He walked over and picked up another bar of silver. “Remove this, and you remove the thing that draws him. He’ll be pulled back to gaki-do, and your crops and livelihoods will be saved. Leave the silver here, and you’ll never be free of him.”
He put the bars back on the pile. “And this silver will pay all of your back taxes, and possibly even buy you exemption for a year or two, so that you can all set some of your next harvests aside, to carry you over in the event of another poor harvest. Ah, Bunya-san,” he said, seeing the headman approaching. “I believe your harvest problems are over.”
“Yep,” Hideki said. “There he goes.”
“There who goes?” Bunya said.
“Where?” Satoshi turned from Bunya to Hideki. His friend looked almost squat, leaning against a post from the disassembled privy. He really has put on weight, Satoshi thought. Hideki was looking out into the fields across the river from the tavern; when Satoshi followed his friend’s gaze, he caught a brief glimpse of something red, fading into the mid-day haze. He had, he realized, seen stringy red hair as it disappeared from the world of men. “That was him,” he said. “The gaki. Returning to gaki-do?”
“Yes.” Hideki sighed. “A pity. I was beginning to like it here.”
“Thank heavens it was only a gaki.” Bunya turned to Satoshi, a look of relief on his face. Then he realized the full import of what he had said. Falling to the ground he said, “Please accept my apology, lord. I did not mean to withhold information from you. And I should have guessed that what was haunting us was a hungry ghost. I am — unworthy of your trust. I know what I must do.”
“You will not.” Satoshi gestured to him to get up. “You are forbidden to take your life. You have not in any way failed to serve your lord, Bunya. Suicide is out of the question.” Satoshi pointed to the silver. “You do have one more service to perform, though. This silver now belongs to Hirota Masahiro, in payment of this han’s outstanding taxes. Please see that it is all securely packed. When we leave you will arrange it on our draft animals. Until then, you are responsible for its safety.”
“Yes, lord!” Bunya scrambled to his feet, the scabbards of his two swords knocking together as he rose. “Thank you, lord!” He began grabbing silver, handing bars to a farmer until the man staggered under the weight, then moving to the next man, until all of the silver was on its way to his house.
“I wonder,” said Goro as the last of the farmers left the yard behind his shop, “which of us was supposed to get that silver.”
“None of you,” Hideki said. “Misers don’t think that way. They truly believe that they’ll be able to take it with them. The man intended the silver for himself, and himself alone.”
“At least he did us some good, in the end,” Goro said. “Lords, my stock is entirely at your disposal. I have sake warming already, and shochu if you want more immediate warmth.”
“A farewell drink sounds like an excellent idea,” Hideki said. “One that starts now and ends when the sun comes up tomorrow and we take our leave of this fine place. You are a splendid man, Goro.”
We’re not ready to go, Satoshi thought. I’m not, at any rate.
I have a dream to finish.
Satoshi turned, feeling grass give under the weight of his shoulder. Am I lying on a battlefield? Or am I feeling the grass of the tatami? Or am I dreaming, but aware again that I am dreaming?
He got to his feet, feeling the weight of the armour on his shoulders as he stood. I am in the dream. But I know that I am in the dream. That’s good. He had been lying in wait, it seemed, along with what looked like an army. Ahead of him, as he stood, Masahiro and his men stopped abruptly, surprised by Satoshi’s sudden appearance. The battle began; Satoshi resisted it.
This is not where I wanted to start. Tell me why we are fighting! I know how this ends; how does it begin?
Cold rushed in on him, and he was alone in the dark. “Damn,” he said softly, raising himself on one elbow. I will not do what you want, he told himself, until I know why you want it. And, for that matter, until I know who you are.
A faint sound of snoring reached his ears, but he couldn’t tell if it was Hideki or Bunya. He hoped it was the latter; the headman had told Satoshi he expected to sleep well tonight for the first time in a year. The sound he didn’t hear was Akemi’s soft breathing. Much as it pained him to do so, he had banished her tonight to another room. She hadn’t asked him why he was doing it, and he hadn’t told her. You don’t know why you did it, he told himself. But love might have something to do with it, don’t you think?
He sat up. This wasn’t helping. On the other hand, what he needed was to get back into the dream. At this hour, sex with Akemi would probably make for a very pleasant passage back to sleep. His right hand twitched, and for a moment he enjoyed the thought that his hand couldn’t decide what it wanted to grip, Akemi or a sword. She might be nothing more than a concubine, but she seemed to know him better than any other woman — something especially impressive given how recently they’d met. And the way she responded to him — he had never encountered anyone like this before.
No. He would stay in this room and leave Akemi in hers. The way this dream had been progressing, until he knew what the end of the dream would be, it was safer to sleep apart.
He fussed with the bedding, then lay back down and tried to will himself to sleep. He turned — one side, then the other. “Amida Buddha,” he muttered. “This is ridiculous.”
The head came off the neck, cleanly. The blood sprayed for the same brief moment, before the body collapsed into the rice stalks. Satoshi saw his hand reach for the hair.
How did this happen? I don’t remember falling asleep. He fought against picking up the head; his fingers wrapped around the hair anyway and began to lift. Satoshi relaxed — he didn’t seem to be in control this time anyway — and waited to see what would happen once he’d looked at his brother’s dead face.
What happened was that his hand dropped the head beside the body. He looked to his left, out across the field, to where the battle continued. Then he turned to his right — and saw another army approaching. The mon on the banners was unfamiliar, and the colours of the armour were, he somehow knew, none he’d seen before, anywhere. The lacquer shone like the rainbow one saw on spilled oil.
The army didn’t move — the samurai simply stood under waving banners — but somehow they were beside Satoshi anyway, and then they were in the midst of what remained of Masahiro’s men, fighting alongside Satoshi’s band.
Then Akemi was beside him, saying, “Thank you, my lord, for avenging this wrong against my family.” She kissed him, and when she stepped back he saw blood on her mouth.
My blood? Masa’s blood? Does it really matter, now? She kissed him again, and this time he pushed her away. She reached for him—
Satoshi sat up, knowing that he wouldn’t be going back to sleep now. What had Masa done to her family? It could have been anything; in a temper Masa was capable of anything if he thought his dignity had been insulted. Why is his death the only solution?
You would have to be a fool, my lord, not to see that the wrong Hirota is head of the family. Akemi had said that to him not too many nights ago. I would make a good daimyo, he told himself. He had never allowed the thought to fully form before. But it would explain his constant chafing against Masa’s orders, his arbitrariness. I am on your side, he remembered not quite telling Masa the day he’d been ordered to begin this investigation.
What if he wasn’t?
He lay back down, shifted onto his left side. Akemi is a concubine. She has no right to ask you for anything, he told himself. Ah, but had she? No: she had only mentioned that her family was involved in some sort of dispute with a daimyo. It was his dream that had linked her family with his.
And it is my own desire for power, he thought, that makes me dream of killing my brother
and his son — the son and his mother would have to die, of course, before Satoshi could ascend to the leadership of the clan.
What do I do? He tried to imagine life without Akemi, and couldn’t. It was too easy to imagine battling his brother — he was bred to fight, after all — and even to imagine winning. But it was equally easy to imagine Masa continuing to lead the clan.
I am dreaming my own death.
He opened his eyes. There were his swords, curved and silent, waiting in the lacquered rack that travelled with him. Something else Akemi had told him came to him, then: it was his karma to be his brother’s support and vassal. To dream so frequently — so clearly — of usurping his brother wasn’t just dangerous, it was treason. Better to dream of overthrowing the shogun than to wish to usurp his daimyo.
If I cannot stop this dream, I must end it.
Satoshi felt a chill that implied winter’s arrival. He pulled the comforter up to his chin. If I have the dream again, knowing what it means, my honour leaves me only one way out.
When Satoshi finally slept it was close to sunrise, so he stayed late in bed. Shortly before noon he rose, grumpy and depressed, to be greeted by the enthusiastic congratulations of the villagers. Akemi spoke words of polite congratulation with the others, and then, when no-one was looking, wound her arms around his neck. Her spontaneous affection sent a thrill and a warmth all through him, but he found it hard not to be reminded of his dream.
Even Goro from the River House came by after the noon meal to offer Satoshi formal thanks and a large cask of his finest shochu, which Hideki promptly confiscated. “Celebration!” Hideki said, smiling widely. “It’s too late to start back for the capital anyway. And this cask is far too heavy to carry back with us, brother, given all that silver we’re taking. Surely you must agree.”
Satoshi nodded, not really caring. “By all means,” he said, making his face look cheery. “Let’s get drunk.”
He didn’t drink much, though. Bunya’s wife did; she clearly had no head for alcohol and excused herself after the first hour, looking woozy. Bunya’s men each took a ration of the shochu and then retired to a private party of their own, no doubt with their own stock of beverages. Eventually, after a couple of hours, Bunya was called away because Kentaro’s two sons were fighting, so seriously that observers had decided only the village headman could break them up. After that there were only Satoshi, Hideki, and Akemi left in Bunya’s tatami room.
From his curiously detached position, sipping slowly at his shochu, Satoshi saw that Akemi had quite a head for alcohol; but Hideki could outdrink even her. Today, Hideki could apparently outdrink all the fish in the sea. It occurred to Satoshi to wonder why. Bunya’s noon meal had been the best he could manage, but it had still been obvious that the region was just one step away from famine. More than half the cask of shochu on a poorly filled stomach should have sent Hideki reeling into a corner. All it seemed to do was make him more mischievous instead.
“Akemi-san,” Hideki said, with that vast amount of shochu coursing through his veins, “I’ll wager you’re not a very good dancer.”
“Why do you say that, Arai-san?” She sent him a look that was not entirely friendly.
“Because of the way you arrange your hair,” Hideki said, in tones that showed he knew he was being outrageous. “It’s obvious that you can’t be a good dancer. Not with that hairstyle.”
Akemi looked down her nose at Hideki. “You don’t make any sense,” she said. “What’s my hair got to do with the way I dance?”
Hideki shook his head. “I have never seen a girl with her hair done like that who was able to dance. It’s characteristic. You have the hopelessly-dreadful-dancers’ hair arrangement. And what’s more, I’ll bet your feet are flat.”
“Be quiet, Hideki,” said Satoshi. He realized his hands were curling into fists. “I’ll thank you not to insult a member of my household.”
Hideki giggled. “You sound like your brother,” he said. “He can’t take a joke, either.”
“You’re drunk, Arai-san,” said Akemi, and hiccupped.
“No, I’m not.” Hideki grinned and tossed off his cup of shochu. “But you are, Akemi-san. No use pretending otherwise.”
A slow smile spread across Akemi’s face. “I’m not too drunk to dance,” she said. “And my feet aren’t flat. Are they, Hirota-san?”
“No,” said Satoshi. “They’re not.”
If they were any more sober, he knew, they would be looking at him, curious about the tone of his voice. He felt the air thick with hidden meanings he could not interpret, and he sat, watching.
“Observe,” said Akemi. She stood up, listing a little to one side. “Hirota-san, you have never seen me dance, and so I will do it now; not to refute the idiotic notions of this gentleman of your acquaintance—” Hideki giggled “—but to show my new master what a fine dancer I am.”
“But where is the music to come from?” said Satoshi, feeling it was expected of him.
“Arai-san will provide the music,” said Akemi, with a wicked little smile. “Although I am quite certain he cannot sing.”
“I certainly can sing,” said Hideki, perking up, and still looking excessively pleased about something. “And I know lots of different melodies. What tune do you wish to dance to, my lady Akemi?”
She lifted a delicate eyebrow. “‘Gagaku.’”
Hideki choked on his shochu. Satoshi felt himself smile slightly.
“I can’t sing ‘Gagaku’!” said Hideki, getting his breath back. “What do you think I am, an orchestra?”
“I think you cannot sing, Arai-san. Or else you would surely make the attempt. You have been at a daimyo’s court, have you not? Surely you must have heard ‘Gagaku’ at least once.”
Hideki sighed, rising to his feet as though he hadn’t been drinking at all. “Alright,” he said. “But it’s going to sound weird.”
Akemi arranged herself into a position for beginning a dance. It would have been more graceful had she been less intoxicated. Hideki took a deep breath and began an odd, wheezing drone, interspersed with peculiar intervals. It sounded to Satoshi like a musical instrument being savaged by a water buffalo. He vaguely wondered why he wasn’t laughing.
Akemi began her dance. Still watching as though outside himself, Satoshi knew she would have been the most graceful dancer he had ever seen, had she not been drunk to the point of recklessness. As it was, the tempo of ‘Gagaku’ was hard enough to follow even for a sober person, when it was performed on actual instruments. Akemi lost the rhythm, tried to catch up, and confused her movements even as she made them. Hideki, as though to purposely make things worse, moved closer to her and began a sober-faced dance of his own, completely at odds with hers and totally unrelated to the tempo of what he was singing.
Akemi noticed him. Laughing, she threw herself into her dance with renewed vigour, as though determined not to let him sabotage her efforts. And it was at the point where she was attempting a poised, bent-knee manoeuvre that Hideki stepped behind her, drew a bronze hand-mirror from the folds of his clothing, held it up so that it reflected the back hem of Akemi’s kimono, and pointed it out for Satoshi with a flourish and a smile.
Satoshi stared at the image in the mirror.
Akemi had a tail.
He felt his mouth open. The tail in the mirror swished gently, out of time with the impossible music. He wondered, insanely, whether the orange hairs were getting caught in the straw-weave of the tatami. And the next minute, he wondered how she could have tricked him this way.
“Stop!”
He heard himself shout, felt his detachment suddenly abandon him as he scrambled to his feet.
“Hideki,” he said, not looking at his friend, “get out of this room.”
Hideki giggled. Satoshi would have slapped him, but his friend was gone too quickly. Th
e next moment it didn’t matter, because Satoshi had hold of Akemi’s delicate shoulders, shaking her. It took an act of will to stop before he snapped her neck.
“You’re a fox-spirit!” He didn’t trouble to speak quietly. “You’re a kitsune, and you took advantage of my trust! How could you, Akemi? I — how could you?”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. He wondered whether he could trust that the regret in her eyes was real.
“I did it for my family,” she said. “I had to. One of my cousins thought it would be fun to possess the body of a maid in the residence of your brother the daimyo. She … caused some trouble. Your brother was furious; he threatened to put all the foxes to death. It was only a harmless prank, Hirota-san, and my cousin is a foolish young thing; we would have disciplined her, made sure it wouldn’t happen again. But Hirota Masahiro-san was so hostile and provoking, it upset the heads of my clan badly and they took it as an act of war.”
Satoshi stared at her, trying to reconcile Akemi — his Akemi — with this new, mad situation. She still looked like his Akemi, sounded like her, smelled and felt delightfully the same. And yet she had lied to him, and — he stared at her, knowing in full now what she had done.
“And you decided that I would be more … pliable? … than my brother, so you filled my head with dreams of power and drew me toward killing my brother — just so that I would help you? Help kitsune against my own family?” He shook her slightly. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I’d have found a way to persuade my brother to cease his hostilities toward your — toward you foxes. As it is—” He thought about his swords, about his intent to die before the day was out.
She looked like she was going to cry. “I know that, now,” she said. “But at the time I had no choice but to go along with my family’s wishes. They thought if I got close to you, became your concubine, I could influence your dreams with fox-magic, and persuade you to depose your brother. So I cast a spell on Prince Isao, to make him give me to you.”
Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction Page 8
