Spirit's Chosen (25 page)

The shadows grew shorter. Midday came, and with it my guard’s relief. I roused myself from my misery when I heard the voice of his replacement: it was Hiroshi, the young man who had been Kaya’s champion when we were first shut up under this roof!

He has a good heart, I thought. If I spoke to him, he might be willing to give me answers … 
if he has any to give. I won’t know if I don’t try
.

I overheard the two Ookami trading a few friendly words before the big guard left. I waited until I was sure he had gone, then cleared my throat to speak.

“Are you all right in there, girl?”

Hiroshi’s question was so unexpected that I was struck off balance and could only stammer, “Wh-wh-what did you say?”

“I was asking if you were all right. Do you have drinking water? Has anyone brought you a midday meal?” He spoke in a voice so low that I had to edge to the doorway in order to hear every word.

“I think there’s still some water in a jar over in the corner,” I told him.

“Good. And what about food?”

“I had breakfast; that’s all. It doesn’t matter. I’m not hungry.”

“That is
not
good,” he said firmly. “I was taught to eat every meal you can get because you never know when you might not be able to get any. I’ll stop the next person who walks past and send them to bring you something to eat.” He glanced at me quickly and smiled, then snapped back to keeping his eyes on the outside world.

“I told you, I don’t want anything,” I said. “Even if I did, you might get in trouble for helping me.”

“For giving food to a hungry girl?” He made a derisive noise. “I don’t think so.”

“Then you’re wrong. I’ve already made problems for other people this morning, though don’t ask me what I did; even I don’t know.”

There was a pause, and then: “Ohhhhhhh. I see what you mean. I was told about the incident when I was sent to stand watch here.” He clucked his tongue. “Poor man, he must have had his mind on other things or he would have turned tail and run instead of greeting you. Yesterday Lord Ryu let it be known that it’s a grave, punishable offense for any of your clanfolk to approach you, speak with you, or even acknowledge your existence. I overheard a messenger
delivering his words to one of the houses where Matsu slaves are lodged.
‘Make her a ghost,’
was what he said.”

I digested this news carefully. “I’m to be cut off from my people.…”
My people, and my family
, I thought, forlorn. The one aspect of my captivity with the power to make the rest of it bearable was the prospect of being reunited with Noboru, Emi, and Sanjirou. Ryu had torn that away from me.

And how soon before he robs me of still more that I cherish? What about Kaya? He has let us stay together so far, but will that last?
The thought of being separated from my dearest friend, the sister of my spirit, made me feel like I’d swallowed thorns. The pain was so intense that it stole my speech and left me dead silent.

“Girl?” The young guard sounded concerned by my unnatural stillness. “What’s the matter in there? Are you crying? Listen, it’s not going to be so bad, you’ll see! Lord Ryu’s got a nasty temper, but it dies as fast as it flares up. All of us know how the giant mountain hermit humiliated him, laying him out cold and taking that little boy of his. He could only kill the big man once, so he’s making you suffer for his embarrassment too. Trust me, this won’t last. He’ll forget he gave that order, or the men called to guard duty will forget to enforce it, or you’ll find a way to make Lord Ryu change his mind altogether. I’ll bet you could do that easily, eh, a pretty girl like you?”

His words were intended to encourage and cheer me. Instead, they kindled a smoldering rage. “Oh,
could
I? I know what kind of persuasion you expect me to use! Hear me: I would turn my pretty face into a demon’s mask
before I’d let Ryu touch me. I would sooner be sealed alive in a burial mound, with slime to drink, mud to eat, and a thousand poisonous reptiles for company than do what you suggest!”

“All right, all right, shush, stop that, people can hear you!” My outburst sent the young guard into a panic. “
Please
be quiet, or someone’s going to repeat what you said to Lord Ryu and then we’ll both be up to our necks in the muck! I’m sorry I offended you. Forget I said anything! I’m begging you—”

“I’m done,” I said. And that was the last that I did say until Kaya and the other women came home that evening.

Kaya did not need me to tell her why my unfortunate Matsu kinsman had been given such a beating by our guards. As soon as I was hustled back to the house, the old woman told her everything. She was still shaking her head over Ryu’s unjustly severe orders throughout dinner and until it was time to go to sleep.

“Do you think he’ll try to part us too?” she asked, mirroring my own fear.

“I don’t know. I hope not.” My words sounded feeble. After less than two full days of captivity I was already broken in spirit. The burden of so much failure, affecting so many lives, was horrendous. I needed distraction from my bleak thoughts, but I had been shut away from the possibility of life’s small joys and diversions. I could only look inward, to darkness.

“Himiko, what’s wrong with you?” Kaya put one arm around my shoulders. “You sound ill, and you hardly took a bite of food this evening.”

“It tastes awful,” I said, avoiding the real question.

“Yes, but it’s all we’ve got and I doubt we’re going to get anything better. If you’re not sick now, you will be unless you eat.”

“I’ll do better tomorrow.”

My friend gave me a doubtful look. “Be sure you do.”

Things improved slightly the next day. I was permitted to join the rest of the women laboring in the paddies. I had done that sort of work at home, though always with the freedom to rest whenever I liked. As a slave, this choice was taken from me. My clothing became soaked with sweat, the hem of my dress heavy with mud. My long hair fell forward as I bent over the furrows, rooting the young rice, and trailed in the water. I tried tying it back, but it still got wet and filthy at the ends.

“Take off your sash and wrap it around your head,” the woman working next to me said. She pointed to the cloth she’d used to bind up and cover her own hair.

If I did as she suggested, I would have nowhere to hold my wand and amulet of the goddess. “Good idea, but too late for me to try today,” I said as cheerfully as I could. I showed her how much of my hair was already drenched and dirty.

“Oh, you’re right. Silly to coil wet hair with dry, eh?” She went back to work.

It was good to be out in the sun, even if its warmth only fell on my bent back. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been on edge, worried about accidentally encountering anyone from my clan. I did not want to be responsible for even one more person being punished on my
account, thanks to Ryu’s inhumanity. Whenever I looked up from the mud, I became intensely alert, scanning the fields. If I so much as imagined I saw a kinsman, I turned away sharply, or hid behind Kaya. By the time we were sent home I was almost as tired from my evasive tactics as from the actual fieldwork.

The next day was the same, and the next, and the next. I became so used to the routine that I hardly noticed when there was no longer a guard assigned to the doorway of our house. When Kaya pointed this out, I said, “So what? The whole village is our guard now.”

That was true. The two of us had become familiar faces to the Ookami. A few even knew us by name. On days that we were sent to the river to bathe, at least three of their female elders accompanied us to patrol the banks and chase off any young men who came to leer at us or shout indecencies. When we sat outside our house on balmy evenings, a few Ookami girls would sometimes greet us, chat with us, and ask our pregnant friend shy questions about what it felt like to carry a child. They did not speak to us as mistresses to slaves, but as maidens close in age to one another. If our lives had followed a different path, we might have been friends.

There were also Ookami men as caring and courteous as the guard who’d saved Kaya and comforted me. They never insulted us or made inappropriate remarks. I think that when they looked at us, they realized that if the war between our clans had ended differently, their own sisters, daughters, sweethearts, and mothers would be the slaves. Knowing that not all of the wolves were heartless creatures
was a consolation, though a very small one. It did nothing to drain the bitterness of captivity.

Every morning when I arose and every night when I lay down to sleep, I prayed fervently to the spirits of sky and stone, earth and air, beasts, birds, and all that drew breath:
Help me, save me, free me! Let me escape and grant that I can flee with all my family, my friends, and every soul the Ookami have subjugated! I am nothing without you. The wolves have left me powerless. Rescue me, O spirits, and I will serve you and praise you forever!

I offered these prayers silently, from the depths of my heart. I yearned for an answer, whether it would come as a dream, a vision, or a visible miracle. If I begged the spirits for their aid long enough, would a bolt of lightning strike Ryu’s house? Would a multitude of the very wolves that were their guardian spirits sweep out of the forests and tear the Ookami warriors to pieces? Or would the shadow gateway open as my spirit prince Reikon leaped into my world, leading an army no mortal warriors could ever hope to vanquish? Again and again I prayed:
Help me, save me, free me!
Again and again and again, into emptiness.

Spring flowers bloomed and faded. Planting the fields gave way to hoeing them to keep down the weeds. The moon’s face went through its complete cycle of change three times as the days grew warmer and the light lasted longer. Fireflies danced in the twilight and soon cicadas would fill the trees with their droning, but my days remained the same round of tasteless food, thankless labor, and restless, dreamless sleep.

From time to time, my path crossed Ryu’s. I would see
him looking at me as I went out to the fields or fetched water from the well or was busy with other chores. He never said one word to me, silently relishing my humiliation. His sly, gloating smile never failed to jolt me into anger, though the impulse to act on it always died quickly. What was the use? He controlled everything. He controlled me.

On a humid summer evening when the earth still sighed with the burden of the day’s heat, Tami felt the first pains of childbirth. We had all been lolling outside the house, straining to catch the faintest hint of a cooling breeze after a hard day’s work. Then a sharp cry escaped our friend’s lips, she bent forward abruptly, and in that moment our weariness vanished as we all rushed to her aid.

Two of the middle-aged women helped Tami to her feet and began helping her walk back and forth in front of the doorway. The third set to work with a fire-twirling stick and some kindling rags, making a fire to see us all through the night. The old woman scurried inside to prepare a place for the girl to lie down when the time to deliver the baby came. Kaya flew off faster than one of her own arrows to draw pot after pot of fresh water from the village well, working as swiftly as the lowering darkness allowed.

I was left to one side, with nothing to do. Kaya had not waited to have me pick up another water pot and go with her to the well. The old woman had not asked me to help gather dried grass for Tami’s bedding. Our fire-starter needed no one’s help, but the other two women had not told me to stay close, in case they needed me to relieve one of them from all that pacing. I had not even been requested to find one of the Ookami midwives, whose knife
would be needed when it was time to separate mother and child. Why?

I looked at my idle hands. How thin they had grown! Some shamans had the skill to read messages from the gods in the pattern of cracks that formed when they tossed animal bones into a fire. Now I read the answer to my question in the way my own bones stood out so gauntly through my skin.

My appetite never had come back to what it was before Mori’s death. The less I ate, the more Kaya worried about me. She tried many tactics to get me to take more food, but I had excuses to thwart every one. Finally, after the moon’s face had gone through its full changes nearly three times, she stopped commenting about how little I ate. Had my stubbornness conquered Lady Badger’s tenacity?

No. A wise badger does not make a den with only one doorway. Instead of trying to make me eat more, Kaya turned her efforts to making me work less. She drew the other women into her plan as well. It was not difficult: they were already doing exactly the same thing to help Tami save her strength for the challenge of childbirth. They also banded together in exactly this way when the old woman fell ill for a few days. Because we were all together in the fields, no one cared if some worked much more than others as long as our assigned task got done.

But I’m not sick!
I protested silently.
I’m not sick and I’m not expecting a baby, so why am I pushed aside as if I were weak and worthless and …

Understanding came in a flash as bright and sudden as lightning leaping across the summer sky:
I’ve
made
myself look weak. They think I’ve become too feeble to do anything helpful
for our friend, so they ask nothing of me. Nothing: not even my skills as a healer or my calling as a shaman
.

I’ll show them I can be strong again, but that will take time. I need to let them see that I am useful
now.

I leaned back against the wall of our house, closed my eyes, and clapped my hands to summon the attention of the spirits. I began to chant the spell that would be the child’s guide from the land of the unborn into the mortal world. When I finished, I saw that Tami and her two helpers had paused in midstep and were staring at me. I stood up and approached them, laying one hand on my friend’s belly, the other on the small of her back. As calmly and steadily as I could, I began asking her all the questions that would help direct a successful childbirth.

She looked bewildered to find me speaking so confidently and remained tongue-tied until I laughed and said: “I may be younger than you, Tami, but I’m still a shaman. I don’t blame you for forgetting that, considering the way I’ve been acting. I have been a part of births, and I can tell you many stories about them.”