The Harsh Cry of the Heron (37 page)

Yasu took a quick
gulp of wine and said to Akio, ‘So all those rumours were true?’

‘Yes. Hisao is Takeo’s
son.’ Akio drank as well, and for the first time seemed almost to smile. It was
more painful and more alarming, Hana thought, than if he had wept and cursed. ‘He
does not know. He has no Tribe skills. But now I see that it will be easy for
him to kill his father.’

Yasu slapped the
matting with his open palm. ‘Didn’t I tell you the boy would surprise you? That’s
the best joke I’ve heard in years.’

Suddenly all four of
them were seized with uproarious laughter.

Kaede had decided to
stay in Hagi for the winter, until her child was born, and Shizuka and Dr. Ishida
stayed with her. They all moved from the castle into Lord Shigeru’s old house
by the river: the house faced south, catching all the winter sunshine, and was
easier to keep warm during the long cold days. Chiyo still lived there, bent
double, old beyond reckoning but still able to brew her healing teas and to
tell stories about the past, and what she had forgotten Haruka filled in, as
merry and bold as ever. Kaede retired from public life to a certain extent.
Takeo and Shigeko had left for Yamagata; Maya had been sent with the Muto girl,
Sada, to Maruyama, to Taku, Miki to the Tribe village of Kagemura. It gave
Kaede pleasure to think of all three girls occupied in such serious training,
and she prayed often for them, that they would learn to develop and control
their different talents, and that the gods would protect them from accident,
illness or attack. It was easier, she thought with sorrow, to love her twin
daughters from a distance, when their unnatural birth and strange talents could
be overlooked.

She was not lonely,
for she had Shizuka and the little boys to keep her company, as well as the
girls’ pets, the monkey and the lion dogs. In the absence of her daughters she
lavished all her care and affection on her nephews.

Sunaomi and Chikara
enjoyed the move too, away from the formalities of castle life. They played on
the riverbank and on the fish weir. ‘It’s as if Shigeru and Takeshi lived
again,’ Chiyo said with tears in her eyes as she listened to the shouts of the
children from the garden or their footsteps on the nightingale floor, and Kaede
enfolded her swelling belly in her arms and thought of the child growing there,
for Sunaomi and Chikara had no Otori blood in their veins, but her son would
have. Her son would be Shigeru’s heir.

Several times a week
Kaede took the boys to the shrine, for she had promised Shigeko she would keep
an eye on Tenba and the kirin and make sure the horse did not forget everything
he had learned. Ishida usually accompanied her, for his affection for the kirin
was as strong as ever, and he could hardly bear to let a day go past without
checking on its welfare. Mori Hiroki saddled and bridled Tenba and lifted
Sunaomi onto his back, and Kaede led him around the meadow. The horse seemed to
scent something in her pregnant body and loved to walk gently beside her,
nostrils flared, nuzzling her from time to time.

‘Am I your mother?’
she chided him, but his trust delighted her, and she prayed her son would be as
bold and as handsome. She thought of her horse, Raku, and of Amano Tenzo: both
long dead, yet surely their spirits would live as long as there were Otori
horses.

Then Shigeko wrote to
send for the horse, for she had decided to present him to her father, asking
her mother to keep it a secret. Tenba was prepared for the journey and sent
with the young groom by ship to Maruyama. Kaede was afraid the kirin would fret
when its companion had gone, and Ishida shared her concern. The kirin did seem somewhat
dispirited, but this only seemed to increase its affection for its human
companions.

Kaede wrote often,
for she still loved the art of writing - letters to her husband in reply to
his; to Shigeko and Miki, urging them to work hard and obey their teachers; to
her sisters, telling Hana of the good health and progress of her sons and
inviting them both to visit her in the spring.

But she did not write
to Maya, telling herself there was no purpose since Maya was living in secret
somewhere in Maruyama, and letters from her mother would only endanger her.

She went to the other
shrine, where Akane’s old house had stood, and admired the slender, graceful
figure that slowly emerged from the wood while the new home was erected around
it.

‘She looks like Lady
Kaede,’ Sunaomi said, for she insisted he always came with her to face the
place of his shame and fear. Mostly he had regained his confidence and high
spirits, but at the shrine she saw traces of the humiliation and the scars it
had left, and she prayed that the spirit of the goddess would emerge from the
wood and bring healing.

Shortly after Takeo
had left for Yamagata, Fumio returned. During Takeo’s absence and Kaede’s
semi-withdrawal, he and his father acted as their representatives. One of their
most annoying and persistent problems was what to do with the foreigners who
had so inconveniently arrived from Hofu.

‘It’s not that I
dislike them,’ Fumio told Kaede one afternoon in the middle of the tenth month.
‘As you know, I am used to foreigners; I enjoy their company and find them
interesting. But it’s hard to know what to do with them, day after day. They
are very restless; and they were not too pleased when they learned Lord Otori
was no longer in Hagi. They want to meet him, negotiate with him; they are
getting quite impatient. I have told them nothing can be arranged until Lord
Otori returns to Hagi. They demand to know why they cannot go to Yamagata
themselves.’

‘My husband does not
want them to travel throughout the country,’ Kaede replied. ‘The less they know
about us, the better.’

‘I agree - and I don’t
know what understanding they came to with Zenko. He allowed them to leave Hofu,
but for what purpose I don’t know. I’ve been hoping they might send letters
that would reveal something, but their interpreter cannot write much -
certainly nothing that Zenko could read.’

‘Dr Ishida could
offer to be their scribe,’ Kaede suggested. ‘That would save you the trouble of
intercepting their letters.’

They smiled at each
other.

‘Perhaps Zenko just
wanted to get rid of them,’ Kaede went on. ‘Everyone seems to find them
something of a burden.’

‘Yet there is much to
gain from them too - great knowledge and wealth, as long as we control them and
not the reverse.’

‘For that purpose I
must begin my language lessons,’ Kaede said. ‘You must bring the foreigners and
their interpreter here to discuss it.’

‘That will certainly
give them something to do through the winter,’ Fumio agreed. ‘I will impress on
them what a great honour it is to be invited into the presence of Lady Otori.’

The meeting was
arranged, and Kaede found herself awaiting it with some trepidation: not on the
foreigners’ account but because she had no idea how she should behave towards
their interpreter: the child of a peasant family, a woman from a house of
pleasure, a follower of the strange beliefs of the Hidden, her husband’s
sister. She did not want to be brought into contact with this part of Takeo’s
life. She did not know what to say to such a person, or even how to address
her. All her instincts, heightened by her pregnancy, warned her against it, but
she had promised Takeo she would learn the foreigners’ language, and she could
think of no other way.

Of course, she had to
admit, she was curious too; mostly, she told herself, about the foreigners and
their customs, but in fact she wanted to see what Takeo’s sister looked like.

Her first thought,
when Fumio ushered the two large men, followed by the small woman, into the
room was, She is nothing like him, and she was conscious of a deep relief that
no one would suspect a connection. She spoke formally to the men, welcoming
them, and they bowed, while standing, before Fumio indicated that they should
be seated.

Kaede herself sat
with her back to the long wall of the room, facing towards the veranda. The
trees, touched by the first frosts, were just past their finest moment of
colour, and the ground was carpeted with their crimson leaves, contrasting with
the cloud-grey stone of rocks and lanterns. On her right, a scroll hung in the
alcove, the calligraphy her own, from one of her favourite poems about the
autumn bush clover for which the city of Hagi was named. The allusion was of
course completely lost on the foreigners and their interpreter.

The men sat somewhat
awkwardly with their backs to the scroll. They had removed their footwear
outside, and she noted the long skin-tight clothing that covered their legs,
disappearing beneath the hem of their strange outer garments, which were puffed
out, making their hips and shoulders unnaturally large. The material was mostly
black, with coloured patches stitched into it: it did not appear to be silk,
cotton or hemp. The woman crawled to the space they’d left at Kaede’s side,
touched her head to the matting, and stayed low.

Kaede continued her
covert study of the men, aware of their unfamiliar smell that filled her with a
vague disgust, but she was also intensely conscious of the woman at her side,
of the texture of hair, the colour of skin, so like Takeo’s. The reality of it
hit her like a slap that made her heart thud. This really was his sister. For a
moment she thought she must react - she did not know whether she would cry, or
faint - but fortunately Shizuka came into the room with bowls of tea and sweet
bean cakes. Kaede regained her self-control.

The woman, Madaren,
was even more overwhelmed, and her first attempts at translating were so
subdued and muffled that both sides were completely at a loss as to what was
actually said. They assumed courtesies and pleasantries; presents were
received; the foreigners smiled a lot - rather terrifyingly - and Kaede spoke
as gently and bowed as gracefully as possible. Fumio himself knew several words
of the foreigners’ language, and used them all, while everyone said Thank you,
A great pleasure and Forgive me in their own tongue many times over.

One of the men, it
transpired, the one called Don Joao, was confusingly both warrior and merchant,
the other a priest. It took a long time to converse because Madaren was so
anxious not to insult Lady Otori that she spoke in an extremely convoluted and
courteous fashion. After several lengthy exchanges about the foreigners’
accommodation and needs, Kaede realized the winter was likely to pass without
her learning anything.

‘Take them outside
and show them the garden,’ she said to Fumio. ‘The woman will stay here with
me.’

She told everyone
else to leave them. Shizuka glanced questioningly at her as she withdrew.

The men seemed
grateful enough to step outside, and while they talked in loud, somewhat
strained but mostly good-natured tones, presumably about the garden, Kaede
addressed Madaren quietly.

‘You must not be
afraid of me. My husband has told me who you are. It is better that no one else
should know of it, but for his sake I will honour and protect you.’

‘Lady Otori is too
condescendingly gracious—’ Madaren began, but Kaede stopped her.

‘I have a request to
make of you - and of the gentlemen you serve. You have learned their language;
I want you to teach me. We will study every day. When I have learned to speak
fluently, I will consider all their requests. The quicker I learn, the more
likely these are to be met. I hope you understand me clearly. One of them must
come with you, as I must also learn their writing, of course. Tell them that -
frame it as a request in whatever way is pleasing to them.’

‘I am the lowest of
the low, but I will do everything I can to fulfill Lady Otori’s desires.’
Madaren prostrated herself again.

‘Madaren,’ Kaede
said, speaking the strange name for the first time. ‘You are to be my teacher.
There is no need to use excessive formality.’

‘You are very kind,’
Madaren said. She was smiling slightly as she sat up.

‘We will begin our
lessons tomorrow,’ Kaede said.

Madaren came every
day, crossing the river by boat and walking through the narrow streets to the
house by the river. The daily lessons became part of the household routine, and
she became absorbed into its rhythm. The priest - Don Carlo - came with her
about twice a week, and taught both women to write in what he called the
alphabet, using the finest brushes.

Having reddish hair
and beard, and pale green-blue eyes like the sea, he was an object of constant
curiosity and wonder, and usually arrived with a trail of children and other
people who had nothing better to do. He himself was equally curious, would
occasionally seize a child and examine its clothes and footwear, studied every
plant in the garden, and often took Madaren out into the fields to interrogate
the astonished farmers about crops and seasons. He kept many notebooks, in
which he made lists of words and sketches of flowers, trees, buildings and
farming implements.

Kaede saw most of
these, for he brought them with him to use as teaching tools, and would often
sketch something quickly to explain a word. He was obviously intelligent, and
she felt shamefacedly amazed by this, for when she had first set eyes on him
his strange appearance had made her think of him as not quite human.