Spirit's Princess (29 page)

We couldn’t stay long among the Shika. Aki explained to me that we could spend no more than two or three days there. “Don’t forget, besides our stay, it’s a journey of at least two days each way,” he said as we went to gather kindling wood, our small effort to thank Lady Ikumi for her hospitality. “We don’t want anyone back home to become concerned about our absence. Father might send hunters on our trail, and if they discovered where we are and told him—” He shook his head. “We can’t take that chance, Himiko. I want to be able to come back here.”

“I do too.” I took my brother’s hand. “For you.”

We made the most of the time we had. Kaya and I had countless things to tell each other. My friend was impressed when I showed her my dragon stone amulet and told her the story behind it. She was also spellbound when I spoke about my training with Yama.

“I wish I could become a shaman too,” she said.

“Why can’t you? Your mother’s chieftess
and
shaman. She could train you.”

“She won’t. She says that she could teach anyone the words and the songs and the dances you need to cast spells, but unless the spirits choose you, it’s like pouring rice wine into a cotton bag.” Kaya sighed. “At least I’m pretty good with the bow and arrow. Sora says I’ve got a sharp eye and a steady arm.”

I laughed. “You want to be a shaman, and I once wanted to be a hunter. Too bad we can’t trade dreams like dresses.”

“As long as they both fit,” said Kaya.

The night before Aki and I were to set off on our homeward path, Lady Ikumi asked me to walk with her after we’d eaten. It was a clear night, with the moon nearly full. A warm breeze lightly stirred my hair and carried sweet scents from the fields and forests, but I couldn’t relax enough to enjoy it.

Why does she want to talk to me?
I wondered, casting nervous sidelong glances at the Shika chieftess’s serene face.
What does she have to say that couldn’t be said indoors, with others there to hear? Did Kaya tell her about my training? She’s a shaman; maybe she doesn’t think I’m worthy to become one. She can’t interfere, but what will I say if she tries persuading me to stop my studies? Oh gods, I hope she won’t
—

“Is your brother a good man, Himiko?” Lady Ikumi’s abrupt question startled me out of my thoughts.

“Aki? Yes. I think—I know he is,” I replied, wondering why she’d ask such a thing.

“What makes you say so? If he weren’t your brother, would you still believe that?”

My uneasiness disappeared. Lady Ikumi’s question became a spider dropped down the back of my neck. “Of course I would!” I knew I should speak respectfully to the Shika chieftess, but I failed to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Why ask
me
such a thing? Has he done something wrong? Talk to
him
about it!”

She rested one hand on my shoulder. “I would, but I’ve hardly seen him since your arrival, except at meals and when it’s time to sleep. Sometimes not even then.”

“Oh.” Now I understood, and I probably would have done so earlier, if she hadn’t taken me by surprise. “He’s spending all his time with Hoshi. He waited so long to see her again! Please forgive him if that’s made him a bad guest.”

“I know where he’s been. He doesn’t need to ask my pardon for his absence, and for being with Hoshi. I bless him for that.” Lady Ikumi smiled sadly. “He loves my daughter very much, I think. I know that she loves him. When he left, she cried for two days. It’s torture for a mother to watch her child in pain and be helpless to heal it. I told her everything I could think of, trying to make her feel better. I’m afraid I told her many things that weren’t true or right. I said she shouldn’t pine over someone she’d never see again. I scolded her when she turned away from the young men in our clan. I insisted that if she married one of them, it would
solve everything. I was stupidly cruel enough to say that Aki would probably forget all about her. I told her she was too young to know her own heart.” The chieftess sighed. “In short, I was a fool.”

“He didn’t forget her,” I said softly. “And once we got home, he wouldn’t look at any of the girls in our clan, either. He even—” I hesitated, then decided to speak on, no matter what the consequences might be. “He even came back here secretly, to catch sight of her. That must have hurt, but he was willing to bear it. He’d rather see her and feel that pain than pretend she never existed and feel nothing.”

The Shika chieftess nodded slowly. “For two people to meet for such a brief while and yet know that their lives should be linked eternally … My mind rejects it, but my eyes tell me it’s true. Is there anything that the gods can’t do?”

“He’ll come back again,” I murmured. “Now that he knows Hoshi loves him too, he won’t linger to watch her from a distance. He’s one of our best hunters, so he’s got an excuse to go into the mountains as much as he likes.”

“So I hoped.” Lady Ikumi looked at me. “And what about you, my dear? Will you come back with him?”

“I will, but not as often. I’m happy to see Kaya again, but my excuse for leaving our village is much more fragile than Aki’s. If I overuse it, it would look suspicious and I could wind up ruining everything for both of us.”

The chieftess lifted her gaze to the moon. “So your father is unchanged?” I muttered something under my breath and shook my head. “That’s too bad.”

“Maybe Aki will change enough to stand up to him,” I offered. I told her about how Father had threatened my brother with exile from the Matsu clan, and how Aki had submitted. “If he does, will you let him join the Shika?”

“Certainly, but I hope it won’t come to that. To lose your family, to lose your clan, is to lose a piece of your soul. If the piece is big enough, you become a ghost long before your body dies. I wouldn’t ask your brother to do such a thing. Neither would Hoshi. She loves him too much to let him sacrifice himself. And I would never be able to live without grief if I were responsible for taking away another woman’s child.”

I thought of how badly Mama would react if Aki left our clan for good. “Thank you, Lady Ikumi,” I said quietly.

We left the Shika village the next morning. On the way home, I took care to gather an impressive number of roots, leaves, blossoms, and fungi. Aki justified his reputation as a hunter by bringing down some fat birds and a rabbit. When a very young boar crossed our path, my brother put an arrow into it and finished the kill with his knife before I could blink at the unlucky animal.

“If this isn’t a sign of favor from the gods, I don’t know what is.” Aki’s teeth flashed as he slung his prize over his shoulders. “No one will be able to call this a wasted journey once they see everything we’re bringing home. And
that
means you won’t have to get Lady Yama to justify your next trip quite so forcefully.”

My brother’s words proved true. I couldn’t accompany him every time he left the village on one of his “hunting” trips, but after he’d made three of them, Yama once more
informed Father that she needed me to go on another distant herb-gathering expedition. Before Father could even think of objecting, our shaman reminded him that it was nearly time for Emi to give birth.

“The plants I need won’t be at their best for much longer,” she said. “If I’m going to brew enough of my fire-cough remedy in time for winter, someone has to harvest the blossoms before they wither. If I go myself—Well, the flowers won’t wait, but neither will your baby. Do you want me here for the birth or not?”

As it happened, by the time Aki and I returned, we had a new baby brother. The birth hadn’t been easy, but Yama used all her arts, practical and mystic, to help Emi’s son Sanjirou safely into the world. The child was big and healthy. Father proudly declared that when his newest son demanded milk, it wasn’t an infant’s wail but a warrior’s battle yell that burst from that sweet, toothless mouth.

Father never raised any further arguments whenever Yama wanted to send me into the mountains with Aki. “He’d
better
not,” she said as the two of us picked through my latest harvest. “He knows that I’m needed in the village, not wandering the wilderness. If I hadn’t been here when Emi needed me, her arms would be empty now. I stay close to home, you bring me excellent ingredients, and your brother no longer walks under a cloud.”

“But wouldn’t you like to go deep into the forest again?” I asked. “Don’t you miss it? It’s so beautiful!”

“I’ve walked this world for longer than you can imagine, Himiko, and I’ve seen more of its beauty than these mountains hold. These days, I’m happier relying on my
memories than hiking over rough ground and slippery rocks. I like to sleep with a bedroll under my back and a roof over my head. I wasn’t lying when I told your father I’d grown too old for the sort of journey you and Aki undertake without thinking twice.”

“Lady Yama, you’re not old!” I protested.

She waved away my words with a hand whose wrinkled fingers made it look like a hawk’s taloned foot. “Why deny what I am? You can’t deceive the gods. These sags and creases, this thinning hair and scrawny body, don’t make me especially pleasant to look at, but I don’t mind. I was ugly when I was young too, so I’m used to it.” She guffawed at her own joke. “Besides, if I were still young enough to do all my own work, what excuse would you have for your travels? The gods fill our world with hidden blessings. Did you ever think that a fall from our sacred tree would bring you
here
?” She spread her arms. “We have to learn how to see them, Himiko, even when they’re hidden so deeply that we’re sure they don’t exist. A cherry pit looks like a barren stone no bigger than your fingertip, but in its heart, it conceals a living world.”

Our shaman never claimed to have the gift of prophecy. Her vision was fixed on the here and now, and when she did speak of the future, it was purely about practical matters: new marriages, new babies, new houses to shelter new families, and how we of the Matsu clan would adjust our individual lives to accommodate these changes. She also dealt with sadder things to come, and often warned our potter to begin work on a funerary jar a few days before the need for it arose. Even so, our people regarded Yama with as much awe as if she had the power to see what lay a hundred seasons ahead.

It was just as well that my teacher wasn’t endowed with supernatural foresight. If she’d predicted what lay ahead for my family and our clan over the next two years, no one would have believed her. How she would have hated that!

I can understand how people turn away from prophecies that foretell dreadful things. No one wants to hear that
they’re about to meet disaster, but at least they’re ready to believe it. We learn soon enough that bad things happen. Who has ever come through childhood without experiencing at least a hundred misfortunes, great and small?

But if we’re told that our lives are about to be flooded with good things, we turn away for a different reason: we can’t believe it. We don’t dare. How can we enjoy what we’ve been given when we keep looking over one shoulder for the catastrophe that’s sure to follow?

It was so much better that those two years of countless blessings came to us unannounced. Food was plentiful. Our fields yielded enough to feed a clan twice our size. Our hunters never came home empty-handed. Our pigs and chickens thrived.

There were other blessings too, blessings that touched my family. Emi’s son Sanjirou was a loud, sturdy two-year-old who took turns enchanting us and driving us wild with worry. His favorite trick was to rush headlong out the door, showing no sign he intended to stop before plunging off the edge of the porch. Of course, he
did
stop, along with our hearts. He always said he was sorry, but I could tell that the demon inside him was already plotting Sanjirou’s next nerve-racking exploit.

Things might have been easier if there had been four pairs of hands to keep him under control, but it was solely up to Emi and me. Mama and Yukari couldn’t move fast enough to keep up with the child because they were expecting children of their own.

“I hope they’re both girls,” I confided in Aki as we
walked in the woods near our village. With
two
family births about to happen, we were all staying close to home in case we were needed.

“Why do you want a sister so badly?” he asked. “Aren’t you happy being our only princess?”

“I’d give it all up if it meant a little more peace around here. One Sanjirou in the house is enough. Can you imagine
three
?”

“Maybe the solution is for you to get
out
of the house,” Aki said. “I’ve had my eye on you, Little Sister, and I’ve counted at least three young men trailing after you like ducklings. It’s almost as much fun to see the lovesick looks on their faces as it is to see the ugly scowls you get from some of your friends.”

“I haven’t had a friend in this village for years, and you know it,” I replied sternly. But I couldn’t help smiling as I added, “Did you see Suzu’s expression when all three of the boys got into a fight over who was going to carry Lady Yama’s water jug for me? She got two deep creases right
here
.” Gleefully, I tapped the space between my eyebrows. “It looked like she was hit in the face with a hoe. Twice!”