It is not what he expected, Takeo thought, and remembered Minoru’s words. He expected to remove me without fighting, but he has failed. He will grasp at any excuse not to keep his word.
LORD SAGA HAD arranged a great feast to celebrate his anticipated victory; the feast took place as planned, but unlike the unfeigned delight in the streets of the city, the rejoicing was not altogether sincere. Courtesy prevailed, however, and Saga was generous in his compliments to Lady Maruyama, making it clear that he now desired the marriage more than ever.
“We will be allies, and you will be my father-in-law,” he said, laughing with forced jollity. “Though I believe I am your senior by a few years.”
“It will be my great pleasure to call you son,” Takeo said, with a slight jolt of surprise as the word formed in his mouth. “But we must delay announcing the betrothal until my daughter has sought the opinion of her clan. Including her mother.” He glanced at Lord Kono and wondered what the nobleman’s true reaction was, beneath the polite exterior; what message would he send to Zenko about the contest’s outcome, and what was Zenko doing right now?
The feast continued until late into the night. The moon had set and the stars were huge, their light made diffuse and hazy by the moisture in the air.
“I must ask you all to delay sleep a little longer,” Takeo said when they returned to their residence, and led Shigeko, Gemba, and Hiroshi into the most secluded room of the house. All the doors stood open; water trickled in the garden and occasionally a mosquito whined. Minoru was summoned.
“Father, what is wrong?” Shigeko questioned urgently. “You have had bad news from home—is it Mother? The baby?”
“Minoru has something to read to you,” he replied, and indicated that the scribe should begin.
He read without emotion, in his usual dry manner, but they were no less riven by the news. Shigeko wept openly. Hiroshi sat, face drained of color, as if he had been hit in the chest and winded. Gemba sniffed loudly and said, “You have kept this to yourself all day?”
“I did not want anything to distract you. I did not expect you to win. How can I thank you all? You were magnificent!” Takeo spoke with tears of emotion in his eyes.
“Luckily the Emperor was sufficiently impressed by you not to want to risk offending the gods by deciding against you. Everything has combined to convince him that you have the blessing of Heaven.”
“I thought him sufficiently worldly to see in me a check on Saga’s power,” Takeo replied.
“That too,” Gemba agreed. “Of course, he is a divine being—but he is no different from any of us, motivated by a mixture of idealism, pragmatism, self-preservation, and good intentions!”
“Your victory has bought us his favor,” Takeo said. “But Taku’s death means we should return as soon as possible. Zenko must be dealt with now.”
“Yes, I feel it is time to return,” Gemba said. “Not only because of Taku, but to forestall any further unraveling. There is something else amiss.”
“Something to do with Maya?” Shigeko asked, fear in her voice.
“Possibly,” Gemba replied, but would say no more.
“Hiroshi,” Takeo said, “you have lost your closest friend…I am deeply sorry.”
“I am trying to suppress my desire for revenge.” Hiroshi’s voice was harsh. “All I want is Zenko’s death, as well as that of Kikuta Akio and his son. My instinct is to leave at once and hunt them down—but all my training in the Way of the Houou has been to refrain from violence. Yet how else do we deal with these murderers?”
“We will hunt them down,” Takeo replied. “But it will be done with justice, and they will be executed according to law. I have been recognized by the Emperor, my rule confirmed by His Divine Majesty. Zenko no longer has any legal grounds for challenging me. If he does not genuinely submit, we will defeat him in battle and he will take his own life. Akio will be hanged like the common criminal he is. But we must leave swiftly.”
“Father,” Shigeko said, “I know you are right. But will a hasty departure not offend Lord Saga and the Emperor? And, to tell you the truth, I am concerned about the kirin. Her good health is essential to your continued good standing. She will fret if we all leave so suddenly. I had hoped to see her settled before we left…. Maybe I should stay here with her?”
“No, I will not leave you in Saga’s hands,” he said with a vehemence that surprised them all. “Am I to surrender all my daughters to my enemies? We have given the kirin to the Emperor. He and his court are responsible for her. We must leave before the end of the week—we will have the waxing moon to travel with.”
“We will be riding into the rain, and may not see the moon at all,” Hiroshi murmured.
Takeo turned to Gemba. “Gemba, you have proved yourself all-knowing so far. Will Heaven continue to favor us by delaying the plum rains?”
“We’ll see what we can do,” Gemba promised, smiling through his tears.
41
In the year since Takeo had asked her to take over the leadership of the Tribe, Muto Shizuka had traveled widely through the Three Countries, visiting the hidden villages in the mountains and the merchant houses in the cities where her relatives ran their varied and multilayered businesses of brewing rice wine, fermenting soybean products, money lending, and to a lesser extent spying, protectionism, and different forms of persuasion. The ancient hierarchies of the Tribe still persisted, with their vertical structure and their traditional family loyalties, which meant that even among themselves the Tribe kept their secrets and often went their own way.
Shizuka was usually greeted with courtesy and deference, yet she was aware that there was a certain surprise, even resentment, at her new position. If Zenko had supported her, it might have been different, but she knew that while he lived any dissatisfaction among the Muto family would be fomented into defiance. For that reason she felt obliged to maintain her contacts with all her relatives, to try to keep them loyal to her, to side with her against her eldest son.
She herself knew all too well how secrets might be kept and disobedience flourish within the Tribe; for, many years ago, she had revealed the workings of the Tribe to Lord Shigeru, and his meticulous records had enabled Takeo to outwit and control them. Kenji had known of her acts, and had chosen to overlook what could only be described as treachery, but she wondered, from time to time, who else might have suspected her. People in the Tribe had long memories, and were both patient and unrelenting when it came to revenge.
A month after Kaede’s child was born, and shortly after Takeo had left for Miyako, Shizuka made preparations to set out again, first to Yamagata and then to Kagemura in the mountains behind Yamagata, and on to Hofu.
“Both Kaede and the little boy seem so healthy, I feel I can go before the plum rains,” she said to Ishida. “You are here to take care of them; you will not travel this year while Fumio is away.”
“The child is very strong,” Ishida agreed. “Of course, you can never tell with infants—they often have only a tenuous grasp on life, and slip away unexpectedly. But this little boy seems like a fighter.”
“He is a true warrior,” Shizuka said. “Kaede adores him!”
“I’ve never seen a mother so besotted with her own child,” Ishida admitted.
Kaede could hardly bear to be parted from the infant. She nursed him herself, which she had not done with her other children. Shizuka watched them with a mixture of envy and pity—the child’s fierce concentration on sucking, the mother’s equally intense protectiveness.
“What will his name be?” she said.
“We have not yet decided,” Kaede replied. “Takeo fancies Shigeru, but the name has unhappy associations, and we already have Shigeko. Perhaps another of the Otori names, Takeshi, Takeyoshi. But he will not be named until he is two years old. So I call him my little lion.”
Shizuka remembered how she had adored her own sons when they were children, reflecting on the disappointment and anxiety they caused her now.
&n
bsp; When she had married Ishida, she had hoped for another child, a girl, but the years had passed and she had not conceived again. Now she hardly bled; her chances were nearly over, and indeed she no longer wanted her hopes to be fulfilled. Ishida had no children from his former marriage. His wife had died many years ago, and though he had wanted to marry again, being excessively fond of women, no one had ever been acceptable to Lord Fujiwara. He was as amorous and kind as ever, and, as Shizuka had told Takeo, she would have been quite content to live quietly with him in Hagi and continue to be Kaede’s companion. But she had agreed to become the head of the Muto family, and therefore the nominal leader of the Tribe, and now the task was consuming her energy and time. It also meant that there were numerous matters she could not discuss with Ishida—she loved her husband, and he had many qualities that she admired, but discretion was not one of them. He talked too freely about everything that interested him, and had little concept of public and private subjects. He had enormous curiosity about the world and its creatures, humans and animals, plants and rocks and minerals, and would discuss his latest discoveries and theories with everyone he met. Rice wine loosened his tongue even further, and he invariably forgot what he had been babbling about the night before. He liked all the pleasures of peace—the plentiful food, his freedom to travel, interaction with the foreigners, the wonderful curiosities they brought from the far side of the world—to such an extent that he did not want to face the fact that peace was always under threat, that not everyone was to be trusted, that enemies might exist even within his own family circle.
So Shizuka did not confide in him her concerns about Taku and Zenko, and Ishida himself had almost forgotten the night in Hofu when he had drunkenly revealed to Zenko, Hana, and Lord Kono his theories on the power of the human mind, and the self-fulfilling effects of belief in prophecies, and how these applied to Takeo.
Sunaomi and Chikara were sad at her departure, but their mother, Hana, was expected in Hagi before the end of the month, and they were kept too busy with their education and training to miss their grandmother. Since they had been in Hagi, Shizuka had watched them closely for any sign of developing Tribe skills, but the boys seemed like normal warriors’ sons, no different from the boys of their own age with whom they trained, competed, and squabbled.
Kaede hugged her, gave her a new cloak with a hood in the latest fashion and a horse from the stables, a mare that Shizuka had often ridden before. It was easier to obtain a horse than a traveling companion; she found herself missing Kondo Kiichi, who would have been perfect for such a journey, with his fighting skills and his loyalty. She regretted his death and, since he had no children, took it on herself to remember his spirit and pray for him.
There was no need for secrecy or disguise, yet her upbringing had made her cautious, and she refused Kaede’s offer of an escort of Otori warriors. In the end she selected the man Bunta, who many years before had been her informant in Maruyama. He had worked as a groom for Lady Maruyama Naomi, had been in Inuyama at the time of her death, and had stayed there during the war. He had therefore escaped Takeo’s purge of the Maruyama Tribe families, though he had lost relatives there. After the war and the earthquake he had found his way to Hagi and had been in the service of the Otori ever since. He was a few years younger than she was, from the Imai family. On the surface he was taciturn and obedient yet possessed some unusual skills: an adept pickpocket, a laconic storyteller who had the knack of extracting information, and an expert in street wrestling and bare-hand fighting who drank with the most hardened carousers yet never lost his head. Their shared past had created a bond between them, and she felt she could trust him.
Throughout the winter he had brought her snippets of information and, as soon as the snows melted, had gone at her request to Yamagata to find out, as he put it, which way the wind blew. The news he brought back was disturbing: Taku had not returned to Inuyama but was still in Hofu; Zenko was deeply involved with the Kikuta and considered himself the Master of the Muto family; the family itself was divided. These were the matters she had discussed with Takeo before his departure, but they had come to no decisions. The birth of his son, his preparations for the journey to Miyako, had taken up all Takeo’s attention. Now she felt obliged to act herself, to do all she could to keep the Muto family loyal and to ensure the safety of the twins, Maya and Miki.
She loved them as if they were the daughters she had never had. She had cared for them when Kaede had taken so long to recover after their birth; she had overseen all their training in the ways of the Tribe; she had protected and defended them against all those who wished them ill.
She had one other aim that she was not sure she had the strength to fulfill, the one that she had put to Takeo and he had rejected. She could not help recalling another warlord, Iida Sadamu, from so long ago, and the plot to assassinate him. If only the world were as straightforward now. She had told Takeo that as the Muto Master and old friend to the Otori she had to advise him to get rid of Zenko. This was still her opinion when she thought clearly. But when she thought as a mother…
Takeo has told me he will not take Zenko’s life, she thought. There is no need for me to act against his wishes. No one can expect it of me.
But in some secret part of her she expected it of herself.
She would discuss it with no one, but from time to time she took it out and looked at it steadily, accustoming herself to its darkness, its threat and its appeal.
Bunta’s son, a boy of fifteen or sixteen, came with them, looked after the horses, bought the food, and rode on ahead to make arrangements at the next stopping place. The weather was fine, the spring planting finished, the rice fields pale green from the seedlings and blue from the reflected sky. The roads were safe and well maintained, the towns cheerful and prosperous, food plentiful and delicious—for on the high roads the horse stations vied with one another to produce local delicacies and specialties.
Shizuka marveled anew at Takeo and Kaede’s achievements, at the richness and contentment of their country, and grieved at the lust for power and craving for revenge that threatened it.
For not everyone rejoiced at the land’s stability and peacefulness. In Tsuwano the Muto family with whom she stayed grumbled at their lack of status among the merchants now that so many people were involved in trade. And in Yamagata, in Kenji’s old house, now owned by one of her cousins, Yoshio, in the evening the conversation turned to the good old days, when Kikuta and Muto were friends and everyone feared and respected them.
Shizuka had known Yoshio almost all his life. He was one of the boys she had out-fought and outwitted during their childhood training in the hidden village. He treated her with familiarity and spoke openly to her. She did not know if she could count on his support, but at least he was honest with her.
“It was different while Kenji was alive,” Yoshio said. “Everyone respected him, and could see his reasons for making peace with the Otori. Takeo had information that could have destroyed the Tribe, as he nearly did in Maruyama. Then, it was the expedient thing to do—it bought us time, and preserved our strength. But increasingly people are saying the Kikuta’s demands for justice need to be heard: Takeo’s guilty of the worst of offenses, absconding from the Tribe and killing the Master of his family. He’s gotten away with it for all these years, but now between them Akio and Arai Zenko are in a position to execute judgment on him.”
“Kenji swore allegiance to Takeo on behalf of the entire Muto family,” Shizuka reminded him. “As has my son—many times. And I’m not only head of the Muto family because Takeo appointed me—it was Kenji’s wish too.”
“Kenji can’t speak from the grave, can he? As far as most of us are concerned—I’m being honest with you, Shizuka. I’ve always admired you and liked you, too, even though you were an insufferable kid, but you grew out of that—you were even quite pretty for a while!” He grinned at her and poured her more wine.
“You can spare me the compliments,” she returned, drinking th
e wine in one gulp. “I’m too old for all that now!”
“You drink like a man as well as fight like one!” he said with some admiration.
“I can lead like a man, too,” she assured him.
“I don’t doubt it. But, as I was saying, people in the Tribe resent the fact that Takeo appointed you. The Muto family affairs have never been decided by warlords—”
“Takeo is rather more than a warlord!” Shizuka protested.
“How did he get power? Like any other warlord, by grasping opportunities, dealing ruthlessly with his enemies, and betraying those he had sworn allegiance to.”
“That is only one way of describing him!”
“It is the Tribe’s way,” Yoshio said, smiling broadly.
Shizuka said, “The evidence of his government is all around: fertile land, healthy children, rich merchants.”
“Frustrated warriors and unemployed spies,” Yoshio argued, gulping down his wine and filling their bowls again. “Bunta, you’re very quiet. You tell Shizuka I’m right.”
Bunta raised his bowl to his lips and gazed at Shizuka over its rim as he drank. “It’s not only that Takeo appointed you, and that you’re a woman. There are other suspicions about you, far graver ones.”
Yoshio was no longer smiling, but sat with compressed lips, staring downward.
“People wondered how Takeo knew where to find the Tribe in Maruyama when he had never been there in his life. There were rumors that Lord Shigeru had recorded information on the Tribe for years; everyone knew that he and Kenji were friends, but Shigeru knew far more about the Tribe than he would have learned from Kenji. Someone was feeding him information.”
Both men glanced at her when Bunta paused, but she made no response.
“People are saying it was you, and that’s why Takeo made you head of the Muto family, to reward you for your years of treachery.”
The word hung in the air like a blow.
“Forgive me,” Bunta added hurriedly. “I’m not saying I am one of them; I just want to warn you. Of course Akio will take advantage of these rumors, which could be very dangerous for you.”