should
know as soon as possible,’ Ishida replied. ‘Forgive me, I feel it is all my
fault. You left your wife and son in my care. These things happen; infants have
a precarious grip on life. They slip away from us.’ He stopped and stared
helplessly at Takeo, his mouth working in grief, tears on his cheeks.

Takeo’s blood was
pounding in his ears. ‘Are you telling me my son is dead?’ The rush of grief
took him by surprise, and tears immediately burst from his eyes. The tiny
creature, whom he had hardly known, he was now never to know.

I cannot bear this
new blow, he thought, and then, If I cannot bear it, how can Kaede?

‘I must go to my wife
at once,’ he said. ‘How has she taken it? Was it some illness? Is she sick as well?’

‘It was one of those
inexplicable childhood deaths,’ Ishida said, his voice breaking. ‘The boy was
perfectly healthy the night before, fed well, smiled and laughed, and fell
asleep without fussing, but never woke again.’

‘How can that be?’
Takeo said, almost angrily. ‘It was not witchcraft? What about poison?’ Hana
was in Hagi, he remembered; could she have brought about his son’s death?

He wept, making no
attempt to hide it.

‘There was no sign of
poison,’ Ishida said. ‘As for witchcraft - I really have no idea. These deaths
are not uncommon, but I know nothing about their cause.’

‘And my wife: how is
her state? She must be half mad with grief. Is Shizuka with her?’

‘Many terrible things
have happened since you went away,’ Ishida whispered. ‘My wife has also
recently lost a son. She has gone mad with sorrow, it seems. She sits without
eating in front of Daifukuji, in Hofu, and calls for her other son to act with
justice. In response, Zenko has retired in rage to Kumamoto, where he is
raising an army.’

‘Zenko’s wife and
sons are in Hagi,’ Takeo said. ‘Surely he will not throw away their lives.’

‘Hana and the boys
are no longer in Hagi,’ Ishida said.

‘What? Kaede let them
go?’

‘Lord Takeo,’ Ishida
said miserably, ‘she has gone with them. They are all on their way back to
Kumamoto.’

‘Ah!’ Gemba said
quietly. ‘Now we know what went wrong.’ He did not weep, but an expression of
sorrow and compassion came into his face. He moved a little closer to Takeo, as
if he would physically hold him up.

Takeo sat as if
frozen into ice. His ears had heard the words, but his mind could not
comprehend them. Kaede had left Hagi? She had gone to Kumamoto, put herself
into the hands of the man who was conspiring against him? Why would she do such
a thing? Leave him to ally herself with her sister’s husband? He could not
believe it of her.

But some part of his
body felt riven, as if his entire arm had been wrenched off. He felt his spirit
teeter towards darkness, and saw the darkness about to swallow the whole
country.

‘I must go to her,’
he said. ‘Gemba, prepare horses. Where will they be by now? When did they
leave?’

‘I left about two
weeks ago,’ Ishida replied. ‘They were to go a few days later, by way of
Tsuwano and Yamagata.’

‘Can I intercept them
at Yamagata?’ Takeo asked Gemba.

‘It is a week’s ride
away.’

‘I will get there in
three days.’

‘They are travelling
slowly,’ Ishida said. ‘Their departure was delayed because Lady Kaede is taking
as many men with her as possible.’

‘But why? Is it grief
at the child’s death? Has it truly driven her out of her mind?’

‘I cannot think of
any other reason,’ Ishida said. ‘Nothing I said would comfort her or dissuade
her. I could only think of seeking Ai’s help, so I left Hagi secretly, hoping
also to meet you on your way home.’

He did not look at
Takeo: his manner was both guilty and confused. ‘Lord Takeo . . .’ he went on,
but Takeo did not allow him to continue. His mind had suddenly started racing,
looking for answers, arguing and pleading, promising anything to any god, if
only she had not left him.

‘Hiroshi is badly
wounded, Shigeko slightly,’ Takeo said. ‘The kirin also probably needs your
attention. Tend them as best you can, and as soon as they are able to travel,
bring them to Yamagata. I will go there immediately and find out for myself
what has happened. Minoru, send messages at once to Miyoshi Kahei; inform him
of my departure.’ He broke off and stared at Gemba, desolate.