The Harsh Cry of the Heron (6 page)

‘The young people
will remain alive if you agree to a truce,’ Kenji replied swiftly, before
Gosaburo could get to his feet.

‘Akio!’ Gosaburo
begged his nephew, tears beginning to burst from his eyes.

‘Leave us!’ Akio also
stood, enraged, pushing the old man towards the door, bundling him out of the
room.

‘Truly,’ he said as
he sat down again, ‘this old fool is useless to us! Now he has lost his shop
and his business, he does nothing but mope all day. Let Otori kill the
children, and I’ll kill the father: we will be rid of a nuisance and a
weakling.’

‘Akio,’ Kenji said. ‘I
speak to you as one Master to another, in the way that affairs of the Tribe
have always been settled. Let us talk clearly with each other. Listen to what I
have to say. Then make your decision on what is best for the Kikuta family and
the Tribe, not on your own hatred and rage, for these will destroy them and
you. Let us remember the history of the Tribe, how we have survived since
ancient times. We have always worked with great warlords: let us not work
against Otori. Because what he is doing in the Three Countries is good: it is
approved by the people, farmers and warriors. His society is working: it is
stable; it flourishes; people are content; no one starves to death and no one
is tortured. Give up your blood feud against him. In return the Kikuta will be
pardoned: the Tribe will be united again. We will all benefit.’

His voice had taken
on a mesmeric lilting quality that stilled the room and silenced those outside.
Kenji was aware that Hisao had returned and was kneeling just beyond the door.
When he stopped speaking, he summoned up his will and let the waves from it
flow out into the room. He felt calm descend over them all. He sat with his
eyes half-closed.

‘You old sorcerer.’
Akio broke the silence with a shout of rage. ‘You old fox. You can’t trap me
with your stories and your lies. You say the Dog’s work is good! People are
content! When have these things ever concerned the Tribe? You have gone as soft
as Gosaburo. What’s happening to all you old men? Is the Tribe decaying from
the inside? If only Kotaro had lived! But the Dog killed him -he killed the
head of his family, to whom his life was already forfeit. You were witness to
it: you heard the vow he made in Inuyama. He broke that oath. He deserved to
die for it. But he murdered Kotaro, the Master of his family, instead - with
your help. He is beyond any pardon or any truce. He must die!’

‘I will not argue
with you about the rights or wrongs of his action,’ Kenji replied. ‘He did what
seemed best at the time, and surely his life has been better lived as one of
the Otori rather than as Kikuta. But all that is past. I could appeal to you to
give up your campaign against him so the Kikuta can return to the Three
Countries -Gosaburo can have his business back! - and enjoy life as we all do
now, but these simple pleasures apparently mean nothing to you. I will only say
to you, give up: you will never succeed in killing him.’

‘All men can die,’
Akio replied.

‘But he will not die
at your hands,’ Kenji said. ‘However much you desire it, I can assure you of
that.’

Akio was gazing at
him with narrowed eyes. ‘Your life is also forfeit to the Kikuta. Your betrayal
of the Tribe must also be punished.’

‘I am preserving my
family and the Tribe. It is you who will destroy it. I came here without
weapons as an envoy; I will return in the same way and take your regrettable
message back to Lord Otori.’

Such was the power he
commanded that Akio allowed him to stand and walk from the room. As he passed
Hisao still kneeling outside, Kenji said, turning back, ‘This is the son? He
has no Tribe skills, I believe. Let him accompany me to the gate. Come, Hisao.’
He spoke back into the shadows. ‘You know where to find us if you change your
mind.’

Well, he thought as
he stepped from the veranda and the crowd parted to allow him through, it seems
I am to live a little longer after all! For once he was in the open and beyond
Akio’s gaze he knew he could go invisible and disappear into the countryside.
But was there any chance of taking the boy with him?

Akio’s rejection of
the offer of a truce did not surprise him. But he was glad Gosaburo and the
others had heard it. Apart from the main house, the village looked
impoverished. Life would be hard here, especially during the bitter winter.
Many of the inhabitants must hanker, like Gosaburo, after the comforts of life
in Matsue and Inuyama. Akio’s leadership, he felt, was based less on respect
than on fear; it was quite possible that the other members of the Kikuta family
would oppose his decision, especially if it meant the lives of the hostages
would be spared.

As Hisao came up from
behind and walked beside him, Kenji was aware of some other presence that
occupied half of the boy’s sight and mind. He was frowning, and from time to
time he raised his hand to his left temple and pressed it with his fingertips.

‘Is your head
hurting?’

‘Mmm.’ He nodded
without speaking.

They were halfway
down the street. If they could make it to the edge of the fields, and run along
the dyke to the bamboo groves . . .

‘Hisao,’ Kenji
whispered. ‘I want you to come back to Inuyama with me. Meet me where we met
before. Will you do that?’

‘I cannot leave here!
I cannot leave my father!’ Then he gave a sharp exclamation of pain, and
stumbled.

Just another fifty paces.
Kenji did not dare turn round, but he could hear no one following him. He
continued to walk calmly, unhurriedly, but Hisao was lagging behind.

When Kenji turned to
encourage him he saw the crowd still staring after him, and then, suddenly
pushing between them, Akio, followed by Kazuo: both had drawn knives.

‘Hisao, meet me,’ he
said, and slid into invisibility, but even as his shape disappeared Hisao
caught at his arm and cried, ‘Take me with you! They’ll never let me! But she
wants me to go with you!’

Maybe it was because
he was invisible and between the worlds, maybe it was the intensity of the boy’s
emotion, but in that moment he saw what Hisao saw . . .

His daughter, Yuki.
Sixteen years dead . . .

And realized with
astonishment what the boy was.

A ghostmaster.

He had never
encountered one: he only knew of them from the chronicles of the Tribe. Hisao
himself did not know, nor did Akio. Akio must never know.

No wonder the lad had
headaches. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry.

Kenji could still
feel Hisao’s grip on his arm as he looked into his daughter’s spirit face,
seeing her as he did in his memories, as child, adolescent, young woman, all
her energy and life present but attenuated and faint. He saw her lips move and
heard her say, ‘Father,’ though she had not called him that since she was ten
years old.

She bewitched him now
as she had then.

‘Yuki,’ he said
helplessly, and let visibility return.

It proved easy for
Akio and Kazuo to seize him. None of his talents in invisibility or using the
second self could save him from them.

‘He knows how to get
at Otori,’ Akio declared. ‘We will extract it from him, and then Hisao must
kill him.’

But the old man had
already bitten into the poison and ingested it: the same ingredients that his
daughter had been forced to swallow. He died in the same way, in agony, full of
regrets that his mission had failed and that he was leaving his grandson
behind. In his last moments he prayed that he might be allowed to stay with his
daughter’s spirit, that Hisao would use his powers to keep him: What a powerful
ghost I might be, he thought, and the idea made him laugh, as did the
realization that life with all its pain and joy was over. But he had walked his
path to its end, his work in this world was completed, and he died by his own
choice. His spirit was freed to move into the eternal cycle of birth, death and
rebirth.

Winter in Inuyama was
long and severe, though it brought many pleasures of its own: during the time
spent inside Kaede read poetry and old tales aloud to her daughters, and Takeo
spent long hours overseeing the records of administration with Sonoda, and for
relaxation studied painting with an artist of the black-ink style and drank
with Kenji in the evenings. The girls were occupied with studying and training,
and there were the diversions of the Bean Festival, a noisy and cheerful
occasion in which demons were driven out of doors into the snow and good luck
welcomed in, and Shigeko’s coming of age, for the new year had seen her turn
fifteen. The celebration was not lavish, for in the tenth month she was to
receive the domain of Maruyama, which was inherited through the female line and
had passed to her mother, Kaede, after the death of Maruyama Naomi.

It seemed that
Shigeko would eventually be the ruler of the Three Countries, and her parents
agreed that she should take over the Maruyama lands this year, now that she was
an adult, establishing herself there as a ruler in her own right and learning
first-hand the principles of government. The ceremony in Maruyama would be both
solemn and splendid, confirming an ancient tradition and, Takeo hoped,
establishing a new precedent: that women might inherit land and property and
run their households or become heads of villages, equally with their brothers.

The cold weather and
the confinement indoors sometimes frayed nerves and weakened health, but at
even the bleakest time the days were lengthening as the sun returned, and in
the bitterest cold the plum trees put out their fragile white blossom.

Takeo could never forget,
however, that while his closest family were shielded from cold and boredom
through the long winter months, other relatives of his, two young people not
much older than his daughters, were held in captivity deep within Inuyama
castle. They were far better treated than they had expected to be, but they
were prisoners, and faced death unless the Kikuta accepted the offer of a
truce.

After the snows
melted and Kenji had departed on his mission, Kaede and her daughters left with
Shizuka for Hagi. Takeo had noticed his wife’s growing discomfort with the
twins and thought Shizuka might take one of them, Maya perhaps, to the hidden
Muto village Kagemura for a few weeks. He himself delayed leaving Inuyama,
hoping to hear from Kenji within the month, but when the new moon of the fourth
month came and there was still no news he set out somewhat reluctantly for
Hofu, leaving instructions with Taku to bring any message to him there.

Throughout his rule
he had journeyed in this way, dividing the year between the cities of the Three
Countries, sometimes travelling with all the splendour expected of a great
lord, sometimes taking on one of the many disguises he had learned in the
Tribe, mingling with ordinary people and learning from their own mouths their
opinions, their joys and grievances. He had never forgotten the words that
Otori Shigeru had spoken once to him: It is because the Emperor is so weak that
warlords like Iida flourish. The Emperor ruled in name over the entire country
of the Eight Islands, but in practice the various parts took care of their own
affairs: the Three Countries had suffered conflict for years as warlords strove
for lands and power, but Takeo and Kaede had brought peace and maintained it by
constant attention to every aspect of the land and the lives of its people.

He could see the
effects of this now as he rode towards the West, accompanied by retainers, two
trusted bodyguards from the Tribe - the cousins Kuroda Junpei and Shinsaku,
known always as Jun and Shin - and his scribe. Throughout the journey he
noticed all the signs of a peaceful and well-governed country: healthy
children, prosperous villages, few beggars and no bandits. He had his own
anxieties - for Kenji, for his wife and daughters - but he was reassured by all
he saw. His aim was to make the country so secure that a girl child could rule
it, and when he arrived in Hofu he was able to reflect with pride and
satisfaction that this was what the Three Countries had become.

He had not foreseen
what awaited him in the port city, nor had he suspected that by the end of his
stay there his confidence would be shaken and his rule threatened.

It seemed that as
soon as he arrived in any one of the cities of the Three Countries delegations
appeared at the gates of the castle or palace where he was staying, seeking
audiences, asking for favours, requiring decisions that only he could make.
Some of these could in fact be passed on to the local officials, but
occasionally complaints were made against these officials themselves, and then
impartial arbitrators had to be supplied from among his retinue. This spring in
Hofu there were three or four of these cases, more than Takeo would have liked,
and it made him question the fairness of the local administration; furthermore,
two farmers had complained that their sons had been forcibly conscripted, and a
merchant divulged that soldiers had been commandeering large amounts of
charcoal, wood, sulphur and nitre. Zenko is building up forces and weapons, he
thought. I must speak to him about it.

He made arrangements
to send messengers to Kumamoto. The next day, however, Arai Zenko, who had been
given his father’s former lands in the West and also controlled Hofu, came
himself from Kumamoto, ostensibly to welcome Lord Otori but, as it soon became
obvious, with other motives. His wife, Shirakawa Hana, the youngest sister of
Takeo’s wife, Kaede, came with him. Hana was very like her elder sister, even
held by some to be more beautiful than Kaede in her youth, before the
earthquake and the fire. Takeo neither liked nor trusted her. In the difficult
year following the birth of the twins, when Hana turned fourteen, she had
fancied herself in love with her sister’s husband, and had constantly sought to
seduce him into taking her as second wife or concubine, she did not care which.
Hana was more of a temptation than Takeo cared to admit, looking just like
Kaede when he first fell in love with her, before her beauty was marred, and
offering herself at a time when his wife’s ill health kept him from her. His
steady refusal to take her seriously had wounded and humiliated her: his wish
to marry her to Zenko had outraged her. But he had insisted: it seemed to deal
with two problems at once, and they had been married when Zenko was eighteen
and Hana sixteen. Zenko was more than happy: the alliance was a great honour to
him; Hana was not only beautiful, she quickly produced three sons, all healthy
children, and furthermore, though she never professed to be in love with him
she was interested in him and ambitious for him. Her infatuation with Takeo
soon melted away, to be replaced by a rancour against him and jealousy of her
sister, and a deep desire that she and her husband should take their place.