Grass for His Pillow (21 page)

I listened to the breath of the three of us and to the sounds of the mountain, the crows still cawing in their harsh voices, the cedars
restless in the northeast wind, the trickle and drip of water, the groaning of the mountain itself as the temperature dropped and the rocks shrank.

“Your lands will stretch from sea to sea,” she said finally. “But peace comes at the price of bloodshed. Five battles will buy you peace, four to win and one to lose. Many must die, but you yourself are safe from death, except at the hands of your own son.”

Another long silence followed. With every second the light darkened toward evening and the air chilled. My gaze wandered round the cave. At the holy woman's side stood a prayer wheel on a small wooden block carved with lotus leaves around its edge. I was puzzled. I knew many mountain shrines were forbidden to women, and none I had ever seen had contained such a mixture of symbols, as though the Secret God, the Enlightened One, and the spirits of the mountain all dwelled here together.

She spoke as if she saw my thoughts; her voice held a kind of laughter mixed with wonder. “It is all one. Keep this in your heart. It is all one.”

She touched the prayer wheel and set it turning. Its rhythm seemed to steal into my veins to join my blood. She began to chant softly, words I had never heard before and did not understand. They flowed over and around us, eventually fading into the wind. When we heard them again they had become the farewell blessing of the Hidden. She handed us a bowl and told us to drink from the pool before we left.

A thin layer of ice was already forming on the surface, and the water was so cold it bit into my teeth. Jo-An wasted no time but led me quickly away, glancing anxiously toward the north. Before we went back over the crest I took one last look at the holy woman.
She sat motionless; from this distance she seemed like part of the rock. I could not believe she would stay out here alone all night.

“How does she survive?” I questioned Jo-An. “She'll die of cold.”

He frowned. “She is sustained by God. It does not matter to her if she dies.”

“She is like you, then?”

“She is a holy person. Once I thought she was an angel, but she is a human being, transformed by the power of God.”

He did not want to talk more. He seemed to have caught my urgency. We descended at a rapid pace until we came to a small rockfall, which we clambered over. On the other side was a narrow path made by men walking single file into the dark forest. Once on the path we began to climb again.

Fallen leaves and pine needles muffled our footsteps. Beneath the trees it was almost night. Jo-An went faster still. The pace warmed me a little, but my feet and legs seemed to be slowly turning to stone, as if the limy water I'd drunk were calcifying me. And my heart was chilled, too, by the old woman's baffling words and all that they implied for my future. I had never fought in a battle: Was I really to wage five of them? If bloodshed was the price of peace, in five battles it would be a heavy cost indeed. And the idea that my own son, not yet even born, would be the one to kill me filled me with unbearable sadness.

I caught up with Jo-An and touched him on the arm. “What does it mean?”

“It means what it says,” he replied, slowing a little to catch his breath.

“Did she say the same words to you earlier?”

“The same.”

“When was it?”

“After I died and came back to life. I wanted to live like her, a hermit on the mountain. I thought I might be her servant, her disciple. But she said my work in the world was not yet finished, and she spoke the words about you.”

“You told her who I was, my past life and everything?”

“No,” he said patiently. “There was no need to tell her, for she already knew. She said I must serve you, because only you will bring peace.”

“Peace?” I repeated. Was this what she meant by heaven's desire? I wasn't even sure what the word signified. The very idea of peace seemed like one of the fantasies of the Hidden, the stories of the kingdom that my mother would whisper to me at night. Would it ever be possible to stop the clans from fighting? The whole warrior class fought: It was what they were bred and trained and lived for. Apart from their traditions and personal sense of honor, there was the constant need for land to maintain armies to gain more land, the military codes and shifting webs of alliances, the overweening ambition of warlords like Iida Sadamu, and now, more than likely, Arai Daiichi. “Peace through war?”

“Is there any other way?” Jo-An replied. “There will be battles.”

Four to win, one to lose. . . .

“That is why we are preparing now. You noticed the men at the tannery, saw their eyes. Ever since your merciful actions at Yamagata Castle, when you put an end to the sufferings of the tortured Hidden, you have been a hero to these people. Then your service to Lord Shigeru at Inuyama . . . even without the prophecy they would have been ready to fight for you. Now they know God is with you.”

“She sits in a mountain shrine and uses a prayer wheel,” I said. “Yet, she blessed us after the fashion of your people.”

“
Our
people,” he corrected me.

I shook my head. “I no longer follow those teachings. I have killed many times. Do you really believe she speaks the words of your god?”

For the Hidden teach that the Secret God is the only true one, and the spirits that everyone else worships are delusions.

“I don't know why God tells me to listen to her,” he admitted. “But he does, and so I do.”

He is mad,
I thought.
The torture and the fear have driven him out of his mind.
“She said, ‘It is all one.' But you don't believe that, surely?”

He whispered, “I believe all the teachings of the Secret One. I have followed them since childhood. I know them to be true. But it seems to me there is a place beyond the teachings, a place beyond words, where that could be the truth, where all the beliefs are seen to issue from the one source. My brother was a priest; he would have said this was heresy. I have not been to this place yet, but it is where she dwells.”

I was silent, thinking about how his words applied to myself. I could feel the three elements that made up my nature coiled within me like three separate snakes, each one deadly to the others if it were allowed to strike. I could never live one life without denying two-thirds of myself. My only way was to go forward, to transcend the divisions and find a means of uniting them.

“And you also,” Jo-An added, reading my thoughts.

“It is what I would like to believe,” I said finally. “But whereas for her it is a place of deepest spirituality, I am perhaps more practical. To me it just seems to make sense.”

“So you are the one who will bring peace.”

I did not want to believe this prophecy. It was both far more and far less than I wanted for my own life. But the old woman's words had fallen into my inner being, and I could not get rid of them.

“The men at the tannery, your men, they won't fight, will they?”

“Some will,” Jo-An said.

“Do they know how to?”

“They can be taught. And there are many other things they can do: building, transport, guiding you over secret paths.”

“Like this one?”

“Yes, the charcoal burners made this one. They conceal the entrances with rock piles. They have ways over the whole mountain.”

Farmers, outcasts, charcoal burners—none of them was supposed to carry weapons or join in the wars of the clans. I wondered how many others were like the farmer I had killed at Matsue, or Jo-An. What a waste of their courage and intelligence not to use men like that. If I were to train and arm them, I would have all the men I needed. But would warriors fight alongside them? Or would they just consider me an outcast too?

I was occupied with these thoughts when I caught the whiff of burning and a few moments later heard the distant sound of voices, and other noises of human activity, the thud of an ax, the crackle of fire. Jo-An noticed as I swung my head.

“You hear them already?”

I nodded, listening, counting how many there were. Four from the voices, I thought; maybe another who did not speak but who moved with a distinctive tread; no dogs, which seemed unusual.
“You know I am half Kikuta, from the Tribe. I have many of their talents.”

He couldn't help flinching slightly. These talents seem like witchcraft to the Hidden. My own father had renounced all his Tribe skills when he had converted to the beliefs of the Hidden; he had died because he had taken their vow never to kill again.

“I know it,” Jo-An replied.

“I'll need all of them if I'm to do what you expect of me.”

“The Tribe are children of the Devil,” he muttered, adding quickly as he had once before, “But your case is different, lord.”

It made me realize the risks he was taking for me, not only from human forces, but from supernatural ones. My Tribe blood must have made me as dangerous in his mind as a goblin or a river spirit. I was amazed again at the strength of the convictions that drove him and at how completely he had placed himself in my hands.

The smell of burning grew stronger. Flecks of ash were settling on our clothes and skin, reminding me ominously of snow. The ground took on a grayish look. The path led into a clearing between the trees where there were several charcoal ovens, banked over with damp soil and turf. Only one still burned, patches of red glowing from its crevices. Three men were engaged in dismantling the cold ovens and bundling the charcoal. Another knelt by a cooking fire where a kettle hung steaming from a three-legged stand. Four, yet I still felt there had been five. I heard a heavy footfall behind me, and the involuntary intake of breath that precedes an attack. I pushed Jo-An aside and leaped round to face whoever it was trying to ambush us.

He was the largest man I had ever seen, arms already stretched
out to seize us. One huge hand, one stump. Because of the stump I hesitated to wound him more. Leaving my image on the path, I slipped behind him and called to him to turn round, holding the knife where he could see the blade clearly and threatening to cut his throat.

Jo-An was shouting, “It's me, you blockhead! It's Jo-An!”

The man by the fire let out a great shout of laughter and the charcoal burners came running.

“Don't hurt him, sir,” they called to me. “He doesn't mean any harm. You surprised him, that's all.”

The giant had lowered his arms and stood with his one hand held out in a gesture of submission.

“He's mute,” Jo-An told me. “But even with one hand he's as strong as two oxen, and he's a hard worker.”

The charcoal burners were clearly worried I was going to punish one of their greatest assets. They threw themselves at my feet, begging for mercy. I told them to get up and keep their giant under control.

“I could have killed him!”

They all got up, said the words of welcome, clapped Jo-An on the shoulder, bowed again to me, and made me sit down by the fire. One of them poured tea from the kettle. I had no idea what it was made from; it tasted unlike anything I'd ever had before, but it was hot. Jo-An took them to one side and they had a huddled whispered conversation, of which I could hear every word.

Jo-An told them who I was, which produced gasps and more bowing, and that I had to get to Terayama as soon as possible. The group argued a little about the safest route and whether to start right away or wait till morning, then they came back to the fire, sat
in a circle, and stared at me, their eyes glowing in their dark faces. They were covered in soot and ash, barely clothed, yet not noticing the cold. They spoke as a group and seemed to think and feel as one. I imagined that here in the forest they followed their own rules, living like wild men, almost like animals.

“They've never spoken to a lord before,” Jo-An said. “One of them wants to know if you are the hero Yoshitsune, returned from the mainland. I told them that though you wander the mountains like Yoshitsune and are pursued by all men, you will be an even greater hero, for he failed but you are promised success by God.”

“Will the lord allow us to cut wood where we please?” one of the older men asked. They did not speak to me directly but addressed all their remarks to Jo-An. “There are many parts of the forest where we are no longer allowed to go. If we cut a tree there . . .” He made a graphic gesture of slicing his own neck.

“A head for a tree, a hand for a branch,” said another. He reached over to the giant and held up the mutilated arm. The stump had healed over with a puckered, livid scar, traces of gray running back up the limb where it had been cauterized. “Tohan clan officials did this to him a couple of years ago. He didn't understand, but they still took his hand.”

The giant held it out to me, nodding several times, his face bewildered and sorrowful.

I knew the Otori clan also had laws forbidding indiscriminate felling of trees: It was to protect the forests forever, but I did not think they enforced such harsh penalties. I wondered what was the point of half crippling a man; was a human life really worth less than a tree's?