by Lian Hearn
Grief and distress hung over the village. Women wept as they brought water and prepared food. Fifteen of their community had died—it must have been close to half—neighbors, friends, relatives.
Shigeru and his men were given makeshift accommodations within the small shrine, sitting under the carved figures and the votive pictures. The armor from the dead Tohan was presented to the shrine. The priest’s wife brought water to wash their feet, then tea made from roasted barley. Its pungent smell made Shigeru realize how hungry he was. It did not look as if much food would be available; he tried to put all thoughts of eating away. The gratitude of the villagers, the warmth of the welcome in the midst of suffering, only increased his unease, though he gave no outward sign of it, sitting impassively as the headman knelt before him to give his account.
“Every village from here as far as Chigawa has been attacked,” he said bitterly. He was a man of about thirty, blind in one eye but otherwise healthy and strong-looking. “The Tohan act as if this were already their land, exacting taxes, taking whatever they please, and trying to eradicate the Hidden as they do in Iida’s own domain.”
“Already?” Shigeru questioned.
“Forgive me, Lord Otori, I should not speak so bluntly, but polite lies don’t help anyone. Everyone fears the Iida plan to attack the Middle Country once they’ve unified the East. This must also be known in Hagi. For months we have been asking ourselves why no help comes, if we will be handed over to the Tohan by our own lords.”
“To what domain do you belong?”
“To Tsuwano—we send rice every year, but we are so far from them—only you and your father can save us. Help must come directly from Hagi. We thought you had already forgotten us. And anyway, Lord Kitano’s sons are in Inuyama.”
“I know it,” Shigeru replied, fighting to master his anger. Kitano’s ill-considered decision to send his sons to the Tohan capital had proved a fatal weakness in the Otori position. The boys were hostages in all but name: no wonder their father took no action on the eastern borders. Shigeru feared his former companions might pay for his attack with their lives, but the fault did not lie with him. It had been their father’s decision to send them away, a decision that Shigeru already regarded as near-treachery. If the outcome was the death of his sons, it would be no more than justice.
“If this sect fled from the East, they should be returned there,” Kiyoshige said, for no one was free just to walk away from their own land.
“It is true that some of the Hidden are from the East,” the headman replied. “But most have always lived here in the Middle Country and are of the Otori clan. The Tohan lie about them as they lie about everything.”
“They live among you, peacefully?”
“Yes, and have done so for centuries. Outwardly they act the same as any of us. That is why they are called the Hidden. There are a few differences. We worship many gods and honor them all; we know we have salvation through the grace of the Enlightened One. They worship the one they call the Secret One, and they will not take life. They will not kill either themselves or others.”
“Yet they seem courageous,” Kiyoshige observed.
The villager nodded in agreement. Shigeru felt the man had more to say on this matter, but something held him back, some other tie or loyalty.
“You know the man who survived, Nesutoro?”
“Of course. We grew up together.” After a pause, he swallowed hard and said, “My wife is his sister.”
“You are one of them?” Kiyoshige exclaimed.
“No, lord, I have never been a believer. How could I? My family have been heads in this village for generations. We have always followed the teachings of the Enlightened One, and we honor the gods of the forest, the river, and the harvest. My wife does the same, but secretly in her heart she worships the Secret One. I forbade her to declare the truth openly, like those who died. She had to trample on their sacred images . . .”
“What are they?” Shigeru asked.
The man shifted uncomfortably and stared at the floor. “It is not for me to say,” he said finally. “Speak to Nesutoro. He will know if he can tell you or not.”
“So you saved your wife’s life?” Irie had been silent till now, watching and listening carefully.
“She is not dead, nor are our children; but she does not thank me for it. She obeyed me, as a wife should, but she feels she disobeyed the teachings of her god. Those who died have become martyrs, saints, and live in Paradise. She is afraid she will be cast into hell.”
“THIS IS THE REASON the Tohan hate this sect so much,” Irie said later, after the headman had been dismissed and they had eaten a sparse meal. “Wives should obey their husbands, vassals their lords, but these people have another loyalty—to an unseen power.”
“Unseen and nonexistent,” Kiyoshige said briefly.
“Yet we’ve seen tangible proof of the strength of their belief,” Shigeru observed.
“Proof of the belief, not of the god’s existence.”
“What proof is there of the existence of any spirit?” Shigeru said, but then remembered how he himself had seen—had talked to—a fox-spirit who could appear and disappear at will.
Kiyoshige grinned. “It’s better not to question too closely. The monks and priests could occupy you for years with their discussions.”
“I agree,” Irie said. “Religious practices should keep the fabric of society in good shape—they should not unravel it.”
“Well.” Shigeru stretched his legs, then settled himself cross-legged and changed the subject. “From tomorrow we will ride the length of the border, from sea to sea. We must know the full extent of Tohan incursion. We have nine weeks—maybe three months before the first typhoons.”
“We have few men for a long campaign,” Irie said. “And the Tohan will be seeking revenge for this recent defeat.”
“I will write tonight to Yamagata and Kushimoto. They can each send a couple of hundred. You and Kiyoshige may go north with half of them. I will go south with the others.”
“I should accompany Lord Shigeru,” Irie protested. “And, forgive me, Lord Kiyoshige is too young to undertake such a mission.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” Kiyoshige muttered.
Shigeru smiled. “Kiyoshige—and all of us—need all the experience we can get. That is why you will go with him. We are not engaging in a major battle; we are simply demonstrating to the Iida that we will not tolerate encroachment of our borders. But I fully expect these skirmishes to lead to all-out war. You can wait for the extra men in Chigawa. We will ride there together tomorrow. I will send Harada tonight with the letters. And then I wish to speak to the man we rescued.”
HE HAD CARRIED writing materials and his seal with him, as always, in the saddlebags, and now he asked for more lamps to be brought and water for the inkstone. He mixed the ink and wrote swiftly to Nagai at Yamagata and to Lord Yanagi of Kushimoto, ordering them to send men directly to Chigawa. Then he gave the letters to Harada, saying, “There is no need to contact Hagi or anyone else. Above all, Kitano must not be told. You must impress upon them both: They must obey at once.”
“Lord Otori.” The man sprang into the saddle with no sign of fatigue and, accompanied by two soldiers carrying torches, rode off into the night.
Shigeru watched the lights shrink until they were indistinguishable from the fireflies or the stars against the utter blackness of the Yaegahara plain.
“I hope you approve,” he said to Irie, who stood beside him. “Am I doing the right thing?”
“You have acted decisively,” Irie replied. “That is the right thing, whatever the consequences.”
Those I have to live with, Shigeru thought, but did not say it to Irie. He felt the sense of liberation that action brought. Irie was right: far better to act decisively than to sit in endless discussion and consultation, paralyzed by superstition and fear.
“Now I will speak to Nesutoro,” he said. “There is no need for you to come with me.�
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Irie bowed and went back to the shrine. As Shigeru walked to the house where the village headman lived and where his brother-in-law was being tended, Kiyoshige joined him out of the shadows.
“The horses are tethered and fed. And guards have been set all around the village. There’s not a lot to eat, but the men are not complaining. In fact, they’re happy—they can’t wait to have another go at the Tohan.”
“I think they’ll get that soon enough,” Shigeru replied. “Word of this encounter will reach Inuyama within days, and the Tohan will respond. But by then we’ll have reinforcements. And from now on our borders will be patrolled and guarded properly.”
They came to the headman’s small house. It had an earthen floor with a tiny raised matted area for sleeping. Here Nesutoro lay, a woman kneeling beside him. When she saw the visitors, she bowed to the floor, staying low until her husband spoke quietly to her. Then she rose and brought cushions for them, placing the cushions on the step near the injured man. She helped her brother to sit and leaned his head against her own body, acting as a support to him. In the dim lamplight her face appeared drawn, bruised with grief and tears, but Shigeru could perceive the likeness to her brother in the planed cheekbones and almost triangular eyes.
Nesutoro’s eyes glittered like coals with fever and pain, but the sharp features softened into a real smile at the sight of Shigeru.
“Are you able to talk a little?”
The man nodded.
“I am interested in your beliefs and want to know more about them.”
Nesutoro looked anguished. His sister wiped the sweat from his face.
“Answer Lord Otori,” the headman pleaded, then added apologetically, “They are so used to keeping everything hidden.”
“There is no danger from me,” Shigeru said impatiently. “But if I am to protect you from the Tohan, I must know what I am defending. I leave here at dawn. You are not fit to travel with me. So, if you are able, we must talk now.”
“What does Lord Otori want to know?”
“For a start, what are the images that you have to defile?”
The woman made a slight sound as if she was about to sob.
Nesutoro moved his hand and traced a character on the matting, two lines crossing each other, as in the number ten.
“What does it signify?”
“We believe the Secret One sent his son to Earth. The son was born to an ordinary woman and lived as a man. He was put to death in the cruelest way, nailed to a cross, but he came back from the dead and now sits in Heaven. He will judge us all after death. Those who know him and believe in him will join him in Heaven.”
“Everyone else goes to hell,” the headman added, sounding remarkably cheerful about it. His wife was weeping silently now.
“Where does this teaching come from?” Shigeru questioned.
“From far away in the West. Our founder, the saint whose name I bear, brought it from Tenjiku to Shin over a thousand years before, and from there teachers came to the Eight Islands hundreds of years ago.”
It sounded like any other legend to Shigeru, possibly founded in truth but overlaid by centuries of human imagination, wishful thinking, and self-delusion.
“You may think we are mad,” Nesutoro said, sweat pouring from him. “But we know our God’s presence: He lives inside us. . . .”
“They have a ritual meal,” the headman explained. “When they share food and wine, they believe they eat their god.” He laughed as if to show that he did not share such outlandish beliefs.
The wife spoke suddenly. “He gave himself for us. He suffered so we might live. Everyone, anyone—even me, a woman. In his eyes I am as good as a man, as my husband, even as . . .”
Her husband slammed his fist into the matting. “Be quiet!” He bowed low to Shigeru. “Forgive her, Lord Otori, her grief makes her forget herself.”
Shigeru was astonished by her words and equally by the fact that she had dared to speak in his presence at all. He could not remember ever hearing a peasant woman speak directly to him. He was both affronted and intrigued. He felt Kiyoshige tense next to him and held up his hand to restrain the younger man. He thought Kiyoshige might draw his sword and cut her down—anywhere else the woman would have been punished immediately for her insolence, but here in the bare, impoverished house, alongside the suffering man, it was as if they had moved into a different world, where the rigid codes of his society no longer applied. He felt compassion stir within him. He had, after all, inquired about the beliefs of these people called the Hidden. Now he was learning about them, not only through words but directly through the person of the woman in front of him, who believed herself to be his equal.
“There is another image,” she said abruptly. “Lord Otori should know. . . .” Again she glanced directly at him, but after that one look, she lowered her eyes again. Her voice became softer—he had to strain to hear it, leaning forward toward her. “It is the mother and child,” she whispered. “She is the mother of God, the child is God’s son. Our way honors women and their children and seeks to protect them against the cruelty of men. God will punish those who persecute us—even the Iida lords.”
17
When they left early the following morning, smoke still rose from the charred beams and thatch; it tasted raw in Shigeru’s throat. The smell of burning made the young horses nervous, and they jibbed and pig-rooted as the riders followed a narrow track through the rice fields and then up the side of a low range of hills, where the dry fields of vegetables—pumpkins, beans, onions, and carrots—gave way to bamboo groves and then to an upland forest of beech and cedar. They went in single file, which gave no chance for conversation, but when they stopped at the head of the range to let the horses drink from a shallow pool filled by a spring, Kiyoshige remarked, “So this strange sect is to come under your protection?”
“To tell you the truth,” Shigeru replied, “the sect does not bother me one way or the other. They seem harmless enough. But as long as they are Otori, I will protect them against the Tohan. If they are to be eradicated, it will be our decision. We will not allow the Tohan to decide such things for us.”
Irie said, “This is an entirely reasonable position. No one can find fault with it.”
“I’ve been thinking about Kitano,” Shigeru went on. “We are within his domain—my first instinct was to try to keep this from him. But he will be told as soon as we arrive in Chigawa. So I believe it is better to confront him head-on and send messengers ourselves, demanding that his sons be recalled from Inuyama and that he himself come to Chigawa to reaffirm his vows of loyalty to my father and myself.”
“And if the Iida do not allow the boys to return?”
“We must find some way of applying pressure so they comply.”
“Like what?” Kiyoshige asked. “There’s not much we can bargain with.”
“Lord Irie?”
“I’m afraid Kiyoshige is right: we can threaten further attacks, but that’s more likely to enrage and harden the Iida than persuade them. And we must be careful not to be drawn into full-scale war, for we are not prepared for it yet.”
“How long would it take the Otori to be ready for war with the Tohan?”
“Next year, the year after.”
“We are a match for the Tohan right now!” Kiyoshige said hotly.
“Man for man, I don’t doubt it, but they outnumber us; they have more foot soldiers.”
“All the more reason to keep men like Kitano loyal,” Shigeru said. “We must also start increasing our men and equipment as soon as I return to Hagi.”
