Across the Nightingale Floor (16 page)

The physical activity, the shock of
discovering Shizuka's skill, the warmth of the morning, the unfamiliar clothes,
all combined to break down Kaede's self-control. She seized the towel and
buried her face in it as sobs racked her.

“Lady,” Shizuka whispered, “lady,
don't cry. You have nothing to fear.”

“Who are you really?” Kaede cried.
“Why are you pretending to be what you are not? You told me you did not know
Lady Maruyama!”

“I wish I could tell you everything,
but I cannot yet. But my role here is to protect you. Arai sent me for that
purpose.”

“You know Arai too? All you said
before was that you were from his town.”

“Yes, but we are closer than that.
He has the deepest regard for you, feeling himself to be in your debt. When
Lord Noguchi exiled him, his anger was extreme. He felt himself insulted by
Noguchi's distrust as well as his treatment of you. When he heard you were to
be sent to Inuyama to be married, he made arrangements for me to accompany you.”

“Why? Will I be in danger there?”

“Inuyama is a dangerous place. Even
more so now, when the Three Countries are on the brink of war. Once the Otori
alliance is settled by your marriage, Iida will fight the Seishuu in the West.”

In the bare room, sunlight slanted
through the dust raised by their feet. From beyond the lattice windows Kaede
could hear the flow of water in the canals, the cries of street sellers, the
laughter of children. That world seemed so simple and open, with none of the
dark secrets that lay beneath her own.

“I am just a pawn on the board,”
she said bitterly. “You will sacrifice me as swiftly as the Tohan would.”

“No, Arai and I are your servants,
lady. He has sworn to protect you, and I obey him.” She smiled, her face
suddenly vivid with passion.

They are lovers , Kaede thought,
and felt again a pang of jealousy that she had to share Shizuka with anyone
else. She wanted to ask, What about Lady Maruyama? What is her part in this
game? And the man I am to marry? But she feared the answer.

“It's too hot to do more today,”
Shizuka said, taking the towel from Kaede and wiping her eyes. “Tomorrow I'll
teach you how to use the knife.”

As they stood she added, “Don't
treat me any differently. I am just your servant, nothing more.”

“I should apologize for the times I
treated you badly,” Kaede said awkwardly.

“You never did!” Shizuka laughed.
“If anything, you were far too lenient. The Noguchi may have taught you nothing
useful, but at least you did not learn cruelty from them.”

“I learned embroidery,” Kaede said,
“but you can't kill anyone with a needle.”

“You can,” Shizuka said
offhandedly. “I'll show you one day.”

———«»———«»———«»———

For a week they waited in the
mountain town for the Otori to arrive. The weather grew heavier and more
sultry. Storm clouds gathered every night around the mountain peaks, and in the
distance lightning flickered, yet it did not rain. Every day Kaede learned to
fight with the sword and the knife, starting at daybreak, before the worst of
the heat, and training for three hours at a stretch, the sweat pouring off her
face and body.

Finally, one day at the end of the
morning, as they were rinsing their faces with cold water, above the usual
sounds of the streets came the tramp of horses, the barking of dogs.

Shizuka beckoned Kaede to the
window. “Look! They are here! The Otori are here.”

Kaede peered through the lattice.
The group of horsemen approached at a trot. Most of them wore helmets and
armor, but on one side rode a bareheaded boy not much older than herself. She saw
the curve of his cheekbone, the silky gleam of his hair.

“Is that Lord Shigeru?”

“No,” Shizuka laughed. “Lord
Shigeru rides in front. The young man is his ward, Lord Takeo.”

She emphasized the word lord in an
ironic way that Kaede would recall later, but at the time she hardly noticed,
for the boy, as if he had heard his name spoken, turned his head and looked
towards her.

His eyes suggested depths of
emotion, his mouth was sensitive, and she saw in his features both energy and
sadness. It kindled something in her, a sort of curiosity mixed with longing, a
feeling she did not recognize.

The men rode on. When the boy
disappeared from sight she felt she had lost a part of herself. She followed
Shizuka back to the inn like a sleepwalker. By the time they got there, she was
trembling as if with fever. Shizuka, completely misunderstanding, tried to
reassure her.

“Lord Otori is a kind man, lady.
You mustn't be afraid. No one will harm you.”

Kaede said nothing, not daring to
open her mouth, for the only word she wanted to speak was his name. Takeo.

Shizuka tried to get her to
eat—first soup to warm her, then cold noodles to cool her—but she could swallow
nothing. Shizuka made her lie down. Kaede shivered beneath the quilt, her eyes
bright, her skin dry, her body as unpredictable to her as a snake.

Thunder crackled in the mountains
and the air swam with moisture.

Alarmed, Shizuka sent for Lady
Maruyama. When she came into the room an old man followed her.

“Uncle!” Shizuka greeted him with a
cry of delight.

“What happened?” Lady Maruyama
said, kneeling beside Kaede and placing her hand on her forehead. “She is
burning; she must have taken a chill.”

“We were training,” Shizuka
explained. “We saw the Otori arrive, and she seemed to be struck by a sudden
fever.”

“Can you give her something,
Kenji?” Lady Maruyama asked.

“She dreads the marriage,” Shizuka
said quietly.

“I can cure a fever, but that I
cannot cure,” the old man said. “I'll have them brew some herbs. The tea will
calm her.”

Kaede lay perfectly still with her eyes
closed. She could hear them clearly, but they seemed to speak from another
world, one that she had been plucked out of the moment her eyes met Takeo's.
She roused herself to drink the tea, Shizuka holding her head as if she were a
child, and then she drifted into a shallow sleep. She was woken by thunder
rolling through the valley. The storm had finally broken and rain was pelting
down, ringing off the tiles and sluicing the cobbles. She had been dreaming
vividly, but the moment she opened her eyes the dream vanished, leaving her
only with the lucid knowledge that what she felt was love.

She was astonished, then elated,
then dismayed. At first she thought she would die if she saw him, then that she
would die if she didn't. She berated herself. How could she have fallen in love
with the ward of the man she was to marry? And then she thought: What marriage?
She could not marry Lord Otori. She would marry no one but Takeo. And then she
found herself laughing at her own stupidity. As if anyone married for love.
I've been overtaken by disaster, she thought at one moment, and at the next,
How can this feeling be a disaster?

When Shizuka returned she insisted
that she had recovered. Indeed, the fever had abated, replaced by an intensity
that made her eyes glow and her skin gleam.

“You are more beautiful than ever!”
Shizuka exclaimed as she bathed and dressed her, putting on the robes that had
been prepared for her betrothal, for her first meeting with her future husband.

Lady Maruyama greeted her with
concern, asking after her health, and was relieved to find she was recovered.
But Kaede was aware of the older woman's nervousness as she followed her to the
best room in the inn, which had been prepared for Lord Otori.

She could hear the men talking as
the servants slid the doors open, but they fell silent at the sight of her. She
bowed to the floor, conscious of their gaze, not daring to look at any of them.
She could feel every pulse in her body as her heart began to race.

“This is Lady Shirakawa Kaede,”
Lady Maruyama said. Her voice was cold, Kaede thought, and again wondered what
she had done to offend the lady so much.

“Lady Kaede, I present you to Lord
Otori Shigeru,” Lady Maruyama went on, her voice now so faint it could hardly
be heard.

Kaede sat up. “Lord Otori,” she
murmured, and raised her eyes to the face of the man she was to marry.

“Lady Shirakawa,” he replied with
great politeness. “We heard you were unwell. You are recovered?”

“Thank you, I am quite well.” She
liked his face, seeing kindness in his gaze. He deserves his reputation, she
thought. But how can I marry him? She felt color rise in her cheeks.

“Those herbs never fail,” said the
man sitting on his left. She recognized the voice of the old man who had had
the tea made for her, the man Shizuka called Uncle. “Lady Shirakawa has the
reputation of great beauty, but her reputation hardly does her justice.”

Lady Maruyama said, “You flatter
her, Kenji. If a girl is not beautiful at fifteen, she never will be.”

Kaede felt herself flush even more.

“We have brought gifts for you,”
Lord Otori said. “They pale beside your beauty, but please accept them as a
token of my deepest regard and the devotion of the Otori clan. Takeo.”

She thought he spoke the words with
indifference, even coldness, and imagined he would always feel that way towards
her.

The boy rose and brought forward a
lacquered tray. On it were packages wrapped in pale pink silk crepe, bearing
the crest of the Otori. Kneeling before Kaede, he presented it to her.

She bowed in thanks.

“This is Lord Otori's ward and
adopted son,” Lady Maruyama said. “Lord Otori Takeo.”

She did not dare look at his face.
She allowed herself instead to gaze on his hands. They were long-fingered,
supple, and beautifully shaped. The skin was a color between honey and tea, the
nails tinged faintly lilac. She sensed the stillness within him, as if he were
listening, always listening.

“Lord Takeo,” she whispered.

He was not yet a man like the men
she feared and hated. He was her age; his hair and skin had the same texture of
youth. The intense curiosity she had felt before returned. She longed to know
everything about him. Why had Lord Otori adopted him? Who was he really? What
had happened to make him so sad? And why did she think he could hear her
heart's thoughts?

“Lady Shirakawa.” His voice was
low, with a touch of the East in it.

She had to look at him. She raised
her eyes and met his gaze. He stared at her, almost puzzled, and she felt
something leap between them, as though somehow they had touched across the
space that separated them.

The rain had eased a little
earlier, but now it began again, with a drumming roar that all but drowned
their voices, The wind rose, too, making the lamp flames dance and the shadows
loom on the walls.

May I stay here forever , Kaede
thought.

Lady Maruyama said sharply. “He has
met you, but you have not been introduced: This is Muto Kenji, an old friend of
Lord Otori, and Lord Takeo's teacher. He will help Shizuka in your
instruction.”

“Sir,” she acknowledged him,
glancing at him from under her eyelashes. He was staring at her in outright
admiration, shaking his head slightly as if in disbelief. He seems like a nice
old man, Kaede thought, and then: But he is not so old after all! His face
seemed to slip and change in front of her eyes.

She felt the floor beneath her move
with the very slightest of tremors. No one spoke, but from outside someone
shouted in surprise. Then there was only the wind and the rain again.

A chill came over her. She must let
none of her feelings show. Nothing was as it seemed.

After my formal adoption into the
clan, I began to see more of the young men of my own age from warrior families.
Ichiro was much sought after as a teacher, and since he was already instructing
me in history, religion, and the classics, he agreed to take on other pupils as
well. Among these was Miyoshi Gemba, who, with his older brother, Kahei, was to
become one of my closest allies and friends. Gemba was a year older than me.
Kahei was already in his twenties, and too old for Ichiro's instruction, but he
helped teach the younger men the arts of war.

For these I now joined the men of
the clan in the great hall opposite the castle, where we fought with poles and
studied other martial arts. On its sheltered southern side was a wide field for
horsemanship and archery. I was no better with the bow than I'd ever been, but
I could acquit myself well enough with the pole and the sword. Every morning,
after two hours of writing practice with Ichiro, I would ride with a couple of
men through the winding streets of the castle town and spend four or five hours
in relentless training.

In the late afternoons I returned
to Ichiro with his other pupils, and we struggled to keep our eyes open while
he tried to teach us the principles of Kung Tzu and the history of the Eight
Islands. The summer solstice passed, and the Festival of the Weaver Star, and
the days of the great heat began. The plum rains had ended, but it remained
very humid, and heavy storms threatened. The farmers gloomily predicted a worse
than usual typhoon season.

My lessons with Kenji also
continued, but at night. He stayed away from the clan hall, and warned me
against revealing my Tribe skills.

“The warriors think it's sorcery,”
he said. “They'll despise you for it.”

We went out on many nights, and I
learned to move invisibly through the sleeping town. We had a strange
relationship. I did not trust him at all in daylight. I'd been adopted by the
Otori, and I'd given my heart to them. I did not want to be reminded that I was
an outsider, even a freak. But it was different at night. Kenji's skills were
unparalleled. He wanted to share them with me, and I was mad with hunger to
learn them—partly for their own sake, because they fulfilled some dark need
that was born into me, and partly because I knew how much I had to learn if I
was ever to achieve what Lord Shigeru wanted me to do. Although he had not yet
spoken of it to me, I could think of no other reason why he had rescued me from
Mino. I was the son of an assassin, a member of the Tribe, now his adopted son.
I was going with him to Inuyama. What other purpose could there be but to kill
Iida?