by Low Bo
She reached into her bag and placed the golden box on the seat beside her. Next, she pulled out something that looked like a piece of tree root and bit off its tip. He saw her jaws working, A thin bubble of saliva appeared in the corner of her mouth.
The root seemed to ease the pain. She took a drink from his water-skin, and looked straight into his eyes. He tried not to flinch.
"This old body will be dead soon," she said. "It won't be long now, I think." She was looking at him very directly. Very oddly. "I hope to make it to Kenno-ji, but I want you to forgive me now if I do not."
Yajiro had dealt with dead bodies before. His uncle, his youngest sister. Neighbors. Contact with the diseased or dead would pollute him, but he could bathe and fast to cleanse himself. "It's all right. You won't be a burden to me. Please rest."
She looked at the box. "That's not really what I meant."
"What, then?"
She did not answer, but picked up the box again and held it for a moment, not meeting his eyes. Then she put it back into her bag.
Yajiro awoke to daylight and a clammy mist that shrouded the boat and cut them off from the shore. Its tendrils stroked his face; its spore gleamed against the wood of the seats and hull.
When he raised his head he saw Ume sitting bolt upright in the bows with the sail wrapped about her shoulders, staring at him. "What?" he managed to say.
Her voice was strong again and sarcastic, loaded with middle-born poison. "Have you ever had to do something terrible?"
Mind reeling, he sat upright and blinked away the last tatters of sleep. He could see twenty feet of water beyond the gunwales, and then nothing but a soft gray-white curtain.
"No. What's the matter? What have you done?"
"Tell me the worst sin you've ever committed. Before the gods."
Demons flickered in her eyes. He searched his life, desperate for something that might satisfy her. There was no adultery, no theft. No dark evils lurked within him. He wanted to obey her, but he'd lived a clean life. He'd sought the priesthood; how else could it have been for him.
"Pride?" he said hopefully.
"Ah, pride." She looked across the water, and seemed to see a great deal more in the distance than Yajiro did. "Pride. If only that were the gravest sin I could muster. You're too good. Too good..." Her fingers brushed her heart, and the first beginnings of a breeze touched the calm surface of the water.
He tried again. "Envy?"
Unexpectedly, she laughed. It was a jagged sound. "You're a stone, Yajiro. I want to hate you, but how can I hate a stone? Or a sunset?"
Madness. It could only be madness. And he with no knowledge of even which shore was the closest. Yajiro reached cautiously forward to the mast, and saw that the golden box was lying in the bottom of the boat, closer to him than to her.
"What of my soul?" she said. "What will become of my soul?"
"You make no sense at all. You should rest."
But he could not focus on her. The box held his attention. All at once it seemed to become the center of the boat, the center of the world. The box was everything. The key to all he did not understand about this strange woman whose moods turned from sunshine to thunder and back as easily as he tacked back and forth across the water.
She saw where his eyes were fixed. "Do you want it?" she whispered. "If you like it, you can have it. I mean it."
Anything with power like that was not for him. He forced himself to sit back. "No. I don't want it."
The box watched him like a dragon's eye.
There was no escape.
"Tell me about the box," he said.
She raised an eyebrow with definitive middle-born imperiousness. "You command me?" Amusement tinged the iron tone of her voice.
Yajiro set his jaw. "Yes. You are a guest in my boat. You have lived in the mountains, where birth counts for nothing. You wanted to be my friend. Tell me."
Ume nodded. "Good. More than a peasant indeed. I will tell you, but the story is long.
"In the mountains to the north there is a stronghold of holy men and women. They cannot be found unless they wish for you to find them. They are the heart of Japan, and perhaps its sole hope for the future."
Yajiro nodded. It was not unusual for bands of warrior monks to take to the hills when they incurred the displeasure of the nobility. All such bands thought they were Japan's only hope.
"You think you understand, but you know nothing of them," she said sharply. "They have seen the future of Japan, and I have seen it too."
Yajiro felt uneasy. "The future? Men will die, others be born. New leaders will replace the old. Winters will follow summers. What else is there?"
"Things change, Yajiro. Japan will not always be ruled from Heian. The Fujiwaras will not marry their daughters into the Imperial line and rule from behind the throne forever. Power shifts, as it always has."
"Life is hard, and worldly things are fleeting," said Yajiro.
"But do you know what Buddha meant when he spoke of the latter clays of the law? People who truly keep the commandments of the Buddha are as rare as a tiger in the marketplace-you have heard that?
"It will get worse, Yajiro. Ten generations ago Japan was a primitive place. Ten generations from now, everything will again be primitive, only different. There will be a whole warrior class-men who exist only to fight, for whom blood and honor and the curve of their swords are more important than life or love. There will be two hundred years of war. Thousands will be murdered in public execution grounds just for the sin of serving a different daimyo. Generals will bury their enemies' children alive, and rivers of blood will flow through the streets. The ordinary people of Japan will be worked until they die to produce rice for the warrior class, to help them fight their wars. The gods will turn their backs, and the soul of Japan will be scarred for ten times ten generations."
A hundred generations. Yajiro had lived through barely one. His mind rebelled. "You cannot know this!"
"It is already happening. When I was a girl, that gang of scoundrels at the market could not have existed. Honest men would not have permitted it. The latter days of the law are here, Yajiro."
"Then, if the gods will it, nothing we can do will change it . We must live as best we can.'
She struck the thwart with her fist. "That is not true, Yajiro! That is the lie that will ruin Japan!" She calmed herself, her shaking fingers probing the pulse at her throat. "Consider this. You knew I was going to be robbed, and the knowledge gave you the power to stop it. I know how Japan will be despoiled by the warriors, and so maybe that can be stopped too."
He looked away. "You should rest now."
"You think I am mad, talking of many generations when this body will not survive the first frost. But you forget the box."
He had not forgotten. The box had begun to gleam as the rays of the sun burned through the roof of mist. Heaven and earth focused upon that box. Yajiro would not touch it now if his life depended upon it. Foreboding breathed upon his neck and chilled him.
"What of the box?" he said. "What does it contain?"
"My soul," she said simply.
The coldness spread to his heart and stomach. Gods swirled about him in the remains of the morning mist. The gilded box waited in the bottom of the boat, unwinking.
He snatched up an oar and retreated into the stern. The expanse of years, the heart of Japan, the mysteries of a hundred monks hidden in the mountains of the North-the immensity of her words blinded him, but one thing he saw clearly; he was in mortal danger. He did not doubt her words. If a soul could be trapped in a box, his sukuse and eternal rebirth were at risk.
Help me, he muttered to the breezes. Help me. I am beyond what I know.
The Winds made no reply.
Ume sighed, and trailed her fingers over the side of the boat. "Yajiro, Yajiro. If I wanted to steal your body away I would have done so by now." The sadness in her voice told him it was true. "I tried, but I could not do it. You're no wharf-rat."
His
body?
To the left the shoreline appeared. A fishing boat moved against the gray horizon.
"Set the sails," she said. "I won't steal from you."
"Put your box in the sack."
"You have no faith."
"Please..."
She did it, and he watched the bulge in the bag for some time before he would put the oar down.
Dotted across the surface of the river Yajiro saw many boats, some already tacking cautiously, some being rowed downstream, others just hoisting sail. Another trader's boat was heading downriver towards them on close tack, obviously carrying goods that might spoil.
Ume was silent for two hours as he got the boat under way and set off into the freshening breeze across the water. She retreated into herself, and once Yajiro even thought she might have slipped into a trance. Comforted by the silence, some of his unease flowed out of him at the beauty of the day. He was making good time, even into the wind, and he thought that they might make Kenno-ji before dusk.
His boat was a fast one, and only lightly loaded. Yajiro was proud that he was preserving his lead on the other trading boat. He kept close to the wing and came about whenever he felt the effect of the current easing on his keel. The other boat took longer tacks and so wasted less time coming about, but her captain took her too far out of the quicker waters and too close to the trees.
A heron flew near them then, all long beak and wings.
"See, our luck improves already," Ume said. A heron in flight was a good omen.
There was a thump. For a moment Yajiro thought they were aground or had struck a floating log. Then two arms came over the bows, followed by a mop of black hair and a cheeky grin. "Good day, Captain! Permission to come aboard!" Not waiting for a reply, the boy threw his leg across the gunwale and tumbled into the boat like a sack of millet.
"Tsuru!" said Yajiro "Where did you come from?"
Tsuru sat up in the bottom of the boat amid the mess of lines, smiling happily. "Knew you'd need me, sir. Swam after you, , all the way from Nakasu-ichi. No, really what I did was run along the bank. Been following a while, now. Market's no place for me, sir. Need to see the world!"
"You'll see little enough of it with us..."
Yajiro's voice trailed away. Ume was staring at Tsuru, eyes rapt. A small bubble of saliva collected at the corner of her mouth, threatening to slip onto her chin. Guilt and greed swam in her eyes.
Then she smiled, all sunshine and cheer. "Where's your mother, scamp?"
"Did as the Captain telled me, ma'am. Went to the priest, but he weren't holy enough to bring my ma out of the ground. No, I'd say she's just comfortable where she is!" He grinned.
"The ground?" said Yajiro
"Told you I'd lost her, sir. Thought you'd understood."
"I suppose not," said Yajiro, his eyes still on Ume
"Can I steer her, Captain? Work my passage?"
"We're in a hurry," Yajiro began, but Ume interrupted. "Where would the harm be, Yajiro-san? It would give you a rest. I'll give the boy his wages."
"Wait. Tsuru-kun, why did it take you so long to catch us?"
"Hungry, sir. Hadn't eaten for a day. Spent your coin on a meal, blessing you with every mouthful. After that, I couldn't run so fast. And then I had to wait so's I'd not miss you in the fog. But I knew you'd not set me ashore, sir. Fine trader like yourself, just setting up in business, knew you'd need some help." The boy looked around the boat with interest, apparently only now noticing the lack of cargo. "What will you be selling then, sir?"
"Little boys," said Yajiro. "I buy them and feed their bodies to the witches in the hills."
Ume turned her head away in disgust, but Tsuru cackled appreciatively. "A ready wit, sir. I like that in a master."
"I'm not your master," he said curtly.
Ume's eyes swiveled back to stare at Tsuru, sitting in the boat barely an arms-length away from her. Yajiro knew now the boy was in danger.
"Come here, scamp," he said. "Quickly, now."
"Sir!" the boy exclaimed in delight, and was on his feet in a moment, walking down the boat. He stumbled and caught himself on the mast, and Yajiro saw Ume lean forward, one hand reaching out to the boy while the other sought out the sack at her feet.
Yajiro released the rudder and jumped forward. The sail flapped. "Don't touch him!" He knocked her arm down.
He saw a flash of steel out of the corner of his eye, and the sail fell away from the mast and tumbled over them both. The boat rocked as Yajiro flailed his hands to free himself.
Ume pulled the sail off his shoulders. The boat lurched again and there was a loud splash.
Tsuru had cut the main halyard with a knife and then jumped overboard. He was swimming strongly away, out into the river. The shore was half a mile distant.
"Yajiro." The old woman was pointing upstream over his shoulder. "It seems the little snipe already has a master, and one we know well."
Five hundred feet away and bearing down rapidly was the trader boat Yajiro had been racing down the river as a point of honor. It was now close enough for them to see the weasel from the market at Nakasu-ichi at the helm, and two accomplices kneeling in the bows.
"Gods!" Yajiro struggled to get the oars out from under the useless sail and into the rowlocks. His first instinct had been to jump overboard and swim for it, and he felt a swift flush of shame. Yes, save himself and leave an old woman to the wolves, that would have been fine of him, and good sukuse to carry to the next life.
Perhaps they were both supposed to die here. Maybe by accepting his fate in this life he would rise in stature in the next.
Or maybe he would come back as a beetle because of his spinelessness.
One thing, at least, was clear. The urchin was part of the dock gang. The glint of gold had brought the river rats after them. Unable to overhaul Yajiro on the river, the gang had dropped the urchin ashore to run ahead and slow them down. Now he and Ume were at their mercy.
"Yajiro, Yajiro," Ume was digging into the sack at her feet. "Be calm. This is perfect."
"Perfect?" he shouted. "We're about to be murdered by pirates! Perfect? "
She slapped him. "Shut up. Listen."
The other boat had sailed past and was reaching the end of its tack, preparing to come about. They would catch up with Yajiro's boat on their next reach. He saw one of the hard-faced accomplices lean over the transom and pluck a bedraggled small boy out of the water.
Ume's eyes shone. "They want the box, Yajiro-san. We shall give it to them. I told you that the box contains my soul, and so it does. If you had opened the box, my soul would have reached out and gained power over the body you wear, casting your soul into an empty shell, this old woman's body. We would have traded the skin and bones we wear. You would have died old and feeble, and I would have lived on, appearing to all the world as you do now."
The pirates were coming back.
"I could not do it. You did not deserve such a fate. This low-born pirate is another matter. It will be a service to Japan to take his body and place a kindlier mind within it. I will order the other cut-throats away and they will obey me, thinking me their leader. You will be saved."
The other boat bore down on them. One of the men at the bows drew a knife. Tsuru took over the rudder, and the weasel came forward to join his friends.
Yajiro finally understood. "In the market, you wanted to be robbed."
"Of course."
There was no more time to think. Yajiro stretched an oar across the water to fend them off, but a pirate knocked it out of his hands and it tumbled into the river. The boy expertly turned the nose of his craft so it lay alongside.
The boat quaked as the weasel came aboard, and Yajiro snatched at the gunwale to stop himself from falling. The thief crouched in the boat, his eyes eager. If he was a small man, the curved knife and the cold, steady look in his eyes made him a giant. His two grinning accomplices held the boats together. Clearly they had no doubts that their leader could take care of this alone.<
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Fear scraped at Yajiro's heart with a blunt blade, and he could not move. The gods hid below the water, or behind the trees on the land. There were no other boats within a mile.
If Ume was afraid, she did not show it. Indeed, Yajiro had never seen her look so alert. Life crackled in her eyes, although she kept them downcast as befitted a woman at the mercy of a man. She said, "Good sir, I ask your mercy for my friend and for myself. My meager possessions are at your disposal, but Heaven will smile upon you for your benevolence if we are spared."
"Shut your mouth, crone," said the weasel. "Yield up your sack, and keep your prattling gods to yourself."
Ume upended the bag. The herbal root, a few strips of dried meat, some unclean pieces of cloth, and the shiny golden box tumbled out. "You will see I have little enough, sir, for all your efforts to catch me."
She pushed the box across the bottom of the boat with her foot until it was within the thief's reach. He picked it up, his cautious rat's eyes never leaving them. "If there's jewels within, maybe I'll not cut your throats," he said.
Ume smiled tightly. "Be reassured, kind sir. The box contains that which I value the most in all the world. Yet I'm sure that it will find a good home with you."
Yajiro transfixed in the stern, clutching the useless rudder in his hands as they floated downstream in the current, finally found his tongue. "Don't open it. Don't open the box."
"The big lump has a tongue," sneered the thief. "Maybe I'll carve it out before I leave."
"Be still, Yajiro," said Ume, her voice sharp.
As the weasel raised the box, Yajiro tensed. He was tall and strong. Surely he could wrangle the knife away from this little man. Surely the gods were waiting for him to cast away his fear and put these evil men to flight. Surely...
The weasel opened the box.
And changed. Yajiro, saw him fall sideways and hold out his hand to balance himself, and heard Ume cry out and clutch at her throat. Her throat, but the real knowledge came to him from out of the weasel's eyes; the sly meanness and avarice had fled, driven out by a hard intelligence, a rising exultation.
