by Lian Hearn
All the while his stance was alert, his eyes restless, his whole body tense in expectation of the coming fight.
Isamu said, “I don’t want to kill you either. But I will not return with you. You are right to say I have left the Tribe. I have left it forever. I will never go back.”
“Then I am under orders to execute you,” Kotaro said, speaking more formally, like one who delivers a sentence of justice. “For disobedience to your family and to the Tribe.”
“I understand,” Isamu replied, equally formally.
Neither of them moved. Kotaro was still sweating profusely despite the cold wind. Their eyes met and Isamu felt the power of his cousin’s gaze. Both of them possessed the ability to induce sleep in an opponent; both were equally adept at withstanding it. The silent struggle continued between them for many moments before Kotaro brought an end to it by pulling out his knife. His movements were clumsy and fumbling, with none of his usual dexterity.
“You must do what you have to do,” Isamu said. “I forgive you, and I pray Heaven will, too.”
His words seemed to unnerve Kotaro even further. “You forgive me? What sort of language is this? Who in the Tribe ever forgives anyone? There is either total obedience or punishment. If you have forgotten this you have turned stupid or mad—in any case the only cure is death!”
“I know all this as well as you. Just as I know I cannot escape you or this judgment. So carry it out, knowing that I absolve you from any guilt. I leave no one to avenge me. You will have been obedient to the Tribe and I . . . to my lord.”
“You will not defend yourself? You will not even try to fight me?” Kotaro demanded.
“If I try to fight you, I will almost certainly succeed in killing you. I think we both know that.” Isamu laughed. In all the years that he and Kotaro had striven with each other, he had never felt such power over the other man. He held his arms wide, his chest open and undefended. He was still laughing when the knife entered his heart; the pain flooded through him, the sky darkened, his lips formed the words of parting. He began the journey on which he in his time had sent so many others. His last thought was of the girl and for the warm body in which—though he did not know it—he had left a part of himself.
2
These were the years when the warlord Iida Sadayoshi, who employed so many members of the Tribe, including Kikuta Kotaro, was engaged in unifying the East of the Three Countries and compelling minor families and clans to submit to the triple oak leaf of the Tohan. The Middle Country had been held for hundreds of years by the Otori, and the current head of the clan, Lord Shigemori, had two young sons, Shigeru and Takeshi, and two discontented and ambitious half brothers, Shoichi and Masahiro.
Takeshi had been born the year Lady Otori turned thirty-two; many women were already holding their grandchildren by that age. She had been married to Shigemori when she was seventeen and he twenty-five. She had conceived a child almost immediately, giving great hope for a swift guarantee of succession, but the child, a boy, had been still-born, and the next, a girl, lived only a few hours after birth. Several miscarriages followed, all water-children consigned to the care of Jizo; it seemed her womb was too unstable to carry a living child to full term. Doctors, then priests, were consulted, and finally a shaman from the mountains. The doctors prescribed foods to strengthen the womb: sticky rice, eggs, and fermented soybeans; they advised against eating eel or any other lively fish and brewed teas that were reputed to have calming properties. The priests chanted prayers and filled the house with incense and talismans from distant shrines; the shaman tied a straw cord round her belly to hold the child in and forbade her from looking on the color red lest she revive the womb’s desire to bleed. Lord Shigemori was privately advised by his senior retainers to take a concubine—or several—but his half brothers Shoichi and Masahiro were inclined to oppose this idea, arguing that the Otori succession had always been through legitimate heirs; other clans might arrange their affairs differently, but the Otori, after all, were descended from the imperial family, and it would surely be an insult to the Emperor to create an illegitimate heir. The child could of course have been adopted and so legitimized, but Shoichi and Masahiro were not so loyal to their older brother that they did not harbor their own ideas about inheritance.
Chiyo, the senior maid in Lady Otori’s household, who had been her wet nurse and had brought her up, went secretly into the mountains to a shrine sacred to Kannon, and brought back a talisman woven from horsehair and strands of paper as light as gossamer and holding within it a spell, which she stitched into the hem of her lady’s night robe, saying nothing about it to anyone. When the child was conceived, Chiyo made sure her own regimen for a safe pregnancy was followed: rest, good food and no excitement, no doctors, priests, or shamans. Depressed by her many lost babies, Lady Otori held little hope for the life of this one; indeed, hardly anyone dared hope for a live child. When the child was born and it was a boy and, furthermore, showed every sign of intending to survive, Lord Shigemori’s joy and relief were extreme. Convinced the boy was born only to be taken from her, Lady Otori could not nurse the child herself. Chiyo’s daughter, who had just given birth to her second son, became his wet nurse. At two years old the child was named Shigeru.
Two more water-children were consigned to the care of Jizo before Chiyo made another pilgrimage to the mountains. This time she took the living baby’s navel cord as an offering to the goddess and returned with another woven talisman.
Shigeru was four when his brother was born. The second son was named Takeshi. The Otori favored names with Shige and Take in them, reminding their sons of the importance of both the land and the sword; the blessings of peace as well as the delights of war.
The legitimate succession was thus secured to the great relief of everyone, except possibly Shoichi and Masahiro, who hid their disappointment with all the fortitude expected of the warrior class. Shigeru was brought up in the strict, disciplined way of the Otori, who valued courage and physical skill, keen intelligence, mental alertness, self-control, and courtesy in grown men and obedience in children. He was taught horsemanship; the use of sword, bow, and spear; the art and strategy of war; the government and history of the clan; and the administration and taxation of its lands.
These lands constituted the whole of the Middle Country from the northern to the southern sea. In the north, the port of Hagi was the Otori castle town. Trade with the mainland and fishing the rich northern seas made it prosperous. Craftsmen from Silla on the mainland settled there and introduced many small industries, most noteworthy the beautiful pottery: the local clay had a particularly pleasing color that gave a fleshlike luster to the pale glazes. Yamagata, in the center of the country, was their second most important city. Trade was also conducted in the south from the port of Hofu. Out of the Three Countries, the Middle Country was the most prosperous, which meant that its neighbors were always eyeing it covetously.
IN THE FOURTH MONTH of the year after Kikuta Isamu’s death, the twelve-year-old Otori Shigeru came to visit his mother, as he had done once a week since he had left the house he had been raised in and gone to live in the castle as his father’s heir. The house, which was built of wood, with verandas all around it covered by deep eaves, was located on a small point near the conjunction of the twin rivers that encircled the town of Hagi. The farms and forests on the opposite bank belonged to his mother’s family. The oldest part of the house was thatched, but his grandfather had had a new wing constructed with a second floor and a roof of bark shingles, an upstairs room, and a staircase made out of polished oak. Though Shigeru was still a few years off his coming-of-age day, he wore a short sword in the belt of his robe. This day, since his visit to his mother was considered an occasion of some formality, he wore appropriate clothes, with the Otori heron crest on the back of the large-sleeved jacket and divided wide trousers under the long robe. He was carried in a black-lacquered palanquin, with sides of woven reeds and oiled silk curtains, which he always raised.
He would have preferred to ride—he loved horses—but as the heir to the clan certain formalities were expected of him and he obeyed without question.
He was accompanied in a second palanquin by his teacher Ichiro, a distant cousin of his father’s, who had been in charge of his studies since he was four years old and had begun his formal education in reading, writing with the brush, history, the classics, and poetry. The palanquin bearers jogged through the gates. The guards all came forward and fell to their knees as the box was set down and Shigeru stepped out. He acknowledged their bows with a slight inclination of his head, and then waited respectfully for Ichiro to extricate himself from his palanquin. The teacher was a sedentary man and was already smitten by pains in the joints that made bending difficult. The old man and the boy stood for a moment, looking at the garden, both affected by the same sudden gladness. The azaleas were on the point of flowering and the bushes were brushed with a red gleam. Around the pools, irises bloomed white and purple, and the leaves of the fruit trees were a bright fresh new green. A stream flowed through the garden and red-gold carp flickered below its surface. From the far end came the sound of the river at low tide, a gentle lapping, and the familiar smell, beneath the scent of flowers, of mud and fish.
There was an arch in the wall, a conduit through which the stream flowed into the river beyond. A grille of bamboo rails lashed together usually stood against the opening to prevent stray dogs entering the garden—Shigeru noticed it had been pulled to one side, and he smiled inwardly, remembering how he used to go out onto the riverbank the same way. Takeshi was probably playing outside, engaged in a stone battle, no doubt, and his mother would be fretting about him. Takeshi would be scolded later for not being ready, dressed in his best clothes, to greet his older brother, but both mother and brother would be quick to forgive him. Shigeru felt a slight quickening of pleasure at the thought of seeing his brother.
Chiyo called a welcome from the veranda, and he turned to see one of the maids kneeling beside her on the boards with a bowl of water ready to wash their feet. Ichiro gave a deep sigh of satisfaction and, smiling broadly in a way he never did at the castle, walked toward the house—but before Shigeru could follow him there was a shout from beyond the garden wall, and Endo Akira came splashing through the water. He was covered in mud and bleeding from cuts on his forehead and neck.
“Shigeru! Your brother! He fell in the river!”
Not so long ago, Shigeru had engaged in similar battles, and Akira had been one of his junior officers. The Otori boys, along with Akira and Takeshi’s best friend, Miyoshi Kahei, had an ongoing feud with the sons of the Mori family, who lived on the opposite bank and considered the fish weir their own private bridge. The boys fought their battles with round black stones, prised from the silt at low tide. They had all fallen in the river at one time or another and had learned to deal with the water in all its treacherous moods. He hesitated, reluctant to plunge in, disinclined to dirty his clothes and insult his mother by making her wait for him.
“My younger brother can swim!”
“No. He hasn’t come up!”
A lick of fear ran around his mouth, drying it.
“Show me.” He leaped into the stream, and Akira came after him. From the veranda he heard Ichiro call in outrage, “Lord Shigeru! This is no time for playing! Your mother is waiting for you.”
He noticed how low he had to bend to go beneath the arch. He could hear the different notes of the water, the cascade from the garden, the splash of the stream as it flowed through the conduit onto the beach by the river. He dropped onto the mud, felt it close malodorously over his sandals, tore them off, as well as his jacket and his robe, dropping them in the mud, hardly noticing, aware only of the green empty surface of the river. Downstream to his right he saw the first column of the unfinished stone bridge rising from the water, the incoming tide swirling between its footings, and one boat, carried by the same tide, steered by a young girl. In the instant his eyes flashed over her, he saw she was aware of the accident, was rising and stripping off her outer robe, preparing to dive. Then he looked upstream to the fish weir where the two younger Mori boys were kneeling, peering into the water.
“Mori Yuta fell in too,” Akira said.
At that moment there was a splashing disturbance in the water and Miyoshi Kahei surfaced, gasping for breath, his face pale green, his eyes bulging. He took two or three deep breaths, then dived again.
“That’s where they are,” Akira said.
“Go and get the guards,” Shigeru said, but he knew there was no time to wait for anyone else. He ran forward and plunged into the river. A few paces from the bank the river deepened rapidly, and the tide was flowing back strongly, pushing him toward the fish weir. Kahei surfaced again a little in front of him, coughing and spitting water.
“Shigeru!” he screamed. “They’re stuck under the weir!”
Shigeru thought of nothing now except that he could not let Takeshi die in the river. He dived down into the murky water, feeling the strengthening power of the tide. He saw the cloudy figures like shadows, their pale limbs entwined together as though they were still fighting. Yuta, older and heavier, was on the outer side. Pushed against the wooden structure of the weir, in his panic he had forced Takeshi farther between the piles. Yuta’s loincloth seemed to be snagged on a jagged piece of wood.
Shigeru was counting under his breath to keep himself calm. The blood was beginning to pound in his ears as his lungs demanded air. He pulled at the sodden cloth, but it would not come free. He could not get Yuta out of the way to reach Takeshi. He felt a movement in the water next to him and realized he was not alone. He thought it was Kahei but saw the pale outline of a girl’s breast against the darkened wood and the green weed. She grasped Yuta and jerked at him. The cloth broke free. The boy’s mouth was open; no bubbles came from it. He looked already dead. Shigeru could save one but not both, and at that moment he could think of no one but Takeshi. He dived farther in and grabbed his brother’s arms.
His lungs were bursting, his vision red. Takeshi’s limbs seemed to move, but it was only the river’s current rocking them. He seemed extraordinarily heavy, too heavy for an eight-year-old, far too heavy for Shigeru to lift. But he would not let go. He would die in the river with his brother before he left him alone in it. The girl was alongside him, dragging at Takeshi, lifting them both upward. He could just make out her eyes, dark and intense with effort. She swam like a cormorant, better than he did.
The light above was tantalizingly near. He could see its fractured surface, but he could not reach it. He opened his mouth involuntarily—maybe to breathe, maybe to call for help—and took in a mouthful of water. His lungs seemed to scream in pain. The river had become a prison, its water no longer fluid and soft but now a solid membrane closing around him, choking him.
Swim up. Swim up. It was as if she had spoken to him. Without knowing how, he found a tiny amount of strength left. The light brightened dazzlingly, and then his head broke through the surface and he was gulping air. The river relaxed its serpent grip and held him up—and held Takeshi up in his arms.
His brother’s eyes were closed; he did not seem to be breathing. Treading water, shivering, Shigeru placed his mouth over his brother’s and gave him his breath, calling on all the gods and spirits to help him, rebuking the river god, rebuking death itself, refusing to let them take Takeshi down into their dark world.
Guards from the house had appeared on the riverbank and were splashing into the water. One of them took Takeshi and swam strongly back to the shore. Another plucked Kahei up and helped him swim back. A third tried to help Shigeru, but he pushed him away.
“Mori Yuta is still down there. Bring him up.”
The man’s face blanched and he dived immediately.
Shigeru could hear the youngest Mori boy sobbing on the weir. Somewhere in the distance a woman was screaming, a high sound like a curlew. As he swam to the shore and staggered from the water, Shigeru was aware of the
ordinary peacefulness of the late afternoon, the warmth of the sun, the smells of blossom and mud, the soft touch of the south wind.
The guard had laid Takeshi facedown on the beach and was kneeling beside him, pushing gently on his back to empty the water from his lungs. The man’s face was shocked and somber, and he kept shaking his head.
“Takeshi!” Shigeru called. “Wake up! Takeshi!”
