Brilliance of the Moon (42 page)

My son was Kenji’s grandson. The prophecy seemed even more
unbearably cruel to me. I was still weak and tears came easily. My body’s
frailty infuriated me. It was seven days before I could walk outside to the
privy, fifteen before I could get on a horse again. The full moon of the
eleventh month came and went. Soon it would be the solstice and then the year
would turn, the snows would come. My hand began to heal: The wide, ugly scar
almost obliterated both the silvery mark, from the burn I received the day
Shigeru saved my life, and the straight line of the Kikuta.

Makoto sat with me day and night but said little to me. I felt he
was keeping something from me and that Kenji also knew what it was. Once they
brought Hiroshi to see me and I was relieved that the boy lived. He seemed
cheerful, telling me about their journey, how they had escaped the worst of the
earthquake and had come upon the pathetic remnants of Arai’s once mighty army,
and how marvelous Shun had been, but I thought he was partly pretending.
Sometimes Taku, who had aged years in a month, came to sit by me; like Hiroshi,
he acted cheerfully, but his face was pale and strained. As my strength
returned, I realized we should have heard from Shizuka. Obviously everyone
feared
the worst, but I did not believe she was dead. Nor was Kaede,
for neither of them had visited me in my delirium.

Finally one evening Makoto said to me, “We have had news from the
South. The damage from the earthquake was even more severe there. At Lord
Fujiwara’s there was a terrible fire…”

He took my hand. “I’m sorry, Takeo. It seems no one survived.”

“Fujiwara is dead?”

“Yes, his death is confirmed.” He paused and added quietly,
“Kondo Kiichi died there.”

Kondo, whom I had sent with Shizuka…

“And your friend?” I asked.

“He also. Poor Mamoru. I think he would almost have welcomed it.”

I said nothing for a few moments. Makoto said gently, “They have
not found her body, but…”

“I must know for sure,” I said. “Will you go there for me?”

He agreed to leave the next morning. I spent the night anguishing
over what I would do if Kaede was dead. My only desire would be to follow her;
yet how could I desert all those who had stayed so loyally by me? By dawn I’d
recognized the truth of Jo-An’s words, and Makoto’s. My life was not my own.
Only I could bring peace. I was condemned to live.

During the night something else occurred to me, and I asked to
see Makoto before he left. I was worried about the records that Kaede had taken
to Shirakawa with her. If I was to live, I wanted to have them back in my
possession before winter began. For I had to spend the long months in planning
the summers strategy; those of my enemies who remained would not hesitate to
use the Tribe against me. I felt I would have to leave Hagi in the spring and
impose my rule over the Three Countries, maybe even set up my headquarters in Inuyama
and make it my capital. It made me smile half-bitterly, for its name means Dog Mountain, and it was as if it had been waiting for me.

I told Makoto to take Hiroshi with him. The boy would show him
where the records were hidden. I could not suppress the fluttering hope that
Kaede would be at Shirakawa—that Makoto would somehow bring her back to me.

They returned on a bitterly cold day nearly two weeks later. I
saw they were alone, and disappointment nearly overcame me. They were also
empty-handed.

“The old woman who guards the shrine would give the records to no
one but you,” Makoto said. “I’m sorry, I could not persuade her otherwise.”

Hiroshi said eagerly, “We will go back. I will go with Lord
Otori.”

“Yes, Lord Otori must go,” Makoto said. He seemed to be going to
speak again but then fell silent.

“What?” I prompted him.

He was looking at me with a strange expression of compassion and
pure affection. “We will all go,” he said. “We will learn once and for all if
there is any news of Lady Otori.”

I longed to go yet feared it would be a useless journey and that
it was too late in the year. “We run the risk of being caught by the snow,” I
said. “I had planned to winter in Hagi.”

“If the worse comes to the worst, you can stay in Terayama. I am
going there on the way back. I will be staying there, for I can see my time
with you is drawing to a close.”

“You are going to leave me? Why?”

“I
feel I have
other work to
do. You have achieved all that I set out to help you with. I am being called
back to the temple.”

I was devastated. Was I to lose everyone I loved? I turned away
to hide my feelings.

“When I thought you were dying, I made a vow,” Makoto went on. “I
promised the Enlightened One that if you lived, I would devote my life to your
cause in a different way. I’ve fought and killed alongside you and I would do
it gladly all over again. Except that it solves nothing, in the end. Like the
weasel’s dance, the cycle of violence goes on and on.”

His words rang in my ears. They were exactly what had pounded in
my brain while I was delirious.

“You talked in your fever about your father and about the command
of the Hidden, to take no one’s life. As a warrior, it’s hard for me to
understand, but as a monk it is a command that I feel I must try and follow. I
vowed that night that I would never kill again. Instead, I will seek peace
through prayer and meditation. I left my flutes atTerayama to take up weapons.
I will leave my weapons here and go back for them.”

He smiled slightly. “When I speak the words, they sound like
madness. I am taking the first step only on a long and difficult journey, but
it is one I must make.”

I said nothing in reply. I pictured the temple at Terayama where
Shigeru and Takeshi were buried, where I had been sheltered and nurtured, where
Kaede and I had been married. It lay in the center of the Three Countries, the
physical and spiritual heart of my land and my life. And from now on Makoto
would be there, praying for the peace I longed for, always upholding my cause.
He would be one person, like a tiny splash of dye in a huge vat, but I could
see the color spreading over the years, the blue-green color that the word
peace
always summoned up for me. Under Makoto’s influence the temple
would become a place of peace, as its founder had intended it to be.

“I am not leaving you,” he said gently. “I will be with you in a
different way.”

I had no words to express my gratitude: He had understood my conflict
completely and in this way was taking the first steps to resolve it. All I
could do was thank him and let him go.

Kenji, supported tacitly by Chiyo, argued strongly against my
decision to travel, saying I was asking for trouble by undertaking such a
journey before I was fully recovered. I felt better every day and my hand had
mostly healed, though it still pained me and I still felt my phantom fingers. I
grieved for the loss of all my dexterity and tried to accustom my left hand to
the sword and the brush, but at least I held a horse’s reins in that hand and I
thought I was well enough to ride. My main concern was that I was needed in the
reconstruction of Hagi, but Miyoshi Kahei and his father assured me they could
manage without me. Kahei and the rest of my army had been delayed with Makoto
by the earthquake but were unharmed by it. Their arrival had greatly increased
our forces and hastened the town’s recovery. I told Kahei to send messages as
soon as possible to Shuho, to invite the master carpenter Shiro and his family
back to the clan.

In the end Kenji gave in and said, despite the considerable pain
of his broken ribs, he would of course accompany me, since I’d shown myself
unable to deal with Kotaro alone. I forgave him his sarcasm, glad to have him
with me, and we tookTaku as well, not wanting to leave him behind while he was
so low in spirits. He and Hiroshi squabbled as usual, but Hiroshi had grown
more patient andTaku less arrogant and I could see a true friendship was
developing between them. I also took as many men as we could spare from the
town and left them in groups along the road to help rebuild the stricken
villages and farms. The earthquake had cut a swath from north to south and we
followed its line. It was close to midwinter; despite the loss and destruction,
people were getting ready for the New Year’s celebration; their lives were starting
again.

The days were frosty but clear; the landscape bare and wintering.
Snipe called from the marshes, and the colors were gray and muted.

We rode directly south and in the evenings the sun sank red in
the West, the only color in a dulled world. The nights were intensely cold with
huge stars, and every morning was white with frost.

I knew Makoto was keeping some secret from me, but could not tell
if it was to be a happy one or not. Every day he seemed to shine more with some
inner anticipation. My own spirits were still volatile. I was pleased to be
riding Shun again, but the cold and the hardship of the journey, together with
the pam and disability in my hand, were more draining than I had thought they
would be, and at night the task in front of me seemed too immense for me ever
to achieve, especially if I was to attempt it without Kaede.

On the seventh day we came to Shirakawa. The sky had clouded over
and the whole world seemed gray. Kaede’s home was in ruins and deserted. The
house had burned and there was nothing left of it but charred beams and ashes.
It looked unutterably mournful; I imagined Fujiwara’s residence would look the
same. I had a serious premonition that she was dead and that Makoto was taking
me to her grave. A shrike scolded us from the burned trunk of a tree by the
gate, and in the rice fields two crested ibis were feeding, their pink plumage
glowing in the forlorn landscape. However, as we rode away past the water
meadows Hiroshi called to me: “Lord Otori! Look!”

Two brown mares were trotting toward us, whinnying to our horses.
They both had foals at foot, three months old, I reckoned, their brown baby
hair just beginning to give way to gray. They had manes and tails as black as
lacquer.

“They are Raku’s colts!” Hiroshi said. “Amano told me that the
Shirakawa mares were in foal to him.”

I could not stop looking at them. They seemed like an
inexpressibly precious gift from heaven, from life itself, a promise of renewal
and rebirth.

“One of them will be yours,” I said to Hiroshi. “You deserve it
for your loyalty to me.”

“Can the other one go to Taku?” Hiroshi begged.

“Of course!”

The boys yelped with delight. I told the grooms to bring the
mares with us and the foals gamboled after them, cheering me enormously as we
followed Hiroshi’s lead, riding along the Shirakawa to the sacred caves.

I had never been there before and was unprepared for the size of
the cavern from which the river flowed. The mountain loomed above, already
snowcapped, reflected in the still black water of the winter river. Here if
anywhere I could see, drawn by the hand of nature, the truth that it was all
one. Earth, water, and sky lay together in unbroken harmony. It was like the
moment at Terayama when I had been given a glimpse into the heart of truth; now
I saw heavens nature revealed by earth.

There was a small cottage at the river’s edge just before the
bird-perch gates of the shrine. An old man came out at the sound of the horses,
smiled in recognition at Makoto and Hiroshi, and bowed to us.

“Welcome, sit down, I’ll make you some tea. Then I’ll call my
wife.”

“Lord Otori has come to collect the chests we left here,” Hiroshi
said importantly, and grinned at Makoto.

“Yes, yes. I’ll let them know. No man may go inside, but the
women will come out to us.”

While he poured us tea, another man came out from the cottage and
greeted us. He was middle-aged, kind, and intelligent-looking; I had no idea
who he was, though I felt he knew me. He introduced himself to us as Ishida and
I gathered he was a doctor. While he talked to us about the history of the
caves and the healing properties of the water, the old man went nimbly toward
the entrance to the caves, jumping from boulder to boulder. A little way from
it a bronze bell hung from a wooden post. He swung the clapper against it and
its hollow note boomed over the water, echoing and reverberating from inside
the mountain.

I watched the old man and drank the steaming tea. He seemed to be
peering and listening. After a few moments he turned and called, “Let Lord
Otori only come thus far.”

I put down the bowl and stood up. The sun was just disappearing
behind the western slope, and the shadow of the mountain fell on the water. As
I followed the old man’s steps and jumped from rock to rock, I thought I could
feel something—someone—drawing toward me.

I stood next to the old man, next to the bell. He looked up at me
and grinned, a smile of such openness and warmth it nearly brought tears to my
eyes.

“Here comes my wife,” he said. “She’ll bring the chests.” He
chuckled and went on: “They’ve been waiting for you.”

I could see now into the gloom of the cavern. I could see the old
shrine woman, dressed in white. I could hear her footsteps on the wet rock and
the tread of the women following her. My blood was pounding in my ears.