Kenji glanced at me, but I moved my head just slightly to the right, which he understood as “no.” He remained silent.
“Who is it, Hiroshi-kun?”
“A noble lady. She says she is an old friend of yours.”
“See that our guest is made welcome in the audience hall. I will be there shortly.”
When Hiroshi was out of earshot, Kenji leaned closer. “Is this . . . ?”
“I have no idea who this could be.”
Kenji made a face. “Likely an assassin brought in by whoever controls your household.”
“Hiroshi-kun has one great disadvantage as a spy—his face shows what he feels. Did you not notice? He was just as surprised as we were by the appearance of this visitor.”
“He certainly seemed excited,” Kenji admitted, however grudgingly. “Let us go see.”
We made our way to the audience hall. By protocol I should have greeted our guest from the dais, but I had never gotten into the habit, and when I saw who our guest was, I would have felt extremely silly doing so.
“Lady Kuzunoha! This is an unexpected pleasure.”
She was in her full human form, of course, wearing a kimono of seven layers in fall colors green and red. She wore a traveling hat with attached veil that partially obscured her face for propriety’s sake, but there was no doubt as to her identity. She kneeled on a cushion while a servant brought tea, and Kenji and I joined her there. The day was warm enough that the sliding doors to the hall had been left partially open, and beyond them I could see her alleged escort, though I was certain they were not real. Yoshitsune was apparently not privy to this knowledge, as he kept a watchful eye on them.
Her smile was tentative but easily seen through the veil. “You may not be as welcoming when I tell you why I am here.”
“Then let us discuss this among ourselves.” I dismissed the servants and spoke again only when I was certain we would not be overheard. “Now then, what is this about?”
“I must confess now that in our first meeting at Kamakura I did not tell you everything. The message I was to deliver was actually in two parts, not one. I am here now to deliver the second.”
“This, too, was at Prince Kanemore’s request, yes?”
“As you surmised at that time as well, yes.” She produced a folded and sealed piece of washi from within two of the layers of her kimono. “I think you will recognize Kanemore-ō’s hand.”
I broke the seal and read what Kanemore had written there:
Old Friend,
If you are reading this now, then events have proceeded perhaps better than you know. Well done. I will see you soon, but until then I know you have questions. All I can say for now is to go see Lady Hoshiko. She knows one of the answers, even though she does not know she knows, so be gentle.
—Kanemore
I looked at Lady Kuzunoha. “You do not know what it is in this letter, do you?”
“Certainly not. It was sealed when he gave it to me, and I have delivered it to you in the same condition.”
I smiled. “It was not meant as an accusation. I mean only that it would be very dangerous for another person if this letter fell into the hands of . . . well, let us just say an ‘unintended recipient.’ It was a sign of his trust in you that it was placed in your charge.”
She sighed delicately and sipped her tea. Normally a noblewoman would not take refreshment in the presence of men not her family or husband, but Kuzunoha was a fox demon and well aware of how silly such customs were. “For a human being, Prince Kanemore is not a bad sort, present company included. I still find it a little amusing that he places his trust in one such as me, but then I cannot say he was wrong. I apologize for concealing the existence of this second letter from you, but Kanemore was adamant. As for the letter, I will not ask what was in it. I truly do not wish to know.”
“I think this best, for your sake as much as anyone else’s. I am not angry, however there is one thing I would ask of you, if you are willing.”
She looked at me. “Perhaps. What is it, Yamada-sama?”
“If Kanemore’s message was in two parts, then something would have had to trigger the second part—an elapsed time or a specific event. May I ask what it was?”
Her smile was pure mischief, and again I was reminded I was speaking to a fox demon, not a human woman at all. “I am not certain I should tell you, yet Prince Kanemore did not specifically forbid it. I find that a little odd, don’t you? He is normally a meticulous sort. I think he shares that trait with his sister.”
Lady Kuzunoha knew she was on dangerous ground, bringing up Princess Teiko, but she likely could not have cared less. I merely waited, and—after a few moments during which she hoped I would squirm, which I refused to do—she relented. “Oh, fine. I was to deliver the second letter under two conditions: The first was if you arrived safely in the Capital with Princess Tagako. The second, if after three weeks’ time you and the princess were both still among the living. You for obvious reasons, but as for the princess? I do not know.”
“And if the condition was not met?”
She looked grim. “I was to burn the letter unread and never mention it again. To anyone.”
It was only after Lady Kuzunoha’s departure that I showed the letter to Kenji.
“What does this mean, ‘she does not know that she knows’? Yamada-sama, this is a level of obscurity worthy even of you.”
“I have no idea what it means. Apparently, Prince Kanemore trusted me to figure this out.”
“Which means he knows one of the questions you want answered.”
“I rather imagine he knows almost all of them.”
“Then why did he not simply tell you? Why all this secrecy?”
“That has been a question from the start, has it not? Yet I am willing to go on faith that there is a reason, otherwise I would simply trust Toshihide with Princess Tagako’s safety and return to Kamakura. Believe me, I have considered it.”
Kenji grinned. “Oh, I well believe you considered that course. What I do not believe is you would ever do such a thing. So what will we do?”
“We will go see Lady Hoshiko, of course. Yet first we have to find her . . . while not letting the wrong people know that we are looking for her, even though we are not really certain who the wrong people are. Things were so much simpler when we were merely fighting a war.”
Kenji scratched his chin. “You sent her a letter of thanks for her gift of this home. Who delivered it?”
“Hiroshi, so we cannot ask him,” I said. “Or, sad to say, any messenger currently attached to this household.”
Kenji considered. “While many nuns continue their practice within the confines of their own families, we also know she is estranged from her clan over her decision to take the tonsure, so it is unlikely she will be among them. The temples would be the logical place to begin. Give me the rest of today and tomorrow and I will see what I can find out.”
I had no better suggestion. “I will leave this in your hands.”
Kenji left on his mission soon after. I returned to my waiting. My detachment—never strong to begin—had been shattered by Lady Kuzunoha’s new message. I found myself attempting to read more meaning into what few words were there. Such as “You have done well.” Meaning I had behaved as expected? Nicely done, since Princess Tagako was not yet dead? I had long since realized that Prince Kanemore had known from early on that Princess Tagako’s life was in danger. Why had he not simply told me?
Because there was something else he most certainly did not want to tell me.
This was not a new thought, but perhaps one whose significance I had overlooked. I turned it this way and that and looked at it very carefully. “If Prince Kanemore had told me Tagako’s life was in danger, I would wish to know why. I would wish to know how the cause could be removed. I would want to know . . . well, everything. Prince Kanemore knows me, in some ways perhaps better than I know myself, so I understand that, yes, this is exactly what I would have done
, and he anticipated my reaction.”
So he told me nothing.
He had said he was returning within two weeks, but that had not occurred. Now he said he was returning soon. It could not be soon enough for me.
It was early afternoon of the following day when Kenji returned. He took a meal out on the north veranda, and I joined him there, though I kept the sliding door open to make certain no one was eavesdropping.
“Well?” I asked.
“Lady Hoshiko is a guest at Enryaku-ji. I remembered her special relation with Master Daiwu, which made it the likeliest place to look, so I went there first.”
“There’s no nunnery at Enryaku-ji, is there?”
“No, she’s been assigned a small hut on the temple grounds. We are to meet with her there in the morning.”
“Who else knows this?”
“You, me, the lady, and Master Daiwu. I was extremely careful.”
“I did not mean to imply . . . ”
Kenji grinned. “I know. I sometimes think we work in the shadows, but lately I think the shadows work through us. Do not worry—Master Daiwu knows the habits of some priests as well as you do. He makes certain she is protected.”
“More for her own sake, but if the thing she does not know she knows dies with her, I shall be doubly vexed.”
“Worse than if you cannot even discern the right question?”
“No,” I said, “not worse than that. Yet then I need only be angry at myself.”
Kenji, worn out by his exertions, left to take an early nap. It was a little before dusk when the messengers I had sent to Kamakura finally returned with the item I had requested—my portable writing desk. There was a note from Taro expressing bemusement I wanted the beat up old thing, but—obedient son—he had packed it just as I requested, closed up and covered for the journey, nothing cleaned or straightened before it was sent to me. There were a few other things mentioned, but nothing needing my immediate attention or reply. I rewarded the two messengers handsomely and took the desk to the south veranda overlooking the garden.
I carefully opened it and sorted through the contents—scraps of paper, broken inksticks, a few worn writing brushes—until my hand closed on what I had really requested, though no one except me knew this. It was a letter, written to me years ago from the Imperial Palace. First, making certain I was alone, I spread it out and used a pair of stone weights to hold the letter open. Then I reached into my hitatare and pulled out the remains of the shikigami we had taken from Prince Kanemore’s compound. It took barely a glance, with the two laid side by side, to discern both were created by the same hand.
So now I know who the onmyōji is, and many hidden things are revealed. All that remains is to find out what Lady Hoshiko knows that she does not know.
I told no one, including Kenji, what I had learned. The time was not yet right. The next morning we made the journey up the sacred mountain to Enryaku Temple. Master Daiwu was otherwise engaged, but he had arranged for an acolyte to escort us to Lady Hoshiko’s hut. Upon arriving, we could see the place was more a small but proper house than a hermit’s hut. A straw mat had been placed nearby with a good view of the mountain, and Lady Hoshiko kneeled there. We bowed and kneeled on a grass mat near her. Morofusa and Ujiyasu kept a discreet distance.
“Hoshiko-ama, it is good to see you again,” I said, attaching the honorific for a nun to her given name, as I still did not know the name she had chosen as a nun.
She had changed only a little since the last time I had seen her. A little more gray in her black hair, a few lines on her face. We had been lovers, very briefly, but beyond this our ties were only that I had spared her life when she should have been executed for attempted murder and being a co-conspirator in a plot to kill the crown prince. There were mitigating circumstances, both during the conspiracy and in its aftermath, but I could not think she would be happy to see me.
She bowed. “Yamada-sama, I am unworthy to speak with you, but if you have come to see me, I know there is a reason. For this I will set aside the pain of remembering what I tried to do to you. How may I be of service?”
“This is a bit difficult for me as well, so I hope you can bear with me for short while as I collect my thoughts. I want to express my gratitude in person for the gift of your mansion.”
“It seemed the least I could do, poor gift as it was. I hope it had not proved too expensive to make it usable again.”
Again?
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Well, naturally I had not been in residence for some time, and I no longer had the means nor the necessity of keeping it up. I had only one caretaker employed, and he was mostly to dissuade the curious. I imagine its condition could not have been very good.”
Kenji was trying not to smile. “Oh, it was not difficult at all, was it, Yamada-sama?”
“No, it was in surprisingly good condition. Do not concern yourself.”
I had already surmised that the staff greeting me upon my arrival was not the staff who had served Lady Hoshiko. This was confirmation, but nothing I did not already know.
“That is good to know,” Lady Hoshiko said. “When it was first suggested I make you a gift of it before your arrival back in the Capital, I was hesitant but only for that reason. I did not wish to create a burden for you.”
Kenji shot me a glance, but I had already grasped the key word from her sentence.
“Suggested? May I ask who made the suggestion?”
“Hmmm? Oh, that was Prince Kanemore. I assumed he told you. He said he was going to do so.”
Of course he had not told me. I was to discover it for myself . . . with his guidance.
“He has been away since my arrival, so I am afraid we have not yet had the opportunity to speak with him. Yes, this is the sort of thing he might do.”
“He is a very kind and thoughtful person, or rather I’ve come to know him as such now that he no longer wishes for my head on a spear. He sometimes visits me in my solitude when he has business at the temple. I know his patronage somewhat offsets the expense of my being here.”
I bowed. “I will be certain to thank him for his suggestion and his patronage of the temple, and oh, many other things besides, when next I meet him.”
I kept my silence when we took our leave of Lady Hoshiko and began our descent of the mountain. For once Kenji had the wisdom to not interrupt that silence. I noted Morofusa and Ujiyasu exchanging glances from time to time, but they perceived my mood as Kenji did, and for a league no one spoke at all.
Finally Kenji could stand it no longer. “It is a lovely day, is it not?” he asked.
Morofusa and Ujiyasu quickly added their own agreement. “Yes, indeed, a very lovely day. The view from the mountain was exquisite, was it not?” Morofusa said.
“Lovely indeed,” Kenji said. “Lord Yamada, did you not think so?”
“I think,” I said finally, “that I am an utter and complete idiot.”
Kenji glanced about. The road up the mountain was mostly deserted. “I know a spot nearby where the view is perhaps not quite as spectacular as from Lady Hoshiko’s house but still rather lovely. As it is rather tight quarters, would you two gentlemen,” he said, motioning to the bushi, “mind remaining here for a few moments while I show Lord Yamada? I promise I will return him safely, as there is no chance of an ambush there.”
“Your word, Master Kenji?” Morofusa asked.
“Indeed. My word.”
I let Kenji steer me off the path several paces to a rather undistinguished piled of rocks.
“Now you know who staffed your home,” he said.
“I do. This is the ‘answer’ Prince Kanemore spoke about. All the information was there, I was simply too blind to see it.”
“All the information, as you say, could be interpreted in more ways than one,” Kenji said. “But if Prince Kanemore was behind this, it tells us much more, does it not?”
“Much more indeed.”
“Are you more ang
ry with Prince Kanemore or with yourself?”
“Myself. Oh, do not mistake me—I am angry at Kanemore as well, and I will need to hear an explanation from him before I decide how to proceed.”
“What shall we do in the meantime?”
“We shall do what Prince Kanemore—and the shadow behind him—knows we will do. I could and perhaps should have acted sooner. Maybe I was too cautious, but other lives than my own were in the balance. Now, however, the time to tip the scale has come. For that knowledge as well I must thank Prince Kanemore. If I do not kill him first.”
“His Highness would snap you like a twig, and you know it. I would advise against trying.”
“You may advise against trying all you wish. Right now, you cannot make me not consider it.”
Kenj sighed. “Fine. I will deem myself warned. Yet what are we going to do now?”
“Let us go home, and I will show you.”
The veil of silence fell again, and it remained until we returned to my compound. I ascended the dais in the audience hall and summoned Takamasa. He soon presented himself and kneeled.
“Lord Yamada, how may I be of service?”
“You may deliver a message. Tell the one you really serve I am ready to meet with him at his convenience.”
“Lord Yamada?”
“Do not insult either of us by pretending you do not understand me. Do as I say.”
Takamasa-san touched his forehead to the floor. “As you command,” he said.
Kenji scowled. “Did you just kick a hornet’s nest? Again?”
“With all my strength,” I said. “I damn well did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kenji scratched his head, which was really in need of shaving. “I must say, I did not think we would have to wait this long to be crushed like the insects we are.”
“Only if one presumed we were more important than insects. This is one mistake I am not inclined to make.”
Three days had passed. Takamasa had gone missing, or rather, I did not know where he had gone. I could not ask Hiroshi, as he was gone as well. Others of my servants claimed to have no knowledge of the two men’s whereabouts, and I was inclined to believe them. We never saw Takamasa again, but on the morning of the fourth day, Hiroshi returned to the compound. Well, it was the young man I had known as Hiroshi, only now he wore the robes of a court noble. His proper name, as he now revealed to us, was Ishino no Nariyasu. I recognized the clan as a well-known kuge family in service to the imperial court.
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