The Harsh Cry of the Heron (69 page)

How dare she sing so,
in my father’s house! Maya thought. She was torn between conflicting desires to
throw herself at Hana and to run downstairs to her mother.

Hana lay down, her
head on the pillow block. I could kill her now! Maya thought, feeling for the
knife. She deserves it! But then she reflected that she should leave such
punishment to her father. She was about to go out of the room when the baby
stirred. She knelt beside him and looked at him. He gave a little cry. His eyes
opened and he gazed back at her.

He can see me! she
thought in surprise. She did not want him to wake properly. And then she found
she could not stop looking. She had no control over what she was doing. She had
become a channel for the conflicting emotions that raged within and around her.
She gazed at her brother with her Kikuta eyes, and he smiled once at her and
fell asleep, never to wake again.

Yuki said beside her,
‘Come, we can leave now.’

Maya knew suddenly
that this was part of the ghost woman’s revenge, revenge on her mother, a
terrible payment of an old score of jealousy. And she realized that she had
committed an act for which there was no forgiveness, that there was no place
for her anywhere any more except in the realm between the worlds where spirits
walked. Not even Miki could save her now. She summoned the cat and let it take
her over, and then leaped through the walls, running across the river, into the
forest, tireless and unthinking, back to Hisao.

Yuki followed her,
floating above the ground, the ghost child in her arms.

Kaede’s son died on
the night before the full moon of midsummer. Infants often passed away; no one
was particularly astonished: in summer from illness or plague, in winter from
cold or croup. Generally it was thought wise not to become too attached to
young children, since so few survived infancy; Kaede tried to control and
contain her grief accordingly, aware that as the ruler of the country in her
husband’s absence she could not allow herself to break down. Yet privately she
wanted simply to die. She went over and over in her mind what failing of hers
had brought about this unbearable loss; she had fed him too much, or too
little; she should not have left him; she had been cursed, first with twins, then
with this death. In vain Dr Ishida tried to convince her that there might be no
reason, that it was a common thing for infants to die for no apparent cause.

She longed for Takeo’s
return, yet she dreaded telling him; she longed to lie with him and feel the
familiar consolation of their love, yet she also thought that she could never
bear to take him inside her again, for the idea of conceiving another child
only to lose it was unendurable. He must be told, yet how was it to be done?
She did not even know where he was. It would take weeks for letters to reach
him. She had heard nothing from him since he had sent letters from Inuyama,
which she had received at the beginning of the fifth month. Every day she
determined to write to him, yet each day she could not bring herself to. All
day she longed for night to come so she could give rein to her grief, and all
night lay sleepless, longing for dawn, so she might lay the pain aside
temporarily.

Her only comfort was
the company of her sister and the boys, whom she loved as if they were her own
children. They distracted her, and she spent much time with them, overseeing
their studies and watching their military training. The baby was buried at
Daishoin; the moon had waned to a tiny sliver above his grave when messengers
came finally with letters from Takeo. When she unrolled the scroll, the
sketches he had done of birds observed on the journey fell out. She smoothed
them out and gazed on them, the quick black strokes catching perfectly the crow
on a craggy rock, the flycatcher and the bellflower.

‘He writes from a
place called Sanda,’ she said to Hana. ‘He is not yet even at the capital.’ She
looked at the letter without really reading it; she recognized Minoru’s hand,
but the birds Takeo had drawn himself: she could see the power of the stroke,
saw him supporting the right hand with the left, forcing skill from disability.
She was alone with Hana; the boys were at the riding ground, the maids occupied
in the kitchen. She let the tears flow. ‘He does not know his son is dead!’

Hana said, ‘His grief
will be nothing compared with yours. Do not torment yourself on his behalf.’

‘He has lost his only
son.’ Kaede could hardly speak.

Hana held Kaede and
spoke into her ear. Her voice was very quiet. ‘He will not be sad. I promise
you. He will be relieved.’

‘What do you mean?’
Kaede pulled away slightly and stared at her sister. She saw dully how
beautiful Hana still was, and regretted her own scars, the loss of her hair.
Yet none of this mattered. She would have plunged into the fire again, torn out
her own eyes to bring her child back. Since his death she had come to rely
completely on Hana, had put aside her suspicions and lack of trust, had almost
forgotten that Hana and her sons were in Hagi as hostages.

‘I was thinking about
the prophecy.’

‘What prophecy?’
Kaede recalled with almost physical pain the afternoon of the last day of the
year at Inuyama, when she and Takeo had lain together, and they had talked
afterwards of the words that had ruled their lives. ‘The Five Battles? What has
that go to do with it?’ She did not want to talk about this now, but something
in Hana’s voice had alerted her. Hana knew something that she did not. Despite
the heat, her skin was cold, trembling.

‘There were other
words spoken then,’ Hana said. ‘Did Takeo never tell you?’

Kaede shook her head,
hating to admit it. ‘How do you know?’

‘Takeo confided in
Muto Kenji, and now it is common knowledge among the Tribe.’

Kaede felt the first
flash of anger. She had always hated and feared Takeo’s secret life: he had
left her to go with the Tribe, left her with his child, which she had lost,
almost dying. She thought she had understood his choice, made in the face of
death when he was half out of his mind with grief, had forgiven and forgotten,
but now the old resentment stirred within her. She welcomed it, for it was an
antidote to grief.

‘You had better tell
me exactly what was said.’

‘That Takeo is safe
from death, except at the hands of his own son.’

For a few moments
Kaede did not respond. She knew Hana was not lying to her: she saw at once how
Takeo’s life had been shaped by this, his fearlessness, his resolve. So many
things he had said in the past made sense to her now. And she understood his
relief when all their children had been girls.

‘He should have told
me, but he was protecting me,’ she said. ‘I cannot believe he will be happy
that our child died. I know him better than that.’ Relief swept over her: she
had feared something far worse from Hana. ‘Prophecies are dangerous things,’
she said. ‘Now this one cannot possibly come true. His son has died before him,
and there will be no more children.’

He will come back to
me, she was thinking, as he always has. He will not die in the East. Even now
he is probably on his way home.

‘Everyone hopes Lord Takeo
will have a long and happy life,’ Hana said. ‘Let us pray that this prophecy
does not refer to his other son.’

When Kaede stared at
her without speaking she went on, ‘Forgive me, older sister, I assumed you
knew.’

‘Tell me,’ Kaede said
with no emotion.

‘I cannot. If it is
something your husband has kept from you . . .’

‘Tell me,’ Kaede
repeated, and heard her voice crack.

‘I dread causing you
more pain. Let Takeo tell you when he returns.’

‘He has a son?’ Kaede
said.

‘Yes,’ Hana sighed. ‘The
boy is seventeen years old. His mother was Muto Yuki.’

‘Kenji’s daughter?’
Kaede said faintly. ‘So Kenji had known all along?’

‘I suppose so. Again,
it is no secret among the Tribe.’

Shizuka, Zenko, Taku?
They had all been aware of this, had known it for years when she had known
nothing? She began to shiver.

‘You are not well,’
Hana said solicitously. ‘Let me get you some tea. Shall I send for Ishida?’

‘Why did he never
tell me?’ Kaede said. She was not so much angry at the infidelity; she felt
little jealousy for a woman who had been dead for years; it was the deception
that shattered her. ‘If he had only told me.’

‘I suppose he wanted
to protect you,’ Hana said.

‘It is just a rumour,’
Kaede said.

‘No, I have met the
boy. I saw him a couple of times in Kumamoto. He is like most of the Tribe,
devious and cruel. You would never believe he is half-brother to Shigeko.’

Hana’s words stabbed
her afresh. She recalled all the things that had troubled her about Takeo
throughout their life together: the strange powers, the mixed blood, the
unnatural inheritance embodied in the twins. Her mind was already unbalanced by
grief, and her shock at this revelation distorted everything she had lived by.
She hated him; she loathed herself for devoting her life to him; she blamed him
for everything she had suffered, the birth of the accursed twin girls, the
death of her adored son. She wanted to wound him, to take everything from him.

She realized she was
still holding the sketches. The birds had made her think of freedom, as always,
but that was an illusion. Birds were no more free than humans, bound equally by
hunger, desire and death. She had been bound for over half her life to a man
who had betrayed her, who had never been worthy of her. She ripped the sketches
into pieces and trampled them beneath her feet.

‘I cannot stay here.
What shall I do?’

‘Come with me to
Kumamoto,’ Hana said. ‘My husband will take care of you.’

Kaede remembered
Zenko’s father, who had saved her life and been her champion, whom she had
defied and turned into an enemy, all for Takeo’s sake.

‘What a fool I have
been,’ she cried.

A febrile energy
seized her. ‘Send for the boys and get them ready to travel,’ she told Hana. ‘How
many men came with you?’

‘Thirty or forty,’
Hana replied. ‘They are lodged in the castle.’

‘My own men are also
there,’ Kaede said. ‘Those that did not go with him to the East.’ She could not
bring herself to say my husband or to speak his name. ‘We will take them all
with us, but let ten of your men come here. I have a task for them. We will
leave before the end of the week.’

‘Whatever you say,
sister,’ Hana agreed.

Miki had waited all
night on the riverbank for Maya to return. By dawn she realized that her sister
had fled into the world of the spirits, where she could not follow her. She
wanted to go home above all; she was exhausted and hungry, and she could feel
the power of the cat, unleashed and all-demanding, drawing her energy from her.
But when she came to the gate of the house by the river she heard the screams
of grief; she realized that the baby had died in the night, and a terrible
suspicion grew in her, filling her with dread. She crouched down outside the
wall, her head in her hands, afraid to go inside but not knowing where else to
go.

One of the maids
rushed past her without noticing her, and returned within the hour with Dr
Ishida, who looked shocked and pale. Neither of them spoke to Miki, but they
must have seen her, for not long afterwards Haruka came out and crouched beside
her.

‘Maya? Miki?’

Miki looked at her,
the tears beginning to trickle from her eyes. She wanted to say something, but
she did not dare speak, in case she voiced what she suspected.

‘What in Heaven’s
name are you doing here? It is Miki, isn’t it?’

She nodded.

‘This is a terrible
time,’ Haruka said, weeping herself. ‘Come inside, child. Look at you, the
state you’re in. Have you been living in the forest like a wild animal?’

Haruka led her
quickly into the back of the house, where Chiyo, her face also wet with tears,
was tending the fire. Chiyo shrieked in surprise, and started muttering about
bad luck and curses.

‘Don’t carry on so,’
Haruka said. ‘It’s hardly the child’s fault!’

The iron kettle
hanging above the fire made a soft hissing sound, and steam and smoke filled
the air. Haruka brought a bowl of water and washed Miki’s face, hands and legs.
The hot water made all the cuts and scratches sting.

‘We’ll prepare a bath
for you,’ Haruka said. ‘But eat something first.’ She put rice in a bowl and
poured broth over it. ‘How thin she is!’ she said aside to Chiyo. ‘Shall I tell
her mother she is here?’

‘Better not,’ Chiyo
replied. ‘Not yet, anyway. It might upset her further.’

Miki was crying too
much to eat, her breath coming in sobs.

‘Talk to us, Miki,’
Haruka urged her. ‘You’ll feel better for it. Nothing’s so bad it can’t be
shared.’

When Miki shook her
head dumbly, Haruka said, ‘She’s like her father when he first came to this
house. He didn’t speak for weeks.’