The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai (51 page)

I returned the stare. ‘I cannot stop.’ Turning to Michimori, I said, ‘Will you help me to live safely?’ I could not speak about my work behind the screens.

‘It will be done.’ Michimori paced closer to me. ‘Tokikazu, Akio, you will assist Lady Kozaishō.’

Tokikazu gestured, which I knew for him was as good as a solemn oath and referred me to Plover, saying, ‘We need to expand our network. You can trust this priest.’ Plover was not of other factions and visited almost each day. He and I spoke of Tashiko and Emi, but mostly we talked stratagems.

Misuki found another clue. After Plover had left, she brought some threads. Obāsan and I recognised them: they matched the brocade Goro had worn at my Purification, purple and white.

Tokikazu brought Plover to my apartments.

‘Yes, yes, these are his,’ Plover agreed. ‘There is more. We suspect he has Minamoto leanings. He disappears at odd times. He volunteers facts he should not know.’

I needed more information and contacts from everyone I trusted. Plover drew the lineage of families, reciting their histories beside the pond where poor Emi had died. Tokikazu and Obāsan listed people who had disappeared as well as a long list of enemies, which began with the name of Goro. Tokikazu had a personal stake in finding him because Goro had bested him and caused him to lose honour. Michimori doubled his mansion’s guards and placed an arc of samurai around my garden’s perimeter.

In the few days after Emi had died, Plover purified Misuki, at her request, and she returned to practising her archery with me. I was to go again to Grand Room.

‘I humbly beg you,’ Misuki requested breathlessly, as she came back into my apartments, ‘do you know where your writing box and papers are?’

Cold pierced my chest and turned my stomach to a striking anvil. ‘Yes.’ I shuddered. ‘I left them behind the screens in my haste to find Obāsan.’ Our eyes met, and the harsh taste of panic permeated my mouth. ‘Go to Obāsan immediately and tell her to find Tokikazu and Akio. We are in great jeopardy if those papers are found.’

While Misuki was gone, I prepared another writing box and gathered other papers to bring with me.

An aeon of panic and waiting.

I forced myself to sit still.

A note arrived from Michimori, with his paper’s special twists: ‘The flowers are safe.’

I took a deep breath before I reread his note. The icy anvil in my chest warmed.

Within a short time, he gave me a beautiful new document box, lacquered in gold and silver, inlaid with mother-of-pearl cranes flying through a sky with clouds of
makie
gold and silver. It was in this box that I kept my journal.

Akio guarded me through the passages to the screens. From that day I always carried at least both my swords.

The terror that gripped my throat became the friend who secured my safety.

V. Weaving Webs

With the extra daylight of spring, Michimori and I worked on the practice field after Grand Room. My fingers on arrows welcomed the warmth as much as the butterflies and horseflies, although they came in fewer numbers due to the lack of rain. I saw only the usual guards, but neither Tokikazu nor Akio was present. Michimori had a plan.

That afternoon we focused on stationary targets. Standing close, I waited on my husband. He used Akio’s tactic of spacing the arrows in his quiver so that they were easier to reach and shoot. He hit the centre of the target three times, then circled to me. ‘You see much of Akio.’

‘Did we not agree that he would stay close?’

‘Yes, but . . .’

I looked up at him. He was upset. Angry. ‘Is there a problem with Akio?’

He shrugged his shoulders. Discomfort edged into one side of his mouth.

‘What action would you have me take?’ I had no desire to say his words for him.

‘The two of you spend much time together.’

‘How else can he protect me? Or teach me?’ Did he begrudge Akio’s time? Was this jealousy?

‘The two of you spend much time together – alone.’

A light spring breeze caressed the air, yet it felt like the heat of high summer. He was accusing me!

‘Akio has been my teacher and adviser since I was eight years old.’

‘I understand.’ He returned to the targets and employed Tokikazu’s technique of holding two arrows at the same time. He shot one, notched the second. ‘You see much of Captain Tokikazu.’

A statement. Not a question. Perhaps this was it. Was he suspicious? ‘Yes, my honourable lord.’ I used the formal address.

‘To what purpose?’

I also used the technique of holding two arrows at the same time. I shot one, notched the second and released it immediately, as Tokikazu had taught me. I stared Michimori in the face, bold as the edge of a blade. ‘To
that
end.’ I stormed away to the pavilion to try to cool myself with some water. How dare he suspect me? After all I had said to Tokikazu that night in the garden! After I had pledged myself to Right Action!

‘Come here!’

I halted. Breathed twice. Old habit. Then I strolled back to the targets. I focused my eyes away from him.

‘Kozaishō, I am ill at ease. Tokikazu is as indispensable to me as . . .’ He raised and shook his bow in his right hand. ‘He has two wives and several concubines.’

‘I am aware of this.’

‘I invest great trust in Tokikazu as my captain.’

His eyes could have pierced my new armour. ‘I am aware of this too.’ He knew Tokikazu had trifled with me. How? Perhaps he knew more. Could anyone know the heat between my legs when I saw him?

‘In other matters I can trust Tokikazu to have liaisons with beautiful women.’

I held my gaze with difficulty and in silence.

He waved his hand to the other mansions, then placed his palm against his chest. ‘And you are the most beautiful woman here.’

That was why he was distant. Take my head? Poison me? Divorce me? He had those rights.

Michimori shifted behind me, his arms over mine, and pretended to show me the fingering for two arrows at the same time. ‘You spend almost as much time with Tokikazu as you do with me. You say you have sympathy for me.’ His words transformed to the roughness of rocks. ‘If you have sympathy for Tokikazu, be punctilious. I
cannot
and
will not
forgive disloyalty.’

Threats. He accused me. I had said no to Tokikazu! I had taken the Right Action. Flames hurtled through me until I dripped inside my new armour. My jaw clamped, and I wriggled to be free of Michimori’s hold. He compressed his forearms across my breasts until I could barely breathe.

‘Stop, please,’ I gasped.

He loosened his grip, but did not remove his arms. I remembered who and what he was. All of what he could do.

The quiet belied the reserve between us.

Bush warblers swept over the targets. Perhaps my father’s spirit reminded me of my duty and honour. At that moment, seeing those birds, I pictured my father, and my thoughts clarified.

‘My honourable lord,’ I said formally, ‘may I explain in your quarters?’

With a nod to the key guards at the perimeter of the target area, he strode home. I had to run to keep up.

We stood, face to face, alone, in his apartments. His features stiffened to those of a statue. ‘Speak.’ The word thrown at me like a
shuriken
.

‘Before we were married,’ I made my voice agreeable against the invisible hand choking me, ‘you asked what was in my heart. You know that sympathy has replaced my fear. Akio has taught me since I was a small girl. He is like – no, he
is
the father I lost. That is all.’

I took time to prepare what I would say of Tokikazu. I could not lie, yet I did not wish to speak of the strong attraction between Tokikazu and myself.

‘You are aware that Tokikazu resembles Genji, one woman after another. I have known this, also.’ I grasped his forearms with my hands. ‘There has been
no
disloyalty, nor will there be. Did I not prove my loyalty beyond question at my Purification? I allowed Goro to – to –’ I bit my lower lip at these thoughts. ‘Because I believed
you
had ordered it. How much more to prove my loyalty, my devotion to my duty and to your honour?’ My shame at my attraction for Tokikazu both marked my face crimson and aroused my ire with myself.

I lifted my head, so he could better see my eyes. ‘My honourable lord, my husband to whom I have pledged my life and loyalty, I
have
maintained both my duty and honour.’

His voice softened to chrysanthemum petals. ‘I would die for yours.’

These few words sank into me, like a sword into my belly. Had he accepted the truth? ‘I did not like how you forced me on the target line,’ I grumbled, with tears flowing across my face.

He compressed his arms around my chest again. ‘Like this?’

‘Yes,’ I growled, weeping still for the delicate and durable insistence of his arms against my body.

‘You do not like this?’ He lifted me off the ground, kicked open the
futon
, and laid me across it. He murmured against my ear, ‘You are too beautiful not to have.’

I bent my knees and put my feet against him, still fuming. His thick chest pressed my legs apart. We wrestled briefly.

Then we ceased wrestling.

I was behind the six-part folding screens at the Hour of the Dog, nibbling a rice ball and working to stay awake. The rice ball was to allay my concern that my stomach noises, after all day without food, might betray my presence. I listened carefully to the new group, almost all of the provincial governors.

The drought, its poverty and pestilence, had caused a pause in the hostilities. Michimori and the other governors’ tasks included the requisition of troops and supplies from the provinces. War loomed. Indeed, it had arrived inside the Rokuhara gate. The samurai in some provincial
sh
ō
en
resented the Taira Clan.

‘No wonder they hate us!’ Michimori had groused the night before.

‘You have been vigilant and considerate of your responsibilities in Echizen. How can they hate
you
?’ I wanted to touch him, but knew better than to do so when he was irked.

‘My uncle and cousins have foolishly reduced land rights to the proprietors, which reduced their samurai’s income as well.’

‘You mean your relatives have alienated the people you need to fight in this war?’

He grunted in the affirmative, lay down, put his arm around me and, later, went to sleep.

By now I recognised each of the governors’ voices: first, the one we had named ‘Wisteria’. ‘His father,’ Michimori had whispered one evening when we were alone, ‘was probably the son of an umbrella vendor. He made Wisteria an errand boy at a merchant’s stall and has not been a true Taira nephew since he fled from the water birds.’ He referred to an encounter in which, when the enemy suddenly released water birds, Wisteria’s waiting soldiers had retreated prematurely.

Drake, another of Michimori’s uncles, attended this meeting – a great singer and poet who fought with brush and
koto
. Nothing else.

Another governor sat close to Michimori. He had dense eyebrows and was thick of body and legs. He spoke gentleness with a voice like rocks grinding together. Akio had named him Large Cicada, for that timbre.

Last of all was Kingfisher, shorter than the others, an uncle with a booming voice. He leaped to display his arrows with their special feathers, as a kingfisher dives to catch fish. His reputation for accuracy and courage was rumoured by Sadakokai to be almost equal to Michimori’s.

The group studied their plan to attack, making sure the conscription lists were adequate, the horses ready.

‘Honourable nephew,’ Michimori began respectfully, ‘I beg a few questions of you.’

‘Yes, Michimori, my uncle,’ Wisteria responded graciously.

‘I am not convinced we are ready for such a march. While we may have enough men, our supplies are not laid out properly or adequately.’

‘We must move swiftly,’ Kingfisher interjected. ‘My sources say Yoritomo is travelling to his uncle, who is in Shinano Province. Even if we leave now, we may not reach them.’

‘If the two Minamoto leaders reconcile, they will have a larger force against us,’ Michimori concluded. ‘It might be perilous for us if they reach agreement—’

‘So it is settled. We will leave in no more than two days,’ Wisteria interrupted, half asking and half commanding in his pusillanimous style.

‘Since we do not have enough men, according to Michimori, perhaps we should recruit female warriors,’ Large Cicada suggested, his eyebrows moving like caterpillars.

‘If we did, I would put my coins on Lady Kozaishō – her spirit is great even though her warrior’s wardrobe is not as dazzling as that of some.’ Michimori referred to a Minamoto consort, Lady Tomoe, and her renowned armour.

The Taira Clan leaders left one by one, making small-talk. After some time, I returned to my quarters to be summoned. I was gratified by the confidence Michimori placed in my battle schemes, although unsure of our ability to triumph and uneasy that my husband still harboured misgivings about me.