by Lian Hearn
At first she found it hard to believe him and then she was alarmed. Was Masachika really thinking of betraying Aritomo, of taking his place? It seemed impossible that the Emperor and his mother would have such a scheme in mind and would suggest it to him. She felt he must have misunderstood, was endangering himself and her.
“Lady Natsue herself sent for me,” Masachika said.
“What was … he … like?” she said, hardly daring even to speak of him.
“I did not set eyes on him. He remained behind the blinds. It seems he wanted to see me, to see for himself what kind of man I am.”
“Who else was there?” Tama asked. “I imagine he would be surrounded by attendants, and some of them, at least, must keep Aritomo informed of everything the Imperial Household says and does. I hope you were discreet.”
“Well, you know I am often beset by complaints from the Household. I was simply investigating one of them. My conversation with Lady Natsue was so veiled as to be barely comprehensible. To the Emperor, I said little beyond platitudes, to which he responded with a few lines of verse. He is quite a good poet, they say. His mother intimated that I might correspond with them in this way. Both of them are known to love poetry.”
“But you know nothing about poetry,” she exclaimed. “Have you ever written a poem?”
“One or two, in my youth. I thought you could do it for me.”
“You still need me for some things, then?” she replied, both pleased and angered.
“I need you for everything,” he said. “You know I am nothing without you.”
“Then send the girl away.”
“Is that what’s bothering you? You can’t think she is a rival in my affection for you?”
“You seem overfond of her,” Tama said, embarrassed to admit her jealousy.
“I don’t care for her at all. I will send her away, immediately after the hunt is over. She and the acrobats can go back to where they came from. We will give Lord Aritomo the finest days of his life, and if they turn out to be his last ones … everyone knows how sick he is even though no one admits it.”
She stared at him coolly.
“Look what you have achieved here,” he said. “Imagine what you could do with an entire country.”
He knew exactly how to tempt her. “If we are to undertake this endeavor we must trust each other completely,” Tama said. “No secrets, no lies must ever be between us.”
“I hide nothing from you,” he said, moving closer to embrace her.
“I love you, Masachika,” she said. “I always have, even when I was married to your brother. But I will never forgive you if you lie to me. Let’s go and swear by Sesshin’s eyes that we will always be true to each other.”
“We will,” Masachika promised. “But first I must tell you another secret.”
She pulled away from him a little, staring into his eyes. “A good secret or a bad one?”
“I don’t know yet. I believe Kiyoyori’s daughter is alive.”
“Hina? It can’t be true! You yourself told me she drowned.”
“I am sure she is the woman I was sent to investigate in Aomizu—the one who was accused of poisoning Lady Fuji.”
“I always feared that girl would end up poisoning someone, with all the potions and ointments she used to concoct,” Tama said. The news that Hina might have been alive all these years disturbed her. Memories of her stepdaughter returned suddenly, assailing her with their clarity: the girl’s pale, serious face; the eyes that lit up only for her father; the manuscripts she was always trying to decipher; her undeniable beauty.
“It is another reason Asagao has come with me. She and Hina, whom she knew as Yayoi, were close friends. I am hoping I can track Hina down through her. If it is true that Yoshimori is still alive, Hina must know where he is. She poisoned Fuji to silence her and has gone to warn Yoshimori. I am going to find her once the hunt is over and bring them both either to Lord Aritomo or to the Empress, whoever offers the greater reward.”
Asagao! Now that she knew the girl musician’s name, Tama disliked her even more. But if she was only a pawn in this greater plan she could tolerate her.
* * *
The eyes lay in their carved recess in the west gate, as bright as the day when they had been torn from Sesshin’s head. For years they had watched over Matsutani as their owner had promised. The guardian spirits that had occupied the house and caused chaos and destruction after the earthquake had remained in the gateposts all that time. Tama visited them daily, bringing offerings of flowers, fruit, and rice cakes. In the summer she brought ice to cool them and in the winter lit fires in braziers and wrapped the posts in straw to keep them warm. On this hot afternoon, in early autumn, she brought the first persimmons of the season, their orange waxy skin smooth beneath her fingers, and branches of purple bush clover. Masachika carried a flask of rice wine and two bowls, for the spirits liked to share a drink with whoever visited them. No one ever saw them, but the bowls emptied mysteriously, between one moment and the next.
She thought Masachika looked uneasy and it troubled her further. They both knew the power of the eyes. They had wept together before them on more than one occasion. The spirits had not misbehaved for years, but then they had had no cause. She was under no illusion that they would not recognize falsehood.
Tama’s attendant had brought a mat, which she spread in the gateway. The entrance was paved with flat river stones, powdered with the dust that blew everywhere in the hot, dry wind. It covered their clothes and stung their eyes and throats.
Husband and wife knelt side by side. Tama divided her offerings and placed them equally before each gatepost. Masachika filled the wine bowls and they both drank. Then he refilled them and offered them to the spirits. Tama watched him carefully. He performed all his actions flawlessly, but he kept his head lowered as though he did not want to meet the gaze of the eyes.
She said in a low voice, “Master Sesshin, I mistreated you badly. I shall never cease to regret my rash action. I ask you to forgive me.” Her face, which was turned upward, was streaked with tears.
“Hidarisama, Migisama,” she went on. “I thank you for your diligence and devotion in protecting our home. Please always continue to do so. In your presence, I swear that I will always be true to my husband and I will support him in everything he does.”
Masachika was silent for a few moments, making her fear he was going to refuse to speak, but eventually he said quietly but firmly, “I thank you for the protection you have given this place for years. I hope we will see no disturbances from you while Lord Aritomo is here. I think you know my devotion to my wife and I swear I will never betray her.”
Yet despite his steady voice Tama was aware of his inner conflict. His fists were clenched, sweat formed on his brow. She could do nothing but pray with all her heart that he was sincere. She was about to stand when a voice came from the left gatepost.
“Is it Matsutani lady?”
“Yes, with our offerings. Let’s drink,” the other spirit responded.
“Wait a moment. Who is with her?”
“Matsutani lord, so-called.”
Tama whispered, “It’s years since they have been heard. What can it mean?”
“It must be a special day,” Masachika replied with forced light-heartedness. “It’s a good omen. They are not saying anything bad, they are just recognizing us.”
There was a faint burst of mocking laughter.
“But what if they misbehave while Lord Aritomo is here?” Tama stood, and led him away from the gateway. She stopped and studied his face with her intense gaze.
“They will behave themselves,” Masachika replied. “What reason can they have not to? The eyes are in place. We are their masters now. They must obey us.”
Tama had been whispering, but Masachika spoke more loudly. A bee came buzzing between them, making him flinch. It must have been attracted by the clover blossoms, Tama thought, and watched as it settled on one of them. It was an ordin
ary bee, nothing supernatural. Yet she feared it might be a sign.
“I am just going to speak to the musician for a moment,” Masachika said as they walked toward the house.
Tama stopped and stared at him. Before she could speak he said hurriedly, “Don’t misunderstand me. I need to send for the acrobats; she will know where they are.”
Tama watched with fury as he strode swiftly to the pavilion on the lake. When she turned back to the gate, the wine bowls were still full. She went back to check once or twice during the rest of the day, but the spirits would not drink.
8
MU
“Before you set out to find Shikanoko,” Kiku said to Mu. “I have something to show you. I’m going to give you a little demonstration of how I’ve used the powers you and I have, to build our empire.”
“And me,” Kuro put in. “I have powers, too!”
“You do, my dear brother, ones of your own that are very useful.” He looked from one brother to the other and smiled. “Kuro’s children have inherited his talents and so have mine.”
It was early evening, a few days after Mu had arrived in Kitakami. He was already preparing to leave again and had expected to have an early night to be on the road by dawn. Now it seemed Kiku had other plans. Mu was curious to see what he had in mind, but Kiku seemed content to sit and talk.
“Kinpoge, your daughter, is very skilled, too. I’ve already seen proof of that. Of course, her mother was a fox woman and had magic powers of her own. I’m sorry, I don’t want to wound you by bringing up the past, but I feel it has given her something special, superior even to my eldest son, Juntaro. I propose they marry and we will see how their offspring turn out.”
“Kinpoge is too young to marry,” Mu said.
“She will soon be old enough,” Kiku replied. “We are five brothers, not like anyone else. We must establish our five families, and arrange our children’s marriages carefully, to preserve what we have been given. After the first generation, we will not mingle our blood with that of outsiders, unless there are sound reasons of policy. We must maintain our tribe.”
Mu had noticed how often Kiku used this word, tribe. It amused him, but he liked it, too. He liked the feeling of belonging to a family and had no compunction in leaving Kinpoge here. He felt her future would be secure among people like her. Far better for her to marry Juntaro, when they were old enough, than to yearn for Take.
“I’ve no objections,” he said, “but give her time to settle in before you mention the idea.”
“They may not have much time,” Kiku said. “We don’t know how long their lives will be. Look how quickly we have grown and how fast we are aging.”
Mu looked at his brother and saw the image of himself: the fine lines appearing on the skin, the gray hair at the temples. They had matured as fast as insects and now frailty was coming on them as swiftly. How brief a lifetime was!
Kiku was studying him. “How about you? Did you ever take another woman? There are plenty here if you feel inclined.”
Mu made no response, but Kiku’s words and the talk of marriage had awakened something within him. Here, among families and children, he realized how lonely he had been, and how much lonelier he would be if Kinpoge left him. Since he would rather die than let Kiku find him a wife, he would have to find one himself. He had not considered such things for years, but now the idea did not seem displeasing. However, he changed the subject. “What do you propose to show me?”
Kiku shook his head slightly and grinned, as though he knew all that Mu had been thinking, but he did not comment. He said, “There is a merchant who has tried to compete with me for some time. His name is Unagi. Chika was employed by him, but Unagi became suspicious of him after a death in Aomizu. A pleasure woman, who was obstructing my wishes in several ways, died. One of the girls was suspected of murdering her and ran away. Unagi fancied she was special to him and wants to find her, prove her innocence, and marry her. He insulted Chika, accused him of lying, and dismissed him.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Stop his meddling, once and for all,” Kiku said, smiling even more widely. “In fact, I will be dealing with several problems at once. I will rid myself of a rival, Chika will have some very pleasant moments of revenge, and our sister will be spared becoming the wife of a merchant.”
“Our sister?” Mu said, not understanding.
“The woman who fled, who everyone knew as Yayoi, is Lord Kiyoyori’s daughter, Hina. She has gone into the Darkwood to find Shikanoko. You are aware Kiyoyori was one of our fathers? Chika was acquainted with the lady when they were children. To tell you a secret, I believe he has feelings for her. Doesn’t he deserve to have her? He will marry no one else and I don’t like to see him lonely.”
Mu stared at Kiku without saying anything. He had not expected to be going out to commit an assassination. It seemed like an unnecessary distraction from his more important mission. Despite the tengu’s training and the sword he had been given he was yet to kill anyone. He was puzzled by his brother’s words and felt there was much Kiku was keeping from him. He calmed his breath and emptied his mind in order to perceive the truth of the situation. Was Hina the woman who loved Shikanoko and would be able to remove the mask? Did both Kiku and Chika know this?
He had thought Kiku was going to show him the skull and demonstrate its power. He wondered where Kiku kept the sacred object that had been taken at such great cost and made powerful at a greater one to him, death, pain, betrayal, and loss all bound into it, along with ecstasy and lust. He realized he was longing to set eyes on it and dared to say, “Will you show me Gessho’s skull?”
Kiku stared at him. “If you like. I thought you might not want to see it, that it might arouse painful memories, even though we have put all that behind us. Come, follow me. I’ll prove to you that I have no secrets from you, that everything I have is yours.”
He pulled aside the wall hangings, nodded to the two warriors who were on guard behind them, and pressed a carved boss that opened a sliding door. Stairs led down the outside of the fortress, fastened into the rock face on which it was built.
“Be careful,” Kiku said. “The spray makes the steps slippery.”
Below them the sea surged, gray, green, and white. The wind was numbingly cold even though it was not yet winter.
At the bottom of the steps a wooden grille, reinforced with iron, covered the entrance to a cellar. In the shelter of the rock Mu heard Kiku whistling through his teeth, and as if at a signal the grille was lifted aside by two more of the crippled warriors. He followed his brother inside.
Once they had moved away from the entrance it became very dark, but Kiku like Mu had the vision of a cat, and went forward without hesitating.
Following him, Mu became aware of some force that was pulling him toward itself. He stopped for a moment, to see if he could resist it. He felt he could, but he did not want to. It was both a physical attraction and a seductive, emotional one, offering everything he had ever wanted, unlimited power to exercise his will.
“Don’t worry,” Kiku said. “I won’t let it absorb you.”
It was a strange choice of words, but aptly described his misgivings.
“You feel its power?” Kiku asked. “You will be able to see it soon, for it shines, day and night.”
No sooner had he spoken than Mu saw the glow in front of them, and then he saw the shape of the skull, the gem eyes, the mother-of-pearl teeth. For a moment he was transported back in time to when he had last seen it, and he felt again in his limbs the excruciating pain, and in his heart the immense sorrow. Then he recalled the tengu’s teaching and made his will firm against the skull’s power and felt it surrender and recede.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Kiku murmured. “That is why it needed the beauty of a woman in its making, as did Shikanoko’s mask.”
Mu looked at it and saw its beauty, dispassionately, and remembered he had loved Shida.
The skull floated upward
as Kiku lifted it.
“How is it used?” Mu said.
“It is not used. It just is. Its power flows through me and into everything I do. Gessho must have been an extraordinary man. Only the mask comes close to this in power.” Kiku’s voice was reverent. “I have often wondered which would be the stronger.”
He placed his lips on the cinnabar lips of the skull and stayed without moving or speaking for several minutes. The skull’s glow pulsed slowly, lighting Kiku’s rapt face.
“It nourishes me,” he said, as he lowered it. “Every day it makes me stronger.”
When they returned to the steps the wind had increased to a howl and they did not speak until they were inside again.
“You can tell Shika about the skull,” Kiku said then, pouring a bowl of wine and handing it to Mu.
“You think he will be impressed?” Mu said, with a trace of sarcasm.
Kiku flushed slightly. “I want him to be with us. Maybe I want him to be free.”
Mu was thinking about the tengu’s words. The mask would be removed by a woman who truly loved Shikanoko. But if that woman was Hina, why did Kiku speak as if she was his to bestow on Chika?
He knew where Hina was—in the Darkwood not far from where the brothers had been born. Kinpoge had taken his message about Take to her. But should he tell Chika and his brother this? Kiku might have any number of motives for bringing Shikanoko back from the Darkwood—wanting to impress him, wanting to free him, wanting him at the head of his army—but to Mu the most obvious one was that he wanted to get his hands on the mask and its power.
* * *
“It’s been a long time since I’ve done this myself,” Kiku confessed, as they prepared for the night attack. “I’ve missed it. I usually dispatch Kuro, who has become a supreme assassin. He doesn’t have many feelings, which is a help. Follow my lead. Whatever I do, do it, too.”
They dressed in leggings and close-fitting tops of tightly woven hemp, dyed dark indigo, wrapped cloths of the same color around their faces so only their eyes were exposed, and took up various tools and weapons, leather garrottes, flasks of poison, thin sharp knives. Mu carried the sword the tengu had given him, and Chika also brought his sword.
