by Nick Lake
He pictured Hana again.
But not stronger than love.
Only – and this was the key—
Only...
Lord Tokugawa did not understand love.
The kneeling daimyo looked over to the throne. Blood was pooling under his severed knee. The shogun’s blood still dripped from the ornate chair – tap, tap, tap. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I, Lord Tokugawa, claim Kusanagi from Taro.’
Taro wasn’t sure if it was his imagination – no, that was a lie, he knew it wasn’t, knew this was real – but there was a sudden sensation of weight lifting, the room suddenly growing brighter. He felt rather than heard the dragon of the sea chuckling in his mind.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Take it then.’ He dropped the sword beside the miserable figure of his kneeling father, and then he turned, Hiro behind him, and walked out of the room, never to return.
CHAPTER 54
TARO AND HIRO walked round the headland, the scent of pine in their nostrils. Any moment now and there would come a break in the trees, and they would see Shirahama bay laid out before them, the sea sparkling, like a promise. Taro remembered the other times he had come back – when he was looking for the ball, when he was looking for Kusanagi. Both those times he had been desperate, afraid, following another path that he knew would take him away again.
This time was different.
This time he was coming home.
A rabbit, startled, shot off into the undergrowth. Taro thought of the day the ninjas came to Shirahama, when all of this had started – how he had killed a rabbit that afternoon, was looking forward to eating it with his mother. Two years later and his mother was dead, and he had done little killing since that day, apart from men.
Just then the trees thinned, and a moment later they were on the bluff, looking down at the beach and the huts. The fishing boats were bobbing at anchor in the bay, unused. Well, that was the first thing Taro would change.
Hiro put his arm round his shoulders. ‘I can’t believe we wanted to leave so much,’ he said.
‘We wanted adventure,’ said Taro.
‘And now?’
‘Now I would be happy never to have another adventure in my life.’ He had come to know that adventure was not as it was described in stories: it was cruel, and bloody, and not everyone made it to the end. He felt that it wasn’t just him and Hiro standing here, among the roots of the cedars, with the land falling away in front of them to sunlit sea – there were the shades of his mother, too, Shusaku, Heiko, Yukiko, the prophetess. All of them sharing this moment, this homecoming, this end to the horror of a real-life adventure.
The priest must have seen them up there on the high headland, because as they made their way through the dunes to the outskirts of the village, passing the shrine to the Princess of the Hidden Waters, he came to greet them.
‘Taro!’ he said, coming forward. Taro was surprised by how pleased he was to see the old man. ‘You did come back,’ the priest continued.
‘Yes. Is Hana still here?’
The priest winced. ‘Yes.’
‘She is not well?’
‘She’s well. For a vampire.’ The priest smiled at Taro’s discomfort. ‘It’s all right; she told me everything. I don’t have the same views as some on the subject, and I don’t blame you for what you did. You did it to save her. I just don’t know if she will want to see you – I don’t know if she can forgive you for it.’
‘He saved her life!’ said Hiro, indignant.
‘She’s a samurai,’ said the priest, shrugging. ‘They spend half their lives training to die. She probably thought that was the honourable thing.’
Sadness and loneliness – a feeling like standing outside in the cold – spread over Taro. He fought the feeling away. He had to believe that what he had done with Lord Tokugawa, his attempt to pass on the curse, had worked. He had to cling to that idea, as he had clung to the wreckage of Kenji Kira’s ship, in this very bay.
He reached into his cloak and took out a drawstring bag, which he threw to the priest. The priest caught it – he might have been a temple official, but he was a fisherman and a farmer, too. ‘What’s this?’
‘That’s payment for your lost boat. I did promise.’
The priest shook his head, embarrassed. ‘I can’t take— I mean—’ No, that wasn’t just embarrassment. That was pain. As if he didn’t want to give offence, but...
Suddenly Taro understood. ‘You think it’s stolen,’ he said. The priest always listened more than he talked, and observed even more than he listened. He knew Taro was a vampire, that he had turned Hana. No doubt, despite the priest’s kindness, Taro would need to work to prove the kind of man he truly was, despite his kyuuketsuki nature.
‘It isn’t?’ The priest’s tone wasn’t judgemental, just interested.
‘No.’
‘Taro has rather a lot of money now,’ said Hiro.
‘Ah! You defeated the dragon!’ said the priest. Taro had not mentioned it to him, but he supposed the rumour of the reward must have reached Shirahama, too.
‘I did,’ said Taro. ‘And the new emperor gave me a province. I will be living there from now on. But not in a palace. In a village, as an ordinary person.’
The priest smiled a wan smile. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Another flying visit? Hana is still living in your mother’s hut, if you want to visit her. How long will you stay this time?’ There was a tinge of disappointment in his voice.
‘Forever,’ said Taro.
‘For—’
‘Ever,’ said Hiro. ‘See, Taro is daimyo of this province.’
The priest stared for a moment, eyes wide open. Then, instinctively, he began to bow, but Taro put his hand on the man’s arm, stopping him. ‘Don’t bow to me,’ he said. ‘I should be bowing to you. You’re my elder, and a priest.’
‘But you’re a lord...’
‘Only in name. Actually, I plan to live in my mother’s hut. I may fish, a little. Occasionally I will need to go to the castle, to settle disputes and so forth. But I’m hoping’ – he was hoping Hana would be by his side, would give him the benefit of her wisdom and humour, her experience as the daughter of a daimyo – ‘I’m hoping someone will help me.’
The priest was smiling now. He clapped his hands together. ‘This is wonderful!’ he said. ‘But I’m holding you up. You will want to go to your hut now.’ He pointed towards the shrine of the Princess. ‘I was heading that way. I will see you later. Perhaps you’ll eat with me tonight, both of you?’
‘It would be our pleasure,’ said Hiro.
After that they carried on, until the scrubland of the dunes gave way to hard sand, and then to the rocky path that led up into the heart of the village. Taro’s heart was beating a tattoo in his chest. He didn’t notice Hiro falling back, but suddenly he realized that he was walking on his own. He turned – Hiro was facing out to sea, arms crossed. When he saw Taro looking back, he waved him on.
He’s always been my best friend, thought Taro. He knows what to do without even asking.
Alone, he followed the path up to his mother’s hut, where he had spent all his early life. He thought of the last time he had done this, at night that time, when the light had been on inside and he had imagined that he was a ghost at obon, come back to haunt the living. That time, Hana had thrown him out. Had told him she hated him. And then he had tried to force her to come with him.
Would she forgive him that?
There was another question, which he could hardly bear to acknowledge, and which went beyond forgiveness. Could she ever love him again, now that he had turned her, made her into a monster, as she saw it?
There was only one way to find out.
He raised his hand to knock on the door, and his hand fell into empty space because the door was already opening, and Hana was standing there. She was more beautiful than he had remembered, than he could have possibly imagined. Her eyes were grey in the afternoon light, clear, framed by soft, dark eyelashes. Her skin, w
hich had been pale, was a little tanned by the sun and sea air. She had been turned by him and so, like him, she could go out in the light, even if she was a vampire. She wore her hair pinned up loosely, in the peasant fashion.
‘Taro,’ she said. Her tone was neutral, giving nothing away. She glanced at his missing eye, raked her eyes down him, taking in his scars, the hand he’d lost to the dragon. ‘You killed the dragon?’
‘Yes.’
‘You won the prize?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Ah. Poor Taro. And you paid dearly.’ There was some accusation in her voice – but did he detect a little tenderness, too? He wasn’t sure whether he was imagining it. He wasn’t sure what was real and what was not.
He closed his eye for a moment, gathering his strength. ‘I’m sorry for everything,’ he said. When he opened his eye again, she was looking at him steadily, though a muscle twitched by her eye.
‘Is that it?’ she said.
He took a deep breath. ‘No. I also wanted to say...’ He remembered her walking towards him after she’d wrestled that peasant who had tried to rob them to the ground. ‘I wanted to say, I think you’re amazing.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Didn’t I tell you, when we first left Edo, I would drop you in the mud if you carried on?’ she said.
‘You did.’
‘And yet here you are. You brought me back from the dead, made me a vampire, just to tell me I’m amazing?’
‘No,’ said Taro. ‘I did it so that I could tell you I love you.’
There was a dreadful, silent pause. She was still gazing at him steadily, without expression. Then she gave a very slight smile. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘blood is not so bad, once you get used to it.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it’s not.’ Hope was a driftwood fire in his chest, holding back the night, holding back the black.
‘But what about you?’ she asked. ‘I mean to stay here – I’ve come to love the sea and the people. You wouldn’t like it. You need adventure.’
He touched his left eye socket, raised his stump of an arm. ‘I don’t think I could survive any more adventure,’ he said.
She looked again at his injuries. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said. ‘You’re happy, though, to be a poor peasant, for the rest of your life? With a poor peasant wife, who used to be a samurai?’
‘Well,’ said Taro. ‘Not exactly. I need to talk to you about that.’
‘About what?’
‘It can wait a moment. First things first. Didn’t you just propose to me?’
She frowned. ‘What? No.’
‘You did. You called yourself my poor peasant wife.’
‘Oh no— I was talking about someone else— some other woman—’
‘I was surprised to hear your proposal,’ he said. ‘Because you did tell me that you never wanted to marry a daimyo. You were very specific about it.’
‘Well, yes. But that was my father’s dream. It’s not likely to come about now.’
He smiled. ‘You might be surprised,’ he said. He handed her a scroll, which she unrolled. He watched as she scanned the kanji characters.
‘You’re— but you said you didn’t win the prize... I mean, this is just unbelievable, it’s—’
He cut her off by kissing her. He thought she might push him away, or punch him playfully.
She didn’t.
She melted into his arms, and he knew he really was home.
She pulled away finally.
‘It’s strange,’ she said. ‘I was so angry with you. I really hated you. But then, two weeks ago, it just went. And all that was left was the memory of you saving me, the thought of our time together. If the dragon had killed you, it would have broken my heart.’
Taro smiled. The curse really was lifted. He had passed it on, to his father. For an instant he wondered if he should feel guilty about that. No. If anyone deserved to lose the one thing that made them happy, it was Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu.
‘Just to be clear,’ he said. ‘You will marry me?’
She did punch him playfully then. ‘Of course I will.’
They went into his mother’s hut, and before the door was even closed their hands found each other. They performed a trick, then, a sort of meditation or accomplishment of enlightenment; they made the rest of the world fall away from around them, Shirahama, the sea, the cedar trees and the wind, all disintegrating to leave nothing at all in all the realms of samsara but these three things: them, their bodies, their love.
And he bit her, yes, he bit her.
But she bit him, too.
CHAPTER 55
The Palace of Long Life, Edo
Ten years later
EMPEROR TOKUGAWA IEYASU leaned back and closed his eyes. Another interminable session on the throne, listening to the petty grievances and pointless disputes of the peasantry. He got up and beckoned for Jun to come with him, for a private conferral. Good old Jun. The boy was loyal, he had to give him that. Well, loyal in that he would stay with Emperor Tokugawa until someone more powerful came along, and Emperor Tokugawa could understand that. He respected it, even.
He longed for a battle, but by now the whole country had been subdued, all its daimyo brought under his control. Taro among them, of course – and in this way Emperor Tokugawa saw his son relatively frequently, the boy coming to Edo for ceremonial events, discussions of outside threats, what to do about Christianity, whether to let it spread or cut it out like a canker; that kind of thing.
Not that Taro appeared to consider himself still Lord Tokugawa’s son, and really, who could blame him? He never stayed, after a recital of the sutras, or whatever it was he had come to the capital to attend. He and Hana, his wife, would bow just as low as convention required, to an emperor, and they would smile, but there was nothing behind those smiles. They paid the exact amount of respect that was required – just as they paid the rice taxes for their provinces – and then they left.
Well.
Emperor Tokugawa had ordered the boy killed, after all. He could hardly blame Taro for not loving him as a father.
And he had Jun. He would always have Jun. Not a son, maybe, not even a friend, when it came to it – but an ally, a confidant.
Until someone more powerful came along.
Cursing, he drew his katana and slashed the tapestry hanging in the corridor he was walking down. Curse it all. He had tamed the wild monks of Monto; he had orchestrated the death of Lord Oda and the absorption of all his land and men; he had engineered, in a plan that took nearly twenty years to come to fruition, the seizure of the entire country.
But he had lost his son in the process.
Not only that, he was slowly starting to realize, but he had lost the plotting in the process. The problem with scheming for years to take power was that once you had taken power, there was no more scheming to be done, not really. There was low-level stuff, of course – the kind of thing he was soon to speak to Jun about. Intrigues and manipulations that were necessary to keep his grip on the daimyo. Occasionally some jumped-up lord would decide that it was wise to conceal a gold mine on his land, or divert taxes to the building of an unlicensed castle. One of the first things Emperor Tokugawa had done was to demolish any castles that could be used for military purposes. That, and force the eldest son of every samurai family to come into his service.
Yes, there were things to be done. But none of them gave him the satisfaction, the thrill, of the plan that had brought him here in the first place.
And then, apart from those rare games, the rest of the time was spent in the terribly dull business of making the country work better. In Edo he was celebrated not as the hero who had rid the country of illicit rule by pretenders, the bearer of the legendary sword Kusanagi, but as the man who had introduced bell towers, regularly spaced around the city, to warn in case of fire. Five times in as many years Edo had been levelled by fire before Lord Tokugawa’s time – now it had not burned at all in ten.
In this way, his re
putation had slowly become that of a sensible, intelligent, just ruler, if a little prone to extravagant displays of his own power. It was enough to make him sick. Had he tortured and executed his peasants, for no real reason other than pleasure, as Oda had? Had he made them starve, as the shogun had, by raising exorbitant taxes on rice?
No.
And yet they would never love him.
He thought of Taro. Lord Shirahama no Taro, as he was now called. Somehow – though Taro swore he had never spoken of it – rumours had spread quickly that it was Taro who’d killed the dragon, Taro who had recovered Kusanagi from the sea, where it had been lost with the last Heike emperor.
And so in this way, at the same time, Taro’s reputation had grown to be that of a hero, pride of the nation, young and humble – a symbol, with his cursed insistence on living in that fishing hut with his beautiful wife and their beautiful children, of the resilience and simplicity and tranquillity that the Japanese seemed to think was their national character, despite it having been Emperor Tokugawa’s experience that they needed only the faintest of pretexts to slaughter one another in the name of grasping a little more land, a little more influence.
Taro?
He, they loved. He who had given up everything – he had been rewarded with the love of Lady Hana, the love of the country. Emperor Tokugawa had never even spoken to the children, his grandchildren – usually Taro and Hana left them in Shirahama, and when they were brought to Edo, they were kept away from him. As if he might infect them with his coldness. Which was probably true, now he came to think of it. Hadn’t he turned away everyone who had ever loved him? The prophetess, Taro? Even Shusaku, in the end – he had betrayed the man’s memory by lying to Taro about him, just so that Taro would be unbalanced, just so that the fight would go out of the boy.
Curse them. Curse Taro. Curse everyone.
He came to a wooden door, opened it. His vision was a little blurred, and he had to blink to clear it.
Inside, Jun was already sitting at a map that was spread out on the desk, drawn in the Dutch style. Emperor Tokugawa had confined the Dutch to an island just off the coast at Nagasaki, not allowing them onto the hallowed soil of Japan. Not because he particularly cared about that hallowed soil, or its supposed defilement by the foreigners – he thought their diet disgusting, but in most respects they were just as base and greedy and weak as the Japanese, no more so – but because he didn’t want any of the daimyo learning of their advances in war, medicine or science, lest they use them against him.
