The Harsh Cry of the Heron (71 page)

‘I must talk to my
wife,’ Takeo said. ‘There must be some explanation. The grief, her loneliness
have driven her mad. But once I am with her, she will see reason. I will not be
refused entry to Yamagata. We will all go there -in time to save your mother, I
hope,’ he added to Kintomo.

The road became
thronged with people fleeing from the city to escape the fighting, slowing
their progress, adding to Takeo’s anger and despair, and when they came to
Yamagata in the evening the city was closed against them, the gates barred. The
first messenger they sent was refused entry; the second was shot through by an
arrow as soon as he came within range.

‘There is nothing we
can do now,’ the Miyoshi retainer said as they drew back into the shelter of
the forest. ‘Let me take my young lord to his father. Zenko will be here on the
morrow. Lord Otori should also retreat with us. He must not risk capture.’

‘You may leave,’
Takeo said. ‘I will stay a little longer.’

‘Then I will stay
with you,’ Gemba said. He embraced his nephew. Takeo called to Jun, and told
him to accompany Kintomo and see him safely reunited with Kahei.

‘Let me stay with
you,’ Jun said awkwardly. ‘I could get inside the walls after dark and take
your message to—’

Takeo cut him off. ‘I
thank you, but it is a message only I can take. Now I am ordering you to leave
me.’

‘I will obey you, but
once this task is complete, I will rejoin you: in life if possible; if not, in
death!’

‘Till then,’ Takeo
replied. He commended Kintomo for his courage and loyalty, and watched for a
moment as he joined the crowds fleeing towards the east.

Then he turned his
attention back to the city. He and Gemba rode a little way around its eastern
side, halting beneath a small grove of trees. Takeo dismounted from Ashige and
gave the reins to Gemba.

‘Wait for me here. If
I do not return, either later tonight, or if I am successful in the morning
through the open gate, you may assume I am dead. If it is possible, bury me at
Terayama, next to Shigeru. And keep my sword there for my daughter!’

Before he turned
away, he added, ‘And you may do that prayer thing for me if you wish.’

‘I never cease doing
it,’ Gemba said.

As night fell, Takeo
crouched beneath the trees and gazed for a long time at the walls that
encircled the town. He was recalling an afternoon in spring, many years before,
when Matsuda Shingen had set him a theoretical problem: how to take the city of
Yamagata by siege. He had thought then that the best way would be to infiltrate
the castle and assassinate the commanders. He had already climbed into Yamagata
castle as a Tribe assassin, to see if he could do it, to learn if he could
kill. He had taken a man’s life - several men’s - for the first time, and still
recalled the sense of power and guilt, the responsibility and the regret. He
would put his detailed knowledge of the city and the castle to good use, for
one last time.

Behind him he could
hear the horses tearing at the grass with their strong teeth, and Gemba humming
in his bear-like way. A nightjar thrummed in the trees. The wind soughed
briefly and then was still.

The new moon of the
eighth month hung above the mountains on his right. He could just make out the
dark mass of the castle directly to the north. Above it the stars of the Bear
were appearing in the soft summer sky.

From the walls that
surrounded the city, and the gates, he could hear the guards: Shirakawa men,
and Arai, their accents from the West.

Under cover of
darkness he sprang for the top of the wall, misjudged it slightly, grabbed at
the tiles, forgot for a moment the half-healed wound on his right shoulder and
gasped with pain as the scab parted. He made more noise than he had intended,
and flattened himself, invisible, on the roof. He guessed the guards were jumpy
and alert, barely in control of the city, expecting a counterattack at any
time, and indeed two men immediately appeared below him with flaming torches.
They walked the length of the street and back again, while he held his breath
and tried to ignore the pain, crooking his elbow over the top of the tiles,
pressing his right shoulder with his left hand, feeling a slight dampness as
the wound oozed blood, not enough, luckily, to drip and give him away.

The guards retreated;
he dropped to the ground, silently this time, and began to work his way through
the streets to the castle. It was growing late, but the town was far from
quiet. People were milling about anxiously, many planning to leave as soon as
the gates were opened.

He heard young men
and women declaring they would fight Arai’s men with their bare hands, that
Yamagata would never be lost from the Otori again; he heard merchants bewailing
the end of peace and prosperity, and women cursing Lady Otori for bringing war
to them. His heart twisted with pain for Kaede, even as he searched for some
understanding as to why she had acted as she did. And then he heard people
whisper, ‘She brings death to all who desire her, and now she will bring death
to her own husband, as well as to our husbands and sons.’

No, he wanted to cry
out. Not to me. She cannot bring death to me. But he feared she already had.

He passed among them
unseen. At the edge of the moat he crouched beneath the clump of willow trees
that had spread along the riverbank. They had never been cut: Yamagata had been
unthreatened for over sixteen years; the willows had become a symbol of the
peacefulness and beauty of the city. He waited for a long time in the way of
the Tribe, slowing his breathing and his heartbeat. The moon set: the town quietened.
Finally he took one huge breath and slipped, concealed by the willow’s fronds,
into the river, swimming beneath the surface of the water.

He followed the same
path he had taken half a lifetime ago, when his aim had been to put an end to
the suffering of the tortured Hidden. It was years since prisoners had been
suspended in baskets from this keep; surely those grim days would not return?
But he had been young then, and he had had grapples to help him ascend the
walls. Now, crippled, wounded, exhausted, he felt like some maimed insect,
crawling awkwardly up the face of the castle.

He crossed the gate
of the second bailey; here, too, the guards were nervous and uneasy, both
confused and excited by their unexpected possession of the castle. He heard
them discuss the swift and bloody skirmish that had secured it, their surprise
tinged with admiration at Kaede’s ruthlessness, their pleasure at the rise of
the Seishuu at the expense of the Otori. Their fickleness and narrow-mindedness
enraged him: by the time he had climbed down into the bailey and run lightly
through the narrow stone passage into the garden of the residence, his mood was
fierce and desperate.

Two more guards sat
by a small brazier at one end of the veranda, lamps burning on either side of
them. He passed by so close he saw the flames bend and the smoke eddy. The men,
startled, gazed out into the darkness of the garden. An owl drifted past on
silent wings, and they laughed at their own fears.

‘A night for ghosts,’
one said mockingly.

All the doors were
open, and small lights glimmered in the corner of each room. He could hear the
breath of sleepers within. I must know hers, he thought. She has slept beside
me for so many nights.

He thought he had
found her in the largest room, but when he knelt beside the sleeping woman he
realized it was Hana. He was amazed at the hatred he felt for Kaede’s sister,
but he left her and went on.

The air was stifling
inside the residence: he was still wet from the river but he did not feel cold.
He bent over several sleeping women and listened to their breathing. None of
them was Kaede.

It was high summer,
barely six weeks since the solstice. Dawn would come soon. He could not stay
here. His one aim had been to see her: now he could not find her he did not
know what to do. He returned to the garden; it was then that he noticed the dim
shape of a separate building that he had not seen before. He made his way
towards it, realized it was a little pavilion built above a tinkling stream,
and through the sound of the water recognized her breath.

Here too there was a
lamp burning, very faint as though it was about to consume the last of its oil.
Kaede sat, legs folded beneath her, staring into the darkness. He could not
make out her face.

His heart was
pounding far more than before any battle. He let visibility return as he
stepped up onto the wooden floor, and whispered, ‘Kaede. It is Takeo.’

Her hand went
immediately to her side, and she brought out a small knife.

‘I have not come to
harm you,’ he said. ‘How can you think that?’

‘You cannot hurt me
any more than you already have,’ she replied. ‘I would kill you, except I
believe only your son can do that!’

He was silent for a
moment, at once understanding what had happened.

‘Who told you this?’
he said finally.

‘What does it matter?
It seems everyone knew except me.’

‘It was a long time
ago. I thought—’

She did not let him
go on. ‘The act may have been a long time ago. The deception has been constant.
You have lied to me throughout our years together. That is what I will never
forgive.’

‘I did not want to
hurt you,’ he said.

‘How could you watch
me swell with your child, always fearing I might bear the son who would grow up
to kill you? While I was longing for boy children, you were praying to avoid
them. You preferred to see me cursed with twin girls, and when our son was born
you hoped he would die. Maybe you even arranged his death.’

‘No,’ he said
angrily. ‘I would never kill any child, least of all my own blood.’ He tried to
speak more calmly, to reason with her. ‘His death was a terrible loss - it has
driven you to this.’

‘It opened my eyes to
what you really are.’

Takeo saw the full
extent of her rage and grief and was helpless before it.

‘It is one more
deception in a life that has been full of deceit,’ she went on. ‘You did not
kill Iida; you were not raised as a warrior; your blood is tainted. I have
given my whole life to what I see now was a delusion.’

‘I have never
pretended to you to be anything other than I am,’ he replied. ‘I know all my
failings: I have shared them with you often enough.’

‘You have pretended
openness while hiding many worse secrets. What else are you keeping from me?
How many other women were there? How many other sons?’

‘None. I swear to you
. . . There was only Muto Yuki, when I thought you and I were separated for
ever.’

‘Separated?’ she
repeated. ‘No one separated us, save you. You chose to go: to abandon me,
because you did not want to die.’

There was enough
truth in this to shame him deeply.

‘You are right,’ he
said. ‘I was stupid and cowardly. I can only ask for your forgiveness. For the
sake of the whole country. I beg you not to destroy everything we have built up
together.’

He wanted to explain
to her how they had held the country together in harmony, how that balance must
not be broken, but no words would repair what had been shattered.

‘You yourself
destroyed it,’ she replied. ‘I can never forgive you. The only thing that will
relieve my pain is to see you dead.’ She added bitterly, ‘The honourable thing
would be to take your own life, but you are not a warrior and would never do
that, would you?’

‘I promised you I
would not,’ he said in a low voice.

‘I release you from
that promise. Here, take this knife! Cut open your belly, and then I will
forgive you!’

She held it out to
him, gazing directly at him. He did not want to look at her, lest the Kikuta
sleep should fall on her. He stared at the knife, tempted to take it and slash
into his own flesh. No physical pain could be greater than the anguish within
his soul.

He said, trying to
control himself, hearing his own stilted words as though they were a stranger’s,
‘There are arrangements to be made first. Shigeko’s future must be assured. The
Emperor himself has recognized her. Well, there are many things I wanted to
tell you, but probably I will never have the chance to. I am prepared to
abdicate in our daughter’s favour: I trust you to come to some suitable
agreement with Zenko.’

‘You will not fight
like a warrior: you will not die like a warrior. How deeply I despise you! I
suppose you will sneak away now, like the sorcerer you are.’

She leaped to her
feet, shouting, ‘Guards! Help me! There is an intruder!’

Her sudden movement
made the lamp expire. Complete darkness fell on the pavilion. The guards’
torches glimmered through the trees. In the distance Takeo could hear the first
cocks crowing. Kaede’s words struck him like Kotaro’s poisoned knife blade. He
did not want to be discovered here like a thief or a fugitive. He could not
bear the idea of further humiliation.

He had never found it
so hard to take on invisibility. His concentration had been fragmented: he felt
as if he had been torn into pieces. He ran to the garden wall and clambered
over it, crossed the courtyard to the outer wall and inched his way up. When he
reached the top, he could see all the way down to where the surface of the moat
gleamed an ink black. The sky was paling in the east.