Firefly

by India Millar

  I had no concept of how much time passed; time had ceased to have any meaning for me. The intense pleasure of my yonaki had given way to a glow that seemed to inhabit my whole body. I had no wish to move, for fear I might disturb it.

  “Mistress.” Yo spoke softly.

  I smiled and lay my head on his shoulder. “Master.” We were truly equal, and it delighted me.

  We were silent again, everything that needed to be said between us done. Finally, my thoughts became my own again and I stretched and sighed.

  “I must go home. See Isamu and explain things to him. I hope he’ll understand. I would have liked to have said goodbye to Emiko, but I can’t do that. How long has she been gone?” I felt intensely guilty that this was the first time I had thought of my sister since I had been captured in the Floating World. I comforted myself with the thought that she would not have spared a thought for me.

  “She must have married Soji-san very soon after Hana took you.”

  My thoughts were bitter. All I had suffered had been needless. If I had known, I could have laughed in Hana’s face and found a way to break free. Yo seemed to read my face.

  “You didn’t know. Hana made sure of that. But nothing ever happens without reason. You are stronger, more certain of yourself now than you were before she took you. You’ve survived the worst that fate could throw at you. Nothing can ever hurt you again like she tried to do.”

  I thought, You’re wrong, Yo. You could hurt me. But different words came from my lips.

  “No. I couldn’t have known. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll leave at first light. If I dress as a noblewoman and ride a decent horse, I can’t imagine that even Hana would dare try and stop me, even if she recognized me. Will you wait here for me?”

  I expected Yo to argue, to insist that he had to go with me, to keep me safe, but his words took me by surprise.

  “I understand that you feel you have to go alone. But be careful. I’ve heard that there has been a great deal of unrest amongst the peasants this summer. The weather’s been too hot, and there hasn’t been enough rain. Many villages are starving where the crops have failed entirely.”

  “I heard about that before I came back to the Floating World. Why should it bother me? The worse that can happen is that I get pestered for alms. No peasant ever born would dare attack a samurai woman, even if she was on her own.”

  Yo shook his head and took my hand, squeezing my fingers as if to emphasize what he was saying.

  “You’ve changed, Keiko-chan. You’re no longer the innocent girl that I first met. And the world is changing around you. There are those men who tell the peasants that they are as good as anybody else. And they listen and look at the rich men and wonder why they have food on their tables. Why their babies are not dying because their mothers have milk to give them.”

  He sounded so concerned, I almost gave in and asked him to come with me. A passing memory of me telling my maid that we had no need to be worried, that Father would make sure our villagers had enough rice, came back to me. Had he shown them charity, I wondered. Or had he simply shrugged and turned away when they had no money to meet his price? My back prickled with unease. I pushed the sensation away and smiled.

  “I’ll be watchful,” I promised. And at the same moment, I promised myself that before I left Isamu, I would ask him if our own villagers were hungry. And if they were, I would make him promise to speak to Father, to persuade him to open our rice stores for the peasants. He would do that, I was sure. They depended on us; the code of bushido was clear. We must take care of our own.

  Still, I felt a flash of anger for those men who were lying to the peasants. There was no need; we had all lived lives in the past, we all had lives to live in the future. Who knew? In my next incarnation, it might be me who had an empty belly, and one of our villagers who threw me scraps from his table. That was the way it was. One’s fate was decided even before birth. To fight against it was futile.

  I dressed in the kimono and obi Yo provided for me. Being Jun had been amusing, but it felt so very good to be in my own skin again. Yo escorted me to the gate and helped me mount a horse that I had never seen before. I wondered what has happened to my nice, docile mare and then glanced at Yo’s face and decided not to ask. Perhaps I might find her at home, waiting for me. I hoped so, even as I knew I was wishing in vain.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I possibly can.” I smiled down at Yo, wickedly amused that my extra height on horseback gave me the advantage.

  “I’ll wait until the mid-day meal tomorrow. If you’re not back by then, I’ll come for you.”

  “Stop worrying.” I flicked my reins, anxious to be off. “I’m going home. Isamu will be furious with me. Apart from that, what’s going to happen to me?”

  I was still smiling, secretly delighted with Yo’s concern for me, as I urged my horse to a trot and passed over the dry moat of the Floating World.

  Twenty-Nine

  The single petal

  That falls from the rose to your

  Hand lays like life’s blood

  Something should have prepared me. Some instinctual sense of unease should have made me silent and wary as I approached my home. As it was, I sang most of the way, only stopping when my throat became dry. I stopped once to allow my horse to take water from the stream—a tributary of the much wider river—that marked the boundary of our land. It was even lower than I had expected; my mount had to nose water from the bare trickle that ran grudgingly between pebbles. When he raised his head, his muzzle was sandy rather than wet. I nodded to myself. No matter how angry Isamu was with me, I would speak to him about our villagers. If Father hadn’t yet opened his rice stores to them, I would tell Isamu that he must. I would tell Isamu what Father had to do? I giggled to myself. Truly, Yo had been right when he said I had changed.

  I tried to jog my mount into a trot as my home came into view. He hesitated, shaking his head and standing his ground. I gave him a kick and shook the reins fiercely. I felt his reluctance and began to worry.

  Something was not right. A high wall shielded the house and garden; I could just make out the roof of the house peeking over it. There was one high gate set in the wall—easily wide enough for two horses to pass through, side by side. This gate was always closed. Today, it was not only open, but each gate was flung wide. They were not latched back neatly to the wall, but hanging at odd angles as if they had been thrown apart and simply left. My fingers gripped my reins tighter. I paused outside the gate and called out. When nobody replied, I called again.

  Wrong. All wrong. A man should have been stationed at the gate. He was there day and night. There should have been a couple of servants in the garden, raking the gravel and plucking weeds from it, picking up any fallen blossoms and leaves. My thoughts skittered warily as I listened to the silence.

  I slid off my horse and tied the reins to the great door knocker on the gate then walked into the garden as silent as a shadow. My glance darted from side to side. I had no idea what had happened here, but I was alert for any challenge. Yo had insisted I take a dagger with me, which I had tucked into my sleeve. I slid it down, ready to flick it into my hand if I needed it.

  “Hello?” I waited for somebody to answer. Nothing. The main house shoji was open, and I walked forward cautiously. I knew the house was as empty as the garden as soon as I walked in. There was no scent of cooking, even though it was near the time for the mid-day meal. No servant scurried to greet me. I walked into Isamu’s apartment unchallenged and stared around bewildered. He had been here. A book was discarded on the floor. His futon was made, but the kakebuton lay ruffled, as though it had been caught by a hasty foot. I called his name and listened to the echoes.

  I was shaking—less with fear than worry—as I moved to Father’s apartment. Long habit made me pause outside the door and call my name out humbly. It was only when I was met with silence that I pushed the door aside and looked in. The outer room was empty, as was Father’s bedroom. Knowing it was poin
tless, I glanced into his bathhouse and caught my breath. The bath was filled constantly by a trickle from a hot spring that ran nearby. It should have been full and steaming. I stared in disbelief as I saw the water level was far below what it usually was and that there was no steam rising from the surface. This could not be! The hot spring outlet must have been closed. Unable to believe my own senses, I kneeled and dabbled my fingers in the water. Cold enough to make me shiver.

  Suddenly, my body was filled with urgency. I almost ran from the bathhouse, shouting wordlessly. Only echoes came back to me until I went outside to the stables. There were no horses in there, but I was greeted by a volley of barks. Matsuo! It had to be.

  He had been closed into the feed room and the door latched behind him. I jerked the door open and he almost fell out, whining and winding around my legs. I went down on my knees and let him lick my face. I patted him all over his body, looking for wounds, but there was nothing. Had Isamu left him here to keep him safe? And if he had, safe from what? Yet another uncertainty on this strangest of mornings.

  “Matsuo! Good boy.” I patted his shoulder and he panted at me, finally lying down and laying his head on his paws. “What happened? Where is everybody? What are you doing locked in there? Ah, if only the gods could make you speak!”

  Matsuo wagged his tail at me and then jumped up. He glanced at me and moved to the stable door, clearly waiting for me to follow him. I rose quickly, cursing my own stupidity. Matsuo had no need of words. All I had to do was follow him.

  He moved so quickly, I had difficulty in keeping up with him and had to call to him to wait. Each time, I sensed he was becoming more impatient. He whined, deep in his throat, and moved off even before I had reached his side. I followed him out of the garden and through the peach orchard. Absently, I noticed that the peaches—which had been still green and small when I left for the Floating World—had been harvested. Not one remained. One more small oddity to add to the tally; the trees were carefully pruned and situated to ensure that not all of the fruit ripened together. Usually, the peaches were picked from each tree in turn to ensure a supply of fruit for as long as possible.

  Any thought of peaches fled as we passed through the wicker gate that led out of the orchard. A man lay face down on the ground. A gardener, to judge by his clothes. His body had the stillness of death. Suddenly, I found it difficult to breathe. Matsuo sniffed briefly at the corpse, then whined and trotted onward. I followed, understanding finally that I had no choice.

  There were other bodies. Two more gardeners. A groom—I recognized him as he had fallen face upward. A little further on, the clumsy night-watchman. Three guards strung out in a row, their empty hands clenched as if their swords were still there. Next to them, more bodies. These I did not recognize, but to judge from their poor dress, these were—or had been—villagers. I looked away, distressed and bewildered in equal measure. Had some marauding pack of bandits attacked my home, made bold by need? Could there have been so many of them that Father or Isamu had called upon the villagers to help? Ah, poor souls. If that were so, they had died for us, just as they had served us in life. Matsuo slowed and turned back me, as if asking my permission to carry on. I swallowed bile and nodded.

  I am onna-bugeisha, I told myself, stressing each word. Tears stung my eyes and I understood with a bitterness that surprised me what the words actually meant. I had never seen death before. Never smelled the stink of blood and shit that lingered on bodies from which life had been ejected suddenly and violently. For all my training, for all the arts of war I had learned, I had had no real idea what battle meant. It had amused me to pretend to be a warrior woman of the samurai. Now, I no longer found it so entertaining.

  Now I understood what being onna-bugeisha truly meant. And it made me tremble. I did not want this. I wanted no part of this destruction of all that was dear to me. I wanted to be a girl again. Yet my mind refused to listen to me.

  “I am onna-bugeisha.” I realized I was saying the words out loud and shook my head fiercely. A fat black fly flew away from me at the gesture and landed on a gardener’s body. I looked away, watching the ground at my feet.

  “I am onna-bugeisha.” I blinked the tears away and called to Matsuo, telling him to come to me. I could do nothing here. We would go back to the house. I would get on my horse and ride as quickly as I could force him to move, back to the Floating World. To Yo, who had seen death many times and would know what to do. That was surely the correct thing to do.

  Even Matsuo knew that I was lying to myself, and he would not come to me. Instead, he walked forward, almost delicately. He passed from my view down to the dip that led to the river, and I heard him howling.

  “Matsuo, come here.” Less a command than a plea. He whined again. I wanted to walk away from him. Leave him here with the dead and get back on my horse and go back and let Yo deal with this terror.

  But I had come so far, I would not allow myself to take the coward’s way out. I began to walk forward, not quite steadily. I slid down the riverbank, the earth crumbling beneath me. There was no water in the riverbed…but there was blood. Not enough to flow like current, but great pools of it. I noticed with a clinical coldness that seemed to come from somewhere outside myself that it was beginning to congeal. The night had been quite cool for the season. I calculated that the fight had taken place yesterday, probably late in the evening. A great cloud of the hideous black blowflies rose as I approached. I walked through them as carelessly as if they were the sweetest rain.

  While I had been pleasuring myself in the bath with Yo, my family and our servants had been slaughtered like so many animals. I didn’t count, but it seemed to me that there were dozens of bodies strewn carelessly on the dry riverbed. More of our servants. Still more guards. Villagers. More villagers than anything else. Some of them had scythes clutched in their hands. Others held nata, the all-purpose tools used for cutting and hacking. A few had picks. Some were empty-handed, their fists clenched into the only weapon they had possessed in life. All were facing inward, as if even in death they were worshipping the two armored bodies that lay where they had finally fallen at the opposite side of the riverbank.

  Father. Isamu. I had seen their elaborate suits of samurai armor too many times to hope I was wrong. They lay side by side, and I could read the battle in the way they had fallen. They had fought to the last, giving way stride by stride. Finally, they had fought back to back. Their swords—both the long katana and the shorter wakizashi sidearms—were still clutched in their hands. I sank to my knees and pushed Isamu’s elaborate visor away from his face. It seemed important that I should understand how they had died. On both men, the armor was battered and dented in places, but still whole.

  The stink of blood and bowels evacuated at the moment of death was all around me. I breathed lightly through my mouth, retching as one of the disgusting blowflies tried to crawl between my lips. I turned Isamu’s head gently to face me, as if he could still feel pain, and I saw at once how he had been overcome. His menpo—the iron face mask—covered only the upper part of his face, leaving his mouth and nostrils uncovered so he could breathe more easily. There was a ragged hole in his face, just beneath the lower edge of the menpo. I stood wearily and moved to Father’s body. Just as was the case with Isamu, his menpo had been pierced. In his case, there were round indents in other parts of the mask where iron balls had struck and bounced off.

  The arquebuses that Isamu had sneered at had killed both my father and my brother. I moved back to Isamu, absently treading on a villager’s hand. I apologized silently to his spirit.

  I had been wrong. It was obvious to me now. No marauding bandit gang had destroyed my family. Driven by a desperation I could not comprehend, the peasants from the nearest village had gotten ahold of one or more arquebuses. Far from dying trying to defend my family, it was our own villagers who had killed my family.

  I sat quietly, Matsuo at my side. My father and my brother had died as they would have wished, side by side
in battle. Pride at the manner of their death rose in a hot flood in my breast. My gaze moved to the bodies of the fallen villagers and I cried out loud. They were so very thin. Even their elbows were sharp. One had fallen on his back, his robe flung aside. I could count each rib that had been exposed. Ah, Father! If only you had been able to put aside your greed and open your rice stores for these people who were under your protection. Not quite family, no. But they were part of us. Still, they should have been governed by the code of bushido.

  Sorrow for the villagers who had been driven by such hunger and despair I could not even begin to imagine it piled on to the searing pain of my menfolk’s death. Anguish finally overcame me. I wept in pity for the hopeless villagers with almost as much grief as I felt for my own father and brother.

  A shadow swept overhead, circling lower and lower. A spasm of revulsion made me snarl. Monk vultures, gathering to pick at the dead. I gripped my dagger. They would not find these bodies easy prey. Still less me.

  I was wrong. A huge bird winged down. It landed beside Father, and through my bleary eyes, I watched as it threw its head back and cawed with what sounded like pain. I held my hand out and Soru, the golden eagle I had stolen from its nest, hopped across to me. Suddenly, I was drained of all feeling. Exhaustion slipped through my body. I was no longer hungry or thirsty. The gods were merciful to me, and even the fires of grief burned to low embers.

  There was a water-smoothed stone near me. I slid down and placed my head on it. Matsuo moved at once and lay down full length against me. I heard the rumble of his sorrow from deep in his belly and managed to stroke his head, although the effort left me weary. An unexpected softness brushed my face, blanking out the light. The riverbed was hard. The stone beneath my head harder still.