Across the Nightingale Floor (9 page)

I didn't understand the question.
“Maybe,” I said, pretending to drink, even though my bowl was empty.

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My mother told me it was cruel.”

“I thought so.” His voice had taken
on a note of sadness, as though he pitied me. “No wonder you've been trying to
fend me off, Shigeru. I felt a softness in the boy, an aversion to cruelty. He
was raised among the Hidden.”

“Is it so obvious?” Lord Shigeru
said.

“Only to me.” Kenji sat
cross-legged, eyes narrowed, one arm resting on his knee. “I think I know who
he is.”

Lord Shigeru sighed, and his face
became still and wary. “Then, you had better tell us.”

“He has all the signs of being
Kikuta: the long fingers, the straight line across the palm, the acute hearing.
It comes on suddenly, around puberty, sometimes accompanied by loss of speech,
usually temporary, sometimes permanent. . . . ”

“You're making this up!” I said,
unable to keep silent any longer. In fact, a sort of horror was creeping over
me. I knew nothing of the Tribe, except that the assassin had been one of them,
but I felt as if Muto Kenji were opening a dark door before me that I dreaded
entering.

Lord Shigeru shook his head. “Let
him speak. It is of great importance.”

Kenji leaned forward and spoke
directly to me. “I am going to tell you about your father.”

Lord Shigeru said dryly, “You had
better start with the Tribe. Takeo does not know what you mean when you say he
is obviously Kikuta.”

“Is that so?” Kenji raised one
eyebrow. “Well, I suppose if he was brought up by the Hidden, I shouldn't be
surprised. I'll begin at the beginning. The five families of the Tribe have
always existed. They were there before the lords and the clans. They go back to
a time when magic was greater than strength of arms, and the gods still walked
the earth. When the clans sprang up, and men formed allegiances based on might,
the Tribe did not join any of them. To preserve their gifts, they took to the
roads and became travelers, actors and acrobats, peddlers and magicians.”

“They may have done so in the
beginning,” Lord Shigeru interrupted. “But many also became merchants, amassing
considerable wealth and influence.” He said to me, “Kenji himself runs a very
successful business in soybean products as well as money lending.”

“Times have become corrupt,” Kenji
said. “As the priests tell us, we are in the last days of the law. I was
talking about an earlier age. These days it's true, we are involved in
business. From time to time we may serve one or other of the clans and take its
crest, or work for those who have befriended us, like Lord Otori Shigeru. But
whatever we have become, we preserve the talents from the past, which once all
men had but have now forgotten.”

“You were in two places at once,” I
said. “The guards saw you outside, while I saw you in the garden.”

Kenji bowed ironically to me. “We
can split ourselves and leave the second self behind. We can become invisible
and move faster than the eye can follow. Acuteness of vision and hearing are
other traits. The Tribe has retained these abilities through dedication and
hard training. And they are abilities that others in this warring country find
useful, and pay highly for. Most members of the Tribe become spies or assassins
at some stage in their life.”

I was concentrating on trying not
to shiver. My blood seemed to have drained out of me. I remembered how I had
seemed to split in half beneath Iida's sword. And all the sounds of the house,
the garden, and the city beyond rang with increasing intensity in my ears.

“Kikuta Isamu, who I believe was
your father, was no exception. His parents were cousins and he combined the
strongest gifts of the Kikuta. By the time he was thirty, he was a flawless
assassin. No one knows how many he killed; most of the deaths seemed natural
and were never attributed to him. Even by the standards of the Kikuta he was
secretive. He was a master of poisons, in particular certain mountain plants
that kill while leaving no trace.”

“He was in the mountains of the
East—you know the district I mean—seeking new plants. The men in the village
where he was lodging were Hidden. It seems they told him about the secret god,
the command not to kill, the judgment that awaits in the afterlife: You know it
all, I don't need to tell you. In those remote mountains, far from the feuds of
the clans, Isamu had been taking stock of his life. Perhaps he was filled with
remorse. Perhaps the dead called out to him. Anyway, he renounced his life with
the Tribe and became one of the Hidden.”

“And was executed?” Lord Shigeru
spoke out of the gloom.

“Well, he broke the fundamental
rules of the Tribe. We don't like being renounced like that, especially not by
someone with such great talents. That sort of ability is all too rare these
days. But to tell the truth, I don't know what exactly happened to him. I
didn't even know he had had a child. Takeo, or whatever his real name is, must
have been born after his father's death.”

“Who killed him?” I said, my mouth
dry.

“Who knows? There were many who
wanted to, and one of them did. Of course, no one could have got near him if he
had not taken a vow never to kill again.”

There was a long silence. Apart
from a small pool of light from the glowing lamp, it was almost completely dark
in the room. I could not see their faces, though I was sure Kenji could see
mine.

“Did your mother never tell you
this?” he asked eventually.

I shook my head. There is so much
that the Hidden don't tell, so much they keep secret even from each other. What
isn't known can't be revealed under torture. If you don't know your brother's
secrets, you cannot betray him.

Kenji laughed. “Admit it, Shigeru,
you had no idea who you were bringing into your household. Not even the Tribe
knew of his existence—a boy with all the latent talent of the Kikuta!”

Lord Shigeru did not reply, but as
he leaned forward into the lamplight I could see he was smiling, cheerful and
openhearted. I thought what a contrast there was between the two men: the lord
so open, Kenji so devious and tricky.

“I need to know how this came
about. I'm not talking idly with you, Shigeru. I need to know.” Kenji's voice
was insistent.

I could hear Chiyo fussing on the
stairs. Lord Shigeru said, “We must bathe and eat. After the meal we'll talk again.”

He will not want me in his house,
now that he knows I am the son of an assassin. This was the first thought that
came to me as I sat in the hot water, after the older men had bathed. I could
hear their voices from the upper room. They were drinking wine now and
reminiscing idly about the past. Then I thought about the father I had never
known, and felt a deep sadness that he had not been able to escape his
background. He had wanted to give up the killing, but it would not give him up.
It had reached out its long arms and found him, as far away as Mino, just as,
years later, Iida had sought out the Hidden there. I looked at my own long
fingers. Was that what they were designed for? To kill?

Whatever I had inherited from him,
I was also my mother's child. I was woven from two strands that could hardly be
less alike, and both called to me through blood, muscle, and bone. I
remembered, too, my fury at the guards. I knew I had been acting then as their
lord. Was this to be a third strand in my life, or would I be sent away now
that Lord Shigeru knew who I was?

The thoughts became too painful,
too difficult to unravel, and anyway, Chiyo was calling to me to come and eat.
The water had warmed me at last, and I was hungry.

Ichiro had joined Lord Shigeru and
Kenji, and the trays were already set out before them. They were discussing
trivial things when I arrived: the weather, the design of the garden, my poor
learning skills and generally bad behavior. Ichiro was still displeased with me
for disappearing that afternoon. It seemed like weeks ago that I had swum in
the freezing autumn river with Fumio.

The food was even better than
usual, but only Ichiro enjoyed it. Kenji ate fast, the lord hardly touched
anything. I was alternately hungry and nauseated, both dreading and longing for
the end of the meal. Ichiro ate so much and so slowly that I thought he would
never be through. Twice we seemed to be finished when he took “Just another
tiny mouthful.” At last he patted his stomach and belched quietly. He was about
to embark on another long gardening discussion, but Lord Shigeru made a sign to
him. With a few parting comments and a couple more jokes to Kenji about me, he
withdrew. Haruka and Chiyo came to clear away the dishes. When they had left,
their footsteps and voices fading away to the kitchen, Kenji sat forward, his
hand held out, palm open, towards Lord Shigeru.

“Well?” he said.

I wished I could follow the women.
I didn't want to be sitting here while these men decided my fate. For that was
what it would come to, I was sure. Kenji must have come to claim me in some way
for the Tribe. And Lord Shigeru would surely be only too happy now to let me
go.

“I don't know why this information
is so important to you, Kenji,” Lord Shigeru said. “I find it hard to believe
that you don't know it all already. If I tell you, I trust it will go no
further. Even in this house no one knows but Ichiro and Chiyo.”

“You were right when you said I did
not know whom I had brought into my house. It all happened by chance. It was
late in the afternoon, I had strayed somewhat out of my path and was hoping to
find lodging for the night in the village that I later discovered was called
Mino. I had been traveling alone for some weeks after Takeshi's death.”

“You were seeking revenge?” Kenji
asked quietly.

“You know how things are between
Iida and myself—how they have been since Yaegahara. But I could hardly have
hoped to come upon him in that isolated place. It was purely the strangest of
coincidences that we two, the most bitter enemies, should have been there on
the same day. Certainly if I had met Iida there, I would have sought to kill
him. But this boy ran into me on the path instead.”

He briefly told of the massacre,
Iida's fall from the horse, the men pursuing me.

“It happened on the spur of the
moment. The men threatened me. They were armed. I defended myself.”

“Did they know who you were?”

“Probably not. I was in traveling
clothes, unmarked; it was getting dark, raining.”

“But you knew they were Tohan?”

“They told me Iida was after the boy.
That was enough to make me want to protect him.”

Kenji said, as though changing the
subject, “I've heard Iida is seeking a formal alliance with the Otori.”

“It's true. My uncles are in favor
of making peace, although the clan itself is divided.”

“If Iida learns you have the boy,
the alliance will never go forward.”

“There is no need to tell me things
I already know,” the lord said with the first flash of anger.

“Lord Otori,” Kenji said in his
ironic way, and bowed.

For a few moments no one spoke.
Then Kenji sighed. “Well, the fates decide our lives, no matter what we think
we are planning. Whoever sent Shintaro against you, the result is the same.
Within a week the Tribe knew of Takeo's existence. I have to tell you that we
have an interest in this boy, which we will not relinquish.”

I said, my voice sounding thin in
my own ears, “Lord Otori saved my life and I will not leave him.”

He reached out and patted me on the
shoulder as a father might. “I'm not giving him up,” he said to Kenji.

“We want above all to keep him
alive,” Kenji replied. “While it seems safe, he can stay here. There is one
other concern, though. The Tohan you met on the mountain: Presumably you killed
them?”

“One at least,” Lord Shigeru
replied, “possibly two.”

“One,” Kenji corrected him.

Lord Shigeru raised his eyebrows.
“You know all the answers already. Why do you bother asking?”

“I need to fill in certain gaps,
and know how much you know.”

“One, two—what does it matter?”

“The man who lost his arm survived.
His name is Ando; he's long been one of Iida's closest men.”

I remembered the wolfish man who
had pursued me up the path, and could not help shivering. “He did not know who
you were, and does not yet know where Takeo is. But he is looking for you both.
With Iida's permission, he has devoted himself to the quest for revenge.”

“I look forward to our next
meeting,” Lord Shigeru replied.

Kenji stood and paced around the
room. When he sat down, his face was open and smiling, as though we had done
nothing all evening save exchange jokes and talk about gardens.

“It's good,” he said. “Now that I
know exactly what danger Takeo is in, I can set about protecting him and
teaching him to protect himself.” Then he did something that astonished me: He
bowed to the floor before me and said, “While I am alive, you will be safe. I
swear it to you.” I thought he was being ironic, but some disguise slipped from
his face, and for a moment I saw the true man beneath. I might have seen Jato
come alive. Then the cover slipped back, and Kenji was joking again. “But you
have to do exactly what I tell you!”

He grinned at me. “I gather Ichiro
finds you too much. He shouldn't be bothered by cubs like you at his age. I
will take over your education. I will be your teacher.”

He drew his robe around him with a
fussy movement and pursed his lips, instantly becoming the gentle old man I had
left outside the gate. “That is, if Lord Otori will graciously permit it.”

“I don't seem to have any choice,”
Lord Shigeru said, and poured more wine, smiling his openhearted smile.

My eyes flicked from one face to
the other. Again I was struck by the contrast between them. I thought I saw in
Kenji's eyes a look that was not quite scorn, but close to it. Now that I know
the ways of the Tribe so intimately, I know their weakness is arrogance. They
become infatuated with their own amazing skills, and underestimate those of
their antagonists. But at that moment Kenji's look just angered me.