by Zoe Marriott
“Tell me.”
“I cannot. Please accept that. I cannot bear to think about it.”
We sat in silence. Otieno’s fingers traced slow circles on my shoulder.
“You are a stubborn woman.” His lips touched my hair. “My stubborn woman.”
Held against him, I felt no urge to argue.
The sliding door went back with a sharp bang, and I jolted, pulling away from Otieno. What on earth was I thinking? Every time he laid a hand on me, my common sense seemed to fly away like a swallow in winter. The man was a snake in cat’s clothing.
“I am sorry I was so long,” Akira said breezily, sitting down beside us. “I had to deal with a message. One of the servants is bringing the tea now.”
As I sat in mortified silence, Otieno and Akira chatted happily. When the tea arrived, Otieno effortlessly ate his way through a plate of sweets and had two cups of tea. Apparently I was the only one who was disturbed.
“Gochisosama deshita,” he said eventually, using the traditional words to thank a host for the meal and bowing elegantly from the waist. “Kano-san, I wonder if I could request the honor of Yue’s company for a little while? Her beautiful music has made me wish to walk under the cherry blossoms again before I leave your country. I think I would enjoy visiting the West Park, if she will come with me.”
“What a lovely idea!” Akira said before I could answer. “I am sure Yue will be delighted to go, but sadly I am quite busy. You will manage without me, will you not? Such old friends as you are.”
“Akira —”
Otieno cut me off. “You are very wise, Kano-san. Thank you.” His grave tone was completely ruined by the twinkle in his eye.
Outside there was a dashing carriage, drawn by a pair of bay horses whose color was an almost exact match for Otieno’s skin. I noticed this particularly because his tunic had a deep V-shaped neckline that gaped rather distractingly when he turned to open the carriage door for me. I tore my gaze away and, with some difficulty given my layers of clothing, climbed in.
I sat down — and gasped as a pair of pitiless black eyes met mine. Otieno’s hunting bird was perched inside the carriage on a specially adapted framework that had been bolted into the carriage wall. There was even a lacquered tray at the bottom to catch the bird’s waste. The polished mahogany perch was marked with glaring white gouges from the bird’s extremely long claws. Those claws flexed as Otieno settled down next to it, in the seat opposite mine.
“Do you not hood and jess it?” I asked nervously.
“Sometimes,” Otieno said, stroking the bird’s sleek head with one finger. It bridled and shuffled sideways to get closer to him, apparently enjoying the attention. “When we are going somewhere very busy, like a market, or if I will have to leave her alone for a long time. She will be fine flying free in the park today. You will enjoy that, Mirkasha, will you not?”
The bird let out a muted chirping noise, as if agreeing.
“Mirkasha. That is a beautiful name.”
Otieno grinned. “It amused me at the time — but I was only twelve when I got her.”
“Why? What does it mean?”
“Sparrow.”
“Really?” I asked sharply.
“Yes.” He gave me a quizzical look. “Why does that surprise you?”
I shook my head a little. “It is a coincidence, that is all. My old name — Suzume. It means ‘sparrow.’ My father always called me that. He said the noises I made when I was born reminded him of a little bird.”
I could see the struggle in Otieno’s face, curiosity warring with caution. I sighed with relief when he only said, “Well, perhaps she has some fellow feeling for you. It was she who called to me, that day on the ship, and attracted my attention to your plight.”
I looked at the bird and then, on impulse, bowed from the waist. “Thank you, Mirkasha.”
Otieno rapped sharply on the roof of the carriage at the same moment that the bird spread her wings and bobbed her head. For an instant, I thought she was returning my bow. Then, as we rocked gently into motion, I realized that she must simply have been adjusting her balance.
“You said you would tell me about your archery,” I said swiftly, hoping to keep the conversation off me for a change. Otieno gave me a sidelong look, not unlike Mirkasha’s, and smiled, as if to let me know that he was aware of my strategy. Unable to help myself, I returned the smile.
“My gift helps with my archery,” he said, “but in such a way that it is impossible to tell, most of the time, how much is natural talent for the bow and how much is magic. The two bleed into each other. The world is . . . malleable to Akachi, in a way that it is not to others. It is as if the raw energy inside us — our souls — has an affinity with the raw energy of the world itself. Such a closeness brings gifts of talent, healing, and foresight.”
“You make it sound wonderful,” I said a little wryly. “I bet all the children in your country want to be Akachi.”
Otieno’s face became serious. “No. No more than all the children dream of being warriors, or hunters, or any other dangerous and exciting thing.”
“Dangerous?”
“Yes. Of course. Nature is dangerous — think of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes. When we draw on that energy, we are capable of hurting ourselves, and others. It can be too much. My grandmother told me a story once, of a little boy who longed for a nearby lake to freeze over so that he and his friends could skate on it. Every night for a week, the little boy added this wish to his prayers before he went to bed. Then one day, the family woke and found that the lake had frozen solid — in the middle of summer. The little boy was dead in his bed, his skin blue and frost around his mouth and nose.”
“How awful. He died because of such a small thing? Is the story true?”
“I think so. Grandmother told me this when she was teaching me to control my gift. The boy died because his family did not realize he was an Akachi, and he had no idea that he really could change the world, just by willing it enough, or what the consequences could be. Mostly those of us with such a strong gift are caught early. The families notice strange things about such a child. That he or she can always find things that are lost, or that the dreams they speak of come true. Grandmother knew what I was because I loved birds, and there were always birds gathering around me, even around my crib when I was a baby. If I was put in a closed room, they would find ways in under the window screens or down the chimney. I would laugh and clap when I saw them. I called them to me, you see. If Grandmother had not been there, I might have died very young, without anyone ever realizing why. She said it was a sign of how powerful an Akachi I would one day be, that my gift manifested itself so early.”
I nodded, fascinated but at the same time aware that he had not really answered my question. Somehow the conversation was back on the topic I had forced him to abandon the day before: the perils of ignoring a gift.
“How did you find out you had a special gift for archery? From what I overheard at the archery contest, it does not seem as if your father values such skills. I would have thought he would keep you away from weapons training, especially once he realized you had a special gift.”
He frowned. “It is not that my father does not value such skills. It is merely that in our country we do not . . . glorify them. And you are right that I was kept away from the training grounds as a child. I discovered archery by accident.”
He turned his face away, and Mirkasha made her soft chirping noise. He reached up absently to stroke her head again. I wondered how many handlers of hunting birds could take that kind of liberty and avoid the kiss of the lethal hooked beak. But Otieno made everyone love him. Or everyone who had the wit to see him for what he really was.
“My mother died having me,” he began hesitantly. “In every way that counted, my grandmother took her place, but she was already old when my mother was born and . . . she died when I was ten. Because I was the youngest, because I had never known my mother, and because of the gift we
shared, my grandmother was very special to me. We spent so much time together, singing, laughing, telling stories — when she was gone it was as if . . . as if the part of me that could laugh and sing, and tell stories, had died with her. Everyone had loved her, and everyone mourned her, but I was . . . lost. My father let me wander for a little while, grieving, and then he decided to distract me. He dragged me and my brothers out to the village training grounds where the hunters and warriors were drilling. He knew I had never been there before. It was a good distraction: a place that was free of sad memories. The warriors and hunters knew of our house’s loss — some of my aunts and uncles were in training there — and were kind to my brothers and me. We watched them dance with swords and throw spears, but my attention was caught by my uncle’s bow work. Something about the flight of the arrow . . .” He shrugged a little self-consciously.
“Maybe it reminded you of a bird?” I said.
His eyes flashed up to mine, and he smiled, the shadow of sadness leaving his face. “Yes, it was that. I asked to hold one of the bows, and as a joke they gave me one that had been made for a teenager to train with, and told me to try stringing it. It was taller than I was. I should not even have been able to bend it, let alone string it. Yet I did. Easily. It was the gift, but I did not realize it then. I just thought it was magic, magic of the kind you hear about in children’s stories. I can still remember how the training ground fell silent. How everyone came to watch me, so cautiously, not daring to let the excitement show, just as parents will bite their lips as a child takes his first steps, fearful that to cry out will cause him to fall. My aunt handed me an arrow. The skin of my hands seemed to sing where it touched the arrow; I nocked it, and drew the string on that bow, which was made for a boy of eighteen, and it felt like the most wonderful and most natural thing I had ever done. I let the arrow fly, and it hit the target. Not dead center, but it did not matter. Everyone began yelling and hugging, and slapping me on the back. My father put me on his shoulders, though I was far too heavy for it by then. We had all come alive again. It was as if the laughter and singing and stories rushed back into the empty space my grandmother had left behind. I will never forget the way it felt as long as I live.”
For a moment, I felt lost in the world of his story. A noisy and chaotic world, to be sure, but one where grief and love were expressed freely and honestly, not repressed. In such a world, a girl who had seen her father and foster sister die, and whose home had been lost, would be allowed to speak of them, and cry for them, and admit that they had existed. She would not need to hide her pain — her lostness — behind the mask of a dead smile, and cut herself, just to survive.
Then Otieno said, “For a long time, that was the best day of my life, Pipit. I thought I would never know such a joyous sense of rightness again. But I did. The first day I saw you.”
I drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, Otieno —”
The movement of the carriage slowed and then stopped. Otieno pushed the door open from the inside instead of waiting for the driver, and jumped out. He called out a word in a soft, musical tongue, and Mirkasha shrieked in answer and spread her wings. The tip of the left one brushed ever so faintly across my cheek as she flew out to land on Otieno’s gauntlet.
Was there something wrong with me that, after the draining emotional talk we had just had, I still found myself distracted by the way his upper arm bulged when he took the weight of the bird?
I made myself look down at my own feet as I moved to the doorway, but I had to look at him when he took my hand to help me down. The carriage had obviously been constructed with long-legged, athletic men in mind. My short limbs and three-layered kimono made getting out a rather more tricky exercise than getting in had been. I envied the easy way he bounded around. It had been a very long time since I had been able to do that. Even when I had, I had usually been caught by my mother and punished.
The day was warm: filled with gentle breezes that stirred the wild sweet scent of sakura around us, mixing it with that perfume of spring, which is less a smell than a sort of freshness, telling of sunlight and growing things.
We had drawn up by the park’s entrance, where a wide gravel path led between wrought iron gates. We crunched slowly along the path, Otieno eyeing me for a few moments before repeating his gesture from the bridge and drawing my hand through the crook of his elbow so that I could lean on him as I navigated the uneven surface. He clucked at Mirkasha, and she let out another of her piercing shrieks and leaped from his arm into the air.
“She has spotted her lunch,” he said.
“I pity it,” I said feelingly, watching the bird transform into a dark lightning bolt as she darted into the shivering cherry blossoms.
We walked side by side in the sunlight and the shadows of the trees, enjoying the almost unearthly beauty of the flowers and nodding politely at those we passed, though many of them stared at Otieno. I did not care; I was proud to walk with him for however long he wished it.
“What of you, then?” Otieno asked. “What happened the first time you picked up an instrument?”
He sounded so eager that I hated to disappoint him. “I do not have a story to tell, Otieno. Nothing happened the first time I had a music lesson. I knew straightaway that I loved to play, but unfortunately I was not really very good at all. Because it was a proper activity for a young woman, and because I begged my father, my mother allowed me to continue despite my lack of skill. That is all.”
He looked at me skeptically. “Lack of skill? I do not believe it. I heard you play. It was beautiful. Are you saying you never showed any extraordinary degree of talent as a child? Never astonished your teachers or brought your friends and family to tears with your performance?”
I frowned. “I do not think my teacher was allowed to — I mean he never praised me. He never spoke to me at all, really, apart from instructing me. My mother probably asked him not to. All the servants had orders about that. I was rather wild and unruly — my mother said that my father indulged me too much.”
“What about your father, then, and the rest of your family?”
“I was not allowed to play for them,” I said uncomfortably. “Well, not for my father and cousin. Mother listened to me a few times and said . . . she said I was not good enough. I would have to spend less time running around like a savage and more time practicing . . .” My voice trailed off.
“Was your mother tone-deaf? Did she hate music for some reason?”
“Not — not that I know of.” I looked up at him. “Do you mean that she did it on purpose?”
“I cannot see any other explanation.” His brow wrinkled with confusion. “Only it makes no sense. She must have been proud of you. Why would a mother who knew her daughter was so immensely talented try to hide it from everyone?”
I squeezed my eyes shut as my memory jumped back eight years. I remembered that first lesson, when the teacher had called Mother in to hear me play. I remembered his face, with its wide, excited eyes, and hers, so set and white that she looked quite ill. She had taken him out of the room, and when he came back, he had been rubbing his hands nervously over the threadbare edges of his kimono and would not look at me. And Mother had said that she did not think I needed any more lessons, that I should learn embroidery instead. I had burst into tears.
For a week, I pestered Father to intercede, and begged and cried and begged again, and finally — when Father said that perhaps he should hear me and judge for himself — Mother gave in. I could keep my shamisen and have my lessons if I promised never to play where anyone could hear, until she told me I was good enough. Father, with his desire for a quiet life, had accepted it, and I had been so happy that I had not questioned it. And after that I had had a different teacher. A stern-faced one, with much nicer clothes, who hardly ever spoke to me at all . . .
“It makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense if you knew her,” I whispered.
Father would have been so happy, so proud of me. He had loved poetry and music. Bu
t Mother had no talent for those things at all. In finding that connection, we would have excluded her. No wonder she never let Terayama-san get me a new instrument. He would have wanted to hear me play, and she was frightened it would take his attention away from her.
“Yue?” Otieno’s hand on my face recalled me to myself. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing. Or rather something I should have seen for myself a long time ago. It does not matter.”
It didn’t, did it? Not now. Once it would have broken my heart, but what was that small betrayal so many years ago compared to the great one later? And what was either of them compared with my own betrayal, my ultimate crime?
“You have that look on your face again,” he said softly.
“What look?” I asked, playing for time as I tried to rearrange my expression. He saw through my shadow-weavings too easily. I almost wanted to curse him for it.
“The sad, lost look. It makes me think of a little girl, abandoned in a crowd, who cannot find her parents.”
I felt my eyes widen, and only just managed to keep my hands from rising to my face, to hide myself. “I have such an expression?” I made a strange noise, a strangled laugh. “You must be the only one who can see it.”
“Perhaps. I am sorry. Sorry that your life has been so full of unhappy things, and that I reminded you of them again now.”
I sighed. “You are not responsible for any of it. Not even my feelings.”
“That does not mean I do not care about them. I want to chase that lost look away, so far away that it can never come back.”
“Thank you. But I do not think you can.”
He smiled, and it felt like the warm light of a lantern banishing the chill of a dark, lonely room somewhere inside me. “Well, I am going to try,” he said. “And I might surprise you.”
I looked away, and we kept walking. Gradually my tumultuous feelings quieted, and calmness returned.
