Little Turtle pointed at cloth banners. “Those aren’t the right characters.”
I sighed. While I had spent the last years hunting and trapping in the forest and taking care of Little Brother, Little Turtle had learned how to read both female kana syllabary and a few foreign characters at the Great House. Father had talked of teaching me the kana syllabary, but there had never seemed to be time.
I thought of the parasols Beautiful had fingered and the red-painted temple gate in front of me. The foreign influence was stronger here in the Capital. Whispering brook and the kami felt even farther away today. The human clamor and foreign temples of Kyoto were exciting, but I longed for the sure, cool peace of my own forest. How could anyone live in this city their whole lives, without the cleansing shock of Whispering Brook or the quiescent presence of the other kami giving life to the land?
Three months ago on Hell Mountain, with ash raining down upon our shoulders and Ashikaga standing with sword drawn to take the life of the Pretender Emperor, General Norinaga had tried to woo me away from Ashikaga by speaking of how the Middle Kingdom temples had dampened the voices of the kami. He’d tugged at parts of my heart my lordling could never understand by painting a picture of Yamato unsullied by foreign monks and gods. A Yamato where people sang in harmony with the kami, sharing their power.
Surrounded by Northern forest and the quiet presence of spirits, I’d rejected his plea. Maybe if I’d experienced Kyoto and the uneasy swirl of humanity and excitement edging towards unreason before that moment, Norinaga might have swayed me. This wasn’t how I wanted to live.
“That massive gate is Ninna-ji,” said Beautiful. “You know, the temple where the Emperor’s uncle is the Abbot.” She pointed further up the path. “Ryoan-ji is just beyond that ash grove.”
“Well let’s keep moving, then,” I said. Little Turtle couldn’t stop staring at the gate, and it made me uneasy to turn my back on that monstrous thing. We stepped past little stalls selling freshly grilled rice crackers and melted sugar candies. The trickle of pilgrims stopped at Ninna-ji, leaving the three of us the only walkers on this part of the path. But just as we passed the ash grove, I saw a man standing at the top of a small run of three stone steps cut into the hill farther up the path.
A warrior, by the hachimaki around his forehead and spread-leg stance, despite the lack of scabbards stuck into his obi. I blinked. I knew that heavy brow and stubbled chin.
Uesugi-san. My lordling’s lieutenant and good friend. He never left Ashikaga’s side.
What was he doing standing outside of Ryoan-ji? On a day my lordling was attending his father?
Little Turtle pulled her arm from mine and smoothed her robe. “Well, well,” she said.
Beautiful gave a little smirk. “Little Turtle, you didn’t tell us there was a certain ripe persimmon coming to sit zazen here today.” I blushed, thinking of Ashikaga’s bare skin when we were alone, all sharp angles and planes in contrast with Uesugi-san’s muscled thickness. There was nothing round or ripe about my lordling.
“You,” said Uesugi-san.
Little Turtle and Beautiful gave long, low bows. I hurriedly copied them. Uesugi-san was like one of the fierce, wood-carved Nio Kings stationed at the entrance of temples—all angry, slanted eyebrows and bared-teeth aggression. Knowing my lordling’s secret meant to Uesugi-san that I was dangerous. Lately, his gruffness had melted to a teasing tolerance. But I would not risk that truce. Uesugi-san would do anything to protect Ashikaga.
We both walked carefully in Kyoto.
Uesugi-san jerked his chin up the path. “The Daimyo holds audience with Abbot Gudo. Lord Ashikaga is in attendance.”
Little Turtle kept her eyes downcast, but one hand came up to cover a smile. She thought Uesugi-san came to summon me to my lordling’s side? Not likely. Uesugi-san didn’t wear his half-moon helmet or quilted uniform vest, but all the same he was armored with an air of protectiveness. This was a warning, not an invitation. Whatever reason the Daimyo was here, Uesugi-san didn’t want us to draw attention. Or more likely, didn’t want me to blunder into some noble ceremony of manners with my oversized feet.
I turned to Beautiful, a hand on my obi. “I feel a little ill. Maybe breakfast isn’t sitting well. You should go on without me.”
Beautiful looked me straight in the eye. “Nonsense. You’re as ruddy as a plum.” She hooked an elbow around my arm. “Sir Uesugi-san, if handmaiden services are required by Lord Ashikaga, all three of us are happy to be of service.”
Ah, her ambition was pricked. She didn’t approve of special notice being given to the village tomboy, no matter our friendship. Uesugi-san cleared his throat. “No need to spoil your prayers,” he said. “I only thought to avoid an awkward surprise.”
“Well, then,” said Beautiful. “I’m sure there’ll be no problem if we stay in the areas reserved for pilgrims.”
Uesugi-san bowed and stepped aside, his brow tightly knit and halfway to thunderous.
As we crested the hill, another wooden gate appeared. A black-tiled roof capped a wooden structure the healthy brown of plain wood. One entrance, only large enough to fit a man seated on a horse, provided entrance to an enclosure surrounded by clay walls. A noble stepped out of a sedan chair and went up the steps. To the left side, a dirt path through the grass led to a servant entrance. Little Turtle tugged us that direction, past more stalls with lidded bamboo bowls steaming atop braziers. To my dismay, none of them contained steamed buns.
“Lord Ashikaga is so brazen,” Beautiful said. “Imagine . . . arranging an assignation at a temple!”
“That’s not why Uesugi-san called to us,” I spluttered.
Beautiful arched one perfectly drawn brow. “Isn’t it? Why else would Lord Yoshinori send Uesugi-san to waylay you on the path? On your day off?”
Little Turtle paused in front of a plain, wooden door. “We don’t press you about your midnight absences,” she said.
“Not that we aren’t filled to the brim with curiosity,” added Beautiful.
“You can trust us,” said Little Turtle. She opened her arms wide, the sleeves of her indigo-dyed robe riding up to show her delicate arms. “Here in Kyoto we are sisters.”
“I’m not trying to hide anything,” I said. The two girls shared a look that said I was a terrible liar. Beautiful dipped her chin to hide a smile, but Little Turtle let her sleeves fall forward over crossed arms, hiding her open hands. I set my jaw against a tightness across my forehead. So not confiding in Little Turtle hurt her? Did it mean so much to our friendship? I wasn’t good at this.
Before Ashikaga had killed the Pretender Emperor and run General Norinaga off, Little Turtle’s father had been killed by the fox soldiers. When I started appearing more and more at the Great House, she’d latched on to me. Her father’s and Flower’s death had left us both with gaps in our hearts. I wanted more than anything in the world to talk openly to Little Turtle.
Ashikaga had forbidden me from saying anything at all about my Jindo songs, or Hell Mountain. Abbot Ennin from our temple back home was the Daimyo’s counselor. I’d already been arrested once by the Abbot’s monks. Any whisper of forbidden Jindo would only bring conflict and dishonor to the Ashikaga clan.
So I said very little, afraid I’d accidentally let something dangerous slip out. The rest of it seemed too awfully banal or the opposite—too terribly personal. What should I tell them? How we sat in the evenings and I listened while Ashikaga talked of the Daimyo’s illness and the Lord Steward’s concerns about planting? Or should I describe how my chest would fill with this terrible pressure when I watched my lordling practice sword forms under the morning sun in nothing but fundoshi and a chest bindings? I couldn’t tell them anything about Ashikaga without betraying something deep, tangled and dangerous.
Beautiful g
iggled about the Chamberlain’s scratchy beard when he kissed her in the pantry. Was I to tell them of my lordling’s smooth, smooth cheeks and the slender fingers grasping my own as we lay side-by-side under the moon?
No, I couldn’t speak of those things, either. Not just the secrets, but the nature of what lay between Ashikaga and me was forbidden.
“No matter,” said Beautiful. “Lord Buddha knows this isn’t easy for you.”
I stared after the two girls. I wasn’t used to Beautiful being the understanding one. It was easy to forget there was more to children of the Rat Year than their talkative charm. I clucked my tongue and followed the two girls. A Tiger Year girl had no business judging others.
Beautiful cajoled Little Turtle not to linger by the oval pond bordered by weeping willows and cherry trees. I trailed a hand along a rough, wooden railing and wished I could just stay here. The pond was more beautiful than the garden back home or at the Daimyo’s Kyoto residence. There was a hushed expectation, something more than just peaceful quiet, as if a kami did slumber nearby. If I stayed out here by the pond, I could close my eyes and pretend I was at home by Whispering Brook. And there would be no chance of accidentally meeting Lord Ashikaga. It was safer.
The other two started up the long stone staircase to the inner gate.
“You go on,” I called out. “I’ll meet you later by the dry landscape garden.”
Little Turtle turned. “You can’t stay out here by yourself.” She gave a meaningful glance to a pair of nobles in crested kimono robes. They strode towards the stairway with confidence, despite the length of their divided-leg hakama brushing the dusty graveled path.
Nobles such as these would not care to have a hick cluttering up their garden. She was right, I couldn’t stay out here. I hurried to catch up to Little Turtle and Beautiful at the wider bottom steps so the nobles could pass by without having to wait on our slower pace, necessitated by the tightness of the other girls’ kimonos.
Just as I reached the stairs, my geta, so much clumsier than my familiar straw sandals, caught in the space between loose paving stones, and I tumbled forward. A hand gripped my arm just in time to keep me from crashing face-first into the stone steps. The hand dragged me to a standing position and then released me.
I looked up into the face of a noble.
He smiled. “So eager for the Buddha’s attention, are you, lass?”
He had the accent of the Southern Hans, but he didn’t have the delicately plucked eyebrows or long, shiny queues of nobles who spent much time in the capital. A beard curled from cheek to cheek. I glanced at the crest on his kimono. A large circle bordered by eight smaller circles; not one of the crests Ashikaga had insisted I try to memorize.
“Excuse me, Lord. Thank you, sir.” I kept my eyes downcast.
The noble put a finger on my chin and tilted it upward until I met his gaze. Charcoal eyes bored into mine. I gasped. The face was different, and the clothes, but I knew those eyes. From his fingers a heat spread up from my chin, blushing my cheeks, and making a tiny rivulet of sweat trickle down my back. Not heat, but power—a power I’d tasted before back home in the woods of Ashikaga Han when I’d stumbled upon fox soldiers.
No, this couldn’t be. No.
But it was.
General Norinaga.
I jerked back. The noble laughed. His companion was younger. A face rounded out with extra flesh from drink and food, he yawned as if this strange behavior bored him. His robe was so stained and well-used that the crest was hidden by soiled wrinkles.
My heart thudded like a caged bird. I turned to the girls, but they were in proper, demure bows, waiting upon the stairs. Uesugi-san was nowhere to be seen. My hand reached to my obi, but of course my usual small knife and slingshot hadn’t been there since I reached Kyoto.
“Don’t be afraid, little one,” said the noble. His emphasis on the words “little one” made his companion give an amused sniff. “You need fear no ill fortune on the sacred grounds of the Buddha.”
I gaped. He only laughed and turned to his companion. The two made their way to the top of the stairs and stepped over the gate’s wide, lower beam. Even when the girls came down the steps to box me in with their perfumed bodies, I couldn’t move.
General Norinaga. Here. Fox magic changed the shape of his chin and made his nose into a hooked beak, but it was him. I would never forget those eyes or the feel of his wild power across my skin. Little Turtle chattered in my ear, but all I could do was stand there and try to breathe.
I needed a warrior. Uesugi-san, or Lord Ashikaga.
My heart skipped a beat. Lord Ashikaga was here, now. Ignorant of the danger. I had to give warning.
“Stop standing there like a clod,” said Beautiful. She pressed both palms into my cheeks and squeezed. “What is wrong with you?”
“I . . . I . . .” Words jumbled on my tongue. I ripped myself from her grasp and chucked off the geta. Taking the stone steps two at a time, I raced up the staircase and through the gate.
No sign of the two nobles at the top. Bypassing the stone basin where other servants and ladies washed hands and arms, I made my way towards the two-storied main hall. The two nobles must be here. Lord Ashikaga and the Daimyo also had to be here. No one else was on the stairs. Would I be stopped if I tried to enter? The other people were all walking the outside of the main hall, heading along a low clay wall that probably enclosed the dry landscape garden.
Exposed and awkward, I galloped up the steps and under the gabled roof. Each tile looked heavy and solid, a great weight bearing down on me. I found myself in a dim, empty receiving room. Tatami mats lined the floor. Fusuma panels made of finely worked hemp lined one wall. They were painted a uniform, murky gold and had inlaid metal pulls blatantly simpler than those I’d seen at Ashikaga Residence. Behind those doors was probably a row of nobles sitting in meditation. Impossible to imagine Ashikaga or the Daimyo numbered among the penitents. Whatever drew them here to Ryoan-ji, it wasn’t sitting zazen or puzzling out koan for the monks.
I turned the other way. Through a low, arched opening was the gleam of polished wood. Shuffling across the floor I made my way out into a long corridor bordered by more plain fusuma. One set was open, revealing a pine branch and a stone lantern. Another part of the garden, but not the famed dry landscape. The inside of this building was as maze-like as the Ashikaga residence. At any moment I could blunder into a room full of monks, or a noble would notice my bare feet and scruffy appearance.
I had to warn my lordling. On the heels of that thought, I paused at a corner. Even if I managed to find my lordling, what would I say? Would Ashikaga even believe me? I traced the contour of my chin, remembering the heat of the noble’s touch. It was General Norinaga. Fox magic wasn’t something I could ever mistake. But Ashikaga had only my word to trust.
“Must you always appear in unbefitting places?” said a voice behind me.
Chapter Three
* * *
MY LORDLING LEANED against a pillar, in crested kimono, divided-leg hakama and formal kataginu vest, looking every inch a noble. Uesugi-san glowered from behind.
“My lord,” I said, bowing. “I’m sorry to intrude, but, there’s something, I mean, I have to tell you about what I saw.”
Ashikaga put out a hand, palm spread open. “My father is here. He has called my brother here as well to attend him. This is not time nor place for your special concerns.”
Uesugi-san gave an affronted harrumph of agreement.
“General Norinaga—”
Ashikaga’s right hand flew to my mouth. The other hand grasped the back of my neck. Whispering breath came hot and bitter on my cheek. “You are not this stupid, Lily. Do not invoke that name in the Buddha’s holy ground. Abbot Ennin may be up North, but do you imagine his b
rother Abbots are any less vigilant?”
I shook my head. Ashikaga released me, glancing up and down the corridor. “Come with me.”
Leaving. Yes, that was good. I nodded my head. Ashikaga turned on a heel and headed back towards the main entrance, Uesugi-san waiting for me to pass before bringing up the rear. Halfway down the corridor, Ashikaga slid open a fusuma. It revealed a small antechamber.
“Go to my father,” my lordling ordered Uesugi-san. “Tell him I will be with him shortly, after I’ve found out what has detained Yoshikazu.”
Uesugi-san ducked into the room.
“There are a hundred temples in Kyo no Miyako,” Ashikaga said. “But then, trouble pushes you into my path no matter where we are.”
“There is danger here,” I said. “It’s not safe.”
“The danger is you!” said Ashikaga. Ah, I’d pricked that tender pride. I bit my lip. Fear made words jumble in my head. Tigers were made for action, not honeyed words.
“Where are Beautiful and Little Turtle?” Ashikaga gave a little laugh. “I’m not sure why I expected them to keep you in line when you won’t even obey your lord.”
“They’re outside. When I saw General—that enemy—I had to warn you. He’s here! Inside the temple.”
“That enemy is gone. There’s been no sign of him or his soldiers for months. He’s holed up somewhere north licking his wounds.”
No sign at all? Shouldn’t that make the Daimyo nervous? The sly fox wouldn’t just give up, he would don a new disguise and start a new plot. Ashikaga wasn’t in the mood to hear that, though. Hell Mountain was a touchy subject between us.
“He’s here, my lord.”
“Why would he appear at a temple of the Buddha in the heart of enemy territory? Even that enemy isn’t so brazen as to risk both the Emperor’s and the Daimyo’s wrath.”
The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight (A Tiger Lily Novel Book 2) Page 3
