The Harsh Cry of the Heron (16 page)

Kahei had been
rewarded for his loyalty to Takeo with the city of Yamagata and the lands that
surrounded it, the luxuriant forest that made up the heart of the Middle
Country and the rich farmland on either side of the river. Yamagata had been
ceded to the Tohan after the Otori defeat at Yaegahara, and its return to the
Middle Country had been an occasion of prolonged and ecstatic celebration. The
Miyoshi were one of the greatest hereditary families of the Otori clan, and
Kahei was a popular and effective ruler. He was also an inspired military
leader, an expert in strategy and tactics who, Takeo thought, secretly
regretted the years of peace and longed for some new conflict to test the
validity of his theories and the strength and skill of his men. His brother,
Gemba, had more sympathy for Takeo’s desire to put an end to violence, and had
become a disciple of Kubo Makoto and a follower of the Way of the Houou.

‘You will go to
Terayama?’ Kahei questioned after they exchanged greetings and were riding side
by side northwards, towards the city.

‘I have not yet
decided,’ Takeo replied. ‘It is not that I don’t deeply desire to, but I do not
want to delay getting to Hagi.’

‘Shall I send word to
the temple, and they will come to the castle?’

He could see no way
of avoiding one or the other without offending his oldest friends. However,
Kahei had several lively children who did not seem much in awe of their
powerful father, and that evening, as Sunaomi opened up in the affectionate teasing
atmosphere, Takeo thought suddenly that it would do the boy no harm to visit
the most sacred place of the Otori, see the graves of Shigeru, Takeshi and
Ichiro, and meet Makoto and the other warriors of great spiritual maturity who
made the temple their centre and home. Sunaomi seemed both intelligent and
sensitive: the Way of the Houou might be the correct discipline for him, as it
had proved to be for his daughter Shigeko. He felt an unexpected spark of
interest: how wonderful it would be to have a son to raise and educate in this
way; the strength of the emotion sur- prised him. Arrangements were made to
leave early the next morning. Minoru was to remain at Yamagata to oversee
administrative details and prepare such records of evidence as might be necessary
for the current tribunals. The rain had turned to mist: the face of the earth
was shrouded in grey; above the mountains the sky was leaden, and swathes of
pearl-white cloud drifted like banners on the slopes. The cedars, their trunks
streaked by the rain, dripped moisture. The horses’ tread was dulled by the
sodden ground. They rode in silence; Takeo was in no less pain than he had
anticipated, and his mind was occupied with memories of his first visit to the
temple and those who had ridden with him so long ago. He recalled in particular
Muto Kenji, the most recent name to be written in the ledgers of the dead.
Kenji, who on that journey had pretended to be a foolish old man, fond of wine
and painting, who that night had embraced Takeo. / must be getting fond of you.
I don’t want to lose you. Kenji, who had both betrayed him and saved his life,
who had vowed to protect him while he lived, and who had kept that vow despite
all appearances to the contrary. He felt an aching sense of loneliness, for Kenji’s
death had left a gap in his life that would never be filled, and he felt
freshly vulnerable, as vulnerable as he had first felt after the fight with
Kikuta Kotaro that had left him crippled. Kenji had taught him to defend
himself with the left hand dominant, had supported and advised him in the early
years of establishing his control over the Three Countries, had split the Tribe
for his sake and brought four of the five families under his control, all but
the Kikuta, and had maintained the network of spies that kept him and his realm
secure.

His thoughts then
turned to Kenji’s only surviving descendant, his grandson, held by the Kikuta.

My son, he thought,
with the familiar mixture of regret, longing and anger. He has never known his
father or his grandfather. He will never say the necessary prayers for his
ancestors. There is no one else to honour Kenji’s memory. What if I were to try
to recover him?

But that would mean
revealing the boy’s existence to his wife, his daughters, to the whole country.
The secret had lain hidden for so long he did not know how he could speak of
it. If only the Kikuta would be prepared to negotiate in some way, to make some
concession. Kenji had thought they might be; he had chosen to approach Akio,
and now he was dead, and two more young people would die as a result. Like
Taku, Takeo wondered how many assassins the Kikuta had left, but unlike Taku
the idea that their number must be dwindling did not lift his spirits.

The path was narrow,
and the small group - Sunaomi and his two retainers, Takeo’s two guards from
the Tribe and another three Otori warriors, and two of Kahei’s men - rode in
single file. But after they left the horses at the lodging place at the foot of
the holy mountain, Takeo called to Sunaomi to walk beside him, telling him a
little of the history of the temple, of the Otori heroes who were buried there,
of the houou, the sacred bird that nested in the deep groves behind the temple,
and of the warriors who dedicated themselves to the Way of the Houou.

‘We may send you
here, when you are older; my own daughter comes here every winter, and has done
since she was nine years old.’

‘I will do whatever
my uncle desires for me,’ the boy replied. ‘I wish I might see a houou with my
own eyes!’

‘We will get up early
in the morning and go to the grove before we return to Yamagata. You will
almost certainly see one, for there are many of them now.’

‘Chikara gets to
travel with the kirin,’ Sunaomi exclaimed, ‘and I get to see the houou! That’s
fair. But, uncle, what do you have to learn to follow the Way of the Houou?’

‘The people we are
going to meet will tell you: monks like Kubo Makoto; warriors like Miyoshi
Gemba. The main teaching is to renounce violence.’

Sunaomi looked
disappointed. ‘So I won’t learn the way of the bow and the sword? That is what
my father teaches us, and what he wants us to excel at.’

‘You will continue at
training with the sons of warriors in Hagi, or in Inuyama when we reside there.
But the Way of the Houou demands greater self-mastery than any other, and
greater strength, physical and mental. You may not be suited for it.’

He saw a light come
into the boy’s eyes. ‘I hope I will be,’ Sunaomi said, half-aloud.

‘My eldest daughter
will tell you more about it when we get to Hagi.’

Takeo could hardly bear
to speak the name of the town, so great was his longing to be there and to be
with Kaede. However, he hid these feelings, in the same way as all day he had
masked pain and grief. At the temple gates they were greeted with surprise and
pleasure, and a monk was sent to apprise the abbot, Matsuda Shingen, and Makoto
of their arrival. They were escorted to the visitors’ residence. Leaving
Sunaomi and the men there, Takeo went straight through the garden, past the
fish pools where the red and golden carp milled and splashed, to the sacred
grove behind the temple, up against the steep rise of the mountain, where the
Otori lords were buried.

The mist was heavier
here, shrouding the grey lanterns and tombstones, which were darkened by
moisture and speckled with green and white lichen. Moss, deeper green, covered
their bases. A new straw rope gleamed around Shigeru’s grave, and a small crowd
of pilgrims stood with bowed heads before it, praying to the man who had become
a hero and an avatar, the spirit of the Middle Country and the Otori clan.

They were mostly
farmers, Takeo thought, possibly a merchant or two from Yamagata among them.
When they saw him approach they knew him at once from the crest on his robes,
from the black-gloved hand. They dropped to the ground, but he greeted them and
told them to get up, then asked them to leave him alone by the grave. He knelt
himself, gazing on the offerings placed there, a handful of scarlet flowers,
rice cakes, flasks of wine.

The past lay all
around him, with all its painful memories and its demands. He owed his life to
Shigeru; and he had lived it according to the will of the dead. His face was
wet from the mist and from tears.

There was a movement
behind him, and he turned to see Makoto walking towards him, carrying a lamp in
one hand and a small incense holder in the other. He knelt and placed both
before the grave. The grey smoke rose slowly, heavily, mingling with the mist,
scenting the air. The lamp burned steadily, all the brighter for the dullness
of the day.

For a long time they
did not speak. Then a bell rang out from the temple courtyard, and Makoto said,
‘Come and eat. You must be hungry. It is so good to see you.’

They both rose to
their feet and studied each other. They had first met in this very place,
seventeen years ear- lier, had taken an instant liking to each other, and had
briefly been lovers in the way of passionate young men. Makoto had fought
alongside Takeo in the battles of Asagawa and Kusahara and for many years had
been his closest friend. Now with his usual swift understanding he said, ‘What
has happened?’

‘I will tell you
quickly. Muto Kenji is dead. He went to try to negotiate with the Kikuta and
did not return. I am going to Hagi to break the news to my family. We will
return to Yamagata tomorrow.’

‘I am very sorry for
this loss. Kenji had been a loyal friend for many years. Of course you will
want to be with Lady Otori at a time like this. But must you leave so soon?
Forgive me, but you look terrible. Stay for a few days here and recover your strength.’

Takeo smiled, tempted
by the idea, envying Makoto his appearance of perfect physical and spiritual
health. He was now in his mid-thirties, but his face was unlined and calm; his
eyes were filled with warmth and amusement. His whole demeanour exuded serenity
and self-mastery. Takeo knew his other old friend Miyoshi Gemba would look the
same, as would all the followers of the Way. He felt a certain regret that the
path he had been called to walk on was so different. As always when he visited
Terayama, he fantasized about retreating there, devoting himself to painting
and designing gardens like the great artist Sesshu; he would donate Jato, the
sword he always bore though he had not fought with it for years, to the temple,
and give up the life of warrior and ruler. He would forswear killing, abdicate
the power of life and death that he held over every person in the land,
unburden himself from the agonizing decisions this power entailed.

The familiar sounds
of the temple and the mountain enveloped him. Consciously he opened the gate of
his hearing and let the noise wash over him, the distant splash of the
waterfall, the murmur of prayers from the main hall, Sunaomi’s voice from the
guests’ residence, kites mewing from the tops of the trees. Two sparrows alighted
on a branch, their grey feathers made distinct by the dull light and the dark
foliage. He saw how he would paint them.

But there was no one
else to take on his role: it was not possible simply to walk away from it.

‘I am fine,’ he said.
‘I drink too much, but that eases the pain. Ishida gave me some new draught,
but it dulls me - I won’t use it often. We will stay one night here: I wanted
Arai’s son to see the temple and meet you. He is to live with my family. I may
send him here in a year or two.’

Makoto raised his
eyebrows. ‘Zenko is causing problems?’

‘Even more than
usual. And there have been developments in the East that I must tell you about.
I need to plan my response very carefully. Perhaps I should even travel to
Miyako. We will talk about it later. How is Lord Matsuda? I am hoping for his
advice too.’

‘He is still with us,’
Makoto replied. ‘He hardly eats, hardly even appears to sleep. He seems already
half in the next world. But his mind is as clear as ever, maybe even clearer,
like a mountain lake.’

‘I wish mine were,’
Takeo said, as they turned to walk back to the temple. ‘But it is more like one
of those fish ponds: tens of ideas and problems mill and thrash around in it,
each fighting for my attention.’

‘You should try to
still your mind each day,’ Makoto observed.

‘The only meditation
skills I have are those of the Tribe - and their purpose is somewhat different!’

‘Yet I have often
observed that the skills innate in you, and other members of the Tribe, are not
so unlike those that we have acquired through self-discipline and
self-knowledge.’

Takeo did not agree:
he had never seen Makoto or his disciples use invisibility, for example, or the
second self. He felt Makoto saw his scepticism, and regretted it.

‘I don’t have any
time for it, and besides I have had little training or teaching in those ways.
And I don’t know if it would help anyway. I am involved in government at least,
if not at present in war.’

Makoto smiled. ‘We
pray for you here all the time.’

‘I suppose it makes a
difference! Maybe it is your prayers that have maintained peace for nearly
fifteen years.’

‘I am sure it is,’
Makoto replied serenely. ‘Not just empty prayers or meaningless chanting, but
the spiritual balance we hold here. I use the word "hold" to indicate
the muscle and strength it requires; the strength of the archer to bend the bow
or of the beams in the bell tower to support the weight of the bell.’