Autumn Bridge (48 page)

He found Shigeru in the practice yard, spinning and striking at targets behind him.

Shigeru noticed the bruised temple. “What happened to you?”

Yorimasa ignored the question.

He said, “Did Father ever speak to you about visions?”

“You know he has. He has always shared his visions with both of us at the same time.”

“I meant your visions, not his.”

Shigeru did not betray himself by any facial reaction, but his failure to answer immediately was verification enough. So it was true. Shigeru, not he, would have the visions, and Shigeru knew it.

“So Father finally told you,” Shigeru said.

Again, Yorimasa ignored the question, and asked one of his own.

“Have the visions begun?”

“No. Father said they would not, for many more years.”

“How long have you known?”

“Twelve years.”

“Since you were a child?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you said nothing to me.” Why had no one told him? Why had they let him go on believing he would be the one? Worse than disappointment was the shame. How hollow and foolish all these years of his confidence and pride had been!

“I am not lord of this domain,” Shigeru said, “our father is. He gives the orders. He tells what he wants to tell, and keeps the rest to himself. That is what it means to be lord. You should know it.”

“Why should I? I will never be lord,” Yorimasa said.

“Of course you will. You are the eldest son. Visions have nothing to do with who will follow Father.”

“I will not be lord. Father told me I would not be lord.”

Shigeru frowned. “What can that mean?”

“He has a woman we know nothing about. I heard them talking in the tower. Who knows how long they have been together. Perhaps we have an elder brother we have yet to meet.”

“Impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible,” Yorimasa said.

He left Shigeru and went to the stable. He would not stay in the castle another hour. He would go to the palace in Edo and try to think of something.

“Yorimasa.” His father stepped out of the shadows.

“Ah, you have come to bid me good-bye. Or will you forbid me to leave?”

“It is not what you think,” Kiyori said.

“Oh? Then what is it?”

“There is no woman. I do not have another child who will become my heir. There is no other child. Not yet. And when there is, he will be your son, not mine.”

“Is that prophecy, my lord?”

“It is.”

Yorimasa bowed low. “Then I yield to the inevitable, and to my son yet to be born. Who will be my bride, and when?”

“That has not yet been revealed to me.”

Yorimasa leaped into the saddle of his horse. He bowed again.

“Please let me know. Every word you speak is to me a command.” He bowed yet again, laughed harshly, and spurred his horse into a gallop.

Everything he had dreamed of was lost. He would not be Great Lord of Akaoka Domain. He would speak no prophecies. The respect bordering on awe with which he had been treated would be replaced by ridicule. He wanted to die. But to take his life now was the act of a coward. He was not a coward. He would endure. But he did not have to endure grimly.

Yorimasa had spent the first twenty-two years of his life preparing to rule. He had read the classics. He had trained in single combat. He had studied the strategies of controlling armies. He had sat in
zazen
for several hours every day, letting go of everything, then letting go of letting go. These were the arts necessary for one destined for war and command. They were no longer of the slightest use to him. He abandoned them now and forever. Where once he had dedicated every moment to improving himself as a samurai, he now dedicated himself to complete indulgence of his every sensual whim. What else could life give him?

There was alcohol, opium, absinthe, and a wide variety of other concoctions to alter perception and mood in any way he wished. Of course, there were negative side effects. But there were always other solutions, powders, pills, and fumes to cure those ills.

He used them all, and every cure and antidote. He used so much, he could almost ignore the laughter behind his back.

Yorimasa expected his father to intervene, so when he did, he was not surprised. But Kiyori never held him in confinement for longer than necessary to effect the cure for the ill of the moment. Then he was released.

He soon understood why. If he were confined, he would have absolutely no reason to go on. Confinement was therefore impossible, since Kiyori could not have him killing himself. His vision said Yorimasa must live to have a son.

That also guaranteed to Yorimasa that no matter what he did, he would not accidentally die. The inevitability of his doom was also the inevitability of his survival. Was this not a most amusing dilemma?

The drugs that brought relief also poisoned him. His body suffered; even more, his thoughts. Soon hallucinations and mood alterations were not satisfying. He turned his attention to women. One day, his father would command him to marry, and he would obey. He would service her like the reliable breeding animal that he was. In the meantime, there were so many women in Edo.

At first, he was attracted to beauty. But beauty of a merely physical kind, day after day, becomes the same as plainness. One no longer sees anything worthy of notice.

His fascination shifted to the different bodily parts. Their shape, their texture, their odor, their taste. There were fascinating variations, even on a single body, and when many bodies were considered, how much more variety there was.

When he tired of that, his attention went to his own body. He had experienced the many realms of pleasure. What remained was pain. He could not discover external pain equal to the pain he felt within. He did what he could. He was a samurai. He endured.

From his own pain, he turned inevitably to the pain of others. There, at last, he found the perfect joining of every element. Hallucinations, sensory enhancements, beauty, ugliness, and, most of all, pain.

Sometimes he went too far, and a woman was ruined. Then he had to pay a hefty bonus to the geisha house, and a special consolatory fee to the woman’s family. It was only money.

He developed a fascination with those perverse sexual practices that caused pain to him, and even more pain to them. There was a special flavor to their tears, and a special music in their voices. Certain concoctions enhanced his pleasure. Certain fumes magnified their agony. He used them all.

He found his excitement was greatest when he knew he was destroying their best attributes. In the beginning, he thought this was their beauty; he did not have to scar the outside; if he scarred the inside, it was done. But he came to realize the physically visible aspects were not truly important; in every one of them, no matter how much they had done, no matter how much they had seen, a certain unspoiled secret heart remained deep within; in it was a precious sense of themselves they had managed to preserve. He became expert at finding it. Then the sound of their screams was so loud, it almost drowned out the laughter behind his back.

“If your daughter were not important to you, I would not be so concerned,” Kiyori said, “but I know you love her very much.”

Nao said, “Midori is just a girl. She is not important. The son she will bear, he is important.”

“Do not give your consent so easily, Nao. Let me tell you the kind of man Yorimasa has become.”

“No. It doesn’t matter.” Nao bowed. “We are honored that you have chosen our clan. Midori will marry Yorimasa.”

Time passed quickly and slowly at the same time. Sometimes, Yorimasa couldn’t say whether a week had passed, or a month, or the better part of his lifetime. Being lost in this way was the closest he could approach to what had been happiness.

“Yorimasa.”

Through a haze of opium fumes, he saw Shigeru’s face.

“Why, little brother. Don’t be so timid. Breathe. It won’t kill you.”

Shigeru pulled him roughly to his feet. The establishment’s guards, usually so forceful, stayed a respectful distance away. Shigeru’s reputation as a duelist, born when he was fifteen, had grown increasingly fearsome over the years.

“I came to take you back to Cloud of Sparrows. Father has found you a bride.”

“What year is it?”

Shigeru stared at him in disgust before answering.

“The fourteenth year.”

“Of what Emperor?”

“The Ninko Emperor continues to ennoble the world with his august presence.”

Yorimasa let himself be half dragged, half carried out. Amazing. Only one year had passed. Perhaps less.

“And what month, little brother?”

For three weeks, his father forced him to train with the vassals as if war were coming. Yorimasa did not spend a single hour indoors, instead living day and night in a war camp in the mountains north of Cloud of Sparrows. Every dawn, he rode with the other cavalrymen down to the shore, dismounted, and ran in full armor from the Muroto Woods to the Cape. If he fell and tried to rest, Shigeru pulled him to his feet. If he did not run, he was dragged. When he threw up, the three clan generals — Lord Saiki, Lord Tanaka, and Lord Kudo — laughed uproariously, as if they had never seen a funnier sight. At night, vassals playing the part of enemy assassins raided the camp and struck mercilessly with bamboo staves at those who were too slow to rise. No provisions were provided. Only those who trapped game, shot birds, or found edible plants ate. The others went hungry. By the fourth day, he was reduced to eating the least repulsive insects he could catch. By the sixth, he was seriously considering butchering his horse. On the seventh day, the camp was moved to the shore, and fishermen from Kageshima Village delivered a small supply of dried cod and unpolished rice. It was the most delicious meal Yorimasa had ever eaten.

When three weeks had passed, sobriety had been restored to Yorimasa. It was temporary and meaningless. The man he had become could easily survive a period of deprivation. He would do what he was required to do, then he would rededicate his energy in a manner less offensive to him. Let his father raise the heir. He had no interest in a succession that passed over him. What would such a son be except another cause for ridicule? Yorimasa already hated him. He was not even born, not even conceived, and he hated him more than anyone he would ever hate.

And his bride-to-be. Whoever she was, he hated her, too.