Brilliance of the Moon (4 page)

“And Lady Maruyama?” Kaede said, surprised by my long silence.

“I think she held strong beliefs, but I never spoke to her about
them. When I first met her, she drew the sign on my hand.”

“Show me,” Kaede whispered, and I took her hand and traced the
sign on her palm.

“Are the Hidden dangerous? Why does everyone hate them?”

“They’re not dangerous. They are forbidden to take life, and so
they do not defend themselves. They believe everyone is equal in the eyes of
their God, and that he will judge everyone after death. Great lords like Iida
hate this teaching. Most of the warrior class do. If everyone is equal and God
watches everything, it must be wrong to treat the people so badly. Our world
would be overthrown from the ground up if everyone thought like the Hidden.”

“And you believe this?”

“I don’t believe such a God exists, but I believe everyone should
be treated as if they were equal. Outcasts, farmers, the Hidden, should all be
protected against the cruelty and greed of the warrior class. And I want to use
anyone who is prepared to help me. I don’t care if they’re farmers or outcasts.
I’ll take them all into my armies.”

Kaede did not reply; I imagined these ideas seemed strange and
repellent to her. I might no longer believe in the God of the Hidden, but I
could not help the way their teachings had formed me. I thought of the farmers’
action against the Otori warriors at the temple gates. I had approved of that,
for I saw them as equals, but Makoto had been shocked and outraged. Was he
right? Was I unchaining an ogre that I could never hope to control?

Kaede said quietly, “Do the Hidden believe women are equal to
men?”

“In God’s eyes they are. Usually the priests are men, but if
there is no man of the right age, the older women become priestesses.”

“Would you let me fight in your army?”

“As skillful as you are, if you were any other woman, I would be
glad to have you fight alongside me as we did at Inuyama. But you are the heir
to Maruyama. If you were to be killed in battle, our cause would be completely
lost. Besides, I could not bear it.”

I pulled Kaede close to me, burying my face in her hair. There
was one other thing I had to speak to her about. It concerned another teaching
of the Hidden, one that the warrior class find incomprehensible: that it is
forbidden to take your own life. I whispered, “We have been safe here. Once we
leave, everything will be different. I hope we can stay together, but there
will be times when we will be separated. Many people want me dead, but it will
not be until the prophecy is fulfilled and our peaceful country stretches from
sea to sea. I want you to promise me that whatever happens, whatever you are
told, you will not believe I am dead until you see it with your own eyes.
Promise you will not take your own life until you see me dead.“

“I promise it,” she said quietly. “And you must do the same.” I
made the same vow to her. When she was asleep, I lay in the dark and thought
about what had been revealed to me. Whatever had been granted to me was not for
my sake but for the sake of what I might achieve: a country of peace and
justice where the
houou
would not only be
seen but would build its nest and raise its young.

We slept a little. I woke while it was still dark to hear from
beyond the walls the steady tramping of men and horses filing up the mountain
track. I called to Manami and then woke Kaede and told her to dress. I would
come back for her when it was time to leave. I also entrusted to her the chest
that contained Shigeru’s records of the Tribe. I felt I had to have these
protected at all times, a safeguard for my future against the death sentence
that the Tribe had issued against me and a possible guarantee of alliance with
Arai Daiichi, now the most powerful warlord in the Three Countries.

The temple was already feverish with activity, the monks
preparing not for the dawn prayers but for a counterattack on the Otori forces
and the possibility of a long siege. Torches sent flickering shadows over the
grim faces of men preparing for war. I put on leather armor laced with red and
gold. It was the first time I had worn it with a real purpose. It made me feel
older, and I hoped it would give me confidence. I went to the gate to watch my
men depart as day broke.

Makoto and Kahei had already gone ahead with the vanguard.
Plovers and pheasants were calling from the valley. Dew clung to the blades of
bamboo grass and to the spring spiders’ webs woven between them— webs that were
quickly trampled underfoot.

When I returned, Kaede and Manami were both dressed in men’s
clothes for riding, Kaede wearing the armor, made originally for a page, that I
had picked out for her. I had had a sword forged for her, and she wore this in
her belt, along with a knife. We quickly ate a little cold food and then
returned to where Amano was waiting with the horses.

The abbot was with him, in helmet and leather cuirass, his sword
in his belt. I knelt before him to thank him for all he had done for me. He
embraced me like a father.

“Send messengers from Maruyama,” he said cheerfully. “You will be
there before the new moon.”

His confidence in me heartened me and gave me strength.

Kaede rode Raku, the gray horse with the black mane and tail that
I had given her, and I rode the black stallion we had taken from the Otori
warriors, which Amano had called Aoi. Manami and some of the other women who
traveled with the army were lifted onto pack-horses, Manami making sure the
chest of records was strapped behind her. We joined the throng as it wound its
way through the forest and up the steep mountain path that Makoto and I had
descended the previous year in the first snow. The sky was aflame, the sun just
beginning to touch the snowy peaks, turning them pink and gold. The air was cold
enough to numb our cheeks and fingers.

I looked back once at the temple, at its broad sloping roofs
emerging from the sea of new leaves like great ships. It looked eternally
peaceful in the morning sun, with white doves fluttering round the eaves. I prayed
it would be preserved just as it was at that moment, that it would not be
burned or destroyed in the coming fight.

The red morning sky was true to its threat. Before long, heavy
gray clouds moved in from the West, bringing first showers, then steady rain.
As we climbed toward the pass, the rain turned to sleet. Men on horseback did
better than the porters, who carried huge baskets on their backs; but as the
snow underfoot became deeper, even the horses had a hard time of it. I’d
imagined that going into battle would be a heroic affair, the conch shells
sounding, the banners flying. I had not imagined it would be this grim slog
against no human enemy, just the weather and the mountain, and the aching climb
upward, always upward.

The horses balked finally and Amano and I dismounted to lead
them. By the time we crossed the pass, we were soaked to the skin. There was no
room on the narrow track to ride back or ahead to check on my army. As we wound
downward I could see its snakelike shape, dark against the last traces of snow,
a huge many-legged creature. Beyond the rocks and scree, now appearing as the
rain melted the snow, stretched deep forests. If anyone lay in wait for us
there, we would be completely at their mercy. But the forests were empty. The Otori
were waiting for us on the other side of the mountain.

Once under cover of the trees, we caught up with Kahei where he
had stopped to give the vanguard a rest. We now did the same, allowing the men
to relieve themselves in small groups and then eat. The damp air filled with
the acrid smell of their piss. We had been marching for five or six hours, but
I was pleased to see warriors and farmers alike had held up well.

During our halt, the rain grew heavier. I was worried about
Kaede, after her months of ill health, but even though she seemed very cold,
she did not complain. She ate a little, but we had nothing warm and could not
waste time making fires. Manami was uncharacteristically silent, watching Kaede
closely and nervously starting at any sound. We pressed on as soon as possible.
By my reckoning it was after noon, sometime between the Hour of the Goat and
that of the Monkey. The slope became less steep and soon the track widened a
little, enough so that I could ride along it. Leaving Kaede with Amano, I urged
my horse on and cantered down the slope to the head of the army, where I found
Makoto and Kahei.

Makoto, who knew the area better than any of us, told me there
was a small town, Kibi, not far ahead, on the other side of the river, where we
should stop overnight.

“Will it be defended?”

“If at all, only by a small garrison. There’s no castle, and the
town itself is barely fortified.”

“Whose land is it?”

“Arai put one of his constables in,” Kahei said. “The former lord
and his sons sided with the Tohan at Kushimoto. They all died there. Some of
the retainers joined Arai; the rest became masterless and took to the mountains
as brigands.”

“Send men ahead to say we require shelter for the night. Let them
explain that we do not seek battle; we are only passing through. We’ll see what
the response is.”

Kahei nodded, called to three of his men, and sent them on at a
gallop while we continued more slowly. Barely an hour later they were back. The
horses’ flanks were heaving, covered in mud to the stifle, their nostrils red
and flared.

“The river is in full flood and the bridge is down,” their leader
reported. “We tried to swim across, but the current is too strong. Even if we
had made it, the foot soldiers and packhorses never would.”

“What about roads along the river? Where’s the next bridge?”

“The eastern road leads through the valley back to Yamagata, straight back to the Otori,” Makoto said. “The southern one leads away from the
river over the range toward Inuyama, but the pass will not be open at this time
of year.”

Unless we could cross the river, we were trapped.

“Ride forward with me,” I said to Makoto. “Let’s take a look for
ourselves.”

I told Kahei to bring the rest of the army forward slowly, except
for a rear guard of one hundred men, who were to strike out to the East in case
we were already being pursued by that route.

Makoto and I had hardly gone half a mile before I could hear it,
the steady sullen groan of a river in flood. Swollen by the melting snow, as
inexorable as the season, the spring river poured its yellow-green water across
the landscape. As we rode out of the forest through the bamboo groves and into
the reed beds, I thought we had come to the sea itself. Water stretched before
us as far as the eye could see, dappled by rain, the same color as the sky. I
must have gasped, because Makoto said, “It’s not as bad as it looks. Most of it
is irrigated fields.”

I saw then the squared pattern of dikes and paths. The rice
fields would be boggy but shallow; however, through the middle of them ran the
river itself. It was about one hundred feet wide, and had risen over the
protective dikes, making it at least twelve feet deep. I could see the remains
of the wooden bridge: two piers just showing their dark tops against the
swirling water. They looked unspeakably forlorn beneath the drifting rain, like
all men’s dreams and ambitions laid waste by nature and time.

I was gazing at the river, wondering if we could swim across,
reconstruct the bridge, or what in heaven’s name, when above the steady roar of
the water I heard the sounds of human activity. Focusing my attention, I
thought I could recognize voices, the chink of an ax, then unmistakably the
sudden crash of falling timber.

To my right, upstream, the river curved away around a bend, the
forest growing closer to the banks. I could see the remnants of what might have
been a jetty or loading dock, presumably for taking lumber from the forest to
the town. I turned my horse’s head and at once began to ride through the fields
toward the bend.

“What is it?” Makoto called, following me.

“There’s someone there.” I grabbed at Aoi’s mane as he slipped
and almost lost his footing.

“Come back!” he shouted. “It’s not safe. You can’t go alone.”

I heard him unsling his bow and fit an arrow to the cord. The
horses plunged and splashed through the shallow water. Some memory was
stringing itself together in my mind, of another river, impassable for
different reasons. I knew what—whom—I would find.

Jo-An was there, half-naked, soaking wet, with his thirty or more
outcasts. They had taken lumber from the jetty, where it had been stranded by
the flood, and had felled more trees and cut enough reeds to build one of their
floating bridges.

They stopped work when they saw me, and began to kneel in the
mud. I thought I recognized some of them from the tannery. They were as thin
and wretched as ever, and their eyes burned with the same hungry light. I tried
to imagine what it had cost them to abscond with Jo-An out of their own
territory, to break all the laws against the felling of trees, on the faint
promise that I would bring justice and peace. I did not want to think about the
ways they would be made to suffer if I failed them.

“Jo-An!” I called, and he came to the horse’s side. It snorted at
him and tried to rear, but he took the bridle and calmed it. “Tell them to keep
working,” I said, adding, “So I am even further in your debt.”