Autumn Bridge (4 page)

Shigeru knelt before the altar of the temple in the dim light of a single candle. Only one course of action remained open to him. Had he not been so caught up in his duelist’s ambition for so many years, he might have noticed that something was amiss with his father. Perhaps he would not have been so quick to ignore the rumors he had heard. Now it was too late.

He lit the first of the one hundred and eight sticks of incense he would burn during this sitting. One hundred and eight were the afflictions of man, one hundred and eight were the eons he would spend in one hundred and eight hells for the crimes he had begun to commit this night. By now, his father was already dead, poisoned by the blowfish bile Shigeru had put into his food. After his repentance ceremony was completed, he would find his wife and children. Then only his nephew, Genji, would be left. Soon the opportunity would come and Genji, too, would die. The curse of prophetic vision would end. That the Okumichi bloodline would also end was an unavoidable consequence.

With a reverent bow, Shigeru placed the incense on his father’s funerary altar. “I am sorry, Father. Please forgive me.”

He took a second stick and repeated the procedure.

“I am sorry, Father. Please forgive me.”

The curse would end. It must.

“I am sorry, Father. Please forgive me.”

The future was not meant to be known. When it was, it turned and devoured the knowers.

“I am sorry, Father. Please forgive me.”

He hoped Lord Kiyori had not suffered. Before it brought death, blowfish bile induced hallucinations of the most vivid kind. Perhaps he had imagined himself in the embrace of his ghostly lover for the last time.

Shigeru lit the fifth incense stick. Smoke began to fill the small temple.

Outside, in the sky above, clouds had been blown ashore by the rising wind. The moon, full and bright an hour ago, was now hidden and unseen.

Okumichi no kami Genji, next in line of succession to the rule of Akaoka Domain, reclined on the floor in his usual unmartial manner, propped up on an elbow, a cup of sake in his hand, a faint smile on his lips. Most of the dozen geisha in attendance were dancing and singing and plucking out gay tunes on the strings of their
koto
and
shamisen
. One sat by his side, ready to pour should his cup need refilling.

She said, “Why have you stopped singing, my lord? Surely you know the words. ‘The Abbot and the Courtesan’ is one of the most popular songs of the season.”

He laughed and raised his cup to her. “In a contest between singing and drinking, I fear singing must always lose.” He lowered his cup after taking only the slightest of sips from it. His manner was that of an inebriated man, but his eyes, clear and bright, were not.

Genji’s hair, elaborately and formally arranged as befitted that of a high lord, was in slight disarray, with a stray lock falling across his forehead. It not only emphasized his air of mild drunkenness, it also suggested a certain effeminacy, a quality suggested as well by the kimono he wore. It was much too brightly colored and intricately embroidered for a serious samurai of twenty-four, especially for one who was destined to be a Great Lord someday. In all Japan, there were only two hundred sixty of them, each an absolute ruler in his own domain. In Genji’s case, the inappropriateness of his attire was further highlighted by his face, which bordered perilously on prettiness. Indeed, his smooth skin, long lashes, and delicately shaped lips would have improved the appearance of any of the geisha present. Except one. It was she who had Genji’s full attention at the moment, though he disguised his interest well enough to conceal it.

Mayonaka no Heiko — Midnight Equilibrium — sat on the opposite side of the room, playing a shamisen. She was this season’s most celebrated geisha. Genji had heard of her reputed perfection repeatedly during recent weeks. He had not given it much credence. Such reports were bandied about regularly every season. Last year’s incomparable beauty was inevitably eclipsed by a new one this year, just as this year’s would give way to yet another next year. Finally, he invited her to his palace, less out of interest than in order to maintain his reputation as the shallowest, most unserious lord in all of the Shogun’s capital city of Edo. Now here she was, and to Genji’s great surprise, she surpassed even the most fevered descriptions he had heard.

All true beauty transcended the merely physical. Yet her every action was so exquisite, he was not entirely sure whether he was seeing or imagining. The closing and opening of the delicate fingers of her hand, the inclination of her head in one direction or another, the slight parting of her lips as she inhaled in polite surprise at someone’s supposedly clever remark, the way her smile began, not at her mouth, but in her eyes, as every sincere expression did.

This is not to say she was physically deficient in any way. Her eyes were the perfect shape of elongated almonds, her skin as unblemished as the nocturnal snow falling in the light of the full winter moon, the subtle curves of her body in her kimono an ideal complement to the fall of the silk, the small bones of her wrists suggestive of a tantalizing bodily fragility.

Genji had never seen a woman so beautiful. He had not even imagined one.

The geisha next to him sighed.

“Oh, that Heiko. Whenever she is around, it is impossible for the rest of us to keep anyone’s interest. How cruel life is.”

“Who are you talking about?” Genji said. “How can I see anyone else when you are so close?” His gallantry would have been more effective if he had said her name, but in truth, he could no longer remember it.

“Ah, Lord Genji, you are so very kind. But I know when I am defeated.” She smiled, bowed, and made her way across the room to Heiko’s side. They exchanged some words. Heiko passed her shamisen to the other geisha and came to sit beside Genji. When she crossed the room, the eyes of every man there followed her. Even Saiki, his dour Lord Chamberlain, and Kudo, the commander of his bodyguard corps, could not restrain themselves. If any of his samurai were traitors, as his grandfather suspected, now would have been the ideal moment to assassinate Genji. Except, of course, even the traitors, if there were any, were also watching Heiko. Such was the power of beauty. It overwhelmed even discipline and reason.

“I did not mean to interrupt your performance,” Genji said.

Heiko bowed and sat beside him. The slight silken rustle of her kimono reminded him of the sound of waves receding gently from a distant shore.

“You have not interrupted me, my lord,” Heiko said.

This was the first time he had heard her speak. It took all of his considerable self-discipline to keep from gasping in awe. Her voice had the quality of chimes, not in an exact sense, but in the way that their reverberations seemed endless even as they faded away. Now that she was close, he saw a hint of light freckles beneath her makeup. She could easily have concealed them, but she had not. The slight flaw brought to mind the necessary imperfections of life itself, its brevity and unpredictability, and imbued her beauty with a perfect hint of melancholy. Was she really so ravishing, or was his pretense of drunkenness more authentic than he had intended?

“I have interrupted you,” Genji said. “You are no longer playing the shamisen.”

“That is true,” Heiko said, “but I am still performing.”

“You are? Where is your instrument?”

She opened her empty arms as if presenting something. Her smile was as slight as it could be and still exist. She looked him directly in the eyes and did not turn away until he blinked, surprised by her words as well as her gaze.

“And what is the nature of your performance?”

“I am pretending to be a geisha who is pretending to be more interested in her guest than she really is,” Heiko said. Her smile was slightly more apparent now.

“Well, that is very honest of you. No geisha I have known has ever made such a confession. Isn’t it against the rules of your craft to admit even the possibility of insincerity?”

“It is only by breaking the rules that I will attain my goal, Lord Genji.”

“And what is your goal?”

Above the sleeve that Heiko lifted to cover the smile on her lips, her eyes smiled brightly at Genji.

She said, “If I told you that, my lord, there would be nothing for you to discover but my body, and how long would that hold your interest, seductive and skilled though it may be?”

Genji laughed. “I have heard of your beauty. No one warned me of your intelligence.”

“Beauty without intelligence in a woman is like strength without courage in a man.”

“Or nobility without martial discipline in a samurai,” Genji said, with a self-deprecating grin.

“How amusing it will be, if anything is to be at all,” Heiko said. “I will pretend to be a geisha pretending to be more interested in her guest than she really is, and you will pretend to be a lord without martial discipline.”

“If you are only pretending to be pretending, then doesn’t that mean you really are interested in your guest?”

“Of course, my lord. How could I not be interested in you? I have heard so much about you. And you are so unlike other lords.”

“Not so unlike all other lords,” Genji said. “Many have dissipated their strength and their treasure on women, poetry, and sake.”

“Ah, but none I know except you has pretended to do so,” Heiko said.

Genji laughed again, though he did not feel like laughing. He took more sake to gain time to consider what she had said. Did she really see through the ruse? Or was it only a geisha’s parlor game?

“Well, I can pretend to be pretending, all the while I am actually what I am pretending to be.”

“Or we can drop all pretense,” Heiko said, “and be with each other what we truly are.”

“Impossible,” Genji said, and took more sake. “I am a lord. You are a geisha. Pretense is the essence of our being. We cannot be what we truly are even when we are utterly and completely alone.”

“Perhaps, as a start,” Heiko said, refilling his cup, “we can pretend to be what we really are. But only when we are with each other.” She raised her own cup. “Will you make the pledge with me?”

“Of course,” Genji said. “It will be entertaining, while it lasts.”

His grandfather had warned him that grave danger would soon come in the form of traitors. Kiyori had not warned him about overly clever geisha.

What would he make of this one? Genji would make sure the two met as soon as Kiyori arrived back in Edo after the New Year. In these uncertain times, the one thing that could be relied on completely was Kiyori’s judgment. Gifted as he was with infallible prophetic powers, he could never be misled.

“What are you thinking about so seriously, my lord?” Heiko asked.

“My grandfather,” Genji said.

“Liar,” Heiko said.

Genji laughed. When the truth was unbelievable and lies revealed more than they concealed, what characteristics would a love affair have? It would be very entertaining indeed.

Lord Chamberlain Saiki made his way next to Genji.

“Lord, the hour grows late. It is time to send the geisha home.”

“That would be cruelly inhospitable,” Genji said. “Let them stay the night. We have abundant room. The south wing is vacant.” Those had been the guards’ quarters recently vacated by twenty of his best samurai. They, along with the cavalry commander, were presently stationed at Mushindo Monastery, pretending to be monks.

“Lord,” Saiki said, grimacing most fiercely. “That would be highly imprudent. Our security would be seriously compromised. With half the household guard gone, we are dangerously shorthanded. We would not be able to watch so many people.”

“What is there to watch?” Genji waved off Saiki’s next objection before he could speak it. “Have we grown so weak that we must fear a dozen half-drunk women?”

Heiko said, “I am not half drunk, my lord. I am completely drunk.” She turned to Saiki. “I wonder, Lord Chamberlain, does that make me doubly dangerous, or completely innocuous?”

Such an interruption from anyone else would undoubtedly have raised Saiki’s ire. But though he did not smile, he did play along with her.

“Doubly dangerous, Lady Heiko, doubly dangerous. Without question. And when you are asleep, you will be even more dangerous than that. Which is why I am urging my lord to send you and your companions home.”

The exchange amused Genji. Not even a samurai as deadly serious as Saiki was immune to Heiko.

Genji said, “In political matters and on the battlefield, I will always follow the advice of my Lord Chamberlain. Where geisha and sleeping arrangements are concerned, I must most humbly claim the greater expertise. Have the south wing prepared for our guests.”

Saiki did not continue to protest. Like the old-school samurai that he was, once his lord made a decision, obedience was the only path.

He bowed and said, “It will be done, lord.”

During Genji’s brief conversation with Saiki, Heiko had emptied two more cups of sake. She had imbibed prodigiously all evening. Had he indulged as much, he would have become unconscious long ago.

She was not entirely steady as she sat on her knees in the classic posture of attendant subservience. That, and the slightly sleepy way she blinked, made her look as if she might topple over at any moment. He was ready to catch her if she did, but he doubted she would. That would be too clichéd an action. The few minutes he had known her were enough to tell him that she would never do the expected. Even the visible effects of her condition were unusual. Most women, including the most practiced geisha of the first rank, tended to become less attractive when excessively intoxicated. A certain sloppiness of appearance and behavior tended to reveal too much of the human reality beneath the fairy-tale beauty.

But wine had quite the opposite effect on Heiko. Though she swayed slightly from side to side and front to back, not a strand of her hair was out of place, and her makeup, much less heavily applied than was traditional, remained flawless. The silk of her kimono flowed over her body as perfectly as it had done when she had arrived. Her elaborate sash and bow were as elegant as ever. While many of her fellow geisha had grown much less formal in behavior as they had grown less sober, Heiko had become more prim. The neck of her kimono was more tightly closed, its skirt well tucked around her thighs and under her shins, and she continued to sit quite properly on her knees. What would a man need to do to penetrate such disciplined reserve? Large quantities of alcohol frequently gave women a bloated look. In her case, all it did was perfectly suffuse her eyelids and earlobes with a vivid blush, emphasizing the seductive, inner-chamber paleness of her complexion. Inevitably, it made him wonder where else she might be blushing.