The Tengu's Game of Go (23 page)

“What happened?” Hidarisama exclaimed. “That was close!”

“You idiot,” said Migisama. “You nearly made a big mistake. You were obeying the wrong person.”

“Oof! Maybe it's time to get out of this sword.”

“Before you do any harm.”

“Now I will do what I came to do,” Shika said. “Hidarisama, you are to stay here. Choose where you want to go.”

“What about me?” said Migisama. “Don't I get to choose?”

“Shikanoko was talking to me!”

“You're the one who did something stupid, not me.”

“Make up your minds quickly,” Shika said. “How about the pagoda? Or the main gates?”

“The gates, so we can watch everyone go in and out.”

“The pagoda, so we can see the whole city.”

“If it's the pagoda, I want the top.”

“Why should you have the top? You wanted the gates.”

“You may go to the pagoda,” Shika said. “You can share the top floor. Hidarisama will have the waxing moon, Migisama the waning.”

“Oh, very well.”

“I suppose that's acceptable.”

The voices of the guardian spirits grew fainter.

“Hey, he didn't say what happens when there's no moon.”

“We'll come down then and have fun!”

There was a slight movement of the ground like a small earthquake as the pagoda quivered. A flock of white doves that had been dozing on the roof flew up with a sudden fluttering of wings. As if they had pierced the clouds, a few large flakes of snow began to fall.

Kiku looked at his palms, now marked forever with bloody wounds that would fade into distinctive scars. “I will do as you command,” he said, “but I will never forgive you. You and I are enemies from now on, as will be our children and our children's children.”

“Those children will all bear the mark of the sword,” Sesshin remarked. “Long after what caused it has been forgotten.”

Kiku turned abruptly and walked away, disappearing into the main hall. Tsunetomo went after him. Kuro looked at Shika, seemed about to say something, then changed his mind and followed his brother.

Mu said, “We will leave today to get back to Kitakami before winter sets in.”

“You may stay in the city,” Shika said.

“Do you fear me less than you fear him?” Mu looked at him with an amused expression.

“It's not fear,” Shika replied, but in fact it was a kind of fear, of what Kiku might become, mingled with love and regret, bringing him close to tears. “But there is a difference between you.”

“Maybe because I was lucky enough to cross paths with a tengu,” Mu said.

Shika nodded, remembering Shisoku's words from long ago and, earlier, the fawn's form, the tengu overhead, the game of Go.

“I'll go with him,” Mu said. “I'll try to explain everything to him. There are many things he doesn't understand.”

“I'm coming with you,” Ibara said.

“That would be most pleasant.” Mu was smiling. “You can meet my daughter, and my youngest brother, Ku.”

“I'm sick of being a woman, and—forgive me, Lady Hina, I don't mean to offend you—a servant. I liked it in the forest when I was equal to men.”

“Maybe we will go back to the forest,” Mu said, with a trace of longing. “We should see how things are at the old hut, and how Ima is getting on. But for a little while we must stay with Kiku.”

Hina spoke quietly behind Shika. “Come to me. I will remove the mask.”

He turned and bowed his head, feeling deep relief as it slid easily from his face. He took it from her, feeling the cool touch of her fingers, and slipped it into the seven-layered bag.

“I was afraid he would take it from you,” she whispered, “even kill you for it.”

“He nearly succeeded,” he said in a low voice. He was trembling with exhaustion.

“Can someone tell me what happened?” Take said, looking as if he had just woken up.

“Kiku put you to sleep with his gaze,” Mu said. “I've seen him do it before.”

“I felt I knew nothing, had learned nothing, from you or the tengu,” Take said, shamefaced.

“Well, learn from this experience,” Mu said. “Never let anyone from the Kikuta family look you in the eyes.”

“Hidarisama has left the sword,” Shika said, handing Jato back to Take. “You may use it freely.”
Now I will speak to Hina
, he thought.
Now we will walk down to the lake together and discuss our future.

As though she read his mind she looked up at him and smiled. Her hand touched his briefly. He heard his heart pounding, but it was not his heart, it was hoofbeats. A horse neighed and Nyorin answered, from where he was waiting outside the gate.

“Nagatomo is here!” Take cried.

The Burnt Twins came through the main gate on horseback, allowing no one to stop them. The horses were breathing hard, eyes wild, flanks heaving. Nagatomo dismounted, approached Shika, and said quietly, “The Emperor has disappeared.”

Eisei slid from his horse's back. “Saru has vanished, too.”

“How could that happen?” Shika said with quiet anger. “Must I look after everything myself?”

“No one expected them to be so agile, so acrobatic,” Nagatomo replied. “They scaled the wall, leaped into a tree, and were away over the river before anyone could follow. Apparently a young woman was waiting on the far bank with a change of clothes. We found the Emperor's robes abandoned there.”

“We must go after him,” Shika said.

“I've told people he is unwell,” Nagatomo said. “We should not let the news spread, and we cannot pursue him as if he were a criminal.”

“I'll go and find him,” Take said. “I can persuade him to return.”

Shikanoko looked at his son for a moment without speaking. “Very well,” he said finally. “There's no point in me going, as he hates me above all. But you knew him in his other life. If he listens to anyone, it will be you. But who will go with you?”

“Lend me Nyorin. I will go alone. Don't worry, Father. I know both the riverbank and the forest. I know where they will go.”

 

20

TAKEYOSHI

As Takeyoshi followed the river north the snow continued to fall, but it was not settling enough to reveal tracks. He had Jato at his hip and Ameyumi on his back. He rode at a canter, trusting the old horse not to stumble, and, if anyone greeted him, he replied it was a good day for hunting. He wore the bearskin chaps that the tengu had given him and a green robe that had belonged to Hina's father, Lord Kiyoyori. After a while the snow stopped, the clouds cleared a little, and a pale wintry sun appeared. There was no wind.

The Sagigawa flowed from Lake Kasumi to the capital. Between the river and the mountains of the Darkwood lay a pattern of rice fields and vegetable gardens, crisscrossed by dikes and footpaths. Take wondered if Yoshi and Saru had run through them to reach the forest, but he then thought they were more likely to be trying to get to the lake, perhaps heading for the Rainbow Bridge or Aomizu, places they knew well and where they would be hidden. As he rode he reflected on the grief they must both be feeling. No one had considered the deaths of Asagao and several of the other acrobats and musicians as very important, but to the two young men they were friends, family, colleagues. He and Hina had rescued the survivors, tended their broken bodies, and arranged for the dead to be buried. They had attended their funerals and said prayers for them, but they had followed the usual temple ceremony. Take, alone, was familiar with the prayers of the Secret One, but he repeated them only in his heart.

Kai had come to Yoshi to help him get away. She had made the journey pregnant and alone. He was amazed and impressed by her devotion, and concerned for her and the unborn child.

They are going to Aomizu
, he realized.
They will seek out the old priest, the one who told me not to be angry. They will tell the families how the others died, ask for forgiveness, and pray with them. They will hide, like all the other runaways and outcasts, among the people of the riverbank.

Just before the barrier at Kasumiguchi he saw Kon flying overhead. The sight of the bird comforted him. It meant he was going in the right direction. Kon would lead him to Yoshimori.

The barrier was still guarded by Kiku's men. They were stopping people and demanding, “Red or White? The new emperor or the old?” as though all alternatives had been reduced to a single choice: True or false? Right or wrong? How did anyone know ultimately?

They were persuaded by Take's excuse of hunting, and let him through as they did most of the common people. They were concerned only with arresting fleeing Miboshi warriors.

Yoshi and Saru would have looked like the many ragged youths who were walking in either direction, to the capital to sell produce and firewood, or going home to their villages.

After the barrier he let Nyorin walk for a while to rest him. Gradually the road became less crowded. There were fewer villages, the land was wilder and more mountainous. He had grown more used to being alone, but as night fell the solitude of the landscape began to make him uneasy. He tried to sing to raise his spirits, but all the songs he knew reminded him of the dead musicians. He seemed to hear their voices echoing from the darkness, the ghostly strain of a lute, the rhythmic beating of a drum. He felt Kai was ahead of him, and the drum was hers.

The moon rose, casting shadows of horse and rider on the frosty ground. He did not want to stop, it was too cold, so he let the horse walk on. From time to time he dozed a little, feeling his head grow heavy and his eyelids close. He smelled smoke, not sure if he was waking or dreaming, and heard a rattle and clicking of stones.

Nyorin came to a halt, pricked up his ears, and turned his head. Take looked in the same direction and saw a shadowy figure silhouetted against the firelight. He recognized the bulky outline, the beaked head.

“Tadashii!” he said. Nyorin gave a low whinny and stepped purposefully toward the fire.

“Ah, here you are,” the tengu said. “Come and sit down. Meet my friend—actually, I think you met, after a fashion, before. He doesn't have a human name, but that doesn't matter. He doesn't speak and, anyway, you will never see him again after tonight. We are just passing the time until … well, never mind what, just passing the time in a game of Go.”

The board was carved on the stump of a kawa tree, the white stones were shells, gleaming with mother-of-pearl, the black ones were obsidian pebbles, river smooth. They rested in bowls of mulberry wood, reflecting in the firelight.

Tadashii rattled the black stones in his bowl. His opponent grunted in irritation and rolled his eyes.

“It's considered very rude to do that,” Tadashii said. “But I like to annoy him.”

He picked up a black stone and placed it on the board with a loud clack.

“This is you,” he whispered. “I knew you were on your way, but he didn't. You getting the Rain Bow upset him, but this will shock him, even more! Oooh, now we are in the endgame!”

He laughed loudly, the sound echoing back from the cliff face as though twenty tengu were laughing with him.

“Wait,” Take said. “Why am I a piece in your game?”

“Don't worry about it,” the tengu replied. “Rest by the fire. I think there's a flask of cold broth and some bones left if you're hungry. Tomorrow it will all work out, you'll see.”

Take's eyelids were drooping against his will. He barely found the strength to unsaddle Nyorin. The old horse shook himself, exhaled heavily, and lay down. Take drank the broth and ate the rice balls he had brought with him. He cracked open the bones with his teeth and sucked the marrow from them. He had no idea what animal they were from. Then he lay down next to Nyorin, resting his head on the horse's shoulder. He heard the rattle and clack of the stones through his dreams.

Toward dawn he heard Kon calling and felt the beat of wings on his face. When he woke the tengu were gone. The embers of the fire were still warm and the tree stump remained, but it was no longer carved into a grid nor was there any sign of the shells and stones.

Was the game over? Had they moved on to play somewhere else? Or had he just dreamed it all?

Nyorin got stiffly to his feet, snorted, and let out a stream of urine, which steamed in the freezing air.

“I suppose we must go on,” Take said, lifting the saddle to place it on the stallion's back.

Something, or someone, had left a trail on the ground. At first he thought they were shells, gleaming white, but when he saw them more clearly he realized they were feathers, each tip spotted with purple.

Did tengu bleed? Had Tadashii pulled feathers from his wings to show Take the way? He was touched by this sacrifice, but then it occurred to him the tengu would do anything to win the game.

The trail led to a clearing by a small pool. It was full of birds, blue and white herons. They all had their heads turned in one direction, watching two young men on the bank. Kai sat on the edge of the pool, her head turned, like the birds', toward Yoshi and Saru. Her hair covered her like a cloak. Her feet were bare.
How beautiful she is
, he thought with a surge of longing.

Yoshi and Saru were walking on their hands, reflecting each other's movements with perfect symmetry. It was a routine he remembered, but it seemed empty and sad, lacking the older men and the monkeys. He could move in and take part as he used to, but he had vowed he would never do acrobatics again. That part of his life was over. It was over for Yoshi and Saru, too. No matter how hard they tried to re-create it, as they were doing now, it was gone.

A shadow darkened overhead. The birds all took off at once, crying in alarm. A huge tengu, Tadashii's opponent, swooped down and seized Yoshi by the feet with its talons.

Saru flipped over, screaming, and leaped to grab Yoshi's hands. The unexpected weight made the tengu falter, but its wings began to beat more powerfully. Kai leaped to her feet, calling for help.