Brilliance of the Moon (15 page)

I distributed the Tribe’s other lands and assets to those who had
come with me from Terayama. One small hamlet on the banks of a river was given
over to the outcasts, who immediately set about tanning the skins taken from
the dead horses. I was relieved that this group who had helped me so much was
now settled peacefully, but my protection of them baffled the elders and
increased their suspicions.

Every week a few more Otori warriors turned up to join me. The main
Otori army that had tried to surround me at Terayama had pur
sued me as
far as
the river we had crossed on the outcasts’ bridge,
and there, controlling the roads between Yamagata, Inuyama, and the West and,
apparently, giving Arai a few anxieties too. I joined Kaede most afternoons in
the tea room, where, together with Makoto and the Miyoshi brothers, we
discussed strategy. My main fear was that if I stayed where I was for too long,
I would be encircled by the Otori to the North and Arai to the Southeast. I
knew Arai was likely to return to his own town, Kumamoto, during the summer. I
could not hope to fight on two fronts. We decided that now was a good time to
send Kahei and Gemba to Arai to try to make peace of some kind for however
short a period. I was aware I had very little to bargain with: our brief
alliance against Iida, Shigeru’s legacy, and the records of the Tribe. On the
other hand, I had enraged him by my earlier disappearance and insulted him by
my marriage, and for all I knew, his anger against the Tribe might already have
been tempered by expediency.

I had no illusions about peace with the Otori. I could not
negotiate with Shigeru’s uncles and they would never abdicate in my favor. The
clan was already so divided that it was for all intents in a state of civil
war. If I attacked their main force, even if we were victorious, they would
simply fall back to Hagi, where they could easily hold us off until winter
itself defeated us. Despite the recovery of the Maruyama domain, we did not
have the resources for a long siege at such a distance from our home base.

I’d escaped from the Otori army by using the outcasts, whom no
one else had dreamed of approaching, and now I began to wonder how I might take
them by surprise again. When I thought of the city, I saw it lying in the cup
of the bay, so defensible on its landward side, so open to the sea. If I could
not get to Hagi by land, might I not be able to go by water?

Troops that could be transported rapidly by sea: I knew of no
warlord who had such a force. Yet history tells us that hundreds of years ago a
huge army sailed from the mainland and would have been victorious had the Eight Islands not been saved by a storm sent from heaven. My thoughts kept turning to the
boy who’d been my friend in Hagi, Terada Fumio, who had fled with his family to
the island of Oshima. Fumio had taught me about ships and sailing, he had
taught me to swim, and he had hated Shigeru’s uncles as much as I did. Could I
turn him into an ally now?

I did not speak openly of these ideas, but one night, after the
others had retired, Kaede—who watched me all the time and knew all my
moods—said, “You are thinking of attacking Hagi in some other way?”

“When I lived there I became friendly with the son of a family,
the Terada, who had been fishermen. The Otori lords raised the taxation of
their catch to such an extent that they took their boats and moved to Oshima;
it’s an island off the northwest coast.”

“They became pirates?”

“Their markets were closed to them; it was impossible to live by
fishing alone. I’m thinking of paying them a visit. If the Terada have enough
resources and they are willing to help me, it would be possible to take Hagi by
sea. But it must be done this year, and that means I must go before the
typhoons begin.”

“Why do you have to go yourself?” Kaede asked. “Send a
messenger.”

“Fumio will trust me, but I don’t think his family will talk to
anyone else. Now that the rams are over, Kahei and Gemba must go at once to
Inuyama. I’ll go with a
few
men, Makoto,
Jiro, maybe.”

‘Let me come with you,“ Kaede said.

I thought of the complexities of traveling with my wife, of
bringing one woman at least to accompany her, of finding suitable
accommodation.

“No, stay here with Sugita. I don’t want us both to be absent
from the domain at the same time. Amano must stay here too.”

“I wish I were Makoto,” she said. “I am jealous of him.”

“He is jealous of you,” I said lightly. “He thinks I spend far
too much time talking to you. A wife is for one thing, providing heirs.
Everything else a man should look for in his comrades.”

I had been joking, but she took me seriously. “I should give you
a child.” Her lips were pressed together and I saw her eyes moisten with tears.
“Sometimes I am afraid I will never conceive again. I wish our child had not
died.”

“We will have other children,” I said. “All girls, all as
beautiful as their mother.” I took her in my arms. It was a warm, still night,
but her skin felt cold and she was shivering.

“Don’t go,” she said.

“I will only be away a week at most.”

The next day the Miyoshi brothers set out for Inuyama to plead my
cause with Arai, and I left with Makoto for the coast the day after. Kaede was
still upset and we parted with a slight coolness between us. It was our first
disagreement. She wanted to come with me; I could have let her, but I did not.
I did not know how long it would be or how much we would both suffer before I
saw her again.

Still, I rode out cheerfully enough with Makoto, Jiro, and three
men. We went in unmarked traveling clothes so we could move swiftly and without
formalities. I was happy to be leaving the castle town for a while and happy,
too, to be able to set aside the ruthless work I’d undertaken to eradicate the Tribe.
The plum rains had ended, the air was clear, the sky deep blue. Along the road
we saw signs everywhere of the land’s gradual return to prosperity. The rice
fields were brilliant green, the harvest would be brought in; this winter, at
least, no one would starve.

Makoto was silent and reserved in Kaede’s presence, but when we
were alone together we talked as only the closest friends can. He had seen me
at my weakest and my most vulnerable, and I trusted him as I trusted no one
else. I opened my heart to him, and, apart from Kaede, only he knew of my
constant expectation of attack from the Tribe and my deep dislike of what I had
to do to eradicate them. The only thing that pained him about me was the depth
of my love for Kaede. He was jealous, perhaps, though he tried to hide it; but,
over and above that, he thought there was something unnatural about it: It was
not seemly for a man to feel such passion for his wife. He did not speak of it,
but I read the disapproval in his expression.

He had taken Jiro under his wing with his usual unobtrusive
thoughtfulness and found the time to teach him writing as well as training with
the pole and spear. Jiro proved quick to learn. He seemed to grow several
inches over the summer and began to fill out, too, now that he was eating
properly. Occasionally, I suggested that he return to his family in Kibi and
help with the harvest there, but he begged to be allowed to stay, swearing he
would serve either me or Makoto for the rest of his life. He was typical of
most of the farmers’ sons who had come to fight for me: quick-witted,
courageous, strong. We armed them with long spears and fitted them out with
leather armor, dividing them into units of twenty men, each with its own
leader. Any who showed the right aptitude we trained as bowmen. I counted them
among my greatest assets.

On the afternoon of the third day we came to the coast. It was
not as bleak as around Matsue; indeed, on that late-summer day, it looked
beautiful. Several steep-sided islands rose abruptly from a tranquil sea whose
color was deep blue, almost indigo. The breeze ruffled the surface into
triangular waves like knife blades. The islands seemed uninhabited, with
nothing breaking the solid green of the pines and cedars that clung to them.

Far in the distance, just visible in the haze, we could make out
the bulky shape of Oshima, the cone of its volcano hidden in the clouds. Beyond
it, out of sight, lay the city of Hagi.

“Presumably that’s the dragon’s lair,” Makoto said. “And how do
you intend to approach it?”

From the cliff where our horses stood, the road led down to a
small bay where there was a fishing village—a few hovels, boats pulled up on
the shingle, the gates of a shrine to the sea god.

“We could take a boat from there,” I said doubtfully, for the place
looked deserted. The fires that the fishermen burn to get salt from seawater
were no more than piles of black and charred logs, and there was no sign of
movement.

“I’ve never been in a boat,” Jiro exclaimed, “except across the
river!”

“Nor have I,” Makoto
muttered to me as we turned the horses’ heads toward the village.

The villagers had already seen us and gone into hiding. As we
approached the hovels they tried to run away. The beauty of the place was
deceptive; I’d seen many impoverished people throughout the Three Countries,
but these were far and away the poorest and the most wretched. My men ran after
one of them who was stumbling across the shingle, carrying a child of about two
years. They caught up with him easily, hampered as he was by his son, and
dragged them both back. The child was wailing, but the father had the look of a
man beyond grief or fear.

“We are not going to hurt you or take anything from you,” I said.
“I’m looking for someone to go with me to Oshima.”

He glanced up at me, disbelief written in his face. One of the
men holding him cuffed him hard.

“Speak when His Lordship questions you!”

“His Lordship? Being a lord won’t save him from Terada. You know
what we call Oshima? The entrance to hell.”

“Hell or not, I have to go there,” I replied. “And I’ll pay for
it.”

“What good is silver to us?” he said, bitterly. “If anyone knows
I have silver, they’ll kill me for it. I’m only alive because I have nothing
left worth stealing. Bandits have already taken my wife and my daughters. My
son was not weaned when they kidnapped his mother. I nursed him on rags dipped
in water and brine. I chewed fish and fed him from my own mouth like a seabird.
I cannot leave him to go with you to certain death at Oshima.”

“Then find us someone who will take me,” I said. “When we return
to Maruyama we’ll send soldiers to destroy the bandits. The domain now belongs
to my wife, Shirakawa Kaede. We will make this place safe for you.”

“Doesn’t matter who it belongs to, Your Lordship will never
return from Oshima.”

“Take the child,” Makoto ordered the men angrily, saying to the
fisherman, “He will die unless you obey!”

“
Take him
!” the man shrieked.
“Kill him! I should have done so myself. Then kill me and my suffering will be
over!”

Makoto leaped from his horse to seize the child himself. It clung
to its father’s neck like a monkey, sobbing noisily.

“Leave them,” I said, dismounting, too, and giving the reins to
Jiro. “We cannot force them.” I studied the man, taking care not to meet his
gaze; after his first quick glance he did not look at me again. “What food do
we have?”

Jiro opened the saddlebags and brought out rice wrapped in kelp
and flavored with pickled plums, and dried fish.

“I want to talk to you alone,” I said to the man. “Will you and
the child sit down and eat with me?”

He swallowed hard, his gaze fixed on the food. The child smelled
the fish and turned its head. It held out one hand toward Jiro.

The father nodded.

“Let him go,” I said to the men, and took the food from Jiro.
Outside one of the hovels was an upturned boat. “We’ll sit there.”

I walked toward it and the man followed. I sat and he knelt at my
feet, bowing his head. He placed the child on the sand and pushed its head down
too. It had stopped sobbing but sniffed loudly from time to time.

I held out the food and whispered the first prayer of the Hidden
over it, watching the man’s face all the time.

His mouth formed words. He did not take the food. The child
reached out for it, beginning to wail again. The father said, “If you are
trying to trap me, may the Secret One forgive you.” He said the second prayer
and took the rice ball. Breaking it into pieces, he fed it to his son. “At
least my child will have tasted rice before he dies.”

“I am not trying to trap you.” I handed him another rice ball,
which he crammed into his mouth. “I am Otori Takeo, heir to the Otori clan. But
I was raised among the Hidden and my childhood name was Tomasu.”

“May he bless and keep you,” he said, taking the fish from me.
“How did you pick me?”

“When you said you should have killed yourself and your son, your
eyes flickered upward as if you were praying.”

“I have prayed many times for the Secret One to take me to him.
But you know it is forbidden for me to kill myself or my son.”

“Are you all Hidden here?”

“Yes, for generations, since the first teachers came from the
mainland. We’ve never been persecuted for it as such. The lady of the domain
who died last year used to protect us. But bandits and pirates grow bolder and
more numerous all the time, and they know we cannot fight back.”