Spirit's Princess (43 page)

Lady Ikumi came home just before sunset. She was too worn out to be more than mildly surprised to find me there. After a few formal words of welcome, hastily mumbled, she said, “I think we’ll talk about this tomorrow,” and began to process the medicinal plants she’d brought back with her. When I stepped in uninvited and started helping, she nodded approval but didn’t say a word about it.

The two of us worked until late that night, replenishing the Shika chieftess’s supplies of remedy ingredients. Kaya gave us our dinner, which we gobbled. The only time either one of us paused was to tend our patient. By the time Lady Ikumi declared we should sleep, I was already moving through a waking dream.

Kaya’s mother was gone by the time I woke up the next morning. As I sat up in my borrowed bedroll, my friend handed me a bowl of rice gruel and joyfully announced, “He’s better, Himiko! My big brother’s better. He’s still coughing, but his skin feels cool without being clammy, and his breath doesn’t sound so raspy anymore. You did it!”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said sleepily. “I wish I could say I used magic—then I could use the same spell to help the rest of your village—but that’s not what happened. It was just time for his sickness to change. I’m glad it changed for the better.”

“Oh, I know you didn’t weave any spells to help him,”
Kaya said, beaming. “But you must have done
something
, even if it was only bring us some luck. I’d rather have good luck than magic any day!”

If I’d brought good luck to the deer people, it was fleeting. When I walked through the village that day, the marks of this merciless sickness were evident all around me. I couldn’t tell whether the haggard faces I saw everywhere belonged to people who were just beginning to fall ill, to those who’d been sick and were struggling to recover, to those who were caring for ailing relatives and friends, or to those who had already lost the battle for their loved ones’ lives.

I found Lady Ikumi in the shadow of the watchtower, deep in conversation with several men. From their fine ornaments, I guessed they were probably nobles. I stood a short distance away, waiting politely for her to finish speaking with them, and when she finally noticed I was there, said, “Please tell me what I can do to help here.”

Her mouth became a thin line that turned down at the corners. “Walk with me, Lady Himiko.” She steered us out of the village, down the road that led us along the Shika fields. I was enjoying the peace of walking together silently when all at once, she demanded, “What are you doing here? Why have you come alone?”

The questions were so abrupt, I was taken aback and could only stammer, “Wh-what did you say, Lady Ikumi?”

“Forgive me for my bluntness. With things as they are among my people, I haven’t time to spare on niceties. You’ve never before come to see us without your brother, not since the first time. Why now?”

I understood the reason for her rough way of speaking and told her everything as concisely as I could. When I was done, she gave me a hard look and a harder response: “Your quarrel with your family isn’t mine. You can’t stay here.”

“Lady Ikumi, I’m not asking for your support, or for anything but the chance to make a new life for myself. I won’t be a burden to you or your people. I have skills that will help the Shika and relieve you of—”

“You
can’t
stay,” she repeated. “Sooner or later, your clan will discover where you’ve gone. Your Father won’t give you up.”

“I wouldn’t depend on that,” I muttered.

“You’re
his
daughter!” the Shika chieftess shouted in my face. “
His!
Do you think he’s the kind of man who’ll let go of
anything
that belongs to him? For all I know, he’s also the sort who’ll blame
us
for your escape from his control. Your trick about fleeing to the Todomatsu lands won’t distract him forever. When you can’t be found there, he’ll remember our village and come here for you. What do you expect us to do when
that
happens? Stand in his way? Risk a battle? You’re dear to me, Himiko, but not as dear as my people’s peace.” Her look challenged me to dispute that.

I didn’t want to fight with her. I’d come among the deer people because I’d had enough of fighting. “I understand.” I looked at her steadily. “I’m sorry. It was selfish of me to try making your clan wage my battles. At least let me stay here one more day to rest. After that, I’ll move on. Your clanfolk trade with other villages. Perhaps one of them will have a place for me, a place where I can serve the spirits openly, gladly, the way I’ve always dreamed of doing. And if the
people can’t accept me as a shaman because I’m an outlander, maybe they’ll let me live among them and
help
their shaman. That’s the heart of what I want, Lady Ikumi: to use my arts at last. To help.”

“Help …”
That word seemed to blow away the heat of her angry outburst. Lady Ikumi’s expression softened. “I could use that help now, Himiko,” she said quietly. “You offered it to me, and what did I do? I shrieked at you. How could I have done such a thing? How could I not have
listened
to you?”

“It’s all right; I understand,” I said. “You’ve had so much to worry you, and you must be exhausted.”

“True.” She looked beaten. “I’m afraid that a demon’s crawled under my skin. He came riding into our village on the back of the sickness that’s destroying us, and he’s been twisting me like thread on a spindle ever since. I’m stretched out so taut, it feels like I’m going to snap any moment.” Her hands cupped my face. “Stay with us as long as you wish, leave us whenever you desire, but know that if you linger too long and your clanfolk find you here, we won’t stand in their way. Forgive me if I can’t give more.”

“Oh, Lady Ikumi, it’s enough, it’s so much, it’s all I ever wanted!” I hugged her with my whole strength. We walked back to the ailing village laughing.

Laughter didn’t survive long within the wooden palisade. My days were soon a whirl of looking after the sick, scouring the countryside for useful plants, making medicines, calling out to the spirits for help, leading the lucky families in prayers of thanksgiving, and serving the unlucky
ones when Lady Ikumi and I danced for the comfort of the living and the peace of the dead.

Kaya did her part in all of this. She didn’t have a healer’s knowledge, but she was a quick learner with a hawk’s eyes. If Lady Ikumi or I showed her a dozen different plants we needed, she’d never fail to find every last one and be back with a heaping basketful. She often watched closely when I crushed stems, shredded leaves, and ground up roots.

“You know, I’ve seen you make
that
brew a lot,” she observed one day when we were alone in the house. Her older brother had recovered and was out seeing his friends, her two younger siblings were still living with Hoshi, and Lady Ikumi was going through the village to take stock of how her people’s health was faring. “In fact, if you ask me, I’ve seen you make it so many times before, I think
I
could do it.”

“I’m sure you could,” I said absently. I was concentrating on adding boiled water to the mixing bowl. I was so tired that my hands were shaking and water was sloshing over the rim.

Kaya took that as an invitation, helping herself to the bowl and dribbling out exactly the right amount of water. She countered my astonished look with a self-satisfied grin. “Told you so.”

Things became a little easier after that. Kaya was an adept student, and while she’d never be a shaman—or want to be one—she was eager to learn the ways of the healer. Now the Shika had three people working to rid their village
of the great sickness. This became especially important on the day that Lady Ikumi herself fell ill.

Kaya and I woke up to find her suffering from the same symptoms she’d treated in so many of her clanfolk—the fever, the chills, the cough, the sweaty skin. Without waiting to be told, my friend began making a fresh batch of fever cure for her mother. We’d all learned that the sickness’s other manifestations could wait, and that if we lowered our patients’ fevers as soon as possible, they usually recovered quickly.

Lady Ikumi’s violent coughing woke Kaya’s older brother. “I’ll get some fresh water,” he volunteered, scrambling to dress himself.

“And I—” I began.

“You should go tell some of the nobles what’s happened,” Kaya said. She was right, of course. It was no small thing when a clan’s leader was too sick to perform her duties.

As I was heading for the nearby house of a Shika nobleman I knew, I saw Kaya’s little brother and sister come running toward me. Their faces were contorted with fear. Who had told them about their mother’s illness? I bent over and spread my arms to offer them a comforting hug. “Dear ones, don’t worry, your mama sounds sicker than she is. Kaya and I will make sure she gets better, I promise you.”

The little girl sobbed against my shoulder, but her brother asked, “Mama’s sick too? Then who’s going to take care of Hoshi?”

That was how I learned that Aki’s wife had fallen victim to the great sickness.

Kaya took charge of the children, bringing them to Sora’s house. The huntsman and his family had all been doubly fortunate: their encounters with the sickness were mild, and their recoveries were long over. Yama taught me that whatever made people sick—spirit or demon—seemed to like variety. We seldom experienced the same illness twice. Sora’s home would be a safe haven for the little ones.

As for me, I paused only long enough to prepare the medicines that had done the most good for the most people, then went straight to Hoshi’s side. According to the children, she’d fallen ill just that morning, so I had great hopes of cutting off the progress of her illness before it had time to sink its roots too deeply into her body.

I did not enter her home until I had put on my brightest smile. Michio told me that he made it a point to speak cheerfully and even tell jokes whenever he went to heal someone. The sick needed to be strengthened in body
and
spirit, so that they could work with the shaman to battle what ailed them. Nothing stole away a person’s will to fight more than seeing a grim-faced healer. “You don’t want your patient thinking,
If
he
looks that glum, I must be doomed!
” he said. It was good advice.

“Hoshi, this is a fine way to treat your sister-in-law!” I called out lightly as I crossed the threshold. “If you don’t want to see me, just say so.”

“Ah, there’s no fooling you, is there, Himiko?” Hoshi’s hoarse voice answered me in the same joking tone. “And yet, here you are. Oh well, I suppose I’ll have to”—her words were interrupted by a short burst of coughing—“have to
put up with your company now that you’ve come into my house uninvited.”

I knelt beside her bedroll and studied her closely. To my relief, she didn’t look too bad. Her lovely face was a little paler than I remembered and there were dark circles under her eyes, but that was all. I was able to smile at her without forcing myself to do so.

“Too bad for you that you don’t like my company,” I told her. “You’re going to have it for the next few days, until you’re strong enough to throw me out the door. And don’t imagine you can get your little brother and sister to help you get rid of me any sooner. They’re safe and happy and won’t be coming back here until you’re well. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Terrible children, running off and leaving me in your clutches.” Hoshi’s eyelids began to droop, and her speech became slurred with drowsiness. “Glad that Aki and I don’t have any of our own yet. Probably’d take after you. Terrible, terrible children …”

She drifted off to sleep. I knew that rest was a much better healer than I would ever be, and a much better medicine than any I could offer. There would be time enough later to give her a drink to bring down her fever and a soothing syrup for her cough. In the meanwhile, I tidied the house and had some hot rice gruel waiting for her when she woke up.

“Who told you that you could cook?” she teased as she devoured it all. Seeing her eat with such a healthy appetite was the answer to my prayers.

In the days that followed, I learned that sometimes the spirits answer our prayers in ways so overwhelming we might wish we’d never prayed for anything at all. I’d prayed for the chance to prove that I could be a shaman and a healer. Now I was both and more. I took great pleasure in being able to use my arts to help the Shika clan, but because of the tragic circumstances, I couldn’t truly enjoy the opportunity the gods had given me.

My days among the deer people were spent reporting to the clan nobles about Lady Ikumi’s condition, caring for her, nursing Hoshi, rushing from one villager’s house to the next to look after the sick, and warning the healthy not to try to do too much and risk falling ill themselves.

I tried to take my own advice. Kaya was a tremendous help to me when it came to harvesting ingredients and making medicines. To my surprise, she soon had her older brother trained to find all that we needed for our potions.

“How did you manage to teach him to do this?” I asked her as I picked through the basket holding his first gleanings. The quality and quantity of what he’d gathered were amazing. “He’s brought everything, even some plants I thought were already withered and gone for the season. I was driving myself mad trying to figure out what we could use as substitutes, but here they are!”

Kaya shrugged. “He knows where to look for things. Why wouldn’t he? He’s a hunter, like Aki. Plants can be his quarry as easily as animals. If he didn’t have good eyesight and know the land around here, especially the secret places of the forest, we’d all go hungry.” She grinned and added,
“You’re not the only one who’s got a special older brother, Himiko.”

Now that I had two helpers, my life should have been easier. I was able to devote more of my time to those people who were in the most danger of losing their lives to the sickness. I worked confidently, even though I found myself with less and less time to look after my own needs. The hardest part of it all was remembering not to play favorites. Sometimes, it couldn’t be helped.