Girl Rides the Wind (32 page)

“No,” Tsukino cried. “That’s too much.” He knelt opposite her and touched her face. “Dignity does not require that much of you.”

Standing behind her, Kano let the
katana
slip from his fingers and clatter on the wooden floor. Emily had hoped to be less involved in this gruesome ceremony, but the expression on his face suggested otherwise.

“I cannot be a party to this.” He stared at Emily as he said this, as if he held her responsible for the situation. She grabbed his hand and stared into his face.

“You must. Tsukino does not possess the requisite skill.”

“It would bring dishonor on the Imperial Family, if it were known that I participated…”

“You are mistaken.” Emily fixed him again with her eyes when he tried to look away. “I understand the Crown Princess better than you, Takeshi-san, and I know she will approve of whatever you do to assist a noble lady in paying her debts.”

Kano still did not respond, but she spotted the slight clenching and unclenching of his jaw muscles, and glanced down at Gyoshin’s imploring face. Whatever her feelings might be about this woman, Emily was not prepared to stand by and do nothing.

“Fine,” she muttered, and picked up the
katana
. Gyoshin nodded at her and nudged Tsukino’s head off her shoulder.

Emily hefted the sword, felt its balance, and something more coursing through the blade and into her fingers. “Of course it would,” she thought. After all, it was probably a family heirloom, handed down through Gyoshin’s family for centuries. Where else would she find a
katana
, if not among her grandfather’s treasures? This was not a warrior’s sword, she felt that much about it, but how many rituals like this one had it seen? Was this blade merely the last refuge of damned souls, and if she wielded it now, would she somehow link herself to them, too?

Events moved quickly now, though Emily couldn’t tell if it was just her perception or something in the nature of the situation. The sound of tires crunching along the gravel drive reached their ears, probably still more than a quarter mile away. Other voices slipped in through the windows and the doors, the sounds a crowd makes when it is trying to respect some ancient dignity. Gyoshin slipped her arms from the robe and shrugged it off her shoulders. Tsukino gestured helplessly at her as she picked up the
tanto
and placed the point against her abdomen. Her courage seemed to waver for an instant, but the approaching vehicles brought a new resolve.

The dagger barely drew blood, at least initially, and seemed to require no force, and no pain registered on her face at first. But when she yelped, and then tried to choke it back, Emily raised the katana.

“No,” Gyoshin shrieked through clenched teeth, tears streaming down her face. “Not yet.”

Tsukino fell to his knees and pressed his face to the floor, trying not to see what he was unable to prevent. She pulled the blade across her belly, whimpering until she couldn’t keep from screaming. Voices whispered in Emily’s heart, familiar voices – “Honor your priest,” they said – as she looked down on Gyoshin’s final agony, and she could wait no longer.

The blade whistled through the still air of the room and slipped between the vertebrae at the back of the neck. She’d swung too broadly and severed Gyoshin’s head completely – it hit the floor a moment before the body collapsed next to it, oozing into the cloth. After the initial spray, there was remarkably little blood. Emily shook the blade clean and laid it next to Gyoshin’s body, and when the car doors slammed outside, she stepped into the kitchen to wash the blood off her face.

“Don’t let them defile her body,” she said over her shoulder.

Uniformed officers burst through the entryway a moment later. Emily listened to the ensuing argument from the safety of the kitchen, though not all of it was audible. What she mainly heard was Kano’s warning: “The Imperial Family will take a dim view of any disrespect to Heiji-san’s remains.”

When she returned to the front room, Kano was engaged in some quiet negotiations with a plainclothes officer who seemed to be in charge. Ordinarily, the Emperor had little influence in such matters, but given the recent turmoil, local officials were more solicitous of a distant authority, perhaps in the hope of finding a promise of stability in it.

“It would be easier to justify protecting the deceased, if we learned of the whereabouts of Heiji Nobutada,” the officer said. “The credit for his arrest would go a long way to calming angry spirits among my men.”

“I can help you with that.” Emily spoke from the doorway, holding the dishtowel she’d used to dry her face, blood spatter still visible on her blouse. The plainclothes officer stared at her, as if she were some sort of apparition – this
nissei
in an American military uniform – until her patience was exhausted. “If you want to find Heiji-san, follow me.”

They found Perry and Okamoto-san just outside the front entrance, and made a special effort not to let Haru-chan see inside. Behind them, a large crowd stood quietly on the lawn, and they also wished to know what had transpired inside the main house of the Heiji estate.

“Who are these people?” Emily posed this question to Kano, who stood nearby, though he had no answer. This was not his home, and these were not his neighbors. But the plainclothes officer understood this crowd, and offered an explanation.

“The Heiji clan has ruled Tottori, Shimane and Okayama for a thousand years. These people, their parents and grandparents… their livelihoods have depended on the Heiji for as long.”

Okamoto-san confirmed this account. “We will mourn the fall of the Heiji, no matter what they may have done. That is how commoners experience the destruction of the great.”

Emily whispered to Perry. “Did she show you where they buried her dragon?” She stayed behind to occupy Haru-chan, while Perry and Okamoto-san led the police to a spot where the earth still bore the marks of recent digging, and the crowd followed along, bearing silent witness to the end of an era… or perhaps a millennium.

“
A
re you sure
?” The watery sheen in Andie’s eyes showed how much she wanted to come along. “I won’t be in the way?”

“Of course not,” Yuki said, and Emily couldn’t completely suppress a laugh, listening from the bathroom of their hotel suite.

“We’re just going to visit Kano’s mom,” she said. “You’ll be more than welcome.”

“Weren’t you the one who said the wife of a spymaster wouldn’t be allowed…”

“She’s not a head of state, Andie,” Yuki said.

“But isn’t she like a childhood friend of the Crown Princess, or something?”

“She’s no different than you or I. Remember, the Princess was a commoner before she married into the Imperial Family.”

“If you say so. But she played a crucial role. Without her help, you know, contacting the Crown Princess... anyway, Michael will be disappointed to miss out on meeting her, I suppose.”

The mention of Michael’s name reminded Emily of a conversation from the night before. “Do something for him,” she remembered saying, and then regretting the urgency of her tone.

“There’s very little I can do,” Michael had replied, in his official voice. “Why does he matter so much?”

“Because he helped me.” She was still thinking of the moment when their eyes met in the jungle after her Phrog crashed. Yan had gestured to the beach, pointing her away from the search his men were conducting… a search for her.

“According to Perry, he bruised you up in some sort of sparring match onboard ship.”

“Perry doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I guess I don’t either.”

This had been one of those moments when her natural reserve didn’t serve her well, and looking back on it now, Emily found much to regret. She decided to focus on getting ready to visit Kano’s mother again, and was relieved to be able to expect a rather more cheerful occasion than their previous meeting. Yan would have to wait for a more auspicious moment.

It still hurt to pull even a loose-fitting shirt over her head, so she definitely didn’t want to mess with anything more fitted. Yuki must have noticed, because she reached up and pulled the knit waistband out so that it would clear her shoulders. Then she lifted it up again, once Emily had finished wriggling it straight.

“Your scars are almost gone, and it’s barely been a week.”

“They still hurt,” Emily said.

“That’s what worries me, sweetheart. They’re healing much too fast.”

“I am what I am, Mom. There’s no point fretting over it now.” Emily no longer harbored any resentment toward her mother, or even her grandfather, for the peculiar shape of her existence. What would be the point? Her own choices were as responsible for her destiny now as any genetic inheritance they might have given her. Every single person born into this world has only one task: to take whatever they’re born with and make something of it. Whatever sympathy others might experience, or friendship, she must ultimately looked inside herself for the true measure of the things she’d done or felt.

She wrapped her mother into a hug, and held on long enough to kiss the top of her head. When Emily guided her back out into the little sitting room, they found Andie standing by the window, where she had let her attention wander in the general direction of the US Embassy buildings across the street. Michael had called in a favor to get them one of the rooms usually reserved for visiting dignitaries, in one of the poshest hotels in Roppongi.

“You look so… I don’t know, bohemian in that get up,” Andie said, when she turned her attention to the goings-on behind her. “It’s a good look for you.”

“What do you mean ‘bohemian’? It’s just jeans and a leather jacket.”

“We’re just not used to seeing you out of uniform anymore,” her mother said.

“Well, she lives over in the Tabata neighborhood, and they’re not so formal over there…”

“…and maybe a US Navy uniform won’t play so well.”

“I’d rather not draw too much attention,” Emily said, hoping to divert them from this line of inquiry. “Which is also why I think we should take public transportation.”

“Do you know her stop?” Yuki asked.

“Yeah, it’s Komagome, and we can catch the train two blocks from here.”

Traffic on the Nanboku line was heavy on a weekday morning, now that business had returned to some degree of normalcy. The three women squeezed into a car just before the doors closed, standing room only.

“Thank goodness the air conditioning’s working,” Andie whispered, eyeing a row of young men in seats, who hadn’t taken any notice of three potential objects of their generosity.

“That’s not the way it works here,” Yuki said with a snort of amused disapproval.

“Whatever,” Emily said. “We’re not gonna be on here long enough for it to matter.”

The walk from Komagome Station took a little more than fifteen minutes, mainly because Yuki and Andie insisted on exploring the shops. Turning one corner, Emily was disheartened to find an open-air market had taken over several blocks of a street in Kita-ku, near the Kitatabata Post Office. But eventually, she managed to pry Andie loose from a particularly entrancing clothing store.

“Don’t you think Li Li would love this?” Andie held a sundress into the light. “Just think how cute she’d look.”

“We can do all this after,” Emily moaned. “We’re gonna be late. Plus, there’s a Hachiman shrine I want to go see this afternoon.”

Rumi Kano’s home, a modest row house on three levels, occupied the middle of a residential block whose only distinguishing feature was the red tiled gate of a Buddhist temple at the far end. A pair of large, black SUVs parked out front suggested that she already had company, unless these were just dignitaries visiting the temple – but that seemed unlikely.

Mrs. Kano greeted them at the door with a bow, and invited them in to her crowded sitting room. Emily didn’t recognize most of the people there, except for a large man in a grey suit, with one arm in a sling, and Takeshi-san, who stood next to him, whispering in the older man’s ear.

“We are all so grateful to you for Akane-chan,” Mrs. Kano said, after she’d finished welcoming Yuki and Andie to her home.

Emily smiled nervously. This was not looking to be the cozy occasion she’d hoped for, and she couldn’t quite figure what business so many official–looking types might have in a tiny row house in an unimpressive neighborhood. “I see you have company. Perhaps we should come back later.”

“No, please, no. You are the reason all these people are here.”

Kano rushed to his mother’s side, and bowed nervously. A few uncomfortable exchanges later, Ozawa stepped over to see her.

“Once again, we are all in your debt, Tenno-san,” he said, in his gruffest voice, punctuating his remark with a deep bow.

“On the contrary, Ozawa-san, I am sorry to have been the source of so much trouble. I fear that I became a pawn of the conspirators.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kano said. “The prejudices of a few isolated fools are not to be held to your account.”

“When the Crown Princess asked me to get a message to you, I had no notion things would turn out like this,” his mother said. “You turned out to be the little peach tree that grows larger than anyone could have expected.” She glanced up at Ozawa, who nodded. “Now there is someone who would like to have a word with you.”

She took Emily by the hand and led her into the kitchen, while Ozawa-san engaged Yuki in conversation. The Crown Princess was already sitting at a table on which a teakettle steamed. Another woman sat next to her, rather older and strangely familiar.
Could it really be... the Empress herself?
Emily bowed deeply, and whispered, “Your Highness” as loudly as she could manage, but she seemed to have lost her voice. The Dowager Empress smiled back and nodded, but said nothing.

Meanwhile, the little princess, who’d been fidgeting in a chair between her mother and grandmother until Emily appeared, seized on this opportunity to climb down from her chair and run over, throwing her arms around Emily’s waist. “Ama,” she cried, and Emily hoisted her up so that legs might also wrap themselves around her.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, little one,” she whispered into Toshi’s ear.

“Tenno-san,” the Crown Princess said, her face strained and taut. “I hope you can see how much we value your service. The Empress insisted on meeting her granddaughter’s savior, and Kano-san has informed us of the extent of the debt we owe to you.”

Emily bowed as much as she could without disturbing the little head resting on her shoulder. “I’m sure he has exaggerated, Your Highness.”

“You will have to let me be the judge of that… and I hope you will understand if we do not honor you publically… yet. Your presence at the enthronement would seem only appropriate, but Ozawa fears that it might embolden certain extreme elements still at large.”

The Dowager Empress nodded and smiled, and Emily bowed again, this time managing to free herself from Toshi’s grasp. The little girl stood next to her grandmother and waited for the hand that would caress her neck and head.

“However, I cannot say that you have not caused me some discomfort,” the Crown Princess continued. “It is difficult for me to allow any respect to be paid to the woman who would have killed my daughter. By acting as you did in front of Kano-san, you have bound my hands in this matter. I would very much have preferred to leave Heiji-san to die in shame and misery.”

“I… I…, your Highness, I am deeply…” Emily stumbled through a few more attempts to find the correct response. The Dowager Empress nodded and smiled again, and Emily found the shine in her eyes strangely comforting.

“On this subject, the Empress has intervened on your behalf. She is so kind as to remind me that we are not permitted to be guided by a mother’s natural sentiments. We must regulate our feelings to serve the nation.”

Emily nodded, speechless. The Dowager Empress rose and stepped around the table with her granddaughter in tow, and stood directly opposite Emily. She reached over to touch Emily’s hand and bowed slightly, and said, “Thank you.” The little princess seized Emily’s hand, pressed it against her cheek, and said, “Ama.”

“Tenno-san,” the Crown Princess said. “We will seek a public occasion to honor you. It is not just out of personal gratitude to you that I would honor your service, but also because it is in the national interest… to remind some of our people of the dangers of foolish and invidious prejudices.”

Emily pulled her hand free and bowed. “Your Highness, if you will permit me, and this is, I’m sure, not the proper moment… and I am almost ashamed to bring it up… but there is a difficulty I need your assistance with.”

“How could I refuse you, especially when you begin so graciously?”

“It’s about one of the Chinese prisoners…”

“You are referring to Lieutenant Yan Hui. I presume.

“Yes, Your Highness. I am worried that if he is sent back to China, he will be killed.”

“It is more likely that he will have to face our own justice first. Ozawa has informed me that your State Department has already made a request concerning him. Is that your doing as well?”

“No, Your Highness, but it is an outcome I would prefer.”

“You ask a lot, Tenno-san. Why are you interested in his fate?”

She’d resisted explaining this very thing, when Michael had asked, but he didn’t possess nearly the influence over her heart that the Crown Princess did. “Lieutenant Yan helped me… without him, I would… he protected me, so that I could get…” Emily glanced at the little princess, who stood next to her, pressing her face under her grandmother’s arm.

“I see,” the Crown Princess said. “My husband has no role in judicial decisions, or matters of state security.”

“But behind the scenes? Surely the Prime Minister would be moved…” She let that sentence drift off, in the realization that she had pushed as hard as was appropriate. The Crown Princess smiled and said nothing for a moment, as her eyes searched Emily’s face.

“Why don’t we see who may be waiting for us in the other room.” The Princess rose and Toshi instinctively reached for Emily’s hand, but the Dowager Empress remained in the kitchen, still preserving her retirement from public view. Everyone stood the instant the Crown Princess stepped through the kitchen door into the front room.

“Oh my god,” Andie said through a gasp.

“Your Imperial Highness,” Yuki said with a deep bow, and as soon as she noticed, Andie did the same. “We did not expect to see you when we came… or we would have…”

“I am pleased to see you, Kagami-san, and once again it is because of your daughter’s service. We do not yet know how to honor her. Will you introduce me?”

“Oh… forgive me, Your Highness. This is our very good friend, Andrea Cardano. Michiko-san grew up in her house.”

Ozawa whispered into the Princess’s ear. “I am pleased to meet you, Cardano-san,” the Princess said, speaking now in impeccable English. “I have heard your name, and that of your husband. I regret not having the pleasure of meeting him today as well.”

“You are too kind, Your Highness,” Andie said. “He will be disappointed to have missed his chance to meet you.”

“Kano-san, I am full of regret to learn that you did not serve as
kaishakunin
for Heiji Gyoshin.” The Princess had turned to face him, and spoke softly, as if she wanted to limit the impact of her words. “You have misunderstood my wishes. Hers was a noble heart, and I would have my people remember how to appreciate such a spirit. The nation has lost something with her passing, and the ritual of
seppuku
is intended to mark that loss.”

Kano grunted and lowered his head.

“Tenno-san has already done much for the Japanese people, and I am relieved she was present to take up the sword then, too, even if I regret imposing on her once again.”

Yuki’s face turned pale at these words and she clutched at Andie’s arm. Emily bowed her head toward the Princess.

“In recompense for your error, Kano-san,” the Princess continued, “each week I will ask you about the young lady, Heiji Gyoshin’s niece, Okamoto Haru. She is now your special charge. I expect to hear that she is doing well, as she is all that remains of the Heiji clan, and must not be allowed to fade into obscurity and poverty. Also, please inform her grandfather that I wish her to take up the Heiji name.”