Spirit's Princess (39 page)

Shoichi’s wife stared down into her lap, looking uncomfortable, which made Shoichi angry enough to yell, “You sit down and shut up before you say something really stupid!”

“Stupid?
Stupid?
” The man was too far gone to be sensible. “Is it stupid to care about our future? If you ask me, Shoichi, your big brother’s never getting married, who knows why, so you’re our next best hope. But if you fail and Masa there lets us down, who’s left? Himiko! The little boys, well, they’re too small to do their part in time, right? Right? So I say we let Aki listen for the gods until he’s old as a tortoise, but let’s find Himiko a man who’ll give her what—”

Father moved so fast it was incredible. His right hand closed around the back of the drunkard’s neck, and he shook him until the poor man’s knees buckled. Even then, he held on, his other hand clenching the fellow’s jaw. A deathly silence fell over Masa’s wedding feast as Father snarled, “You will call my daughter
Lady
Himiko. You will call my firstborn son
Lord
Aki. And you will remember that their lives aren’t something for an insect like you to discuss. If you forget that again, I will make sure to remind you. Now go.” He released his double hold on the man, who collapsed in a heap, then scrambled onto hands and knees and scuttled away.

Once the unlucky villager was gone, Father turned to the rest of us. “What are you looking at? It’s over. That man shouldn’t be allowed to drink. Are his wives here?” Two
young women identified themselves in voices muffled by deep humiliation. “In the future, see to it that he stays sober or stays home! Now, let’s forget this happened and rejoice with my son and his bride.” It was more of an order than an invitation, but it was swiftly obeyed.

As the party returned to normal, Michio stole to my side. “I’ve heard stories that the greatest mountain in our land was once a cone of leaping fire. It seems your father is that sort of mountain too. Don’t despair, my young friend. You’ll still be able to climb him. But you’re going to have to be very careful about choosing the right road.”

Some people accept life with a smile, some with a scowl, and those who scowl claim loudly that they’re the only ones being “realistic” about it. But life is just as real for both. The difference is, those who scowl seem to take grim pleasure in dragging others down into the shadows, while those who smile lift us up high enough to see that the darkness surrounding us isn’t infinite. As Michio said, if you can name the mountain, you’ll find it easier to climb.

Though I wished I could speak with our shaman more often, on a practical level, this didn’t matter. He was my friend more than my teacher. There was only one thing that I wanted to learn from him: the sacred dances.

I didn’t wait too long to ask for this favor. My inability to dance for the spirits had bothered me for a long time, since before Yama’s death. If it took our fourth encounter before I requested his help, it was only because I wanted to be sure that we would be
able
to get together without being
discovered. The oak tree among the bellflowers was our preferred meeting place, and the two of us became as clever as a pair of foxes when it came to letting one another know that we’d be there.

When I finally spoke up and asked for his help in learning the proper steps and gestures, Michio seemed hesitant. “Didn’t my sister show you?”

“She did, but I made a mess of it.” I told him all about my childhood fall and my imperfect healing. “If anyone can help me, it’s you. You’re so graceful! You must know all sorts of secrets that will help me make up for
this
.” I tapped my troublesome leg.

“Oho, and why do you think I need any
tricks
? Is it because of
this
?” He patted his ample stomach. I hastened to apologize, but he waved it away. “There’s no reason to say you’re sorry; you haven’t offended me. And really, there’s no secret to mastering the dances. If you perform them with the proper reverence and purpose, that’s all the grace you need.”

“But I keep stumbling! How reverent does something like that look to the gods?”

“Ask them.” He winked, then said, “Himiko, who was the first shaman? How did he or she discover the way to move between our world and the world of the spirits? Who taught that person the proper offerings to make, the right words to chant, the gestures that were suitable, and the movements that would most please the gods? No one. These things came from within, just as the dances do.”

“But that must have been a long time ago,” I protested. “Now we have established rituals.”

“Yes,
we
do. It gives us comfort. But we are not the gods. Listen to me: I’ve traveled far, to countless places. I’ve seen many clans scattered along the coasts of our islands. There are even more who dwell away from the sea, like us. Wouldn’t you imagine there would be more than
one
first shaman? Why wouldn’t
each
clan have a first shaman of its own, man or woman, even girl or boy? Did they all create and perform the same rites? Did they all dance to the same tune with the same steps?”

“I—I suppose they didn’t.” The thought opened my eyes and my mind, leaving me astonished and excited. So many ways to serve the gods! So many paths, and none the only path!

“And yet the gods found all the different dances acceptable.” He smiled warmly. “Just as different and just as acceptable as yours will be one day.”

In spite of Michio’s reassurance, I still insisted that he teach me the dances in the traditional way that he presented them. I promised him that I wouldn’t scold myself if I couldn’t reproduce his steps exactly. “It’s your dance when you teach it to me, but it will be mine when you see me perform it,” I said.

“You can’t imagine how happy it makes me to hear that,” he said. “You know, Himiko”—he had stopped the stiff formality of calling me
Lady
Himiko soon after our first encounter—“I believe that we’re both very near the summit of our mountain.”

“Our what?” Time had passed, and I’d forgotten his way of describing my situation, but he hadn’t.

“The goal we both seek: to see you publicly recognized
as a true shaman. I’m going to dare everything to achieve that. I swear to you that before another winter comes, our clan will know that their welfare is in the care of
two
shamans.”

“Two shamans?” I smiled at my friend. “So you won’t go running back to the Todomatsu after all?”

“Ah, well, as for that—” He made a helpless gesture that didn’t fool me for an instant. “I’ve gotten used to living here again, and perhaps I was wrong about two shamans being a burden on the people. If worse comes to worst, we can both find additional ways to earn our keep and help our clanfolk.” He smirked and added, “Not that you’d ever need the village to support you. It doesn’t hurt that you’re our chieftain’s daughter.”

I laid hold of his arm, suddenly concerned. “It could hurt you. Master Michio, what if Father exiles you for taking my side in this?”

“Your father can be stubborn and shortsighted, but underneath it all, he’s a sensible man,” Michio replied. “He doesn’t want you acting as our shaman? Fine. The worst—the
unimaginable
worst—he can do is send you away. He doesn’t want me fighting for your right to be what you
must
be? Fine. The entirely possible worst he can do is make me leave this village again. But if we both take a stand against him and have the people behind us? Then the worst he can do is … nothing. Or grumble, I suppose. No matter how much the Matsu admire his leadership or fear his temper, they’d sooner turn against him than face a future with no shaman at all.”

“That’s what I thought, before you came here,” I said.
“But Father wouldn’t accept me as Lady Yama’s successor even when it looked as if Aki and the others hadn’t found you.”

“
That
was a different time,” Michio said, full of confidence. “And who was there to witness what he said?”

“No one. We were alone.”

“Then there you are! What we’re willing to say in private and what we’re willing to say in public are very seldom the same, or even similar. If you and I act boldly, before the whole clan, the people will stand by us, and your father will have no choice but to swallow his disapproval and concede. You’ll have your dream, Himiko!”

“Just like that?” Michio’s enthusiasm was contagious, but I’d lived under the power of Father’s temper too long to believe it could be vanquished so easily.

“Why not? It’s up to you, isn’t it? I’m just waiting here for you to tell me you’re ready to take that final step.”

“To tell the people I’m a shaman? Some of them know already.” I’d told Michio of the nobles Father had informed about me. They’d kept the secret, but from that day on, they’d treated me differently. Venerable men who’d known me since I was a baby, who’d smiled at me, given me rides on their backs, taken joy in every step of my growing up, now gave me wary looks whenever we met and hardly said a word to me if they could avoid it. I grew glum recalling it.

“Some do know, and not one of them has spoken up for you, including your mothers and brothers,” Michio said gravely. “You’re afraid that when we present you to the people, it will divide the clan.”

“They all think I’ll turn out like Lady Tsuki,” I said miserably.

He raised his hand as if to push back my words. “Your
father
thinks you’ll turn out like Lady Tsuki. The others haven’t been given the chance to decide
what
they think. He’s forced his own fears on them and turned his wrath into a fire that burns away any opposition. We will give them back the freedom to make up their own minds about you.”

“What if they agree with him?” I asked.

“I think you should answer that for yourself.”

I thought about it for a while, then said, “I’m a shaman. I can’t change or deny that. I only want to help my people. If they agree with Father and believe I’m going to use my arts to hurt them, I don’t belong here. It would break my heart to leave, but it would destroy my spirit to stay.” I gave Michio a weak smile. “Do you think the Todomatsu would want a girl to be the luck-bringer on their trading voyages?”

He patted my arm. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

In the end, Michio and I agreed that we wouldn’t make our stand until I told him I had no remaining doubts about my ability to fulfill all of a shaman’s duties. What it would take for that to happen was for me to decide I’d finally mastered the art of dancing for the gods.

“I’ll wait for your word as long as it takes, Himiko,” Michio told me. “Just don’t let it take too long. I hope you’re not the sort of person who never fails because she never tries.”

“I
will
try!” I replied, indignant. “I’ll tell you as soon as—”

“—as soon as you’ve fixed this tiny fault or that little
flaw? You can waste your whole life fussing over details. If infants refused to show their faces until they looked perfect, no one would ever be born!”

He made me mad, but he made me think. “I won’t do that. If I don’t use the skills that Lady Yama taught me, I dishonor her memory. Master Michio, I promise that before the next winter comes, I’ll practice all that you can teach me about the dances and perform a complete ritual at her tomb, to venerate and comfort her spirit. I’ll prove to you that I’m ready to be called a true shaman before all our people!”

“Himiko, you don’t have to prove that to me,” he said.

“Maybe not,” I replied. “But I need to prove it to myself.”

That year brought a bountiful harvest. Our village stacked away jar after jar of rice and barley, soon joined by many containers of rice wine. I stole every moment possible to practice the lessons Michio had taught me, concentrating my mind on seeing him perform the movements of the dance. Even though I knew I didn’t have to imitate his steps exactly, I couldn’t help driving myself to do just that. As I struggled to mirror his every move, I heard his voice gently chiding me, saying that my dance didn’t need to be perfect, just
mine
. I heard him, but I heard another voice too: Father’s voice, sneering at me when I’d told him I was a shaman, comparing my chosen work to a little girl playing games with dolls.

I didn’t have to be perfect for Michio, or for myself, or even for the spirits. I couldn’t dare to be less than perfect for him. He had to see that I made not one mistake, not one misstep, not even the tiniest fault. I couldn’t do anything
that would let him declare,
You see? She doesn’t know what she’s doing! She claims she’s a shaman, but how can we believe that when our own eyes witness how badly she blunders through the rituals and tempts the displeasure of the gods?

On the day that I no longer heard Father’s phantom voice scorning my efforts, I knew I was ready. When I told Michio, he greeted the news with less enthusiasm than I’d hoped.

“Now comes the hard part,” he said, resigned. “We have to wait for a time when we can go to the burial ground without attracting your father’s attention. It’s not as easy as slipping away to the forest, you know. The road is more open, and anyone who sees me heading in that direction could easily get worried that I’m going there on some grim errand concerning the spirits of the dead. You know how gossip races through this village. Your father would hear of it, come to see why I was going to the burial ground, discover you, and then”—he threw his hands in the air—“it would be all over before we’d have a chance to begin.”