Brilliance of the Moon (25 page)

I followed him toward the road where I could hear the horses
ahead of us, moving at a swift canter as if in flight. I even heard one of the
guards shout to Makoto to ride faster, addressing him as Lord Otori, making me
grin bitterly at the deception. My quarry and I went at speed up the slope and
down again and came out on a rocky outcrop that gave a good vantage point over
the road beneath.

Hajime planted his feet firmly on the rock and took the bow from
his shoulder. He set the arrow in the cord; I heard him take a deep breath as
he drew it back: The muscles stood out on his arms and rippled across his neck.
In close combat with him I wouldn’t stand a chance. I could probably get him
with Jato if I took him from behind, but I’d have to be sure to kill him with
the first blow, and I wanted to take him alive.

He stood motionless, waiting for his target to appear from under
the trees. I could barely hear his breathing now. I knew the technique he was
using and I was familiar enough with the training he’d undergone to recognize
his total concentration. He was one with the bow, with the arrow. It was
probably a magnificent sight, but all I was aware of was my desire to see him
suffer and then die. I tried to calm my rage. I had only a few moments to
think.

I still carried on me myTribe weapons, among them a set of
throwing knives. I was no expert with them, but they might answer my purpose
now. I had dried and oiled them after my soaking in the pirates’ harbor; they
slipped silkily from their holster. As the horses approached below, I ran,
still invisible, out from my hiding place, throwing the knives as I went.

The first two sailed past him, breaking his concentration and
making him turn toward me. He was looking over my head with the same puzzled
expression he’d worn in the training hall when I had used invisibility there.
It made me want to laugh and pained me beyond words at one and the same time.
The third knife caught him on the cheek, its many points making blood flower
immediately. He took an involuntary step backward and I saw he was right on the
brink. I threw the next two knives directly at his face and came back to
visibility right in front of him. Jato sprang into my hand. He threw himself
backward to avoid the blow and went over the edge, falling heavily almost under
the horses’ feet.

He was winded by the fall and bleeding from cheek and eyes, but
it still took the five of us more than a brief struggle to subdue him. He did
not utter a sound, but his eyes burned with rage and malevolence. I had to
decide whether to kill him on the spot or drag him back to Maruyama, where I
would devise a slow death for him that might assuage my grief for Jiro.

Once Hajime was trussed up and unable to move, I drew Makoto
aside to ask his advice. I could not get out of my head the memory of how
Hajime and I had trained together; we had almost been friends. Such was the
code of the Tribe that it transcended any personal liking or loyalty. Didn’t I
already know that from my own experience, from Kenji’s betrayal of Shigeru? Yet
I was shocked by it all over again.

Hajime called to me, “Hey, dog!”

One of the guards kicked him. “How dare you address Lord Otori in
that fashion.”

“Come here, Lord Otori,” the wrestler sneered. “I have something
to tell you.”

I went to him.

“The Kikuta have your son,” he said. “And his mother is dead.”

“Yuki is dead?”

“Once the boy was born, they made her take poison. Akio will
raise him alone. The Kikuta will get you. You betrayed them; they will never
let you live. And they have your son.”

He made an almost animal-like snarl and, extending his tongue out
to its fullest length, clamped his teeth down through it, biting it off. His
eyes were wild with pain and rage; yet he did not make another sound. He spat
out his tongue and a gush of blood followed it. It filled his throat, choking
him. His powerful body arched and struggled, fighting the death his will
imposed on it as he drowned in his own blood.

I turned away, sickened, and saddened beyond belief. My rage had
abated. In its place was a leaden heaviness, as if the sky had fallen into my
soul. I ordered the men to drag him into the forest, cut off his head, and
leave his body for the wolves and foxes.

Jiro’s body we took with us. We stopped at a small town along the
coast, Ohama, where we held the burial service at the local shrine and paid for
a stone lantern to be erected for him beneath the cedars. We donated the bow
and arrows to the shrine, and I believe they still hang there, up under the
rafters along with the votive pictures of horses, for the place was sacred to
the horse goddess.

Among the pictures are my horses. We had to stay in the town for
nearly two weeks, first to conduct the funeral ceremonies and cleanse ourselves
from the pollution of death, and then for the Festival of the Dead. I borrowed
an inkstone and brushes from the priest and painted Shuns picture on a slab of
wood. Into it I believe I put not only my respect and gratitude for the horse
that had saved my life again but also my grief for Jiro, for Yuki, for my life
that seemed to lead me only into witnessing the deaths of others. And maybe my
longing for Kaede, whom I missed with physical pain as grief set alight my
desire for her.

I painted obsessively: Shun, Raku, Kyu, Aoi. It was a long time
since I had painted, and the brush in my hand, the cool wash of the ink, had a
calming effect on me. As I sat alone in the tranquil temple, I allowed myself
to fantasize that this was my whole life. I had retired from the world and
spent my days painting votive pictures for pilgrims. I recalled the words of
the abbot atTerayama on my first visit there so long
ago with Shigeru:
Come back when this is all over.
There will he a place for you here
.

Will it ever
be over
? I asked, as I had then.

Often I found tears spring to my eyes. I grieved for Jiro and for
Yuki, for their short lives, for their devotion to me, which I had not
deserved, for their murders on my account. I longed to avenge them, but the
brutality of Hajime’s suicide had repelled me. What endless cycle of death and
revenge had I initiated? I recalled all that Yuki and I had experienced
together, and bitterly regretted… what? That I had not loved her? Maybe I had
not loved her with the passion I felt for Kaede, but I had desired her, and the
memory of it made me ache with desire all over again and weep again for her
lithe body now stilled forever.

I was glad the solemnities of the Festival of the Dead gave me
the chance to say farewell to her spirit. I lit candles for all the dead who
had gone before me and asked them for their forgiveness and their guidance. It
was a year since I had stood on the bank of the river at Yamagata with Shigeru
and we had sent our little flaming boats adrift on the current; a year since I
had spoken Kaede’s name, seen her face come alight, and known that she loved
me.

Desire tormented me. I could have lain with Makoto and so eased
it
, as well as comforted him in his grief, but though I was often
tempted, something held me back. During the day, while I painted for hours, I
meditated on the past year and all I had done in it, my mistakes and the pain
and suffering they had inflicted on those around me. Apart from my decision to
go with the Tribe, all my mistakes, I came to
realize
, sprang from uncontrolled desire. If I had not slept with
Makoto, his obsession would not have led him to expose Kaede to her father. If
I had not slept with her, she would not have nearly died when she lost our
child. And if I had not slept with Yuki, she would still be alive and the son
that would kill me would never have been born. I found myself thinking of
Shigeru, who had resisted marrying and puzzled his household by his abstinence
because he had vowed to Lady Maruyama that he would lie with no one but her. I
knew of no other man who had made such a vow, but the more I thought about it,
the more I wanted to emulate him in this as in everything I did. Kneeling
silently before the horse-headed Kannon, I made a vow to the goddess that all
my love, physical and emotional, from now on would be given only to Kaede, to
my wife.

Our separation had made me
realize anew
how much I needed her, how she was the fixed point that steadied
and strengthened my life. My love for her was the antidote to the poison that
rage and grief had sent through me; like all antidotes I kept it well hidden
and well guarded. Makoto, as grief-stricken as I, also spent long hours in
silent meditation. We hardly spoke during the day, but after the evening meal
we often talked until far into the night. He, of course, had heard Ha-jime’s
words to me and tried to ask me about Yuki, about my son, but at first I could
not bear to speak of either of them. However, on the first night of the
festival, after we returned from the shore we drank a little wine together.
Relieved that the coolness between us seemed to have vanished, and trusting him
completely as I trusted no other man, I felt I should tell him the words of the
prophecy.

He listened carefully as I described the ancient blind woman, her
saintly appearance, the cave, the prayer wheel, and the sign of the Hidden.

“I have heard of her,” he said. “Many people aspiring to holiness
go to seek her, but I have never known anyone else who has found the way.”

“I was taken by
the outcast, Jo-An.”

He was silent. It was a warm, still night, and all the screens
stood open. The full moon poured its light over the shrine and the sacred
grove. The sea roared on the shingle beach. A gecko crossed the ceiling, its
tiny feet sucking at the beams. Mosquitoes whined and moths fluttered around
the lamps. I extinguished the flames so they would not burn their wings: The
moon was bright enough to light the room. Makoto said finally, “Then I must
accept that he is favored by the Enlightened One, as you are.”

“The saint told me, ‘
It is all one,’”
I said. “I did not understand at the time, but later at Terayama
I remembered Shigeru’s words just before his death, and the truth of what she
said was revealed to me.”

“You cannot put it
into words?”

“No, but it is
true, and I live my life by it. There are no distinc-

tions between us: Our castes as much as our beliefs are illusions
that come between us and truth. It is how heaven deals with all men, and how I
must too.“

“I followed you because of my love for you and because I believe
in the justice of your cause,” he said, smiling. “I did not
realize
you were to be my spiritual adviser too!”

“I know nothing of spiritual matters,” I said, suspecting he was
laughing at me. “I have abandoned the beliefs of my childhood and I cannot take
on any others in their place. All religious teachings seem to me to be made up
half of deep truth and half of utter madness. People cling to their beliefs as
if they could be saved by them, but beyond all the teachings there is a place
of truth where it is all one.”

Makoto laughed. “You seem to have more insight in your ignorance
than I after years of study and debate. What else did the saint say to you?”

I repeated the words of the prophecy to him: “
‘Three
bloods are mixed
in you. You were born into
the Hidden, but your life has been brought into the open and is no longer your
own. Earth will deliver what heaven desires. Your lands will stretch from sea
to sea. Five battles will buy your peace, four to win and one to lose.’”

I paused at that point, not certain whether to go on.

“Five battles?” Makoto said. “How many have we fought?”

“Two, if we count Jin-emon and the bandits.”

“So that was why you asked if the fight could be called a battle!
Do you believe it all?”

“Most of the time. Should I not?”

“I would believe anything I heard from her if I had the good
fortune to kneel at her feet,” Makoto said quietly. “Was there anything more?”

“
‘Many must die,’” I
quoted,
“
‘but you yourself are safe from death, except at the hands of your own
son.’”

“I am sorry,” he said with compassion. “That is a terrible burden
for any man to bear, especially you who have such a strong bond with children.
I imagine you long to have your own sons.“

It touched me that he knew my character so well. “When I thought
Kaede was lost to me forever, when I first went to the Tribe, I slept with the
girl who helped me bring Shigeru out of Inuyama. Her name was Yuki. It was she
who took his head to the temple.”

“I remember her,” Makoto said quietly. “Indeed, I’ll never forget
her arrival and the shock her news caused us.”

“She was Muto Kenji’s daughter,” I said, with renewed sorrow for
Kenji’s loss. “I cannot believe the Tribe used her so. They wanted to get a
child, and once it was born they killed her. I regret it bitterly and I should
not have done it, not only because of my son but because it was the cause of
her death too. If it is to be my son who kills me, it will only be what I
deserve.”

“All young people make mistakes,” Makoto said. “It is our fate to
have to live with their consequences.” He reached out and clasped my hand. “I
am glad you told me all this. It confirms many things I feel about you, that
you have been chosen by heaven and are protected to a certain extent until your
goals are achieved.”