Brilliance of the Moon (10 page)

“Where is your uncle now?” I asked Hiroshi.

“He has been waiting a little way from the town with all his men.
He did not want to go too far from it, in case it was taken over behind his
back. So I heard my father say.”

“Will he retreat into the town?”

The boy’s eyes narrowed in an adult way. “Only if he absolutely
has to, and then he would have to fall back to the castle, for the town can no
longer be defended. We are very short of food: Last year’s storms destroyed
much of the harvest, and the winter was unusually hard. We could not stand a
long siege.”

“Where would your uncle fight if he had the choice?”

“Not far from the town gate this road crosses a river, the
Asagawa. There’s a ford; it’s almost always shallow, but sometimes there’s a
flash flood. To get to the ford, the road goes down into a steep ravine and
then up again. Then there’s a small plain with a favorable slope. My father
taught me you could hold up an invading army there. And with enough men you
could outflank them and box them in the ravine.”

“Well spoken, Captain,” Kahei said. “Remind me to take you with
me on all my campaigns!”

“I only know this district,” Hiroshi said, suddenly bashful. “But
my father taught me that in war one must know the terrain above everything.“

“He would be proud of you,” I said. It seemed our best plan would
be to press on and hope to trap the forces in front of us in the ravine. Even
if Sugita had pulled back into the town, we could take the attacking army by
surprise from behind.

I had one more question for the boy: “You said it’s possible to
outflank an army in the ravine. So there’s another route between here and the
plain?“

He nodded. “A few miles further to the north there is another
crossing. We rode that way a few days ago to come here. After a day of heavy
rain there was a sudden flood through the ford. It takes a little longer, but
not if you gallop.”

“Can you show Lord Miyoshi the way?”

“Of course,” he
said, looking up at Kahei with eager eyes. “Kahei, take your horsemen and ride
with all speed that way. Hiroshi will show you where to find Sugita. Tell him
we are coming and that he is to keep the enemy bottled up in the ravine. The
foot soldiers and farmers will come with me.”

“That’s good,” Hiroshi said approvingly. “The ford is full of boulders;
the footing is not really favorable to war horses. And the Tohan will think you
are weaker than you are and underestimate you. They won’t expect farmers to
fight.”

I thought,
I should be taking lessons in strategy from
him
.

Jiro said, “Am I to go with Lord Miyoshi too?”

“Yes, take Hiroshi on your horse, and keep an eye on him.”

The horsemen rode away, the hoofs echoing across the broad
valley.

“What hour is it?” I asked Makoto.

“About the second half of the Snake,” he replied.

“Have the men eaten?”

“I gave orders to eat quickly while we were halted.”

“Then we can move on right away. Start the men now; I’ll ride
back and tell the captains and my wife. I’ll join you when I’ve spoken to
them.”

He turned his horse’s head, but before he moved off he gazed
briefly at the sky, the forest, and the valley.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he said quietly.

I knew what he meant: a good day to die. But neither he nor I was
destined to die that day, though many others were.

I cantered back along the line of resting men, giving the orders
to move on and telling their leaders our plan. They got to their feet eagerly,
especially when I told them who our main enemy was; they shouted mightily at
the prospect of punishing the Tohan for the defeat at Yaegahara, the loss of Yamagata, and the years of oppression.

Kaede and the other women were waiting in a small grove of trees,
Amano as usual with them.

“We are going into battle,” I said to Kaede. “Iida Nariaki’s army
crossed the border ahead of us. Kahei has ridden around the side of them, where
we hope he will meet up with his brother and Sugita. Amano will take you into
the forest, where you must stay until I come for you.”

Amano bowed his head. Kaede looked as if she were going to speak,
but then she, too, inclined her head. “May the All-Merciful One be with you,”
she whispered, her eyes on my face. She leaned forward slightly and said, “One
day I will ride into battle beside you!”

‘If I know you are safe, I can give all my concentration to the
nght,“ I replied. ”Besides, you must protect the records.“

“A battlefield is no place for a woman!” Manami said, her face
drawn with anxiety.

“No,” Kaede replied, “I would only be in the way. But how I wish I
had been born a man!“

Her fierceness made me laugh. “Tonight we will sleep in
Maruyama!“ I told her.

I kept the image of her vivid, courageous face in my mind all
day. Before we left the temple, Kaede and Manami had made banners of the Otori
heron, the white river of the Shirakawa, and the hill of the Maruyama, and we
unfurled them now as we rode through the valley. Even though we were going into
battle, I still checked out the state of the countryside. The fields looked
fertile enough, and should already have been flooded and planted, but the dikes
were broken and the channels clogged with weeds and mud.

Apart from the signs of neglect, the army ahead of us had
stripped the land and farms of whatever they could find. Children cried by the
roadside, houses burned, and here and there dead men lay, killed casually, for
no reason, their bodies left where they’d fallen.

From time to time when we passed a farm or hamlet, the surviving
men and boys came out to question us. Once they learned that we were pursuing
the Tohan and that I would allow them to fight, they joined us eagerly, swelling
our ranks by about a hundred.

About two hours later, when it was well past noon, maybe coming
into the hour of the Goat, I heard from ahead the sounds I had been listening
for: the clash of steel, the whinnying of horses, the shouts of battle, the
cries of the wounded. I made a sign to Makoto and he gave the order to halt.

Shun stood still, ears pricked forward, listening as attentively
as I did. He did not whinny in response, as though he knew the need for
silence. “Sugita must have met them here, as the boy said,” Makoto murmured.
“But can Kahei have reached him already?”

“Whoever it is, it
is a major battle,” I replied.

The road ahead disappeared downhill into the ravine. The tops of
the trees waved their new green leaves in the spring sunshine. The noise of
battle was not so great that I could not also hear birdsong.

“The bannermen will ride forward with me,” I said.

“You should not go ahead. Stay in the center, where it is safer.
You will be too easy a target for bowmen.”

“It is my war,” I replied. “It’s only right that I should be the
first to engage in it.” The words may have sounded calm and measured; in truth
I was tense, anxious to begin the fight and anxious to end it.

“Yes, it is your war, and every one of us is in it because of
you. All the more reason for us to try and preserve you!”

I turned my horse and faced the men. I felt a surge of regret for
those who would die, but at least I had given them the chance to die like men,
to fight for their land and families. I called to the bannermen and they rode
forward, the banners streaming in the breeze. I looked at the white heron and
prayed to Shigeru’s spirit. I felt it possess me, sliding beneath my skin,
aligning itself with my sinews and bones. I drew Jato and the blade flashed in
the sun. The men responded with shouts and cheers.

I turned Shun and put him into a canter. He went forward calmly
and eagerly, as though we were riding together through a meadow. The horse to
my left was overexcited, pulling against the bit and trying to buck. I could
feel all the muscular tension in the rider’s body as he controlled the horse
with one hand while keeping the banner erect in the other.

The road darkened as it descended between the trees. The surface
worsened, as Hiroshi had predicted, the soft, muddy sand giving way to rocks,
then boulders, with many potholes gouged out by the recent floods. The road
itself would have turned into a river every time it rained.

We slowed to a trot. Above all the sounds of battle I could hear
the real river. Ahead of us a bright gap in the foliage showed where the road
emerged from under the trees to run along its bank for a few hundred feet
before the ford. Silhouetted against the brightness were dark shapes, like the
shadows against paper screens that amuse children, writhing and clashing in the
contortions of slaughter.

I had thought to use bowmen first, but as soon as I saw the
conflict ahead I realized they would kill as many allies as enemies. Sugita’s
men had driven the invading army back from the plain and were pushing them foot
by foot along the river. Even as we approached, some were trying to break ranks
and flee; they saw us and ran back in the other direction, shouting to alert
their commanders.

Makoto had raised the conch shell and now blew into it, its
haunting, eerie note echoing from the wall of the ravine on the far side of the
river. Then the echo itself was echoed as a reply came from way ahead, too far
away for us to see the man blowing it. There was a moment of stillness, the
moment before the wave breaks, and then we were among them and the fight had
begun.

Only the chroniclers writing afterward can tell you what happens
in battle, and then they usually tell only the tale of the victor. There is no
way of knowing when you are locked in the midst of it which way the fighting is
going. Even if you could see it from above, with eagle’s eyes, all you would
see would be a quilt of pulsating color, crests and banners, blood and
steel—beautiful and nightmarish. All men on the battlefield go mad: How else
could we do the things we do and bear to see the things we see?

I realized immediately that our skirrmsh with the bandits had
been nothing. These were the hardened troops of theTohan and the Seishuu, well
armed, ferocious, cunning. They saw the heron crest and knew at once who was at
their rear.To revenge lick Sadamu by killing me was the instant goal of half
their army. Makoto had been being sensible when hed suggested I stay protected
in the center. Id fought off three warriors, saved from the third only by Shuns
sense of timing, before my friend caught up with me. Wielding his staff like a
lance, he caught a fourth man under the chin, knocking him from the saddle. One
of our farmers leaped on the fallen warrior and severed his head with his
sickle.

I urged Shun forward. He seemed instinctively to find a path
through the crush, always turning at the right moment to give me the advantage.
And Jato leaped in my hand, as Shigeru had once said it would, until it
streamed with blood from the point to the hilt.

There was a thick knot of men around Makoto and me as we fought
side by side, and I became aware of another similar cluster ahead. I could see
the Tohan banner fluttering above it. The two clusters surged and swirled as
men rose and fell around them, until they were so close I could see my
counterpart in the center of the other.

I felt a rush of recognition. This man wore black armor with a
horned helmet, the same as Iida Sadamu had worn when I had looked up at him
from beneath his horses feet in Mino. Across his breast gleamed a string of
gold prayer beads. Our eyes met above the sea of struggling men, and Nariaki
gave a shout of rage. Wrenching at his horse’s head and urging it forward, he
broke through the protective circle around him and rode at me.

“OtoriTakeo is mine!” he yelled. “Let no one touch him but me!”
As he repeated this over and over again, the men attacking me fell back a
little and we found ourselves face to face a few paces apart.

I make it sound as if there was time to think it all through, but
in reality there was none. These scenes return to me in flashes. He was in
front of me; he shouted again insultingly, but I barely heard the words. He
dropped the reins on his horse’s neck and lifted his sword with both hands. His
horse was bigger than Shun, and he, like Iida, much larger than me. I was
watching the sword for the moment it began to move, and Shun was watching it
too.

The blade flashed. Shun jumped sideways and the sword hit only
air. The impetus of the huge blow dislodged the rider momentarily. As he fell
awkwardly against his horse’s neck, it bucked, enough to unseat him further. He
had to either fall or drop his sword. Sliding his feet free of the stirrups, he
held the horse’s mane with one hand and with surprising agility swung himself
to the ground. He fell onto his knees but still held the sword. Then he leaped
to his feet and in the same movement rushed at me with a stroke that would have
taken off my leg, if Shun had stood still long enough for it to connect. My men
pressed forward and could easily have overcome him. “Stay back!” I shouted. I
was determined now to kill him myself. I was possessed by fury like nothing I
had ever known, as different from the cold murders of the Tribe as day is from
night. I let the reins fall and leaped from Shuns back. I heard him snort
behind me and knew he would stand as still as a rock until I needed him again.