“Is this their Lord?” I grasped the scalloped, wooden edge of the frame.
“No,” said Little Turtle. “I heard Lord Hojo tell the Chamberlain this is a gift for the Lord Daimyo. Supposedly this is a respected physician who now lives on that island near Nagasaki.”
“His hair can’t really be that color.”
“Who knows? Maybe barbarians all have fruit-colored hair?”
We lifted the portrait carefully out of the packaging and propped it against the wall in the room’s tokonoma alcove place of honor.
“All right, then,” said Little Turtle. “I’ll finish clearing the wrapping. You go get the trays from the kitchen. The nobles might come at any moment.”
“I’m to help serve?”
“Lord Hojo traveled in haste from Nagasaki—leaving his retinue behind.”
I tried to imagine a reason that would drive the vain, Rooster-year lord I’d met at the foot of Hell Mountain all those months ago to travel in haste anywhere. He professed loyalty to the Emperor and had fought the Pretender Emperor’s army with the Lord Daimyo. He hadn’t blinked at my Jindo songs when he learned my loyalty to Ashikaga meant I wouldn’t interfere with his plans to apprehend the Pretender Emperor at any cost. Cold-blooded, jealous of his comforts and particular about his dress. I wasn’t keen on bringing myself to his attention again.
“Shouldn’t Beautiful attend?” I had only attended Ashikaga so far, not the Lord Daimyo himself. Lord Hojo wasn’t the only person it was best for me to avoid. Little Turtle dropped the furoshiki cloth she’d deftly folded into a triangle. The discarded crumple of cloth looked so wrong next to the polished perfection of Little Turtle that I started forward to pick it up.
“You do him no service by hiding away,” she said. I paused. This was no high-pitched handmaiden’s lilt. She used the tone Auntie Jay used for her harshest scolding. Hiding away? Did she think I was ducking my duties out of laziness? We’d never spoken of Hell Mountain or the Pretender Emperor’s death, but there were whispers about my songs, and my mother, no matter how many glares Uesugi-san handed out. Didn’t she realize my presence was no help to the lordling, especially here in Kyo no Miyako under the Emperor’s nose?
“You can’t turn a crow into a snowy egret.”
“Crows are adaptable,” said Little Turtle, still using village language. “They live on town scraps or on the highest mountain tops. They are strong and quick and viciously protective of their own.”
I thrust the cloth at her and stalked towards the doorway. Her talk of crows and egrets sent my thoughts roiling like coal-heated rocks dropped into bathwater. I put a hand to the doorjamb for support, concentrating on keeping down some thick, phlegmy sound trying to escape my throat.
I was trying. Really trying. To be someone other than the Tiger spinster. That taste Ashikaga had given me of what it felt to matter was enough to make me follow my lordling anywhere. I’d even climbed Hell Mountain. I’d endured Asama-yama’s molten heart for Ashikaga.
How dare Little Turtle accuse me of hiding? Ashikaga pulled at me, Little Turtle pushed, and now here was Norinaga and a yurei. It was like adding spider mustard-greens to an already bitter broth. Fierce yearning for my own woods, for the cool caress of Whispering Brook’s waters and full completeness of the kami’s indwelling flared hotly. My sisters and Little Brother. Father. There were sad days, yes, and lonely ones. But I’d never yearned for something more—until the day I found Ashikaga bleeding in the forest. My lordling dropped like a rock into my life’s pool and everything got mixed up and silty and nothing had settled back.
There was the problem. Things never could settle back.
Ashikaga had taken that from me the night in the Charcoal Maker’s hut when my lordling had let the moonlight reveal the secret under the linen bindings.
Even if Ashikaga let me go, Uesugi-san would never allow me to go back to my old life.
I hurried down the hall toward the back of the palace. Dwelling on what would have been or could be mattered not at all. I was here, now. It would only make things worse if I angered Lord Hojo or the Daimyo because I was sniveling in the halls instead of fetching their trays.
In the kitchen outbuilding, Jiro had already assembled a jug of wine, drinking-saucers and a stack of lacquered wooden boxes filled with delicacies.
“Take this right to the dragon room. I put the Daimyo’s special herbs in this drinking saucer,” he said, indicating the leftmost in a row of identical saucers. “Make sure Little Turtle gives him the right one.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jiro slipped two palm-sized cakes wrapped in salt-cured oak leaf into my obi. “And a little something for you and Turtle to share so you won’t starve if the nobles talk too long.”
I dipped my chin in thanks. Father had never been so generous to the Great House girls, I was sure. Seeing a little more of the world made parts of my old life feel like taking out last year’s summer yukata only to discover it had become two sizes too small.
The narrow hem of my robe today made each step into a shuffle. The saucers clinked on the tray the entire length of the hall despite my care. From inside the dragon room, male voices raised in gruff banter filtered through the walls.
“Pardon the intrusion,” I sang, sliding the fusuma open and bowing my face down to my hands, carefully spread in a triangle, palms-down on the tatami. Little Turtle would have no cause to hiss at me this night, I vowed.
“Come,” ordered a male voice, the Lord Daimyo’s. I slid the tray into the room. Little Turtle must have just finished setting up the last screens in time. Two more screens, each with six segments, faced the first one on the opposite side of the room. Pasted onto the light-wooded frame was thick mulberry paper with a blue border. It showed an island with buildings packed together in a strangely cramped way, bordered by a wall. Demon-haired barbarians scurried around the wall with long sticks as a noble and his warriors paraded across an arched bridge.
I tore my eyes away from the screens. The saucers of rice wine needed to be arranged on the small tray-tables Little Turtle had set before each sitting-cushion. She directed me first to set the Daimyo’s saucer at the table closest to the screens. Unstacking the wooden boxes revealed square compartments filled with strips of seared, red meat, tiny chirimenjako fish sautéed to a crispy brown and spread across glistening, white rice, and cooked leafy greens in sesame paste. When Little Turtle had finished adjusting the boxes and saucers to line up perfectly, we went to a corner to sit on our own cushions.
Three men came around the edge of the Barbarian screen. The Lord Daimyo wore thinning hair in a warrior’s topknot. Gray streaked his temples, and his cheeks had taken on a haggard cast since Asama-yama. His black robe contrasted sharply with the second man’s white robes embroidered in gold and silver threads. This man wore a black mesh court cap and a carefully groomed moustache. Lord Hojo, the youngest son of the noble family that controlled the Han neighboring Ashikaga.
Behind the other two, in a black robe without cap or vest or adornment other than the tanto knife stuck in the plain gray obi, came my lordling—looking like a sleek falcon next to two puffed up, spotted woodpeckers.
“Such a shame Lord Yoshikazu could not join us,” said Hojo. “I hear he is very busy these days in the Muromachi district.”
I could check later with Little Turtle, but I thought the Muromachi district was known not only for the noble houses, but for the way it bordered a notorious entertainment district. Did Lord Hojo allude to Lord Yoshikazu’s drinking?
Ashikaga shifted into a loose guard-stance I recognized from wrestling practices with the guards—respectful but uneasy. If Ashikaga considered Lord Hojo’s comment a dig, it didn’t show.
“These days, he is much in demand at court,” said the Daimyo. There was an uncharacteristic
listlessness to his words. He seemed overly concerned with the striped cat on the screen directly behind Lord Hojo. Little Turtle gave a little huff of air, and then moved to stand beside the tray where I’d placed the Lord Daimyo’s saucer.
“It is good to be busy and so be kept from the unpardonable gaucheness of spending too much time with one’s own family.”
The Lord Daimyo ignored Hojo. Now he was fixed on Little Turtle and the saucer she held. He shuffled over to her. Lord Hojo turned away and made some low comment to Ashikaga so that Little Turtle could ease the Daimyo into a sitting position behind the tray. He gripped her arm very tightly and landed with a plop on the cushion, as if his knees would not bend.
I hadn’t served any but Ashikaga or Uesugi-san these past months. I’d thought they wanted the Jindo girl away from the Daimyo’s notice, but now I wondered if they were trying to hide how the Daimyo’s sickness had changed him. Gone was the bristling bear who commanded the men at Asama-yama not three months before. This man was an old coot, ignoring Lord Hojo’s sharp-edged politeness to focus on drinking the wine before it cooled.
Little Turtle returned to her place beside me. “You’re staring,” she hissed.
Ashikaga and Hojo lingered in front of the barbarian portrait. I gave a rueful smile to Little Turtle and then leaned forward to hear their quiet voices over the Daimyo’s slurping.
“His potions and blood-letting eased Lord Ouchi’s bowel sufferings greatly,” Lord Hojo was saying.
“The Emperor is extremely fond of my father and brother. He keeps them close to court and would not allow them to travel as far south as Nagasaki and Dejima.”
“But not you,” said Lord Hojo. “How is it he’s been content with only two-thirds of the Ashikaga men all these years? And now that you’re the Emperor-killer, how convenient you’re right under his nose.”
Ashikaga gave a little bow. “I am honored to have been of some service in ridding Yamato of the Pretender Emperor. The true Emperor has no need to grace me with his valuable attention. I am but his humble servant—neither Daimyo nor heir.”
My lordling’s voice had not wavered, but the unpracticed court-bow to Hojo brought one heel back to nudge a screen-segment. Shifted from Little Turtle’s precise placement, it wobbled and tipped. Little Turtle elbowed me in the ribs.
Trying to mimic her quiet poise, I rose to adjust the screen. Lord Hojo’s eyes flickered over me as my robes rustled in the suddenly quiet room.
“Ah, I see another servant from Ashikaga Han the Emperor has overlooked,” said Lord Hojo. “Daisy, was it?”
I knelt and dipped my head. The screen creaked.
Ashikaga gave me a warning look and then let go the wariness and slouched, one leg forward, the picture of indifference. “My brother has ever had the tiger’s share of court attention. My servants can’t compare to his Kyo no Miyako elegance.”
The two men were between me and the corner cushions. I was stranded here, the skin prickling down my back at Lord Hojo’s attention.
“Lord Yoshikazu is well, then? I shall look forward to renewing our acquaintance. I heard of his triumph at the Toshiya arrow contest at Sanjusangen-do. I also heard the son of the Lord Deputy of Kyoto was greatly displeased by his second place winnings.”
The Daimyo spoke up. His saucer was empty, and a pink flush gave him a ruddy look. “My good cousin Ashikaga Motofuji has grown used to second place, but it seems Ujimitsu has yet to accept his.”
“It is said Lord Ujimitsu chafes at bearing the Ashikaga name but having to give way to Lord Yoshikazu at court.”
“The court does not decide the winner of military battles,” barked the Daimyo. A little of the black bear seeped through the old man’s voice.
“Northern nobles win no favor from the Emperor unless they are winning battles,” said Lord Hojo, matching my lordling’s purposefully casual air. “Now that the Pretender Emperor’s threat is gone, the true Emperor could forget to whom he owes the throne.”
“I gave him Yoshikazu all these years.” The old Daimyo’s grumbling tone could still make a Rooster of a man like Lord Hojo blanch.
“Old friend,” said Lord Hojo. He went to the table next to the Daimyo’s and sat, cross-legged like a warrior, drawing out the moment. “Lord Yoshikazu does his best, but he has been alone these many years here at court. Your support has been distant boasts of battles won, hardly impacting the court intrigue here other than influencing the Emperor’s mood. And Lady Yasuko’s connections rather too much focused on the wrong branch of Ashikaga.”
“She made her own bed,” rumbled the Daimyo.
“She never had any other alternative,” my lordling said quietly.
Lord Hojo pretended politely not to have heard.
“I’m in Kyo no Miyako now,” said the Daimyo. “Motofuji and Ujimitsu can try to sweet talk the court all they want.”
“But for how long can Lord Yoshikazu count on you?”
My lordling bolted upright, hand on the tanto knife. “Your rudeness goes too far.”
Lord Hojo sipped from his saucer and replaced it perfectly in line with the other dishes. “I am also the Emperor’s servant, Sir Ashikaga. Do not think the Lord Daimyo’s condition has gone unnoticed.”
The Daimyo grunted and jerked his chin at the third table. Ashikaga spun on one heel and settled down in warrior crisscross. I went to pour wine, but my lordling didn’t look at me or the saucer. The Daimyo waved me over to refill his saucer. “The doctors are useless. They poke and prod and give me nasty tasting swill to drink, but they tell me nothing can be done. The disease eats away at me from the inside.”
Careful. Drops of wine spilled over the rim of the saucer. From the corner of my eye I saw Little Turtle shake her head.
Lord Hojo indicated the portrait of the barbarian. “In Nagasaki they say this doctor brings cures from over the ocean even more marvelous than the Middle Kingdom’s.”
The Daimyo slurped noisily. “I’m done traveling. Kyoto is where I will stay. You are right to say Yoshikazu has been left alone too long. Time I took him in hand. Remind him what it means to be a real Ashikaga.”
I headed back to the corner with the jug of rice wine, but Little Turtle hissed again. Oh, I’d forgotten to offer wine to Lord Hojo. She was going to have strong words for me back in our own rooms. It was so hard to listen to the conversation at the same time as remembering my duties. Little Turtle made it look so easy.
“After you’ve gotten him into shape,” said Lord Hojo, whose saucer was still full of wine and didn’t need my jug after all. “And when you are . . . retired? How will he keep the court’s good opinion in peace time? What if the other Ashikagas become discontented with their place?”
“The Northern Ashikagas do not lack for blooded warriors,” said my lordling.
Lord Hojo and the Daimyo exchanged a meaningful look. “You are not meant for court,” said the Daimyo, failing to make his usual grumble lighter. Ashikaga had left the food untouched all this time, but now speared a strip of meat like it was a personal insult.
“I hear your daughter is quite lovely,” said Lord Hojo.
Ashikaga choked on the meat.
“The Hojo lands are but half the size of Ashikaga Han,” said the Daimyo.
“Yet I have many friends in court whom I could help convince of Northern Ashikaga superiority.”
Lord Hojo and Lady Hisako?
This Rooster of a man wanted Ashikaga’s sister? I thought of the night I’d first entered the Great House when my lordling had lain wounded and senseless from a fox soldier’s arrow. Lady Hisako had welcomed me, the daughter of her cook, with open arms when she saw I was as protective of her brother as she. Unlike Uesugi-san, Lady Hisako had seemed delighted to share Ashikaga’s secret with another
person.
Roosters were ambitious. If Lord Hojo married Lady Hisako she would have to leave the Great House, leave Ashikaga. My lordling would be alone.
“She is still quite young,” said Ashikaga.
Ha. I was the village spinster and Lady Hisako was older than I. It struck me that Lady Ashikaga’s absence from the Great House had allowed the Daimyo’s children to form themselves in unconventional ways without interference—like untended bonsai gone bushy with leaves.
The Daimyo held out an empty saucer. Little Turtle tugged the jug from my slack hands. She poured wine for all three nobles, even into Ashikaga’s untouched cup, her calm expression a bit strained at the edges. She’d served Lady Hisako for many years. I wished we had the freedom to speak. Did the idea of Lady Hisako’s marriage cause the strain? Did Lord Hojo make her as uneasy as he made me?
Did she imagine those thin, pursed lips on Lady Hisako’s rosebud mouth? Or those long uncallused fingers scrabbling at her lady’s robe like fleshy worms.
I blinked to clear away the image. Little Turtle was giving me an odd look.
“It is an alliance I have long considered. You will allow half a year for her to accustom herself to her new role,” the Daimyo said.
“Of course, my Lord.” Lord Hojo bowed.
“The Kanze-za perform Sarugaku Noh tonight. You will join us there so I can make the announcement to Yoshikazu.”
Lord Hojo nodded again, clearly pleased.
“You will come, too,” said the Daimyo to Ashikaga. My lordling nodded dutifully, but with a closed-in, shuttered look. This was the first time the Daimyo had commanded my lordling to attend an official, public function. Private parties and visits, yes, but the Noh performance sounded like something courtiers would attend. After hiding Ashikaga all these years, the Daimyo chose to expose my lordling to the verbal sparring of courtiers on the day he gave away Ashikaga’s sister?
The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight (A Tiger Lily Novel Book 2) Page 10
