The youth’s arrogance slid right off me. We had traveled a day away from Kyoto and Zeami summoned me? In a campsite on the Oshu-Kaido? Was this a trick? I didn’t feel Norinaga-Hosokawa nearby, nor did this youth pickled with his own pride give off the feel of anything but impatience.
“Show me,” I said. If Zeami was here, I needed to know why. I didn’t quite trust him, but Lady Ashikaga had given him that box of her letters. Zeami had bid me come to him in Kamishichiken after Ashikaga opened his mother’s letters, and I had not obeyed. Would any of this have been easier if I had gone to Zeami then?
Too late for regrets now. The youth led me along the tall grass, behind Little Turtle’s copse of trees, and then away from the road toward the woods. He crossed over a series of rocks in the stream, stepping as gingerly as a dancer, never once looking back to see if I followed. Under the dark shadow of a giant cryptomeria, branches sagging low with their burden of soft needles, a figure waited for us. Behind the tree, the moon peeked over the horizon.
“Here she is, sir,” said the youth, bowing to the figure. “Though what use you have for a potato like her, I have no idea—”
“It is not your place to speculate,” said the cultured, smooth tones of Zeami Motokiyo. He pushed back his hood, revealing the fine cheeks and long locks of the man who seemed to hold the key to my lordling’s past.
“Am I allowed to speculate?” I said, deciding that I didn’t want to be the cowed peasant servant out here under the moonlight. Both of us played roles in Kyoto that could be abandoned here. Zeami gave a soft laugh and made a gesture of dismissal to the youth. Bean-sprout beard humphed away towards camp.
“Remind me why the young Ashikaga keeps you around?”
“Not for my beauty,” I said. “Even hooded and in the dark you are more beautiful than I could ever be.”
“Yes,” said Zeami. “I have worked long and hard to achieve an elegant flowering of my art. While I believe you have spent your time in rice fields.”
Did he think truth an insult? I wasn’t ashamed of being Father’s daughter. Though for Ashikaga’s sake, sometimes, I wish I could fit into this world better. “And yet you summon me here in secrecy. Why pay court to a muddy-nailed crow of a girl when you have the Lord Daimyo’s interest already?”
Zeami laughed. Not the soft titter of Beautiful or Lady Hisako, but the deep-throated chortle of a man. “Your pricks are more like the brush of butterfly wings than bee stings. I begin to wonder if you have enough backbone for what I would propose.”
Backbone? He was looking at the girl who had survived Hell Mountain. I hadn’t spent all my time in the rice-fields. I was Dawn’s daughter. Maybe a reminder was needed.
Like coals banked in the brazier, but still alive with heat, I have hidden my heart in melancholy.
Now the ash has burned away. . . .
The song flowed softly from my throat. Around us, something awoke. A slight sense of ancient cryptomeria and the swift, bitter bite of the stream. Zeami straightened. He peered around as if expecting spirits to burst through the trees around us at any moment.
“Jindo singer,” he said, after the realization that we were alone brought him back squarely to face me. “Shamaness. It is all true, then.”
“Yes,” I said with the same court inflection and tone he had used a moment ago.
“And the young Ashikaga holds your heart as much as the older one does mine.”
“Yes.”
“You abandon him when he needs you the most?”
My hands curled to fists. The only one in Kyoto who recognized the truth was this man-woman actor? Why couldn’t Ashikaga see as clearly? “He commanded me to leave.” Playing games and bantering had grown tiresome. The kami were closer out here, underneath the stars. The pull to pretend, to fit into court life was a soft, slight breath. I shook myself like Little Brother coming out of a river swim, feeling bones settle solidly into my flesh and my weight onto the balls of my feet. Ready.
“You have courage. What if I took up your travel drape and became you? I could act your part so well that other serving girl would have no idea. Uesugi-san wouldn’t know himself until it was too late for him to turn back. And if I bade my traveling play-troop to take you in the prop-cart back to Kyoto? Would you defy your lordling to save him?”
My heart screamed yes, but my words emerged short, irritated. “Why should I?”
“Lady Yasuko’s yurei is a mortal danger. There’s also the imminent threat of Lord Yoshinori being named heir to the Lord Daimyo. Do you think their secrets would stay hidden if Lord Yoshinori stayed year-round in the capital?”
“I can help with the yurei, but there’s nothing for me to do about his being named heir.” As I said the words I thought of my conversation with Hosokawa-Norinaga.
“Nothing? If you saved the Lord Daimyo from the straw doll curse, you could ask him for a very, very, large boon.”
Such as disinheriting his beloved child? Giving Ashikaga Han over to the cadet branch that killed Lord Yoshikazu; naming Ujimitsu heir? I could do that. And maybe the Daimyo and the court would only laugh in my face instead of sentencing me to the pressing stones. Another choice was to follow Hosokawa-Norinaga’s plan to discredit Ashikaga in front of the court through his Jindo connections to me during the yurei exorcism.
Or go home.
How many times had my attempts to help caused problems? Ashikaga had never truly forgiven me for climbing Hell Mountain on my own to offer myself to the Pretender Emperor in exchange for his life. At the time, there had seemed no other choice. This time, there were too many choices, all tangled together like May’s long hair upon rising from her bedroll. Norinaga. Zeami. Home.
“What do you want in exchange for my passage back to Kyoto?”
Zeami stepped closer. The crescent moon reflected twin points of light in the depths of his eyes. Deep currents there I would never hope to understand. But not ill will towards Ashikaga. That I knew.
“The Daimyo is dying. Save him.”
Hot disappointment shot through me. This was impossible.
“I sing to the kami. I can help awake them or help them to sleep. I cannot heal the Lord Daimyo.”
That perfect poise faltered for an instant, Zeami’s flawless face crumpling into seams and frown-lines. A moment of deep breaths and the flawless actor returned.
“As I thought,” he said with the haughtiest inflection. But he had asked. He had hoped I might cure the Daimyo.
“Will you still help me?”
“Banish the yurei. Make the Daimyo name Ujimitsu heir. That will be my payment.”
“Why would you ask for this?”
“He loves Lord Yoshinori,” said Zeami. “But the stubborn old man won’t listen to council—neither mine nor Lord Hojo’s. Lord Yoshikazu’s death stripped away so much vitality. Lord Yoshinori’s disgrace, the revelation of their secret, would hasten the Lord Daimyo’s own death.” Zeami wrapped his robe around him, hunching over, and somehow he was the old lady again from the Noh play—grief carving his face into a haggard expression. “I am a greedy old biddy still tied to the ephemeral pleasures of this world. I’m not ready to release him to the next world.”
I tugged my head cloth free and unwrapped the outer layer of my travel robe.
Zeami Motokiyo unfurled himself from the old lady posture and took the cloth from my hand. “Tomorrow morning, then. Before you leave, claim feminine distress so you can sneak away here. My troop will take you back to Kyo no Miyako while I ride with Master Uesugi-san. After that, it’s all in your hands.”
My hands. I made my way back to camp along the stream in darkness. The flickering of two fires cast enough illumination for me to make out Little Turtle’s round shadow among the angular and taller forms of the
soldiers. I quietly endured her exasperated grumbling, the soldiers’ stomach growlings, and the strangely preoccupied vagueness of Uesugi-san’s shouted commands. The simple task of ladling and handing out soup kept my hands and mind busy enough. But after everyone was slurping contentedly, my hands wouldn’t stop curling and uncurling.
I lay awake on my back long past the time when the moon had sunk below the tree-grove, thinking about hands—my own, and the slender, strong fingers of my lordling back in Kyoto.
Chapter Sixteen
* * *
SLEEP MUST HAVE claimed me at some point because I awoke to Little Turtle’s elbow in my side. “Wake up,” she grunted. “Your turn to get the fire going.” Then she turned over, pulling her travel-robe up over her ears.
Coals were still burning under the banked ashes. Little Turtle’s grove yielded a goodly amount of tinder, saving me from the dicey proposition of waking some of Uesugi-san’s men to help gather firewood. They liked Little Turtle well enough, but they rocked back and forth on their feet, their eyes settling anywhere but on me when I talked to them. I sang a wordless verse to the kami I felt in the grove—deep asleep and dreaming.
The camp stirred as I got a solid blaze going. Warriors and road-men rose bleary-eyed and stretching backs kinked from sleeping on the ground. Bones felt heavy in their casement of flesh, slowing every movement. Had I become too accustomed to sleeping on the rice-straw stuffed bedrolls on the springy, new tatami mats of Ashikaga Residence? Would my joints lock like a gnarled old biddy every morning when I returned to the dirt floor and threadbare mattress of Father’s hut?
Or was this used up and brittle feeling because of the impossible task Zeami had given me?
Little Turtle stayed close by all morning, as if instinct warned her I was up to something. Uesugi-san also sat firm on his folding chair by the fire until I despaired of any chance to slip away. I avoided watching the troupe members still rolled up in their beds.
The spot-billed ducks taking their morning bath in the stream beyond the camp quieted as dawn achieved full brilliance, giving way to the rise and fall of early spring cicadas’ ratchet-buzz. The sedan-chair bearers stretched in the sun like cellar cats come begging outside Father’s window for kitchen scraps. We would leave soon. My hands fisted so tightly that my fingernails made ragged half-moon impressions on my palm. I would burst from this ache to do something, anything, other than wait here under Little Turtle’s sideways glances.
Finally a soldier from the other group approached Uesugi-san. Little Turtle sidled closer, and I followed. The soldier bowed formally and invited Uesugi-san back to the tent for another audience. Little Turtle’s mouth pursed in exasperation. Was she annoyed because her curiosity about which dignitary the troupe and soldiers traveled with went unsatisfied? Maybe it wasn’t me she was keeping an eye on after all, but Uesugi-san.
I could have told her. No real dignitary at all, but Zeami Motokiyo—treasured actor of the Kanze-za and precious companion of the Lord Daimyo of the Northern Han. What costume had he gussied himself up in for Uesugi-san? Did he play the part of a minor lord? How was he going to take my place if he were holding audience with Uesugi-san?
Uesugi-san made an attempt to excuse himself, but the soldier would not take refusal.
“I shall attend in a few moments, then,” said Uesugi-san. After the soldier disappeared inside the test, Uesugi-san turned to Little Turtle and I. “One of you has to come with me.”
Little Turtle looked startled. Her mouth pursed like she’d bit down into the acidic irritant of an unripe persimmon. “I would think any man would be content to enjoy the attentions of the famous Kisegawa of Matsuba-ya without the need for a handmaiden from the Northern hicks.” Little Turtle didn’t need my help after all. She must have been busy already this morning, ferreting out the name of the dignitary by herself.
The skin at Uesugi-san’s temples and throat flushed a dark red. I straightened in surprise. The name Little Turtle mentioned was a famous courtesan from the pleasure district. Was that who Zeami impersonated? More interestingly, the sarcastic bite of Little Turtle’s words meant some undercurrent of prickled feelings. Words must have passed between Uesugi-san and Little Turtle sometime between leaving the Ashikaga Residence and this morning. What had I missed when Zeami waylaid me last night? Had one of them hinted of deeper feelings?
Little Turtle must surely know Uesugi-san traveled home to be with Lady Hisako. Or was I wrong? Maybe Lady Hisako was an excuse for this trip; throwing Uesugi-san and Little Turtle together in intimate circumstances far from fathers or stewards.
“Lady Kisegawa wants gossip from the city, women-talk,” Uesugi-san said.
This could work in my favor. “Little Turtle knows more than I do,” I said. Little Turtle’s elbow found the same tender spot on my ribs from the morning. Uesugi-san gave an exasperated grunt. “Maybe I should take Lily with me, then. Our audience won’t last beyond two moments and we can get back to the Oshu-Kaido.”
Little Turtle turned up her nose at the both of us, but I could tell her thoughts weren’t full of real irritation—they were too full of Uesugi-san. It was clear in the way her mouth softened under his best, disgruntled, old man expression, as if even this ill humor pleased her. “Let’s go,” she said. “Kisegawa won’t be all that different from the ladies of the court. It won’t do to keep her waiting.”
Uesugi-san trailed reluctantly after Little Turtle. The tent flap closed behind them, and my heart gave a little leap.
This was it. I gave one of Uesugi-san’s men a pointed look, motioning toward the tree-grove. He nodded, and turned his back. That should give me a few moments. Pushing through the thigh-high barberry, I snuck out through the back of the grove. I put cat-tails and sedge-grass between me and the camp. It was a few moments work to follow the stream back to the place where I’d met Zeami last night.
The same arrogant youth waited there, sitting cross-legged on a patch of clover. “Here,” he said without preamble, “put these on.” He heaped into my arms a threadbare linen robe, faded kerchief, and straw sandals and then regarded me with arch amusement.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Oh please,” he said irritated, but stood up and turned his back, pointedly crossing his arms. “You have nothing I haven’t seen, nor would I want to peek at it, anyway.”
I quickly exchanged my travel clothes for the youth’s rough outfit. I’d kept the netsuke in my obi each morning since Otowa, mindlessly transferring it each time I changed. Now it seemed like I might still have a chance to use it. I tucked it into the hemp belt. The youth gathered up my travel clothes and led the way back to camp without another word. I followed his roundabout path past Uesugi-san’s men and up to the back of the prop-cart. No one gave me a second glance.
“Eee-yah,” said a voice behind the door curtain. I clambered in at the youth’s silent urging. Zeami in old crone disguise? How had he changed so quickly from Kisegawa to this old crone? No, not Zeami. The dusty, dried shiitake smell was nothing like the aura of camellia that clung to Zeami’s hair no matter what role he played. This was a real old crone.
She gave me a gap-toothed smile. “Well, now,” she rasped. “Another oddity for the master’s collection, is it?”
The arrogant youth stuck his head past the door curtain. “Keep her quiet and hidden in here, Auntie,” he said in that intonation as haughty as any courtier’s. “She’s not to make a peep until we reach Kamishichiken.”
“And Zeami?” I said, before the youth could retreat.
“Don’t worry,” said the youth. “I won’t deprive him of an instant’s pleasure of wearing your soiled travel clothes. If you’ll allow me to withdraw I’ll bring these to him now.”
The crone cackled. “Our nightingale has to ruck himself up like this great crow, does he? That’ll get the boy’
s goat.” She cackled again. “Get his goat!”
“Zeami is more suited to the role of Kisegawa,” I said, unsure of the correct inflections to use with my new companion. She was too old to be an actor; maybe a costumist?
“Kisegawa? She wouldn’t be caught dead this far from the nearest deep-pursed patron now, would she? Listen to you cawing on about high-and-mighty ladies, as if they’d camp out here in the wilderness with the likes of me!”
She had to be somebody’s old Auntie. Not the arrogant youth’s surely. Did they really mean for me to travel all the way back to Kyoto cooped up with this crone? I shifted my weight on to my heels, my back up against the rough wood of the cart-wall. Zeami impersonated a courtesan to draw Uesugi-san’s attention, allowing for my escape, I was sure. I hoped he was just as successful at becoming me. It was hard to imagine him fooling Little Turtle.
The crone had stopped laughing and now fixed me with a piercing, unabashed stare. I tugged on the robe’s sash. Was I in her way? She produced a needle trailing gold thread from the jumbled boxes and pouches taking up most of the prop cart. From within the depths of her robe she brought forth a round cloth with half a crest embroidered in the middle. She held the crest at eye level and squinted, whistling through her gap-teeth.
“Does the crow sing pretty, I wonder?” She stabbed the needle in the middle of the crest and began embroidering with rough, jerky stitches. “Does she catch the kami with sweet tones and trills? Or is it the heart beating under those broad shoulders?”
I stiffened. What was this woman? She was angling for some kind of reaction. Then she began to sing.
It is for your sake,
That I walk, careless, the fields in spring . . .
My mother’s Jindo song! The crone’s raspy voice and strained nasal tone made the familiar words take on an air of earthiness I’d never heard before in my mother’s pure high tone when she sang this for Whispering Brook at our hidden shrine. The words hooked me under the breastbone, anchoring there, tugging at me to join in.
The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight (A Tiger Lily Novel Book 2) Page 20
