Autumn Bridge (54 page)

This matter of remembering and forgetting was more complicated than she had thought. She had lived her life so far entirely in Mushindo Abbey, a single, small, enclosed place. Even within its confines, it had been no easy task to distinguish past from future or the present from either, or memory from vision, premonition from nightmare. How much more difficult it would be outside those walls, where there was vastly more to remember, and to forget, and very little of her lifetime left in which to accomplish it.

“Does the tower displease you in some way?”

“No, no, not at all, my lord.”

Hironobu smiled and enfolded her in his arms. “When we are alone, you need not call me ‘lord.’ ”

She glanced at the two bodyguards, who pretended not to notice his open display of affection.

“Leave us,” he said.

“Lord.” The men bowed and backed out of the room.

“If the castle is not grand enough, I will enlarge it for you. Tell me what you want and it is yours.”

“Your castle is very grand. Nothing more is needed.”

Hironobu must build the seventh floor, and soon. He must do so believing it is his own idea, however, because if he thinks it is hers, it will diminish his sense of self. She does not know why, but she knows it is so. Many of the disasters that will befall this clan will be due to that pernicious habit of imbuing one’s own little existence with an exaggerated importance. It is a habit ingrained not only in her new husband but in all samurai. There is nothing she can do to prevent it. In her life, she perceives much, and changes nothing. She sees beyond her time, but she cannot act outside of it.

“I wonder,” Hironobu said. He joined his gaze to hers and watched the waves advance and retreat against the shore. “My father built this tower.” He said it with a slight edge of dissatisfaction in his voice. Was it because sons always strove to outdo their fathers?

Shizuka leaned against him. She felt the warmth of his body through their clothing. He was very warm. Before long, she would be very warm also, and the warmth of his body and the warmth of hers would not be separate.

“Yes, Lord Kiyori,” the architect said. “I understand your wishes completely.”

“I hope you do,” Kiyori said. Not even his servants took him seriously. He was only fifteen, and had become Great Lord of the domain only a month ago upon the sudden death of his father.

“I do, my lord.”

“But?”

“You say you want to build another floor, a seventh, because you have discovered that in ancient times there was a seventh floor.”

“Yes. And?”

“Your descriptions have been very clear, my lord. However, it would be very helpful if I could perhaps even just glance at the plan. As Master Kung said, ‘A single picture may convey more than a thousand ideograms.’ ”

Kiyori’s irritation began to rise into anger. “If I had the plan, don’t you think I would have shown it to you by now?”

“You don’t have it? I don’t understand. Who does?”

“No one.”

“But—” The architect stopped.

“Go on.”

“I’m sorry, my lord, I must have misunderstood you. I thought you said you had seen the plan.”

“No,” Kiyori said. He could not speak the exact truth. It was far too embarrassing. “I said I had seen the seventh floor.” The architect blinked, then his eyes widened with understanding.

“A vision?”

“Yes.” He hoped he would not have to explain further.

The architect bowed all the way to the floor.

“May I offer my congratulations, Lord Kiyori, and the hope that we will have the benefit of many more visions.”

“Thank you.”

“I will proceed with construction — rather, the reconstruction — immediately.”

“Good. When you are ready to lay the floor, inform me so I can observe.”

“You wish to observe the laying of the floor?”

“Yes.”

The wraith who had visited him the previous night told him that the floor must be precisely placed.

If there is the slightest error, she said, I will appear to you to be standing beneath the floor, and be cut off from my feet, or above the floor, and present myself as a floating apparition.

If you are my vision, then what does it matter? he asked.

The human mind can accept only so much that seems impossible, she said. Too much, and madness is the result.

“Very well, my lord.” The architect bowed low once again. “It shall be done.”

Word quickly spread that the young lord had inherited the gift from his sire. From that day, servants and vassals looked at him differently. When he spoke, they listened with care. When he commanded, they obeyed without hesitation. In other places, people might ridicule the prophetic abilities of the Okumichi lords. Not in Akaoka Domain. The ruling clan’s power was founded on mystical foresight, and it was the foundation for the survival and prosperity of the domain.

Here, being prescient brought great authority, even if the prescient one was a boy of fifteen, and even if that prescience was not quite what everyone thought it was. No one would ever be the wiser.

That was Kiyori’s hope. Surely, only he could see her?

Shizuka passed every night in her husband’s quarters or, when he preferred to visit her, with him in her quarters. At other times during the first week after her arrival, she spent much of her time at the highest level of the tower.

“Why?” Hironobu asked. “You have ladies-in-waiting who will play games with you. Musicians, singers, poets, all are at your disposal. If you wish to ride, you have your choice of horses. Or a carriage, if you prefer.”

“The view draws me here,” Shizuka said. “I’ve lived all the sixteen years of my life on the ground, behind the walls of an abbey. To see so much of the world, and to be so far above it, this is a great marvel for me. I know this tower is a warrior’s aerie. If I should not be here—” She smiled at him and bowed.

Hironobu laughed. “A warrior’s aerie? Hardly. Okumichi samurai do not look for our enemies from afar. We do not wait to suffer siege. We do not wait at all. We are cavalrymen. The best in all the isles of Japan. In war, we ride to the attack. Our enemies must keep watch for us. And when they see us, it is already too late.”

In the first conversation they had ever had, Hironobu had related the story of his conquest of a mighty Hojo army and his subsequent elevation to Great Lord status. Apparently, it was the custom among samurai to constantly boast of what they had done, and when they spoke of the future, they spoke as if the great feats they swore to perform were already as good as accomplished. Exaggeration, not fact, was the dominant element.

Shizuka bowed and said, “How fortunate are the people of this domain. They enjoy a security and tranquillity denied to so many others. War ravages the realm. But here, in Akaoka, there is peace.”

“Yes,” Hironobu said. “Security and tranquillity.”

She could tell he savored those words. He would use them later in the history he was writing. When later generations read it, they would marvel at his accomplishments against seemingly impossible odds. They would wonder how it was that so successful a warlord — and one who was reputedly prescient as well — did not become Shogun, did not even manage to conquer the whole of Shikoku, the smallest of the three main islands of Japan.

“May I ask a question? Perhaps it is impolite.”

“You are my wife,” Hironobu said grandly. “You can ask me anything and it will never be impolite.”

“Thank you, my lord. That is very generous of you.”

Again, Hironobu laughed. He sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

“You called me ‘lord.’ We are alone now. Such formality is not required.”

He put his face against her neck and shoulder and inhaled.

“You have a lovelier scent than any incense or perfume I have ever breathed, or even imagined.”

Shizuka blushed. “Nobu-chan,” she whispered, using a childish diminutive of his name.

His breath caught in his throat, and when he spoke, his voice had the harsh edge of sensual elevation.

“You,” he said, and reached into the wide sleeve of her kimono.

Shizuka lay back on the floor. Hironobu’s face above her was pale, except for the infusion of blood that flooded into his eyelids, his cheeks, and his lips. He looked like he was aflame. Behind him was the ceiling.

She knew that before very long, it would be the floor of the seventh level of the high tower.

After that, Hironobu no longer minded Shizuka’s lengthy visits to the tower.

“Be here as much as you like,” he said. “Had I lived so long imprisoned within the walls of a temple, I, too, would relish this perspective.”

“You are very kind,” Shizuka said. “Only the truly manly can be so kind.”

She went there for the view, as she said, but not the one she had described.

She sat in meditation with her legs folded into the lotus posture, her hands at her abdomen in the zazen mudra, her eyelids hooded without being completely closed, her breathing so light and attenuated it was hardly breathing at all. She sat in meditation and concentrated her entire being on the opposite purpose. Instead of letting go, letting go of letting go, and letting go yet again, Shizuka grasped at this and that, discriminated one delusion from another, ventured meaningless opinions on useless matters, invaded every void of no-thought with conjecture, imagination, reasoning, hope, lust, and dread. She invited the sensory deluge of hunger, heat and cold, pain and pleasure, sweetness and bitterness, of scent, taste, touch, and sight, actual, imagined, and recalled. Inner silence and serenity were swept away by the uproar of ten thousand voices screaming demands at once.

She would let go later. Now it was imperative that she retrieve certain memories and premonitions she had wrongly abandoned in her zeal to understand the present. During her awakening, she had mistaken the limited confines of Mushindo Abbey for reality, and had purged her consciousness of knowledge she needed. To regain it, she had to revisit her madness.

A sudden warning chill emanated from her spine and spread out across her upper back, her shoulders, her neck, and her scalp. A conscious entity had entered the room behind her. No sound or movement of air from the stairwell had signaled anyone’s approach. Was the gruesome apparition back to haunt her, or did stealth cloak a human danger?

Shizuka ceased her grasping and naming within, and turned her attention without. She recognized the arrival without turning to look. She could no longer see into the minds of others. Sanity could not coexist with such a faculty. But she retained one of its attributes, the ability to perceive intention. By his intention, she knew him.

She said, “If you do, Hironobu will know it was you.”

Close behind her, she heard a short, quick intake of breath. Her words had stopped him just a few steps away.

Go said, “Let him know. Let him execute me. I will consider death a rich reward, for you, too, will be dead.”

Shizuka spun around to face him. No weapon was in his hand. Had he thought to throw her from a window? Probably.

She smiled. “Are you so sure I cannot fly?”

“Witch.” He hissed the word violently and drew his sword.

“My husband will not kill you immediately. He will torture you first, then he will crucify you.”

“You think I fear pain? No more than I fear death, and I fear death not at all.” He stepped toward her.

“For yourself, no,” Shizuka said.

He stopped again.

“Surely, great general, you did not neglect to consider the full consequences of your treason? Hironobu will not crucify you alone. Your vassals, your servants, and your wife will accompany you to hell. And so will Chiaki.”

The mention of his son’s name depleted Go’s body of all strength. He lowered his sword and staggered back.

“I
will
kill you,” he said.

“Yes, you will,” she said, “but not today.”

“Soon enough.”

“No, you will be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“That, too, you will discover too late,” Shizuka said.

Go returned his sword to its scabbard.

“I will not be fooled by deceptive words and false prognostications. You don’t know as much as you pretend to know. That is an old witch’s trick.” He spun on his heels and strode quickly to the doorway.

She said, “I know who I am.”

He stopped and looked back at her.

“Everyone knows who they are except infants, idiots, and lunatics.”

“I know who you are.”

“Everyone knows who I am. This domain would not exist if not for me.”

“I know who I am
because
I know who you are,” Shizuka said. “How sad to be a father who wishes to murder his child rather than protect her.”

“May you be damned for all time,” Go said, “along with every witch who has ever come forth from that evil river of blood.”

Shizuka listened to the receding sound of his footsteps in the stairwell. Her father would not enter the tower again until the last day of their lives.