Across the Nightingale Floor (11 page)

He was joking now about the dead
guard. The color rose in Kaede's face. Her father's eyes were cast down. I'm
glad he lost a man over me, she thought savagely. May he lose a hundred more.

Her father was to return home the
following day, his wife's illness preventing a longer stay. In his expansive
mood, Lord Noguchi urged him to spend time with his daughter. Kaede led her
father to the small room overlooking the garden. The air was warm, heavy with
the scents of spring. A bush warbler called from the pine tree. Junko served them
tea. Her courtesy and attentiveness lightened her father's mood.

“I am glad you have one friend
here, Kaede,” he murmured.

“What is the news of my mother?”
she said, anxiously.

“I wish it were better. I fear the
rainy season will weaken her further. But this marriage has lifted her spirits.
The Otori are a great family, and Lord Shigeru, it seems, a fine man. His
reputation is good. He is well-liked and respected. It's all we could have
hoped for you—more than we could have hoped.”

“Then I am happy with it,” she
said, lying to please him.

He gazed out at the cherry
blossoms, each tree heavy, dreaming in its own beauty. “Kaede, the matter of
the dead guard . . .”

“It was not my fault,” she said
hastily. “Captain Arai acted to protect me. All the fault was with the dead
man.”

He sighed. “They are saying that
you are dangerous to men—that Lord Otori should beware. Nothing must happen to
prevent this wedding. Do you understand me, Kaede? If it does not go ahead—if
the fault can be laid on you—we are all as good as dead.”

Kaede bowed, her heart heavy. Her
father was like a stranger to her.

“It's been a burden on you to carry
the safety of our family for all these years. Your mother and your sisters miss
you. I myself would have had things differently, if I could choose over again.
Maybe if I had taken part in the battle of Yaegahara, had not waited to see who
would emerge the victor but had joined Iida from the start . . . but it's all
past now, and cannot be brought back. In his way Lord Noguchi has kept his side
of the bargain. You are alive; you are to make a good marriage. I know you will
not fail us now.”

“Father,” she said as a small
breeze blew suddenly through the garden, and the pink and white petals drifted
like snow to the ground.

The next day her father left. Kaede
watched him ride away with his retainers. They had been with her family since
before her own birth, and she remembered some of them by name: her father's
closest friend, Shoji, and young Amano, who was only a few years older than she
was. After they had left through the castle gate, the horses' hooves crushing
the cherry blossoms that carpeted the shallow cobbled steps, she ran to the
bailey to watch them disappear along the banks of the river. Finally the dust
settled, the town dogs quieted, and they were gone.

The next time she saw her father
she would be a married woman, making the formal return to her parents' home.

Kaede went back to the residence,
scowling to keep her tears at bay. Her spirits were not improved by hearing a
stranger's voice. Someone was chatting away to Junko. It was the sort of chat
that she most despised, in a little-girl voice with a high-pitched giggle. She
could just imagine the girl, tiny, with round cheeks like a doll, a
small-stepped walk like a bird's, and a head that was always bobbing and
bowing.

When she hurried into the room,
Junko and the strange girl were working on her clothes, making the last
adjustments, folding and stitching. The Noguchi were losing no time in getting
rid of her. Bamboo baskets and paulownia wood boxes stood ready to be packed.
The sight of them upset Kaede further.

“What is this person doing here?”
she demanded irritably.

The girl flattened herself to the
floor, overdoing it, as Kaede had known she would.

“This is Shizuka,” Junko said. “She
is to travel with Lady Kaede to Inuyama.”

“I don't want her,” Kaede replied.
“I want you to come with me.”

“Lady, it's not possible for me to
leave. Lady Noguchi would never permit it.”

“Then tell her to send someone
else.”

Shizuka, still facedown on the
ground, gave what sounded like a sob. Kaede, sure that it was feigned, was
unmoved.

“You are upset, lady. The news of
the marriage, your father's departure . . .” Junko tried to placate her. “She's
a good girl, very pretty, very clever. Sit up, Shizuka: Let Lady Shirakawa look
at you.”

The girl raised herself but did not
look directly at Kaede. From her downcast eyes, tears trickled. She sniffed
once or twice. “Lady, please don't send me away. I'll do anything for you. I
swear, you'll never have anyone look after you better than me. I'll carry you
in the rain, I'll let you warm your feet on me in the cold.” Her tears seemed
to have dried and she was smiling again.

“You didn't warn me how beautiful
Lady Shirakawa is,” she said to Junko. “No wonder men die for her!”

“Don't say that!” Kaede cried. She
walked angrily to the doorway. Two gardeners were cleaning leaves off the moss,
one by one. “I'm tired of having it said of me.”

“It will always be said,” Junko
remarked. “It is part of the lady's life now.”

“I wish men would die for me,”
Shizuka laughed. “But they just seem to fall in and out of love with me as
easily as I do with them!”

Kaede did not turn around. The girl
shuffled on her knees to the boxes and began folding the garments again,
singing softly as she did it. Her voice was clear and true. It was an old
ballad about the little village in the pine forest, the girl, the young man.
Kaede thought she recalled it from her childhood. It brought clearly into her
mind the fact that her childhood was over, that she was to marry a stranger,
that she would never know love. Maybe people in villages could fall in love,
but for someone in her position it was not even to be considered.

She strode across the room and,
kneeling next to Shizuka, took the garment roughly from her. “If you're going
to do it, do it properly!”

“Yes, lady.” Shizuka flattened
herself again, crushing the robes around her. “Thank you, lady, you'll never
regret it!”

As she sat up again she murmured,
“People say Lord Arai takes a great interest in Lady Shirakawa. They talk of
his regard for her honor.”

“Do you know Arai?” Kaede said
sharply.

“I am from his town, lady. From
Kumamoto.”

Junko was smiling broadly. “I can
say good-bye with a calm mind if I know you have Shizuka to look after you.”

So Shizuka became part of Kaede's
life, irritating and amusing her in equal measures. She loved gossip, spread
rumors without the least concern, was always disappearing into the kitchens,
the stables, the castle, and coming back bursting with stories. She was popular
with everyone and had no fear of men. As far as Kaede could see, they were more
afraid of her, in awe of her teasing words and sharp tongue. On the surface she
appeared slapdash, but her care of Kaede was meticulous. She massaged away her
headaches, brought ointments made of herbs and beeswax to soften her creamy
skin, plucked her eyebrows into a more gentle shape. Kaede came to rely on her,
and eventually to trust her. Despite herself, Shizuka made her laugh, and she
brought her for the first time into contact with the outside world, from which
Kaede had been isolated.

So Kaede learned of the uneasy
relationships between the clans, the many bitter grudges left after Yaegahara,
the alliances Iida was trying to form with the Otori and the Seishuu, the
constant to-and-fro of men vying for position and preparing once again for war.
She also learned of the Hidden, Iida's persecution of them, and his demands
that his allies should do the same.

She had never heard of such people
and thought at first that Shizuka was making them up. Then one evening Shizuka,
uncharacteristically subdued, whispered to her that men and women had been
found in a small village and brought to Noguchi in basket cages. They were to
be hung from the castle walls until they died of hunger and thirst. The crows
pecked at them while they were still alive.

“Why? What crime did they commit?”
she questioned.

“They say there is a secret god,
who sees everything and who they cannot offend or deny. They would rather die.”

Kaede shivered. “Why does Lord Iida
hate them so?”

Shizuka glanced over her shoulder,
even though they were alone in the room. “They say the secret god will punish
Iida in the afterlife.”

“But Iida is the most powerful lord
in the Three Countries. He can do what he wants. They have no right to judge
him.” The idea that a lord's actions should be judged by ordinary village
people was ludicrous to Kaede.

“The Hidden believe that their god
sees everyone as equal. There are no lords in their god's eyes. Only those who
believe in him and those who do not.”

Kaede frowned. No wonder Iida
wanted to stamp them out. She would have asked more but Shizuka changed the
subject.

“Lady Maruyama is expected any day
now. Then we will begin our journey.”

“It will be good to leave this
place of death,” Kaede said.

“Death is everywhere.” Shizuka took
the comb and with long, even strokes ran it through Kaede's hair. “Lady
Maruyama is a close relative of yours. Did you meet her when you were a child?”

“If I did I don't remember it. She
is my mother's cousin, I believe, but I know very little about her. Have you
met her?”

“I have seen her,” Shizuka said
with a laugh. “People like me don't really meet people like her!”

“Tell me about her,” Kaede said.

“As you know, she owns a large
domain in the southwest. Her husband and her son are both dead, and her
daughter, who would inherit, is a hostage in Inuyama. It is well known that the
lady is no friend to the Tohan, despite her husband being of that clan. Her
stepdaughter is married to Iida's cousin. There were rumors that after her
husband's death, his family had her son poisoned. First Iida offered his
brother to her in marriage, but she refused him. Now they say he himself wants
to marry her.”

“Surely he is married already, and
has a son,” Kaede interrupted.

“None of Lady Iida's other children
has survived beyond childhood, and her health is very poor. It might fall at
any time.”

In other words, he might murder her
, Kaede thought, but did not dare say it.

“Anyway,” Shizuka went on, “Lady
Maruyama will never marry him, so they say, and she will not allow her daughter
to either.”

“She makes her own decisions about
who she will marry? She sounds like a powerful woman.”

“Maruyama is the last of the great
domains to be inherited through the female line,” Shizuka explained. “This
gives her more power than other women. And then, she has other powers that seem
almost magic. She bewitches people to get her own way.”

“Do you believe such things?”

“How else can you explain her
survival? Her late husband's family, Lord Iida and most of the Tohan would
crush her, but she survives, despite having lost her son to them and seeing
them hold her daughter.ݼ/p>

Kaede felt her heart twist in
sympathy. “Why do women have to suffer this way? Why don't we have the freedom
men have?”

“It's the way the world is,”
Shizuka replied. “Men are stronger and not held back by feelings of tenderness
or mercy. Women fall in love with them, but they do not return that love.”

“I will never fall in love,” Kaede
said.

“Better not to,” Shizuka agreed,
and laughed. She prepared the beds, and they lay down to sleep. Kaede thought
for a long time about the lady who held power like a man, the lady who had lost
a son and as good as lost a daughter. She thought of the girl, hostage in the
Iida stronghold at Inuyama, and pitied her.

———«»———«»———«»———

Lady Noguchi's reception room was
decorated in the mainland style, the doors and screens painted with scenes of
mountains and pine trees. Kaede disliked all the pictures, finding them heavy,
their gold leaf flamboyant and ostentatious, save the one farthest to the left.
This was of two pheasants, so lifelike that they looked as if they might
suddenly take flight. Their eyes were bright, their heads cocked. They listened
to the conversation in the room with more animation than most of the women who
knelt before Lady Noguchi.

On the lady's right sat the
visitor, Lady Maruyama. Lady Noguchi made a sign to Kaede to approach a little
closer. She bent to the floor and listened to the two-tongued words being spoken
above her head.

“Of course we are distraught at
losing Lady Kaede: She has been like our own daughter. And we hesitate to
burden Lady Maruyama. We ask only that Kaede be allowed to accompany you as far
as Tsuwano. There the Otori lords will meet her.”

“Lady Shirakawa is to be married
into the Otori family?” Kaede liked the low, gentle voice she heard. She raised
her head very slightly so she could see the lady's small hands folded in her
lap.

“Yes, to Lord Otori Shigeru,” Lady
Noguchi purred. “It is a great honor. Of course, my husband is very close to
Lord Iida, who himself desires the match.”

Kaede saw the hands clench until
the blood drained from them. After a pause, so long it was almost impolite,
Lady Maruyama said, “Lord Otori Shigeru? Lady Shirakawa is fortunate indeed.”

“The lady has met him? I have never
had that pleasure.”

“I know Lord Otori very slightly,”
Lady Maruyama replied. “Sit up, Lady Shirakawa, let me see your face.”

Kaede raised her head.

“You are so young!” the older woman
exclaimed.

“I am fifteen, lady.”

“Only a little older than my
daughter.” Lady Maruyama's voice was thin and faint. Kaede dared look in the
dark eyes, with their perfect shape. The pupils were dilated as if in shock,
and the lady's face was whiter than any powder could have made it. Then she
seemed to regain some control over herself. A smile came to her lips, though it
did not reach her eyes. What have I done to her? Kaede thought in confusion.
She had felt instinctively drawn to her. She thought Shizuka was right: Lady
Maruyama could get anyone to do anything for her. Her beauty was faded, it was
true, but somehow the faint lines round the eyes and mouth simply added to the
character and strength of the face. Now the coldness of her expression wounded
Kaede deeply.