He stood among the pillars, observing the crowds, sketching the details of the shrine precinct in his notepad, noting what he had learned throughout the day. The inner compound spread to the north and east, up the slope of the Takachiho Mountain in what looked like three terraces. The majestic undulating gables of the Inner Sanctuary rose above the ochre-coloured roof of the Offertory Hall. The shrine, he had learned, had been dedicated to some ancient Mikado and his family, all now deemed Gods by the priests and their following.
A path branching east of the courtyard led past the dance stage to the cemetery, laid out among the pine trees. Earlier in the day the funeral procession of the slain Hosokawa’s retainers had passed through the shrine. Bran managed to stay out of sight of Master Kawakami, who no doubt would have insisted on him and the girls joining the ritual. They had no time for this.
Bran noted the dimensions of the fence surrounding the inner precinct and wondered if it was so high and strong on all sides, when a sudden commotion caught his eye. A group of burly bodyguards were making their way through the crowds, pushing people to the sides with their hands and bamboo poles.
“Make way for Shimazu Atsu-hime!”
Shimazu! The crest of a cross in the circle flashed in Bran’s mind. The Shimazu were the ones holding Emrys captive. Overwhelmed with curiosity, Bran squeezed through the crowds, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious “princess”.
First came the servants and retinue, carrying banners with the circle-cross, then six strong men hauled a massive palanquin, decorated with black and gold, with a brass spout sticking out of the roof. But the palanquin was empty, its grid open. A woman walked slowly in silence beside it, accompanied by a servant girl. Her long kimono of black silk embroidered in brightly red and purple flowers, bound with a wide, pink obi sash, reached the ground, hiding her feet so that the woman seemed to slide over the grey stones. She was wearing a straw hat with a wide rim folded to the sides, concealing her face from the crowd. Bran could not make out any of her features, or tell whether she was old or young, beautiful or ugly, even though she passed him so close he could smell the faint scent of sandalwood perfume from her hair and clothes.
A light punch with an end of the bamboo pole reminded Bran he had got too close. He pulled back and made his way back to the house by the dance stage.
The cedar trees cast short, flickering shadows in the light of a flamespark hovering faintly over Bran’s shoulder. Confused moths and night flies flapped distractingly about his head. A bat fluttered from tree to tree. He adjusted the black scarf covering his entire head except his eyes and mouth — a technique Satō had taught him before he had set out on the nightly escapade — and moved on.
He walked carefully along the outer fence of the shrine. Seven feet tall wooden planks surrounded the compound on all sides. There was a small gate in the north-western corner of the perimeter, but no other openings. Bran knew the rough layout of the inner precinct from Nagomi’s description. There was a storage area immediately beyond the corner gate, living quarters for the priests beyond that and, to the west, a garden and a small villa where the Shimazu princess had her dwelling. The storage area was his best bet when looking for a place where Emrys could have been kept, but the two armed guards posted outside the gate were discouragement enough from trying to get through that way.
Whoever had prepared the shrine’s defences had made a thorough job of it. The fence boards were all well-maintained, freshly lacquered, any loose or rotten planks recently replaced with new ones. The trees in the immediate vicinity of the fence had their branches cut so that no spy or assassin could use them to climb over the wall.
But Bran had certain advantages over any regular spy. He found his way to the darkest, most remote part of the compound, halfway down the mountainside. He used the sword’s scabbard to calculate the distance and angle. There could be no mistake. He calmed his breath, closed his eyes, focused on the centre of gravity of his body, just above the sternum. He weaved his hands in a spiral move, tracing a ballistic curve, a line of sparkling light in the darkness.
When he was happy with the projected trajectory, Bran made one step back and bounced himself off the ground with a light tap. He let his body be carried over the fence in a somersault along the spiral line of kinetic energy, hoping at least this time his enhanced acrobatics skill would not fail.
It was a smooth jump all the way to the top. He caught a glimpse of the inside of the precinct, a small pond surrounded by flowering reeds, when his foot tripped over one of the planks in the fence. He waved his arms futilely and the damp grass hit him in the face.
He heard a soft outburst of laughter.
A pair of brown eyes stared straight into his. A woman in a rich, cream-coloured kimono was sitting no more than ten feet away from him. A paper lantern in her hand illuminated the whole scene with a faint, pale light. In the other hand she was holding a white folding fan.
Her skin was smooth, unpainted; the lantern’s light gave it an almost angelic glow. Her face was flawless, symmetrical, exquisitely proportioned, with cheekbones and chin prominent but not offensive and a small, pointed nose over full, slightly pouted lips. Eyes of a roe deer, almond-shape, deep, reddish brown, glistening like a polished carnelian, stared at him with piercing intelligence from under the thin, gently curved, raised eyebrows and elaborate hair-do. She was a girl, really, no more than a few years older than him, but there was maturity and wisdom in those eyes belying her age.
She showed no fear and made no sound or movement. Bran sniffed, and smelled the familiar scent of sandalwood. The garden was silent, a single frog croaked in the lily pond. His face stung where he fell.
“You are the clumsiest shinobi I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Are you here to kill me?”
Who is she?
“N... no.”
“Did my father send you, then?”
“My business is with the shrine, not you,” he replied.
“I see,” she said and pouted her lips. “Come closer.”
He hesitated. The girl stood up and approached him instead, lifting the lantern to his face. She was surprisingly tall for a Yamato woman, only a few inches shorter than Bran. The sweet smell of sandalwood overwhelmed his nostrils.
“What strange eyes,” she said upon closer examination. “Green like jade.”
“So I’ve been told.”
She touched the black scarf.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not an assassin.”
“No.”
“I know who you are,” she said.
“Oh?”
“You’re one of those three pilgrims Gensai-sama met in the forest. He told me all about you. I’ve seen the red-haired priestess in the afternoon, helping with the altar.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“You must tell me why you are here,” she decided suddenly, “or I will cry for help.”
Bran glanced behind — he could try and jump back, but he wasn’t sure he was able to focus clearly enough in this situation. And even if he did, she would then no doubt alert the temple guards. The advantage of surprise would be lost, and he would probably never get another chance to steal his way into the inner premises. Worse still, the security of the shrine would have been compromised and the dragon would no doubt be moved to another secret location.
“You can trust me,” she said, still looking boldly into his eyes. “All I want is a good story. I’m so bored here. Everyone is so old, polite and tedious. Please?”
She looked at him pleadingly with the carnelian eyes. He felt his heart melting.
“Are we safe here? Will nobody eavesdrop on us?”
“This is my private part of the garden,” she assured him, “and everyone’s asleep by now.”
She motioned him to sit beside her on a long stone bench on the bank of a lily pond.
“It’s about the treasure, isn’t it?” she asked before he could say anything.<
br />
“The treasure?” Bran’s heart started beating even faster than it already was.
“Nobody ever tells me anything, but I am smarter than they think. There are two dozen samurai armed to the teeth guarding this shrine. My father had a great iron oxcart accompany my entourage. He told me it contained a gift from the Gods. You’re here to steal it, aren’t you?”
She grinned.
“Not steal. It belongs to me,” he said.
“How exciting! But what is it, tell me?”
He opened his mouth but a female voice cried in the distance.
“Princess Atsu! Please come back, it’s late.”
“Oh, how I hate that woman,” the girl said, standing up. “A living chaperone is such a nuisance compared to an automaton!”
An automaton?
“Atsu... you are the Shimazu princess!”
“Of course! Who did you think? I have to go. You must visit me again tomorrow!”
“I will,” he blurted, “I mean... I’ll try.”
“I shall wait,” she smiled at him with a smile warm like summer sun and ran off into the garden.
He shook his head, trying to maintain focus. He measured his distance again and leapt over the fence. He almost made it this time.
There was a rope hanging across the fence, tied to a black pine growing on the other side. He tugged it to check if it held fast and climbed across, as quietly as he could. She was already waiting for him by the lily pond.
“I thought a rope might be of use to you,” she explained, “I found some in the gardener’s shed.”
“That was very thoughtful... but what if somebody noticed?”
“I told you, nobody ever comes here. Now sit down and tell me your story. My chaperone thinks I’m meditating — we have all night.”
He gulped.
“You must first tell me yours, princess,” he said.
He had spent all day thinking about the girl, wondering what she was doing in the shrine.
“Oh, but my story is nowhere near as interesting as yours!”
“Such is my condition, hime.”
“Very well, but don’t blame me if you’re disappointed. And don’t call me hime, all my friends call me simply Atsuko.”
“But we’ve only just met…” he started, but seeing her pout again, he added, “Atsuko.”
She smiled, looking not at him but at the floating lilies, their buds closed for the night.
“My current life started when the daimyo of Satsuma, Shimazu Nariakira-dono adopted me as his only daughter. My real parents came from a poor, distant branch of the clan, so they were glad to be rid of me. Later my father had to commit suicide for some minor offense and my mother died soon after.”
No shadow marred her beautiful face as she was saying these words, only the light of the lantern flickered in her big brown eyes.
“I have lived alone in the Kagoshima Castle for years, trying to learn as much as I could about the world from the books in my new father’s library.”
“Satsuma is so far south — it’s almost outside Yamato,” she explained, “so we’re more connected to the seas than to the land beyond the mountains. My father was always very keen to expand his knowledge of the Western magic and technology and there were always some foreign envoys or scholars in the castle, sneaked in secretly from Dejima or the Nansei islands in the south. Sometimes I’ve managed to talk to them.”
“You speak Bataavian?”
“Just a little. Not as well as my father.”
“Have you ever been to Kiyō yourself?”
She shook her head with sadness.
“This is the first time I travel out of Kagoshima. It is not acceptable for a woman of my standing to journey without good reason.”
“And where are you going?”
“Edo.”
From the map he had seen in Lady Kazuko’s room Bran knew the Taikun’s capital city was weeks away from Satsuma.
“That’s a long journey! Aren’t you excited?”
“Maybe,” she said with a shrug, “but I fear I will not see much. They carry me around in a shuttered palanquin everywhere. They will put me in a windowless cabin on the boat, and then lock me somewhere in the Taikun’s palace, where I am to do secretarial work for my father and his officials.”
“So what are you doing in this place?”
“Oh, I was just waiting for those samurai from Kumamoto to escort me across the mountains. Now that they’re here, in a few days, I will have to leave.”
Bran felt a sudden pang of sadness. He turned his eyes away from Atsuko’s face, pretending to admire the reflection of the moon in the pond.
“Now, your turn,” she insisted, “what is the treasure you seek?”
“A dorako,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.
“Ah!”
The excitement and admiration in her almond brown eyes was worth betraying his greatest secret.
“I am a dragon rider. I come from a land far away, and I lost my dragon in battle off the shores of Qin…”
She pouted, irritated.
“Now you’re making fun of me. I can tell you’re just a Yamato boy underneath that mask.”
“I’m telling the truth! Wait here.”
He knelt at the edge of the pond, cooling his face with the water to lessen the pain of the transformation.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He turned to her, removing the black scarf. She gasped and hid her face behind the paper fan.
“I am Bran ap Dylan o Cantre’r Gwaelod,” he said proudly.
“Fantastic!” She clapped her hands. “How did you do that?”
At first he spoke cautiously, in short, broken sentences, but she was so eager to hear more and looked at him with such expecting admiration that, before he noticed, he was telling her of all his adventures in Yamato, from waking up at the infirmary, through the visit to the Cave of Scrying, to the clash with the onmyōji. By the time he had finished, it was well past midnight.
Her next question threw him off balance.
“That samurai girl and the priestess… are they pretty?”
“I... I think Nagomi is regarded as a pretty girl…”
She giggled.
“But not the other one?”
“It’s difficult for me to judge people of your race. I — ”
He looked into her almond eyes, staring at him expectantly.
“I never thought I would find an Eastern woman as beautiful as you,” he blurted.
What am I saying?
Atsuko was as unlike all the other girls he had fancied as a rose was different from a field daisy: mature, bright, polite… and her smile, sincere and wise... there was no fault in her smooth, shapely face and carnelian eyes.
She startled at his confession and turned her eyes away. For a while they enjoyed the sounds of the night and each other’s company in silence.
“I will help you,” she said, “I know the man who will tell me everything. His name is Torii Heishichi-sama, and he’s my father’s Daisen — Arch Wizard. I wondered why he was chosen to accompany me on this journey! And I can demand access to every room and every building in this shrine. I will find your dorako.”
“You really shouldn’t... it’s dangerous.”
“I know!” she said, beaming. “That’s what makes it exciting. Oh, it’s like I’m in a kabuki play. A secret prince who comes at dusk and disappears at dawn, a dragon, mystery, magic and action!”
Bran felt his cheeks redden at the words “secret prince”.
“Tell me something in your native tongue!” she asked.
He thought for a moment and then started singing, softly at first, ending on a louder, though shaky note as the song’s melody brought with it the memory of the rolling hills of Gwynedd and the slate walls of his home in Caer Wyddno.
Ar lan y môr mae rhosys cochion
Ar lan y môr mae lilis gwynion
Ar lan y môr mae ‘nghariad inne
; Yn cysgu’r nos a chodi’r bore.
“What does it mean?” she whispered a question after a long pause.
Beside the sea red roses grow,
Beside the sea white lilies show
Beside the sea my love resides,
By day she walks, by night she hides
He choked on the last verse of the translation.
“So you’re also a poet.”
“No!” He laughed. “That is an old song, a fireplace song.”
“Your tongue is strange. At once harsh and sweet. And so unlike Bataavian.”
“It is much older than Bataavian. When the oaks at Mona were yet acorns, my people already spoke Prydain. Some say its roots are in the speech of the Faeries.”
“The Faeries?”
He told her of how the golden-haired Tylwyth Teg danced under the stars in the old elm woods along the Taf Fechan, in the Great Forest of Brycheiniog. He hadn’t spoken these names in such a long time they sounded strange to his ears, still they rolled smoothly off his tongue.
“There is nothing in my father’s books about all this!” She clasped her hands together in awe. “I have learned so many new things tonight.”
He tried to smile but it came out as a yawn. His eyelids felt heavy and sticky.
“Oh, how thoughtless of me. I’ve been keeping you awake all night.”
“It’s all right,” he said, stifling another yawn.
“No, no, your days must be busy while I spend mine lazing about and strolling in the gardens.”
“I... I haven’t really slept since yesterday,” he admitted.
“Then go and rest. But you must return tomorrow.”
“I will,” he said, this time with certainty.
CHAPTER XI
The dream was a story.
Out in the middle of a vast plain, covered with tall grass that waved like the sea in the wind, stood a great castle, once magnificent and white, now fallen in disrepair and ruin after long years of neglect.
The Year of the Dragon Omnibus Page 60
