The Harsh Cry of the Heron (68 page)

The girls nodded, but
did not speak.

‘I was obedient to
the Kikuta Master and to Akio, whom I knew I was supposed to marry one day. But
I thought I would marry Takeo and have his children. We were perfectly matched
in Tribe skills, and I assumed he had fallen in love with me. He seemed as
obsessed with me as I was with him. Then I discovered that it was Shirakawa
Kaede whom he loved, a stupid infatuation that led him to abscond from the
Tribe and signed my death warrant.’

Yuki fell silent. The
girls also said nothing. They had never heard this version of their parents’
history, told by the woman who had suffered so much because of her love for
their father. Finally Maya said, ‘Hisao fights against listening to you.’

Miki leaned forward
and took a piece of meat, chewing it carefully, tasting the grease and the
blood.

‘He does not want to
know who he is,’ Yuki replied. ‘He is split against his own nature, and so
feels terrible pain.’

‘He cannot be
redeemed,’ Maya said, the anger returning. ‘He has become evil through and
through.’

Night had fallen; the
moon had passed behind the mountains. The fire crackled quietly.

‘You are his sisters,’
Yuki said. ‘One of you becomes the cat, whom he loves; the other has some
spiritual quality that resists his power. If he ever realizes that power completely,
then he will become truly evil. But until then he can be saved.’ She leaned
forward, and let the hood fall away from her face. ‘When he is saved I will
move on. I cannot let my child kill his true father. But his false father must
pay for his brutal murder of me.’

She is beautiful,
Maya thought, not like Mother but in a way I would like to be, strong and
vital. I wish she had been my mother. I wish she had not died.

‘Now you must sleep.
Keep walking north. I will feed you and guide you back to Hagi. We will find
your father and warn him, while we are free, and then we will save Hisao.’

Yuki washed their
hands as she had the previous night, but this time she caressed them more
intimately, like a mother; her touch was firm and real: she did not feel like a
spirit, but in the morning the girls woke in the empty forest. The ghost woman
had gone.

Miki was even more
silent than the previous day. Maya’s mood was volatile, swinging between
excitement at the prospect of seeing Yuki again that night, fear that Akio and
Hisao were already close behind them, and a deeper unease. She tried to get
Miki to talk, but Miki’s replies were short and unsatisfactory.

‘Do you think we did
the wrong thing?’ Maya said.

‘It’s too late now,’
Miki snapped, and then relented a little. ‘We’ve eaten her food and accepted
her help. There’s nothing we can do about it; we just have to get home and hope
Father returns soon.’

‘How do you know so
much about it?’ Maya said, irritated by Miki’s bad temper. ‘You’re not a
ghostmaster too, are you?’

‘No, of course I’m
not,’ Miki cried. ‘I don’t even know what that is. I’d never heard of it until
you said Hisao was one.’

They were making
their way down a steep slope. The path wound between huge boulders: it seemed
to be a favourite basking spot for snakes, and as the sinuous bodies whisked
out of sight beneath the rocks Maya couldn’t help shuddering. She remembered
all the stories she’d heard about ghosts, and thought of Akane’s spirit, and
how she had teased Sunaomi about the dead courtesan without believing her own
words.

‘What do you think Yuki
really wants?’ she asked.

‘All ghosts seek
revenge,’ Miki answered. ‘She wants revenge.’

‘On Akio?’

‘On everyone who has
hurt her.’

‘You see, you do know
all about it,’ Maya said.

‘Why is she guiding
us to Hagi?’ Miki said.

‘To find Father; she
said so.’

‘But Father will not
be back all summer,’ Miki went on, as if carrying out an argument with herself.

So their journey
continued as the moon grew towards full and waned again. The sixth month came
and summer moved towards the solstice. Yuki met them every night; they became
accustomed to her, and then without their noticing it came to love her as if
she truly were their mother. She stayed with them only between sunset and
sunrise, but each day’s walk seemed easier now they knew she would be waiting
for them at its end. Her desires became theirs. Every night she told them
stories from her past: her childhood in the Tribe, in many ways so like theirs;
the first great sorrow of her life, when her friend from Yamagata burned to
death with all her family the night Otori Takeshi was murdered by the Tohan
warriors; how she had brought Lord Shigeru’s sword, Jato, and put it in Takeo’s
hands before they had rescued Shigeru together from Inuyama castle; and how
Yuki had taken the lord’s head back to Terayama, alone, through hostile
country. They were full of admiration for her courage and her loyalty, shocked
and outraged at her cruel death, moved with grief and pity for her son.

The girls came to
Hagi late one afternoon just  before the solstice. The sun was still high in the
western sky, turning the sea brassy. They crouched in the bamboo grove just on
the edge of the cultivated fields, the rice a brilliant luxuriant green, just
tinged with a hint of gold. The vegetable fields were a mass of leaves, beans,
carrots and onions.

‘We won’t need Yuki
tonight,’ Miki said. ‘We can sleep at home.’

But the thought
saddened Maya. She would miss Yuki, and suddenly and perversely wanted to go
wherever she went.

The tide was ebbing
and the mud banks were exposed along the twin rivers. Maya could see the arches
of the stone bridge, the shrine to the river god where she had killed Mori
Hiroki’s cat with the Kikuta gaze and its spirit had possessed her, the wooden
piles of the fish weir, and the boats lying on their sides, like corpses
waiting for the water to bring them back to life. Beyond them were the trees
and garden of the old family house. Further to the west, above the low, tiled
and shingled roofs of the town, rose her other home, the castle, the golden
dolphins on its top-most roof glinting in the sun, its walls brilliant white,
the Otori banners fluttering in the slight breeze from the sea. The water in
the cup of the bay was a deep indigo blue, hardly ruffled by white. In the
gardens opposite the castle, around the volcano crater, the last azaleas glowed
against the lush, golden-tipped summer foliage.

Maya squinted against
the sun. She could make out the Otori heron on the banners, but alongside them
were others, the black bear’s foot on a red background: the Arai.

‘Aunt Hana is here,’
she whispered to Miki. ‘I don’t want her to see me.’

‘She must be at the
castle,’ Miki said, and they smiled at each other, thinking of Hana’s love of
luxury and importance. ‘I suppose Mother is there too.’

‘Let’s go to the
house first,’ Maya suggested. ‘See Haruka and Chiyo. They’ll send word to
Mother.’

She realized she was
not sure what her mother’s reaction would be. She recalled suddenly their last
meeting, Kaede’s anger, the slaps. She had heard nothing from her since, no
letters, no messages. Even the news of the birth of the little boy had only
come to her through Shigeko in Hofu. I could have been killed with Sada and
Taku, she thought. Mother does not care. The emotions were deep and troubled:
she had longed to come home, but now she feared her reception. If only it were
Yuki, she thought. I could run to her and tell her everything, and she would
believe me.

A terrible grief
washed through her: that Yuki was dead and had never known her child’s love.
That Kaede lived. . .

‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘I’ll
see who’s there, if Father is back.’

‘He won’t be,’ Miki
said. ‘He has gone all the way to Miyako.’

‘Well, he is safer
away than at home,’ Maya replied. ‘But we must tell Mother about Uncle Zenko,
how he had Taku killed and is raising an army.’

‘How does he dare
when Hana and his sons are here in Hagi?’

‘Hana’s probably
planning to spirit them away; that’s why she’s come. You wait here. I’ll be
back as soon as possible.’

Maya was still in boy’s
clothes and she did not think anyone would take any notice of her. Lots of boys
her age played on the riverbank and used the fish weir to cross the river. She
ran lightly over it as she had many times before: the tops of the piles were
damp and slippery, and green weed hung lankly from them. The river smelled
familiarly of salt and mud. At the further side she paused in front of the
opening in the garden wall, where the stream flowed out into the river. The
bamboo grill was not in place. Taking on invisibility, she stepped into the
garden.

A large grey heron
was fishing in the stream. It sensed her movement, swung its beak towards her
and launched itself into flight, its wings making a sudden sharp clack like the
sound of a fan.

In the waters of the
stream, a gold carp leaped. The fish splashed, the bird flew on silent wings
overhead, the water trickled: it was just like it always was.

She set her ears to
listen to the sounds of the house, longing now to see Haruka and Chiyo. They
will be surprised, she thought. And happy. Chiyo will cry for joy like she
always does. She thought she heard their voices from the kitchen.

But above the murmur
she heard other voices, coming from outside the wall from the riverbank. Boys’
voices, chattering, laughing.

She shrank down
behind the largest rock as Sunaomi and Chikara came splashing through the
stream. At the same moment there were footsteps from inside the house, and
Kaede and Hana came out onto the veranda. They were not at the castle, after
all. They were here.

Kaede was carrying
the baby. He was about eight weeks old, already active and alert, smiling and
trying to grasp his mother’s robe. She held him up so he could watch the boys
approach.

‘Look, my treasure,
my little man. Look at your cousins. You will grow up to be as fine a boy as
they are!’

The baby smiled and
smiled. He was already trying to use his feet and stand.

‘How dirty you are,
my sons,’ Hana scolded them, her face glowing with pride. ‘Wash your feet and
hands. Haruka! Bring water for the young lords!’

Young lords! Maya
watched as Haruka came and washed the boys’ feet. She saw their confidence and
arrogance, saw the love and respect they commanded effortlessly from all the
women surrounding them.

Hana tickled the baby
and made him giggle and squirm. A look of complicit affection passed between
her mother and her aunt.

‘Didn’t I tell you,’
Hana said. ‘There is nothing like having a son.’

‘It’s true,’ Kaede
replied. T did not know I could feel like this.’ She hugged the baby to her,
her face rapt with love.

Maya felt a pure
hatred like nothing she had felt in her life, as if her heart had cracked and
its blood washed through her, molten steel. What will I do? she thought. I must
try and see Mother alone. Will she listen to me? Should I go back to Miki? Go
to the castle to Lord Endo?

No, I must see Mother
first. But Hana must not suspect I am here.

She waited silently
in the garden as dusk fell. Fireflies danced above the stream, and the house
glowed from the lamps lit within. She smelled the food being taken to the
upstairs room, heard the boys talking, boasting while they ate. Then the young
maids took the trays back to the kitchen, and the beds were spread out.

The boys slept at the
back of the house, where the maids would also go when their last tasks were
done. Hana and Kaede would sleep in the upstairs room with the baby.

As the house fell
silent, Maya dared to go inside. She crossed the nightingale floor without
conscious effort, having been familiar with it all her life. She tiptoed up the
stairs and watched her mother feed the child, saw him suck hungrily and
strongly until his eyelids began to flicker and close. Maya felt an intimation
of some presence beside her. She glanced sideways and saw the ghost woman,
Yusetsu, who had once been Muto Yuki. She no longer wore the hooded cloak but
was dressed as she had been when Maya first saw her, in the white garments of
the dead, as white as her flesh. Her breath was cold and smelled of earth, and
she stared at the mother and child with an expression of naked jealousy.

Kaede wrapped the
baby tightly and laid him down.

‘I must write to my
husband,’ she said to Hana. ‘Fetch me if the baby wakes.’

She went downstairs
to Ichiro’s old room, where the records and writing materials were kept,
calling to Haruka to bring lamps.

Now I must go to her,
Maya thought.

Hana sat by the open
window, running a comb through her long hair; she was humming a lullaby to
herself. A lamp burned in an iron stand. Hana sang:

‘Write to your
husband, My poor sister. He will never get your letters. He does not deserve
your love. You will soon find out What kind of a man he is.’