Emperor of the Eight Islands: Book 1 in the Tale of Shikanoko (The Tale of Shikanoko series) (19 page)

Yoshi waved back eagerly. One of the men started beating rhythmically on a small drum. A boy of about eight threw himself in the air, turning and tumbling. Two monkeys watched gravely and when he had finished imitated his routine in a bored, offhand way that the onlookers found most amusing. The boy became angry, the monkeys pretended to be scared and when he turned his back imitated his anger perfectly. The crowd roared with laughter.

A competition ensued, boy against monkeys, leaping ever higher, turning more and more somersaults. The monkeys won effortlessly.

The boy fell to the ground, discouraged and miserable. The monkeys looked anxious, conferred with each other, chattered pleadingly at the crowd as though seeking advice. They approached him silently and wrapped their arms around him. He leaped to his feet, grinning, while the monkeys clung around his neck and kissed his face.

“Oh!” Yoshi sighed. “I wish I were him!”

The acrobats were followed by a traveling physician selling herbs, oils, and potions with long, complicated anecdotes that made the crowd laugh, though Aki hardly understood a word, and then an old man made his way through the throng, stood on the shore, and waved to the musicians.

They waved back excitedly and quickly arranged for one of the porters to carry him over to the boat. When he was on board, one of them dried his feet reverently with a towel and the others gathered in a circle around him, bowing their heads as he spoke a blessing.

Aki had never seen anyone like him, nor did she recognize the prayer. It was the time of the midday meal and food was served, prepared by the market women, carried across to the boat in baskets: rice with eggs stirred through it, fresh fern heads and burdock root, grilled sweet fish from the lake lying on young oak leaves, sweet bean paste in many different flavors and forms.

The old man ate sparingly. At the end of the meal he took the last of the rice and formed it into balls with his fingers, spoke a blessing over them, and handed them around. When Aki took one, his gaze fell on her, and on Yoshi sitting on her lap.

“They are like the Lady and her Child,” he said. “Call on the name of the Secret One, and he will save you and take you into Paradise.”

The musicians all murmured a prayer.

Aki divided the rice ball with Yoshi and Kai and put a fragment in her mouth. She shivered as she swallowed it. All the tastes in the world seemed embodied in its sticky grains, blood and bone, bitterness, salt and sweetness.

*   *   *

Slowly the boat made its way along the eastern coast of the lake until they came to the small town of Aomizu. Kai became something of a favorite with the musicians. They gave her a drum—she was sensitive to vibration and rhythm and she played with a natural talent. She began spending more time with the musicians, leaving Yoshi bored and restless. When he tried to order her around, the musicians teased him, calling him princeling and little lord. Several times Aki thought he was on the point of telling them who he was and she became even more eager to get him away. As she was getting ready to leave, one of the female drummers came to her and said, “We will miss you and your lute—we’ve never heard anything like it, any of us—and we hope you will come back one day. But we have a favor to ask: leave the little girl here. If you are dedicated to the shrine and your brother is to become a monk, what will happen to her? Rinrakuji will not accept her since she is blemished, nor will Lady Fuji take her on. But we accept her, we already love her. She has a divine gift. Heaven must have sent her to us.”

“I would gladly,” Aki said. “But my little brother is devoted to her. I don’t think he’ll leave without her.”

The girl smiled slightly. “We will arrange something.”

The boat had docked. Aki had the lute in her hand and their clogs ready when Yoshi came up to her, looking distressed.

“They say Kai is too sick to travel with us,” he said.

Aki went immediately to where Kai was lying under the canopy in the stern of the boat, the ritual box next to her. She seemed to have been stricken by a sudden fever. Her eyes were dilated, her skin burning.

“It is just lake fever,” the musicians said. “We’ll look after her. She will be recovered in a day or two.”

“We can’t go without her,” Yoshi said, his voice trembling.

“Do you remember my father saying you must obey me in everything?” Aki replied.

“Yes, but—”

“Obedience means not saying
but
,” she rebuked him. “We must go now. The boat has to leave and we must get to Rinrakuji. Kai obviously can’t come with us. You’ll see her again, but now you have to be strong.”

He opened his mouth and she thought he was going to argue or scream, but then he bit his lip, knelt next to Kai, and stroked her hair. When he stood and let Aki take her hand he was fighting back tears.

“I am glad she is staying,” Fuji said. “It is a good thing for her, and it means you are more likely to come back to us.”

Aki thanked her and then asked, “Who was the old man who shared food with us at Majima?” She had not been able to stop thinking about him.

“Everyone just calls him Father; he is a traveling priest of some sort. The musicians belong to the same faith. He usually waits for the boats at the markets. They look forward to his blessing. Maybe one day they will tell you the story of the Secret One. It is very strange and moving.”

Aki found she longed to hear it, but now there was no time. The boat was preparing to move on. She stared briefly across the lake toward Nishimi, her childhood home, lost in the haze. Then she took Genzo in its carrying cloth and stepped from the side of the boat onto the wooden dock. She had her bow on her back, no longer feeling the need to hide it. Yoshi was passed across to her. Cries of farewell and thanks rang between boat and shore.

The ropes were cast off and the sail raised. Aki and Yoshi watched and waved for several moments, then turned away and began to follow the steep, narrow road that climbed through the mountains to Rinrakuji.

18

SHIKANOKO

Through the courtyards at Ryusonji echoed the voices of singers, accompanied by lute players and by the old blind man, who, it was said, had once been a sorcerer but had lost his powers along with his eyes. He must have had some natural talent, for he had learned the notes and words swiftly in the course of the winter.

They had new songs to sing, about the victory of the Miboshi and the flight of the Kakizuki, poignant, stirring tales of courage in battle and nobility in defeat, of the shocking but necessary death of Prince Momozono, who had dared to rebel against his dying father, and the virtues of his younger brother, who was now Emperor Daigen.

Shika imagined that it brought the Prince Abbot great pleasure to hear daily the recounting of his triumph, by his former rival, now fallen into senility. He was uncle to the new emperor, and the Kakizuki, his old enemies, were in exile. The wives and children they had left behind were slaughtered, their palaces were rebuilt and occupied by the victorious Miboshi, their presence was being erased from the capital as though they had not dominated its life, its customs, its arts and fashions for nearly fifty years.

Yet Shika knew the prelate was not as satisfied as he might have been. Two things irked him, two missing bodies. The heads of the defeated were displayed on bridges and along the riverbank, but Kiyoyori’s was not among them. The Prince Abbot’s men had combed through the wreckage of the palace and the surrounding streets. The corpses of Momozono and his wife were identified in the piles of dead, along with those of their retinue, male and female, who had died in the fighting or the fire, but Kiyoyori’s body had not been discovered nor had that of Yoshimori, only son of the former Crown Prince.

It was reported that Kiyoyori had been last seen in front of the New Shining Hall. An arrow had pierced him and an unknown man who had dashed in front of him. Both had fallen into the flames just before the roof collapsed. Kiyoyori could not have survived, eyewitnesses said, but because his body had not been found, fanciful tales had begun to spread about him, the most popular being that the dragon child of Ryusonji had carried him away to join his son, Tsumaru, who, it was rumored, had been kidnapped by the Prince Abbot, had died in some mysterious way, and was now a manifestation of that same dragon.

Shika knew from his own experience that men hate above all those they have wronged, and the Prince Abbot’s hatred for Kiyoyori had grown even more bitter since the discovery of Tsumaru’s body in the lake. He blamed the child’s father for the bungled rescue attempt at the same time as he resented Kiyoyori’s spirited refusal to be coerced. The suggestion that Ryusonji’s own divine being might have aided him in some way was intolerable. The Prince Abbot attempted to suppress the rumors and the tales; his secret police cut out people’s tongues for repeating them.

Shika had spent at least part of every day throughout the winter with the Prince Abbot. For many of those days he had been required to fast, subjected to ordeals of icy water, and deprived of sleep. Slowly, under these stern disciplines, the natural power of the mask had been controlled. He had been taught words of power, some from sutras, others known only to the Prince Abbot, Gessho, and a few older monks. With the aid of all these things, the mask took him to places beyond the human world, where the spirit of the deer spoke to him and through him.

But every step forward demanded a price. Often he would emerge from a trance and see in the hollowed eyes and slackened faces around him vestiges of some ritual he had taken part in, without his knowledge and against his will. The mask had been made with both male and female elements; it harnessed the regenerative power of the forest, the sexual drive of the stag. All this interested the Prince Abbot deeply.

He was delighted with his progress. Shika became his new favorite, replacing the young monk Eisei, who had been so burned by the mask. Eisei recovered from his injuries but would always be disfigured. He wore a black silk covering across his face, behind which his eyes burned with despair.

Shika went every day to sit with Sesshin. The old man did not seem to recognize him, but smiled at him gratefully and patted his hand. The Prince Abbot often questioned him about Sesshin, but even when Shika was in trances induced by strong potions, the power that Sesshin had transferred to him remained hidden. It would reveal itself, Shika thought, when it was ready and when he was.

The Prince Abbot also questioned him about Kiyoyori. “That scoundrel has become more popular since he died than he ever was when he was alive,” he complained. “What magic arts did he possess to vanish without a trace? Did the sorceress come for him? Could she have flown into the burning building and carried him away?”

Shika had learned that many of the Prince Abbot’s questions did not require an immediate answer. He did not reply now, but he was thinking about how Lady Tora had visited Shisoku’s hut in some supernatural manner during the making of the mask.

The Prince Abbot was watching him intently. Shika looked away toward the garden. It was the beginning of the fourth month, a warm day with more than a little humidity in the air. Outside the sun shone glaringly on the wisteria and the azaleas, giving their flowers an intense hue.

The waters of the lake rippled suddenly, a sign that the dragon child was awake, was aware of everything.

Did it remain a child, he wondered, or was it growing to its full size secretly, and would one day emerge? When he looked back into the room his vision was distorted by circles of light and dark.

“And Yoshimori?” the Prince Abbot questioned. “Was he spirited away, too? Perhaps by Hidetake’s daughter, the girl they call Akihime, the Autumn Princess. As long as he lives, the Kakizuki will have a cause to reunite and inspire them.”

He sat in thought for a long time while the room grew warmer. Sweat began to trickle from Shika’s face and chest. He longed for the cool shade of the forest, the dawn mists of the mountain. He remembered the waterfall.

The Prince Abbot’s voice startled him, bringing him back suddenly. “Is that where you will find them? That place where your mind just wandered? Is it in the Darkwood? Have they fled there?”

Shika still had not learned to hide his thoughts from the Prince Abbot.

“I think I will send you after them,” the Prince Abbot said slowly. “She will be heading for Rinrakuji, for she was to be a shrine maiden, but she must not get there. The werehawks will accompany you so I know where you are. Bring me Kiyoyori’s head and the child’s. You can do what you like with the girl, let her live or die. Ride fast. They have already been on the road for days. You must overtake them.”

“I cannot go without the mask,” Shika replied.

The Prince Abbot smiled. “I would never separate you from your mask. But be aware, I have cast spells on it so I can be sure my little stag will return to me.”

*   *   *

Shika left the next morning, riding Nyorin, Risu following. He had intended to leave the mare, who was just beginning to show signs of her pregnancy, but at the last moment decided to take her, telling himself he did not trust anyone there to look after her, not daring to admit that he might never come back. He thought only of disappearing into the forest, but the mask whispered to him, reminding him of all he had learned during the winter and all there was still to learn. He was tied in some way through it to the Prince Abbot, who had become his master, but he did not fully understand how or to what extent.

The Prince Abbot had instructed him to ride north and then cut across toward the western edge of the Darkwood. He could picture it all in his mind, as if on a map: the track that led south to Shimaura, the stream that flowed from the mountains, the bandits’ hut where they stored weapons and loot they had taken from travelers, for it was on the boundary of Akuzenji’s territory and he had ridden all over it a year and a half ago when he had spent the summer in the service of the King of the Mountain.

With only the horses and the two werehawks for company he had many hours to recall the past and reflect on what his life had become. He found himself dwelling, in particular, on the last time he saw Hina, waiting in the garden of the house below Rokujo for her father to return. There had been no specific reports about her, but he imagined she had been found and killed along with all the other Kakizuki children. He grieved for her and then forced himself to remember the last time he had seen her father, the expression on Kiyoyori’s face when the lord had seen Shika at the Prince Abbot’s side.