But I no longer followed the teachings of my childhood, and I could not believe that a man of Ichiro’s integrity and loyalty was in hell. Far stronger was my outrage at the injustice of this murder and my realization that I now had another death to avenge.
“They paid for it with their lives,” Kaede said. “Why kill an old man and go to all that trouble to bring his head to you?” She washed away the last traces of blood and wrapped a clean white cloth around the head.
“I imagine the Otori lords want to draw me out,” I replied. “They would prefer not to attack Terayama; they will run into Arai’s soldiers if they do. They must hope to entice me over the border and meet me there.” I longed for such a meeting, to punish them once and for all. The warriors’ deaths had temporarily assuaged my fury, but I could feel it simmering in my heart. However, I had to be patient; my strategy was first to withdraw to Maruyama and build up my forces there. I would not be dissuaded from that.
I touched my brow to the grass, bidding my teacher good-bye. Manami came from the guest rooms and knelt a little way behind us.
“I’ve brought the box, lady,” she whispered.
“Give it to me,” Kaede replied. It was a small container woven from willow twigs and strips of red-dyed leather. She took it and opened it. The smell of aloes rose from it. She put the white wrapped bundle inside and arranged the aloes round it. Then she placed the box on the ground in front of her, and the three of us bowed again before it.
A bush warbler called its spring song and a cuckoo responded from deep in the forest, the first I had heard that year.
We held the funeral rites the following day and buried the head next to Shigeru’s grave. I made arrangements for another stone to be erected for Ichiro. I longed to know what had happened to the old woman, Chiyo, and the rest of the household at Hagi. I was tormented by the thought that the house no longer existed, that it would have been burned: the tea room, the upper room where we had so often sat looking out onto the garden, the nightingale floor, all destroyed, their song silenced forever. I wanted to rush to Hagi to claim my inheritance before it was taken from me. But I knew this was exactly what the Otori hoped I would do Five farmers died outright and two died later from their wounds. We buried them in the temple graveyard. Two of the horses were badly hurt, and Amano had them killed mercifully, but the other two were unharmed; one I liked in particular, a handsome black stallion that reminded me of Shigeru’s horse, Kyu, and could have been its half brother. At Makoto’s insistence we buried the Otori warriors with full rites, too, praying that their ghosts, outraged at their ignoble deaths, would not linger to haunt us.
That evening the abbot came to the guest room and we talked until late into the night. Makoto and Miyoshi Kahei, one of my allies and friends from Hagi, were also with us; Kahei’s younger brother Gemba had been sent to Maruyama to tell the domain’s senior retainer, Sugita Haruki, of our imminent departure. Sugita had assured Kaede the previous winter of his support for her claim. Kaede did not stay with us—for various reasons, she and Makoto were not at ease in each other’s presence and she avoided him as much as possible—but I told her beforehand to sit behind the screen so she could hear what was said. I wanted to know her opinion afterward. In the short time since our marriage I had come to talk to her as I had never talked to anyone in my life. I had been silent for so long, it seemed now I could not get enough of sharing my thoughts with her. I relied on her judgment and her wisdom.
“So now you are at war,” the abbot said, “and your army has had its first skirmish.”
“Hardly an army,” Makoto said. “A rabble of farmers! How are you going to punish them?”
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“Farmers are not supposed to kill warriors,” he said. “Anyone else in your situation would punish them with the utmost cruelty. They would be crucified, boiled in oil, flayed alive.”
“They will be if the Otori get hold of them,” Kahei muttered.
“They were fighting on my behalf,” I said. Privately, I thought the warriors had deserved their shameful end, though I was sorry I had not killed them all myself. “I’m not going to punish them. I’m more concerned with how to protect them.”
“You have let an ogre out,” Makoto said. “Let’s hope you can contain it.”
The abbot smiled into his wine cup. Quite apart from his earlier comments on justice, he had been teaching me strategy all winter and, having heard my theories on the capture of Yamagata and other campaigns, knew how I felt about my farmers.
“The Otori seek to draw me out,” I said to him, as I had said earlier to Kaede.
“Yes, you must resist the temptation,” he replied. “Naturally your first instinct is for revenge, but even if you defeated their army in a confrontation, they would simply retreat to Hagi. A long siege would be a disaster. The city is virtually impregnable, and sooner or later you would have to deal with Arai’s forces at your rear.”
Arai Daiichi was the warlord from Kumamoto who had taken advantage of the overthrow of the Tohan to seize control of the Three Countries. I had enraged him by disappearing with the Tribe the previous year, and now my marriage to Kaede would certainly enrage him further. He had a huge army, and I did not want to be confronted by it before I had strengthened my own.
“Then we must go first to Maruyama, as planned. But if I leave the temple unprotected, you and the people of the district may be punished by the Otori.”
“We can bring many people within the walls,” the abbot said. “I think we have enough arms and supplies to hold the Otori off if they do attack. Personally, I don’t think they will. Arai and his allies will not relinquish Yamagata without a long struggle, and many among the Otori would be reluctant to destroy this place, which is sacred to the clan. Anyway they will be more concerned with pursuing you.” He paused and then went on: “You can’t fight a war without being prepared for sacrifice. Men will die in the battles you fight, and if you lose, many of them, including you yourself, may be put to death very painfully. The Otori do not recognize your adoption: They do not know your ancestry; as far as they are concerned you are an upstart, not one of their class. You cannot hold back from action because people will die as a result. Even your farmers know that. Seven of them died today, but those who survived are not sad. They are celebrating their victory over those who insulted you.”
“I know that,” I said, glancing at Makoto. His lips were pressed together tightly, and though his face showed no other expression, I felt his disapproval. I was aware yet again of my weaknesses as a commander. I was afraid both Makoto and Kahei, brought up in the warrior tradition, would come to despise me.
“We joined you by our own choice, Takeo,” the abbot went on, “because of our loyalty to Shigeru and because we believe your cause is just.”
I bowed my head, accepting the rebuke and vowing he would never have to speak to me in that vein again. “We will leave for Maruyama the day after tomorrow.”
“Makoto will go with you,” the abbot said. “As you know, he has made your cause his own.”
Makoto’s lips curved slightly as he nodded in agreement.
LATER THAT NIGHT, around the second half of the Hour of the Rat, when I was about to lie down beside Kaede, I heard voices outside, and a few moments later Manami called quietly to us to say that a monk had come with a message from the guardhouse.
“We have taken a prisoner,” he said when I went to speak to him. “He was spotted skulking in the bushes beyond the gate. The guards pursued him and would have killed him on the spot, but he called your name and said he was your man.”
“I’ll come and talk to him,” I said, taking up Jato, suspecting it could only be the outcast Jo-An. Jo-An had seen me at Yamagata when I had released his brother and other members of the Hidden into death. It was he who had given me the name of the Angel of Yamagata. Then he had saved my life on my desperate journey to Terayama in the winter. I had told him I would send for him in the spring and that he sh
ould wait until he heard from me, but he acted in unpredictable ways, usually in response to what he claimed was the voice of the Secret God.
It was a soft, warm night, the air already holding summer’s humidity. In the cedars an owl was hooting. Jo-An lay on the ground just inside the gate. He’d been trussed up roughly: His legs were bent under him, his hands bound behind his back. His face was streaked with dirt and blood, his hair matted. He was moving his lips very slightly, praying soundlessly. Two monks were watching him from a careful distance, their faces twisted in contempt.
I called his name and his eyes opened. I saw relief shine in them. He tried to scrabble into a kneeling position and fell forward, unable to save himself with his hands. His face hit the dirt.
“Untie him,” I said.
One of the monks said, “He is an outcast. We should not touch him.”
“Who tied him up?”
“We did not realize then,” the other said.
“You can cleanse yourselves later. This man saved my life. Untie him.”
Reluctantly they went to Jo-An, lifted him up, and loosened the cords that bound him. He crawled forward and prostrated himself at my feet.
“Sit up, Jo-An,” I said. “Why are you here? I said you were to come when I sent for you. You were lucky not to be killed, turning up here without warning, without permission.”
The last time I’d seen him I’d been almost as shabbily dressed as he was, a fugitive, exhausted and starving. Now I was aware of the robe I wore, my hair dressed in the warrior style, the sword in my belt. I knew the sight of me talking to the outcast would shock the monks profoundly. Part of me was tempted to have him thrown out, to deny that there was any relationship between us, and to throw him from my life at the same time. If I so ordered the guards, they would kill him immediately with no second thought. Yet, I could not do it. He had saved my life; moreover, for the sake of the bond between us, both born into the Hidden, I had to treat him not as an outcast but as a man.
“No one will kill me until the Secret One calls me home,” he muttered, raising his eyes and looking at me. “Until that time, my life is yours.” There was little light where we stood, just the lamp the monk had brought from the guardhouse and placed on the ground near us, but I could see Jo-An’s eyes burning. I wondered, as I often had before, if he were not alive at all but a visitant from another world.
“What do you want?” I said.
“I have something to tell you. Very important. You’ll be glad I came.”
The monks had stepped back out of pollution’s way but were still close enough to hear us.
“I need to talk to this man,” I said. “Where should we go?”
They threw an anguished look at each other and the older man suggested, “Maybe the pavilion, in the garden?”
“You don’t need to come with me.”
“We should guard Lord Otori,” the younger said.
“I’m in no danger from this man. Leave us alone. But tell Manami to bring water, some food, and tea.”
They bowed and left. As they crossed the courtyard they started whispering to each other. I could hear every word. I sighed.
“Come with me,” I said to Jo-An. He limped after me to the pavilion, which stood in the garden not far from the large pool. Its surface glittered in the starlight, and every now and then a fish leaped from the water, flopping back with a loud splash. Beyond the pool the grayish white stones of the graves loomed out of the darkness. The owl hooted again, closer this time.
“God told me to come to you,” he said when we were settled on the wooden floor of the pavilion.
“You should not talk so openly of God,” I chided him. “You are in a temple. The monks have no more love for the Hidden than the warriors.”
“You are here,” he muttered. “You are our hope and our protection.”
“I’m just one person. I can’t protect all of you from the way a whole country feels.”
He was silent for a moment or two. Then he said, “The Secret One thinks about you all the time, even if you have forgotten him.”
I did not want to listen to this sort of message.
“What do you have to tell me?” I said impatiently.
“The men you saw last year, the charcoal burners, were taking their god back to the mountain. I met them on the path. They told me the Otori armies are out, watching every road around Terayama and Yamagata. I went to look for myself. There are soldiers hidden everywhere. They will ambush you as soon as you leave. If you want to get out, you will have to fight your way through them.”
His eyes were fixed on me, watching my reaction. I was cursing myself for having stayed so long at the temple. I’d been aware all along that speed and surprise were my main weapons. I should have left days before. I had been putting off leaving, waiting for Ichiro. Before my marriage I’d gone out night after night to check the roads around the temple for just such an eventuality. But since Kaede had joined me I could not tear myself away from her. Now I was trapped by my own vacillation and lack of vigilance.
“How many men would you say?”
“Five or six thousand,” he replied.
I had barely a thousand.
“So you’ll have to go over the mountain as you did in the winter. There’s a track that goes west. No one’s watching it, because there’s still snow on the pass.”
My mind was racing. I knew the path he meant. It went past the shrine where Makoto had planned to spend the winter before I stumbled in out of the snow on my flight to Terayama. I’d explored it myself a few weeks earlier, turning back when the snow became too deep to wade through. I thought of my forces, men, horses, oxen: Oxen would never make it, but men and horses might. I would send them at night if possible, so the Otori would think we were still in the temple. . . . I would have to start at once, consult the abbot immediately.
My thoughts were interrupted by Manami and one of the manservants. The man was carrying a bowl of water. Marami brought a tray with a bowl of rice and vegetables and two cups of twig tea. She set the tray down on the floor, gazing at Jo-An with as much revulsion as if he were a viper. The man’s reaction was equally horrified. I wondered briefly whether it would harm me to be seen associating with outcasts. I told them to leave us and they did so quickly, though I could hear Manami’s disapproving muttering all the way back to the guesthouse.
Jo-An washed his hands and face, then joined his hands together to say the first prayer of the Hidden. Even as I found myself responding to the familiar words, a wave of irritation swept over me. He had risked his own life again to bring me this vital news, but I wished he showed more discretion, and my spirits sank at the thought of the liability he might become.
When he had finished eating I said, “You’d better leave. You have a long journey home.”
He made no response, but sat, head turned slightly sideways, in the listening position I was by now familiar with.
“No,” he said finally. “I am to go with you.”
“It’s impossible. I don’t want you with me.”
“God wants it,” he said.
There was nothing I could do to argue him out of it, short of killing him or imprisoning him, and these seemed shabby rewards for his help to me.
“Very well,” I said, “but you can’t stay in the temple.”
“No,” he agreed docilely, “I have to fetch the others.”
“What others, Jo-An?”
“The rest of us. The ones who came with me. You saw some of them.”
I had seen these men at the tannery by the river where Jo-An worked, and I would never forget the way they had stared after me with burning eyes. I knew they looked to me for Justice and protection. I remembered the feather: Justice was what Shigeru had desired. I also had to pursue it for the sake of his memory and for these living men.
Jo-An put his hands together again and gave thanks for the food.
A fish leaped in the silence.
“How many are there?” I asked.
“About thirty. They’re hiding in the mountains. They’ve been crossing the border in ones and twos for the last weeks.”
“Isn’t the border guarded?”
“There’ve been skirmishes between the Otori and Arai’s men. At the moment there’s a standoff. The borders are all open. The Otori have made it clear they’re not challenging Arai or hoping to retake Yamagata. They only want to eliminate you.”
It seemed to be everyone’s mission.
“Do the people support them?” I asked.
“Of course not!” he said almost impatiently. “You know who they support: the Angel of Yamagata. So do we all. Why else are we here?”
I was not sure I wanted their support, but I could not help but be impressed by their courage.
“Thank you,” I said.
He grinned then, showing his missing teeth, reminding me of the torture he had already suffered because of me. “We’ll meet you on the other side of the mountain. You’ll need us then, you’ll see.”
I had the guards open the gates and said good-bye to him. I watched his slight, twisted shape as he scuttled away into the darkness. From the forest a vixen screamed, a sound like a ghost in torment. I shivered. Jo-An seemed guided and sustained by some great supernatural power. Though I no longer believed in it, I feared its force like a superstitious child.
I went back to the guest house, my skin crawling. I removed my clothes and, despite the lateness of the hour, told Manami to take them away, wash and purify them, and then come to the bathhouse. She scrubbed me all over and I soaked in the hot water for ten or fifteen minutes. Putting on fresh clothes, I sent the servant to fetch Kahei and then to ask the abbot if we might speak with him. It was the first half of the Hour of the Ox.