Pulling on the hakama was a relief. Coarse-spun linen snagged roughly on my skin. The narrow bottom of the robes I’d worn the past few weeks made me stalk like a starling. Now, to undo all the hard work Beautiful had spent on my hair two days ago. No waxed short lengths of hair artfully framing my wide cheekbones. I meant to go unnoticed, and there was nothing more likely to keep people from peering too closely than to look like one of the lowliest laborers, with a rough ponytail.
It should have been a relief slipping back into my own clothes, hairstyle, and walk. Shuffling over the nightingale hall felt oddly ill-fitting. Geta pinched my inner toe, and the hakama were too loose. Putting on clothes didn’t instantly return me to who I was before I came to the Capital, any more than putting on fine clothes made me a handmaiden. I slid the back door open half way. No flicker of lantern, no crunch of gravel—no sign of any guards. I could slip right out of the residence, hurry through the trees, and be out the gate before anyone was the wiser.
So easy.
I paused. Once before I’d slipped away from my lordling to meet General Norinaga on top of Hell Mountain, sure that it was the only way to save him. This wasn’t the same. Not at all. I had no intention this time of sacrificing myself, and Ashikaga could not doubt my loyalty, even if he had found me kneeling beside a dead Lord Yoshikazu at Motofuji’s house. Despite strict orders to stay away.
I stepped back up onto the hallway floor. My lordling had not sent for me, not interrogated me, and in fact had said not a word to me after returning home last night. Ashikaga had entered the Daimyo’s rooms and shut the door. I waited, but no summons came from Ashikaga or the Daimyo to come explain what I’d witnessed at Lord Motofuji’s residence. Lady Ashikaga’s letter still nestled in my own obi.
I took a deep breath. A line of ice cold that had nothing to do with the dawn hour sliced me from forehead to belly. I shuffled back up the hall and stopped outside Ashikaga’s room. Putting a hand on the paper of the fusuma. I hooked fingers into the iron pull plate and slowly slid open the door.
Ashikaga stood on the other side, covered lantern in one hand, fully dressed in a plain robe.
“My Lord,” I said, startled into a bow.
“You were going somewhere?”
I straightened. “Lord Hosokawa promised to teach me how to banish the yurei.”
Ashikaga settled into loosened knees. A relaxed-looking move, but one that I’d seen my lordling take before pouncing on a guard during training bouts. “You go to learn this in the darkness of the hour of the rabbit?”
“When else to meet about forbidden Jindo?”
“You were sneaking out.”
I nodded.
“You came back with second thoughts? So I won’t have to arrest you for meeting with a man who conspired with Lord Motofuji to kill my brother?”
“No.”
“Lily, I told you not to follow me last night.”
“I did not follow you.”
“Uesugi-san tried the same excuse.” Ashikaga stepped forward, close enough that I could smell the sour taste of rice wine. “I lost my brother. If I had lost you, too, do you think I could have walked away from Lord Motofuji’s house without breaking all the Emperor’s laws?”
Ashikaga jerked me one-handed, crushing my nose into the crook of my lordling’s neck. The chest under my palms rose and fell like a bellows. “The yurei must be dealt with,” I said, muffled by the coarse linen of Ashikaga’s collar.
“So I should let you sneak off to meet Lord Hosokawa, Norinaga, whatever he is.”
“The yurei still walks.”
“It has not come these past two nights I’ve stood guard.”
I pulled back. “It won’t disappear, my lord. It will come, and then how will you defend your father?”
Ashikaga pressed me harder. “What I wouldn’t give to leave with Uesugi-san tomorrow.”
Hope sparked. “Let’s go, then. Your father surely can’t intend to remain in Kyoto now. It would be safe for him back at home.”
“I can’t leave,” my lordling whispered into my hair. “Not with my brother’s murdered body lying in the dragon room.”
“You can’t fight Lord Motofuji! The Emperor—”
“—would order my suicide, yes. So my father tells me. Don’t worry, Lily, I will not force the Emperor’s punishment on me tonight. But we can’t leave Kyoto. Yoshikazu was the heir.”
The heir. Oh. I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. If Lord Yoshikazu was gone, that left only my lordling. Being the heir meant living in Kyoto under the Emperor’s thumb. It meant not returning to the Ashikaga Domain. It meant constant scrutiny, the kind that would certainly make it impossible for my lordling to keep secrets if the Emperor discovered a Jindo-cursed yurei in the house of his Northern Warlord.
And then Ashikaga would have no heir at all. The Ashikaga Domain would be parceled out to courtiers like Motofuji and Hojo.
This would not happen. Not as long as I had breath to sing.
“Let me go to Lord Hosokawa.” Distance is what I needed. Ashikaga’s warmth, the husky night-voice stirring my hair, it was too distracting. Too seductive to leave all these problems in my lordling’s strong arms.
Ashikaga breathed in harshly, making a strangled sound low in the back of the throat. “You will go, yes. But I will follow.”
“Hosokawa is no danger to me,” I said, hoping the words were true. “I can pass unremarked on the streets, but no one can ignore you.”
Ashikaga gave a ragged laugh. “You aren’t going alone.”
Hosokawa would do me no harm, I was sure. He’d had plenty of opportunity in the past. His voice in my head, the way our song combined to wake the kami, this was a bond I’d only shared before with my mother. He was Jindo—the only connection I had.
Ashikaga had no such bond with Hosokawa. If the fox came upon us, all alone at Kiyomizu-dera, would I be able to protect my lordling?
“He may not be willing to teach me Jindo ways with you there.”
“He won’t know I’m there.”
“You think to hide from a fox?”
Ashikaga pushed me away, two hands gripping my shoulders a child about to be shaken. My lordling leaned in close. “You tell me this is Norinaga. Do you forget I beat him once before, surrounded by his soldiers and their fox magic? Do you have so little faith in me?”
I closed the space between us, pressing my lips to that grim line of displeasure. With pressure and mouth and breath I tried to show my lordling how little I could stand this risk, how it would break me if Hosokawa harmed even one little hair—all the things I could never shape into words. The press and release of our mouths grew fierce. Ashikaga kissed me back, urging me with hands and mouth up against the wall. Careless, teeth snagging on lips, pouring all the anger into me, as if Ashikaga could sharpen it there into a weapon to cut through all our troubles.
I could be a weapon. I would be. I could make Hosokawa tell me how to get rid of the yurei.
“Go on,” said Ashikaga at last, chest heaving. “I need no more convincing of your loyalty.” No sweetness in kiss or words. Trusting me, but still angered as well. Because I went to Hosokawa for help? Or at Ashikaga’s lack of weapons against fox magic and yurei?
“Yes, my lord.”
Ashikaga handed me the covered lantern. I blushed, thinking I’d been foolish not to bring one. Impending dawn would light the streets enough for me to pick my way, but the temple grounds would be darkened by trees, stone lanterns unlit at this hour.
“We meet at Kiyomizu-dera, by Otowa Waterfall.”
“I will come after you. Go on now.”
I shuffled back down the nightingale corridor. My toes now knew exactly where to step to avoid the creaking.
Through the courtyard, out the side gate, and along the walled streets of Daimyo Residences I saw not a soul. Shops were shuttered, noren hangings rolled up, and the townspeople all asleep in their bedrolls. Crickets whirred to the bright face of the moon shining onto the tiled roofs, but there was no shadow or whisper from my lordling. Was Ashikaga really following me?
Turning the corner where a teahouse faced a shop selling spun-sugar sweets, I finally glimpsed another person awake at this early hour. Tangled hair, dirt-streaked robe, and hunched shoulders—a figure crouched beside an outhouse.
Eta-hinin, a menial worker harvesting urine for the tanning trade. My eyes skittered over the man and then quickly refocused on the dirt-packed street. Collecting night soil was unclean work. Back in the village the job wasn’t as sharply defined by caste as here. The tanner and the butcher had houses a bit apart from the village, but so did the Charcoal Maker—more a function of smell and smoke than people’s aversion. Here it was different. The locals didn’t see the eta-hinin or even speak to them directly.
Two night watchmen rounded the opposite corner with thick truncheons thrust into their obi and kataginu vests with the Marshall’s akatori comb-like crest embroidered in white on black next to the familiar paulownia leaf crest. They held lanterns loosely in their hands until they caught sight of me.
“Oy, you there,” said the fatter one. He thrust a lantern into my face. “What are you doing out here?”
My lantern was still covered. Was that suspicious?
I gave a little giggle. “My lord, please don’t ask me too many questions,” I said, not having to feign nervousness.
The two guards exchanged a knowing glance. The fat one cleared his throat. “On your way home after warming someone’s bedroll is it? Didn’t your man tell you not to get caught by the curfew watch?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, bowing.
The other guard stood expectantly, waiting. I bowed lower.
The fat one shook his head. “We can’t just let you go, now, not a girl sneaking around with a covered lantern.”
I looked up and down the street, but we were alone. Even the eta-hinin man was gone. I wasn’t sure what the guard wanted. Surely he didn’t think I had money?
The other guard made an exasperated hiss through this teeth. “Persuade us, girlie. We don’t have time to stand around.”
The shop we stood in front of—the foreign characters on the shingle frustratingly unreadable—had been dark and quiet. Murmurs and rattles now sounded from within.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said slowly, trying to make my vowels sloppy like that of Auntie Jay’s baby-faced brother. He could plant rice seedlings all day without a complaint but had to be lead to the outhouse like a toddler even though he was in his fifties. The fat guard wrinkled his upper lip, drawing away.
He elbowed his friend. “Best move on. This one hasn’t the brains of a snail.”
The other guard lunged forward, gripping the collar of my jacket. A ripping sound, the loosely stitched border coming away in his hand, startled me up onto the balls of my feet. A Jindo song flooded into my mouth. I bit my tongue.
“There are all kinds of persuasion,” said the guard. He licked his cracked, upper lip. With a guttural laugh, he covered my breast with a thick hand and squeezed, tight enough to bring hot tears to my eyes. “That’ll help you remember not to be about after curfew without a little something to be generous with.” He twisted the loose collar tightly around a fist, cutting off air.
His breath was foul, like rotten fish innards. When he mashed those cracked lips to my own the flesh of my inner lip tore.
This . . . this . . . was impossible, this was awful. This couldn’t be happening. This was an Imagawa guard, an Ashikaga vassal, supposed to keep the peace. I froze for a moment, tasting the sour melon of blood in my mouth, the Jindo song buzzing at my cheeks like bees.
I made two fists and punched them as hard as I could into the guard’s chest. He grunted and threw me away. I tumbled back into the dirt.
From the corner of my eye I saw the eta-hinin man reappear. He swung a bucket noisily against the shop’s side wall. The guards whirled at the sudden clatter. An angry voice called out from within the shop.
“Come on,” said the fat guard. “You’ve had your fun. Time to go.” He glanced nervously at the shuttered windows. Light leaked through the shutter cracks.
The guard spat onto the road, and then the two strode away in the direction of the Daimyo Residences. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and adjusted the loose-hanging collar of my jacket. Pulling myself to my feet, I felt strangely empty and chill. The feeling didn’t ease when I folded arms across my chest, pressing tightly where the guard had touched.
I’d never been someone men looked at like that. Not in the village, not in the Ashikaga Residence. Even in my old peasant clothes with tangled hair, was I so changed? No one but Ashikaga had ever touched my lips before. Did I make a gesture, all unwary, inviting that guard to touch me? Or maybe all those nights with Ashikaga were somehow imprinted on me. Maybe men like those guards took one look at me and knew, somehow, I was no longer exactly innocent. Only that clumsy Eta-Hinin’s bucket banging had saved me.
A tear welled past my eyelashes. I wiped it away roughly. This empty feeling couldn’t stop me from going to Kiyomizu-dera. I had to face Hosokawa and the yurei, and then I could worry about who I was becoming.
The street ahead, mostly merchants and shops, was no longer silent and still. More lights flickered, and the creaking of shutters being opened came from all sides. I needed to get moving.
Shops and houses gave way to trees, and then the path went sharply steep. Two guardian dog statues stood at the base of a staircase leading up to a large winged-roof gate. Their stone mouths scowled. The gate’s rafters were painted that garish Buddhist red that made me think of fresh blood. A fingertip lifted to brush my bruised lip.
More stairs waited past the gate, steeper than ever. Kiyomizu-dera had been built part way up Otowa Mountain. From the Ashikaga Residence, Otowa had looked more like a hill, a bump peeking out from the packed mass of shops and residences, but my calf muscles felt every hand span of that height as I plodded up the third stair.
At the top, forest stretched along a steep flank to the left while a three-storied pagoda nested in the middle of a pristine sea of white gravel. Two monks in ocher robes swept pine needles from the verandah of the second story. Neither of them spared me a glance when I went by. So strange to think these temples were really open to anyone, even a disheveled person like me. I walked past more garishly painted buildings. At the wooden staircase leading up to the main part of the temple, I hesitated. The main building perched at the top of a small rise on a series of interlocking logs forming a lookout platform. From up there all of Kyo no Miyako would be visible. Part of me wanted to finish the unending stairs, lean against the railing, and see what the city looked like to the monks. But there was no real reason to go up there, and all the reason in the world not to attract attention from any monks busy with morning prayer.
I circled around the base. The waterfall must be somewhere deeper in the surrounding woods.
“Lily!”
A shelter of unpainted wood arched over the path. A man in court dress perched on the railing where three wooden troughs let streams of water fall down the steep rise from the roof of the shelter. Waterfall? I’d pictured water cascading down rocks set into a hillside. This was so . . . controlled. I couldn’t imagine a kami disrupted this way.
Lord Hosokawa bent down. He cupped his hand into a stream of water and brought it to his mouth. “Bitter cold, but still good. Probably the purest thing in Kyo no Miyako.”
My tongue felt swollen, my lip sore. Otowa Waterfall suddenly looked like the most delicious water in the wor
ld. I cupped my hand under the nearest stream. Cold, so cold. I gasped. It was a clean, cutting chill that washed away the sour memory of the guard.
Hosokawa’s hand landed heavily on my shoulder. I jerked back, water spilling between my fingers. Fox-sly, Hosokawa peered into my eyes. “Easily startled this morning, are you? I only meant to stop you from drinking before you’ve offered Otowa a song.”
Sing. At a Buddhist temple? The low throb of chanting monks coming from the main temple above meant no one was likely to bother with us or the waterfall, but sing?
My Jindo songs were always somewhere in the back of my mind, quietly simmering along like one of Father’s broths. The chill purity of the water opened a path for my mother’s favorite song.
As the mountains birth rustling winds to sweep bamboo plains,
I will be steadfast and never leave you.
The first words melted Hosokawa’s sly-narrowed expression into an open, round smile. I relaxed into my lungs. The words needed to be smoother and less breathy. I thought Otowa would feel swift-moving and chill as Whispering Brook, fresh from mountain springs. But the flow was sluggish, a trickle of debris-clogged shimmer, curling in the pines. The monk’s chant throbbed underneath, an insistent murmur interrupting the song’s rhythm.
Something stirred among the pines and gorseberry brush along the hillside. Hosokawa sat back on the railing. When my song trailed away he said, quietly, “Otowa has been bound under the Buddha’s temple a long time. Like many of the kami, he no longer fully awakes.”
I cupped both hands under a stream and let the water pool. It reflected the pale blue of the cloudless sky. I drank greedily. A crisp, slightly metal tang like I’d stuck my tongue on the handle of one of Father’s iron kettles. Cold sluiced down my throat and blurred the sharp edges of the emptiness in my belly. I gulped more, not caring about dribbles dampening my jacket sleeve and torn collar. Teeth-aching chill was more welcome than what the guard had left me feeling. I drank until my belly was swollen.
The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight (A Tiger Lily Novel Book 2) Page 17
