Shike, p.15
Shike, page 15
Taniko bowed her head. "As Your Highness says, I am just a child from the provinces. How could I possibly have any influence in these high matters?"
Horigawa turned from her, pacing the room. "That young dog who came to kill me at Daidoji-he is to live. In the care of your father. Your father! After Domei was defeated he disappeared, and when he reappears it is in Kamakura, at your father's house."
"Do you think I sent him to my father, Your Highness? There is no way I could have done that. Doubtless, the young Muratomo was passing through Kamakura, and my father, being a loyal supporter of the Takashi, stopped him and held him."
"Oh, doubtless, doubtless. How do I know what passed between the two of you while I lay buried alive? When I think of the hours I spent under all that weight of dirt-well, you shall see what it is like to be buried alive." He stared at her with such hatred that Taniko, despite her contempt for him, was terrified.
"What do you mean?"
"You will not remain in Heian Kyo to thwart me again. As your husband I command you to move to my house at Daidoji. You will live there. I am not free to deal with you as I truly wish, because I need the support of your family. But I will keep you from tampering with my affairs. Prepare yourself. I expect you to be ready to move by tomorrow morning."
Oh, merciful Buddha, no, thought Taniko. He takes from me the only thing that makes life bearable. To leave the capital, to go into exile, no. If I can't be here at the centre of things he might as well kill me. I'll die there at Daidoji, of grief and boredom.
She knew it was useless to plead with him. Any sign that she was suffering would please him and confirm him in his decision. Two women had virtually thrown their lives away to save Akimi's son, Yukio. She could only hope he would grow up to be worth it.
Chapter Fifteen
The Muratomo were finished, thought Jebu. Almost all the leaders of the clan were dead. Hideyori was as much Lord Bokuden's prisoner as his ward. Jebu himself could do no more for Domei's family. He worked his way southward towards the capital, still serving the Mu ratomo as the Order commanded. But the wings of the White Dragon had been clipped. Any lives lost now were being lost for nothing.
He was trudging over terraces of harvested rice. Behind him was another lost battle, if it deserved to be called a battle. The Takashi had ambushed a dozen hungry Muratomo samurai with whom Jebu had been riding. Jebu had warned them it might happen, but the Muratomo warriors had insisted that no true samurai would attack another samurai without proper warning and challenge. Whoever was leading the Takashi apparently didn't care about such niceties.
Outnumbered many times over, the Muratomo samurai had thrown away their lives. What good had their sacrifice done the dead Domei?
Jebu reminded himself to think as a Zinja. To a Zinja there was no good or evil, failure or success, life or death. The Zinja simply threw his energy into the task at hand and did not concern himself about the outcome. Erom that point of view, his Muratomo comrades, alive a few hours ago, now dead, had lost nothing. At the very least, they no longer suffered the pangs of hunger.
A rider emerged from the woods behind Jebu, galloping directly across the rice stubble. There was no point in trying to outrun him, and no place to hide. Jebu quickly slipped off his bow and arrows and laid them at his feet. He nocked one arrow and laid it across the bow. He drew his sword and waited.
The samurai approached to within ten feet of Jebu and stopped. He looked sleek, strong and prosperous, like a well-cared-for war-horse. Quite different from the ragged, half-starved Muratomo samurai Jebu had been riding with. The laces holding together the many small plates of his armour were dyed a deep magenta.
"I saw you riding with that pack of Muratomo dogs we jumped, and I saw you sneak away when the battle went against you. I will not tell you my name and lineage because you do not deserve the courtesy. You are merely to be exterminated, like vermin." He unslung his huge bow and positioned an arrow.
Jebu stood silently. The instant he saw the samurai's fingers twitch to release the bowstring he threw himself to the ground. The ordinary warrior always gives a warning-a movement of the hand or fingers, a tensing of the arm muscles-when he is about to move. He consciously commands his movements, unlike the Zinja, who acts as the Self directs.
As the thirteen-hand-span samurai arrow whistled overhead, Jebu had his own ready. He stood up and fired. The point of his willow-leaf arrow struck the samurai in the left eye and buried itself deep in his head. Jebu felt no pleasure as he watched the samurai slide out of his saddle. It was a bit too much like killing a duck sitting in the water.
Jebu seized the horse's reins. Holding the horse with one hand and speaking gently to it, he set his foot on the dead man's forehead and pulled the arrow from the crushed eye. He wiped the arrow and re turned it to its quiver. He took the man's sword and scabbard and strapped them to the saddle. Then he asked forgiveness of the samurai he had killed and looked around, trying to decide which way to ride.
Erom horseback he could see further. Behind him was the forest where they had been ambushed. All around him were rice fields. Before him were the hills and mountains, and beyond the mountains was Heian Kyo. It was the first time he had been this close to the capital since last winter when he had ridden out of it with the defeated Muratomo army.
Now it hardly mattered where he was. The Takashi controlled everywhere. Any place he went for food and a night's shelter would be the home of Takashi adherents or people who now claimed to be. He would have to say he was a Takashi man as well. A good thing about being a Zinja was that you could present yourself as serving one side or the other as you chose, or else you could pretend to be a simple monk minding his own business. Unless, of course, someone recognized you, as the now-dead Takashi samurai had.
But he had not eaten in over seven days. His Zinja training had inured him to going without food and even water for long stretches of time, but he could feel himself growing weaker. At this rate, soon he would no longer be able to draw his bow. He would have to stop somewhere. If we did not have to eat, he thought, all of us would be safe and free. It is when the bird lands on the ground to peck at seeds that the cat pounces.
Riding south towards the hills he caught sight of a manor house overlooking the rice paddies. Whoever owns that house is undoubtedly lord of this land, he thought. An important landowner would have to take one side or another. But this close to Heian Kyo and undamaged, it must be a Red Dragon house. The huts of peasants were clustered around the base of the hill on which the manor stood, and more huts climbed the hill behind it, where a high waterfall turned a mill wheel three times the height of a man.
He decided against asking the peasants for their hospitality. It would endanger them, and they had little enough to share. No, the thing to do was ride boldly in through the gate, present himself as a Takashi messenger on an important mission, and demand shelter, food and provisions. While he was at it, he might get some news of the Muratomo and find out where he could rejoin them.
He rode through the rice fields and up to the gate of the mansion. A group of guards stood by it.
"I am Yoshizo, a monk of the Order of Zinja," said Jebu, using the name of a brother he knew was working for the Takashi. "I am on my way to Heian Kyo with a message for His Excellency, the Minister of the Left from-" Jebu said the first name that came to him "-his kinsman, Lord Shima no Bokuden of Kamakura. I require a night's lodging and food."
The guards didn't move. "That's a samurai sword and a samurai saddle," one said, gesturing with the naginata. "I didn't think Zinja monks used such fancy equipment."
"Quiet," said another guard. "He can kill you so quickly you'd be dead a minute ago. We'll find out soon enough if he's from Lord Bokuden. Come on in, monk."
The first guard brightened up. "Yes! Come in, monk." He grinned, stepped aside and waved the long-handled naginata towards the open gateway.
The manor house was old, Jebu saw, perhaps a hundred years old, built at a time when there was no need for fortifications. Both the stone wall around it, twice the height of a man, and the gate were new. A gang of workmen was putting up a wooden guard tower at one corner of the wall.
Jebu dismounted. One of the guards said, "I'll take your horse down to the stables, monk."
"Very good," said Jebu. There would be no easy escape now. He was angry with himself for the vanity of his sword-collecting project and for not getting rid of the saddle, or disguising it. If the samurai he killed were a local personage, the sword, the saddle and the horse might be recognized. But it was now too late to do anything but keep walking onwards.
The other guard took him into the courtyard and slammed and barred the gate. "Chief of guards!" he called. An armoured man wearing a sword immediately stepped from a building to the right of the manor house, trailed by a group of men carrying naginatas. This household had its own little army, Jebu thought.
"Chief Goshin," the guard said, "this monk claims to be from Lord Bokuden on a mission to the Minister of the Left in Heian Kyo. But he has a samurai's horse and equipment. I thought to myself, we've got a way of testing whether he's really from Lord Bokuden."
"Of course," said Goshin. He was a squat man with a frog-like face, huge eyes, flat nose, and wide mouth. "I'll go see her." He turned to his men. "Keep this monk at the ends of your naginatas. If he makes a move, skewer him at once. Don't hesitate, or you'll be dead. I've run up against these Zinja before." He spat out "Zinja" as if it were a foul word. Goshin turned and strode into the manor house.
Jebu stood in the centre of a ring of levelled naginatas. He looked at the guards calmly and kept his hands away from his swords and his bow. What kind of test did they have in mind, he wondered.
The sound of hammering distracted him. He looked over at the men building the guard tower. One of the carpenters, a short man who gestured and shouted orders to the others, looked familiar, but he was too far away for Jebu to see his face.
"All right," said Goshin. "There he is, my lady. Do you recognize him?"
Jebu turned from the guard tower to the veranda of the manor house. Through the blinds he could just make out a shadowy figure.
Then he heard a light voice, like the chiming of temple bells. "I have seen this monk visit my father. Who could forget that hideous red hair?"
Jebu felt himself go cold and then hot. He wanted to laugh and call out to Taniko, run up the steps, push his way into the manor house and put his arms around her. He forced himself to look coldly in the direction of her voice as if he had never seen her before. He reminded himself that he was a monk named Yoshizo.
She went on, "Of course, he could know my father and still be working for the Muratomo. It is my father's custom to give his messengers a password to identify themselves to any members of the Shima family they might meet. Did Lord Bokuden give you such a word, monk?"
Jebu played along. "He did, my lady, but it is for your ears alone. I must take the liberty of whispering it to you."
"Come up, close to these blinds, then," came the icy voice.
"Careful, my lady," said the frog-faced Goshin. "He might just be trying to get close enough to you to seize you as a hostage."
"Goshin, I command you now, if he takes me hostage you are to kill both of us immediately." She paused significantly. "I'm quite sure Prince Horigawa would want it that way."
Jebu slowly and carefully laid his bow and arrows and his two swords on the raked earth of the courtyard.
"It would be rude of me to approach you armed, my lady," he said. Then he looked coldly at the guards. "But let no one touch my weapons."
"A Zinja is armed even when empty-handed," a guard muttered.
Jebu strode forward, climbed the steps and stood beside the screen that hid Taniko. A faint scent of lilac came to him, and his head reeled. He feared the pounding of his heart must be visible to all. Goshin stood close to him, and Jebu gave him the same hard stare he had given the guards.
"This man is not authorized to hear the word," he said.
"Goshin?" said Taniko.
Grunting angrily, Goshin took a few steps away from Jebu. He drew his sword and stood poised to spring.
Leaning towards the screen until his lips were almost touching it, and looking into the bright eyes he glimpsed in the shadows beyond the screen, Jebu whispered, "The waterfowl is still snared in the lilac branch." He heard a faint sigh from within.
"Goshin," Taniko called, "this monk has given the correct password. He is a genuine messenger from my father. Since he is travelling to Minister Sogamori, he will see my husband. I have a message for my husband which I will give this monk."
Goshin glowered. "My lady, I still don't trust him. There are many ways he could have learned this password. And there is the business of the samurai equipment he was-carrying."
Jebu turned to Goshin. "You are quite correct. Now that I have been identified as, I hope, a friend of this house, I can admit that I did steal the horse. Not far from here a party of Muratomo samurai was riding through the forest. I was with a Takashi band waiting in ambush. One of the enemy tried to escape on his horse. I jumped from a tree, and took his horse away from him. He seemed so unhappy about losing his horse that I killed him to spare him further grief."
Taniko greeted this story with her tinkling laughter, and soon all the servants and guards near by joined in. Only Goshin stood unsmiling, his bulging eyes filled with anger.
"Did you not already have a horse?" he demanded.
Jebu laughed. "Clearly you do not know Lord Shima no Bokuden, or you would not have asked that question. Lord Bokuden is not the most generous of employers. He felt my legs were strong enough to take me to Heian Kyo."
Behind the screen Taniko laughed again.
Goshin broke in. "You do not behave as Prince Horigawa would want you to, my lady. You are too familiar with this monk."
"Be silent, Goshin!" Taniko snapped. "My husband did not appoint you to teach me manners. I am mistress of this house, and in my husband's absence I rule here. You are dismissed. Monk, wait there. A maid will take you to my chamber when I am ready to receive you."
"May I collect my weapons, my lady?" Jebu asked.
Goshin said, "I will keep them for you, monk. You don't need weapons here, since you are such a great friend of this house. Ask for them when you are ready to leave."
Reluctant to entrust his bow and arrows and his swords to this man, Jebu saw that he had no choice. He bowed. "Thank you."
Shortly afterwards, a maid led Jebu to the women's quarters and down a series of twisting corridors. As he had long ago been taught to do on entering a strange house, Jebu constructed and committed to memory a mental map of everything he could_ see.
At last he entered a large, dim room with a sleeping platform in the centre. On the platform was a screen of state whose curtains were painted to depict snow-covered mountains. Overcome with excitement, Jebu strode straight for the screen, meaning to step around it and see Taniko.
"Stop," she called from behind the curtain in a warning tone. Of course, Jebu thought, they must be under surveillance. He had allowed himself to be carried away by emotion, just the thing a Zinja was not supposed to do.
In a low voice Taniko went on, "We can be watched, but if we speak softly enough we cannot be heard. Sit down and talk to me. I am so happy to see you, my heart is like a butterfly just burst from its cocoon."
"When we parted I told myself I must never expect to meet you again," said Jebu. "Yet I knew I would think of you for the rest of my life. Not a day has gone by that I have not remembered that night on Mount Higashi overlooking the lights of Heian Kyo."
"I have not forgotten either. There has been nothing in my marriage to replace the memory of that night. I have known nothing but horror and sorrow and ugliness since we parted."
Jebu felt as if a hand were crushing his heart. "How sorry I am to hear that. It would be like death to know that you had forgotten me, but I would accept it if it meant you had found happiness. We should have run away together instead of letting you go to that man. Tell me about the prince."
"He is cold and ugly and cruel. Let us not speak of him. Why are you travelling under a false name? Are you really working for the Muratomo?"
"Yes. The cause of the White Dragon is collapsing, but the Order has commanded me to stay with it."
"It is unfortunate that you said you were going to Sogamori," Taniko said. "He is well known in this house. Eor you to claim a connection with him raises suspicion. Horigawa is with Sogamori now."
At that moment Jebu heard bare feet on the wooden floor behind him. He whirled.
"Shike!" It was Moko, scuttling towards them and bowing from across the room.
"You do not know him, Moko!" Taniko snapped from behind her screen. "He is dead if they find out who he really is."
Moko stopped where he was, his face pale. He threw himself down on his knees.
"Eorgive me, mistress. Eorgive me, shike. Moko is so stupid-" Jebu smiled and patted him on the back.
"You can speak to him, but try to seem as if you are speaking to me," said Taniko. "Supposedly I am giving you instructions about the new guard tower."
Moko said, "I am so happy to see you, shike. I have missed you so much. But if you want to do the sensible thing you will run out of this room, through the garden and over the wall and across the rice paddies and not stop until you reach the woods. These guards will not rest until they kill you."
"They have no reason to kill me."
"These are men who need no reason to kill."
"I will not leave here-not yet."
"I understand, shike." Moko nodded towards Taniko, behind her screen. "She is the reason I stay in this hellhole with Horigawa and his bandits."
"We can safely talk no longer," said Taniko. "Go now, Moko." Moko bowed first to Taniko, then to Jebu. "My lady. Shike." He hurried away.
