By the end of the fourth day I was seeing balls behind my eyelids, and I was bored and restless beyond words. Some people, and I guessed Akio was one, work persistently at these skills because they are obsessed by them and by their desire to master them. I quickly realized I was not among them. I couldn’t see the point to juggling. It didn’t interest me. I was learning in the hardest of ways and for the worst of reasons: because I would be beaten if I did not. I submitted to Akio’s harsh teaching because I had to, but I hated it, and I hated him. Twice more his goading led to the same outburst of fury, but just as I was learning to anticipate him, so he and Yuki came to know the signs, and were ready to restrain me before anyone got hurt.
That fourth night, once the house was silent and everyone slept, I decided to go exploring. I was bored, I could not sleep, I was longing to breathe some fresh air, but above all I wanted to see if I could. For obedience to the Tribe to make sense, I had to find out if I could be disobedient. Forced obedience seemed to have as little point as juggling. They might as well tie me up day and night like a dog, and I would growl and bite on command.
I knew the layout of the house. I had mapped it when I had nothing else to do but listen. I knew where everyone slept at night. Yuki and her mother were in a room at the back of the building, with two other women whom I had not seen, though I had heard them. One served in the shop, joking loudly with the customers in the local accent. Yuki addressed her as “Auntie.” The other was more of a servant. She did the cleaning and most of the food preparation, always first up in the morning and the last to lie down at night. She spoke very little, in a low voice with a northern accent. Her name was Sadako. Everyone in the household bullied her cheerfully and took advantage of her; her replies were always quiet and deferential. I felt I knew these women, though I’d never set eyes on either of them.
Akio and the other men, three of them, slept in a loft in the roof space above the shop. Every night they took turns joining the guards at the back of the house. Akio had done it the night before, and I’d suffered for it, as sleeplessness added an extra edge to his teasing. Before the maid went to bed, while the lamps were still lit, I would hear one or other of the men help her close the doors and the outer shutters, the wooden panels sliding into place with a series of dull thumps that invariably set the dogs barking.
There were three dogs, each with its own distinctive voice. The same man fed them every night, whistling to them through his teeth in a particular way that I practiced when I was alone, thankful that no one else had the Kikuta gift of hearing.
The front doors of the house were barred at night, and the rear gates guarded, but one smaller door was left unbarred. It led into a narrow space between the house and the outer wall, at the end of which was the privy. I was escorted there three or four times a day. I’d been out in the yard after dark a couple of times, to bathe in the small bathhouse that stood in the backyard, between the end of the house and the gates. Though I was kept hidden, it was, as Yuki said, for my own safety. As far as I could tell, no one seriously expected me to try and escape: I was not under guard.
I lay for a long time, listening to the sounds of the house. I could hear the breathing of the women in the downstairs room, the men in the loft. Beyond the walls the town gradually quieted. I had gone into a state I recognized. I could not explain it, but it was as familiar to me as my own skin. I did not feel either fear or excitement. My brain switched off. I was all instinct, instinct and ears. Time altered and slowed. It did not matter how long it took to open the door of the concealed room. I knew I would do it eventually, and I would do it soundlessly. Just as I would get to the outer door silently.
I was standing by this outer door, aware of every noise around me, when I heard footsteps. Kenji’s wife got up, crossed the room where she’d been sleeping, and went toward the concealed room. The door slid; a few seconds passed. She came out of the room and, a lamp in her hand, walked swiftly but not anxiously toward me. Briefly I thought of going invisible, but I knew there was no point. She would almost certainly be able to discern me, and if she couldn’t she would raise the household.
Saying nothing, I jerked my head in the direction of the door that led to the privy and went back to the hidden room. As I passed her I was aware of her eyes on me. She didn’t say anything, either, just nodded at me, but I felt she knew I was trying to get out.
The room was stuffier than ever. Sleep now seemed impossible. I was still deep within my state of silent instinct. I tried to discern her breathing, but could not hear it. Finally I convinced myself that she must be asleep again. I got up, slowly opened the door, and stepped out into the room. The lamp still burned. Kenji’s wife sat there next to it. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them and saw me standing in front of her.
“Going to piss again?” she said in her deep voice.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Sit down. I’ll make some tea.” She got to her feet in one movement: Despite her age and size she was as lithe as a girl. She put her hand on my shoulder and pushed me gently down onto the matting.
“Don’t run away!” she warned, mockery in her voice.
I sat, but I was not really thinking. I was still bent on getting outside. I heard the kettle hiss as she blew on the embers, heard the chink of iron and pottery. She came back with the tea, knelt to pour it, and handed me a bowl, which I leaned forward to take. The light glowed between us. As I took the bowl I looked into her eyes, saw the amusement and mockery in them, saw that she had been flattering me before: She did not really believe in my talents. Then her eyelids flickered and closed. I dropped the bowl, caught her as she swayed, and set her down, already deeply asleep, on the matting. In the lamplight the spilled tea steamed.
I should have been horrified, but I wasn’t. I just felt the cold satisfaction that the skills of the Tribe bring with them. I was sorry that I hadn’t thought of this before, but it had never occurred to me that I would have any power at all over the wife of the Muto master. I was mainly relieved that now nothing was going to stop me from getting outside.
As I slipped through the side door into the yard, I heard the dogs stir. I whistled to them, high and quiet so only they and I would hear. One came padding up to investigate me, tail wagging. In the way of all dogs, he liked me. I put out my hand. He laid his head on it. The moon was low in the sky, but it gave enough light to make his eyes shine yellow. We stared at each other for a few moments, then he yawned, showing his big white teeth, lay down at my feet, and slept.
Inside my head the thought niggled: A dog is one thing, the Muto master’s wife is quite another. But I chose not to listen. I crouched down and stroked the dog’s head a couple of times while I looked at the wall.
Of course, I had neither weapons nor tools. The overhang of the wall’s roof was wide and so pitched that, without grapples, it was impossible to get a handhold. In the end I climbed onto the roof of the bathhouse and jumped across. I went invisible, crept along the top of the wall away from the rear gate and the guards, and dropped into the street just before the corner. I stood against the wall for a few moments, listening. I heard the murmur of voices from the guards. The dogs were silent and the whole town seemed to sleep.
As I had done before, the night I climbed into Yamagata Castle, I worked my way from street to street, heading in a zigzag direction toward the river. The willow trees still stood beneath the setting moon. The branches moved gently in the autumn wind, the leaves already yellow, one or two floating down into the water.
I crouched in their shelter. I had no idea who controlled this town now: The lord whom Shigeru had visited, Iida’s ally, had been overthrown along with the Tohan when the town erupted at the news of Shigeru’s death, but presumably Arai had installed some kind of interim governor. I could not hear any sound of patrols. I stared at the castle, unable to make out if the heads of the Hidden whom I had released from torture into death had been removed or not. I could hardly believe my own memory: It was as if I had dre
amed it or been told the story of someone else who had done it.
I was thinking about that night and how I had swum beneath the surface of the river when I heard footsteps approaching along the bank: the ground was soft and damp and the footfall was muffled, but whoever it was was quite close. I should have left then but I was curious to see who would come to the river at this time of night, and I knew he would not see me.
He was a man of less than average height and very slight; in the darkness I could make out nothing else. He looked around furtively and then knelt at the water’s edge as if he were praying. The wind blew off the river, bringing the tang of water and mud, and along with it the man’s own smell.
His scent was somehow familiar. I sniffed the air like a dog, trying to place it. After a moment or two it came to me: It was the smell of the tannery. This man must be a leather worker, therefore an outcast. I knew then who he was: the man who had spoken to me after I had climbed into the castle. His brother had been one of the tortured Hidden to whom I had brought the release of death. I had used my second self on the riverbank, and this man had thought he had seen an angel and had spread the rumor of the Angel of Yamagata. I could guess why he was there praying. He must also be from the Hidden, maybe hoping to see the angel again. I remembered how the first time I saw him I had thought I had to kill him, but I had not been able to bring myself to do so. I gazed on him now with the troubled affection you have for someone whose life you have spared.
I felt something else, too; a pang of loss and regret for the certainties of my childhood, for the words and rituals that had comforted me then, seeming as eternal as the turn of the seasons and the passage of the moon and the stars in the sky. I had been plucked from my life among the Hidden when Shigeru had saved me at Mino. Since then I had kept my origins concealed, never speaking of them to anyone, never praying openly. But sometimes at night I still prayed after the manner of the faith I was raised in, to the Secret God that my mother worshipped, and now I felt a yearning to approach this man and talk to him.
As an Otori lord, even as a member of the Tribe, I should have shunned a leather worker, for they slaughter animals and are considered unclean, but the Hidden believe all men are created equal by the Secret God, and so I had been taught by my mother. Still, some vestige of caution kept me out of sight beneath the willow, though as I heard his whispered prayer I found my tongue repeating the words along with him.
I would have left it like that—I was not a complete fool, even though that night I was behaving like one—if I had not caught the sound of men approaching over the nearest bridge. It was a patrol of some sort, probably Arai’s men, though I had no way of knowing for sure. They must have stopped on the bridge and gazed down the river.
“There’s that lunatic,” I heard one say. “Makes me sick having to see him there night after night.” His accent was local, but the next man who spoke sounded as if he came from the West.
“Give him a beating, he’ll soon give up coming.”
“We’ve done that. Makes no difference.”
“Comes back for more, does he?”
“Let’s lock him up for a few nights.”
“Let’s just chuck him in the river.”
They laughed. I heard their footsteps grow louder as they began to run, and then fade a little as they passed behind a row of houses. They were still some way off; the man on the bank had heard nothing. I was not going to stand by and watch while the guards threw my man into the river. My man: He already belonged to me.
I slipped out from beneath the branches of the willow and ran toward him. I tapped him on the shoulder and, when he turned, I hissed at him, “Come, hide quickly!”
He recognized me at once and, with a great gasp of amazement, threw himself at my feet, praying incoherently. In the distance I could hear the patrol approaching down the street that ran along the river. I shook the man, lifted his head, put my finger to my lips, and, trying to remember not to look him in the eye, pulled him into the shelter of the willows.
I should leave him here, I thought. I can go invisible and avoid the patrol. But then I heard them tramping round the corner and realized I was too late.
The breeze ruffled the water and set the willow leaves quivering. In the distance a cock crowed, a temple bell sounded.
“Gone!” a voice exclaimed, not ten paces from us.
Another man swore, “Filthy outcasts.”
“Which is worse, do you reckon, outcasts or Hidden?”
“Some are both! That’s the worst.”
I heard the slicing sigh of a sword being drawn. One of the soldiers slashed at a clump of reeds and then at the willow itself. The man next to me tensed. He was trembling but he made no sound. The smell of tanned leather was so strong in my nostrils, I was sure the guards would catch it, but the rank smell of the river must have masked it.
I was thinking I might attract their attention away from the outcast—split my self and somehow evade them—when a pair of ducks, sleeping in the reeds, suddenly flew off, quacking loudly, skimming the surface of the water and shattering the quiet of the night. The men shouted in surprise, then jeered at each other. They joked and grumbled for a little longer, threw stones at the ducks, then left in the direction opposite the one they’d come from. I heard their footsteps echo through the town, fading until even I could hear them no more. I began to scold the man.
“What are you doing out at this time of night? They’d have thrown you in the river if they’d found you.”
He bent his head to my feet again.
“Sit up,” I urged him. “Speak to me.”
He sat, glanced briefly upward at my face, and then dropped his eyes. “I come every night I can,” he muttered. “I’ve been praying to God for one more sight of you. I can never forget what you did for my brother—for the rest of them.” He was silent for a moment, then whispered, “I thought you were an angel. But people say you are Lord Otori’s son. You killed Lord Iida in revenge for his death. Now we have a new lord, Arai Daiichi from Kumamoto. His men have been combing the town for you. I thought they must know you were here. So I came tonight again to see you. Whatever form you choose to come in, you must be one of God’s angels to do what you did.”
It was a shock to hear my story repeated by this man. It brought home to me the danger I was in. “Go home. Tell no one you saw me.” I prepared to leave.
He did not seem to hear me. He was in an almost exalted state: His eyes glittering, flecks of spittle shimmering on his lips. “Stay, lord,” he exhorted me. “Every night I bring food for you, food and wine. We must share them together; then you must bless me and I will die happy.”
He took up a small bundle. Unwrapping the food and placing it on the ground between us, he began to say the first prayer of the Hidden. The familiar words made my neck tingle, and when he’d finished I responded quietly with the second prayer. Together we made the sign over the food and over ourselves, and I began to eat.
The meal was pitifully sparse, a millet cake with a trace of smoked fish skin buried in it, but it had all the elements of the rituals of my childhood. The outcast brought out a small flask and poured from it into a wooden bowl. It was some home-brewed liquor, far rougher than wine, and we had no more than a mouthful each, but the smell reminded me of my home. I felt my mother’s presence strongly and tears pricked my eyelids.
“Are you a priest?” I whispered, wondering how he had escaped the Tohan persecution.
“My brother was our priest. The one you released in mercy. Since his death I do what I can for our people—those who are left.”
“Did many die under Iida?”
“In the East, hundreds. My parents fled here many years ago, and under the Otori there was no persecution. But in the ten years since Yaegahara, no one has been safe here. Now we have a new overlord, Arai: No one knows which way he will jump. They say he has other fish to gut. We may be left alone while he deals with the Tribe.” His voice dropped to a whisper at this last word, as
though just to utter it was to invite retribution. “And that would only be justice,” he went on, “for it’s they who are the murderers and the assassins. Our people are harmless. We are forbidden to kill.” He shot me an apologetic look. “Of course, lord, your case was different.”
He had no idea how different, or how far I had gone from my mother’s teaching. Dogs were barking in the distance, roosters announced the coming day. I had to go, yet I was reluctant to leave.
“You’re not afraid?” I asked him.
“Often I am terrified. I don’t have the gift of courage. But my life is in God’s hands. He has some plan for me. He sent you to us.”
“I am not an angel,” I said.
“How else would one of the Otori know our prayers?” he replied. “Who but an angel would share food with someone like me?”
I knew the risk I was taking but I told him anyway. “Lord Shigeru rescued me from Iida at Mino.”
I did not have to spell it out. He was silent for a moment as if awed. Then he whispered, “Mino? We thought no one survived from there. How strange are the ways of God. You have been spared for some great purpose. If you are not an angel, you are marked by the Secret One.”
I shook my head. “I am the least of beings. My life is not my own. Fate, which led me away from my own people, has now led me away from the Otori.” I did not want to tell him I had become one of the Tribe.
“You need help?” he said. “We will always help you. Come to us at the outcasts’ bridge.”
“Where is that?”
“Where we tan the hides, between Yamagata and Tsuwano. Ask for Jo-An.” He then said the third prayer, giving thanks for the food.
“I must go,” I said.
“First would you give me a blessing, lord.”
I placed my right hand on his head and began the prayer my mother used to say to me. I felt uncomfortable, knowing I had little right to speak these words, but they came easily off my tongue. Jo-An took my hand and touched his forehead and lips to my fingers. I realized then how deeply he trusted me. He released my hand and bowed his head to the ground. When he raised it again, I was on the far side of the street. The sky was paling, the dawn air cool.