Grass for His Pillow (28 page)

“What do they want?” Ai had gone pale.

“I expect they will tell us,” Kaede replied.

“Do I have to be here?” Ai pleaded.

“Yes. Put on the other robe Lord Fujiwara sent, and help Hana dress. We must all be here together when they arrive.”

“Why?” Hana said.

Kaede did not answer. She herself hardly knew the reason. She had had a sudden image of the three of them in the lonely house, the three daughters of Lord Shirakawa, remote, beautiful, dangerous. . . . That was how they must appear to Arai's warriors.

“All-merciful, all-compassionate one, help me,” she prayed to the White Goddess as Shizuka tied her sash and combed out her hair.

She heard the tread of the horses' feet outside the gate, heard Kondo call a welcome to the men. His voice hit just the right note of courtesy and confidence, and she thanked heaven for the Tribe's acting skills and hoped hers would be as great.

“Ayame, show our visitors to the guest pavilion,” she said. “Give them tea and food. The best tea and the finest pottery. When they've finished eating, ask their leader to come here to speak with me. Hana, if you are ready, come and sit down next to me.”

Shizuka helped Ai with her robe and quickly combed her hair. “I will hide where I can hear,” she whispered.

“Open the shutters before you go,” Kaede said. “We will get the last of the sun.” For the rain had ceased and a fitful sun cast a silvery light over the garden and into the room.

“What do I have to do?” Hana said, kneeling beside Kaede.

“When the men come in, you must bow at exactly the same moment I do. And then just look as beautiful as you can and sit without moving a muscle while I talk.”

“Is that all?” Hana was disappointed.

“Watch the men; study them without seeming to. You can tell me afterward what you thought of them. You, too, Ai. You must give nothing away, react to nothing—like statues.”

Ai came and knelt on Kaede's other side. She was trembling but was able to compose herself.

The sun's last rays streamed into the room, setting the dust motes dancing and lighting up the three girls. The newly cleared
waterfall, made louder by the rain, could be heard from the garden. A shadow flashed blue as a kingfisher dove from a rock.

From the guest room came the murmur of the men's voices. Kaede imagined she could catch their unfamiliar smell. It made her tense. She straightened her back and her mind turned to ice. She would meet their power with her own. She would remember how easily they could die.

In a little while she heard Ayame's voice telling the men Lady Shirakawa would receive them now. Shortly after, their leader and one of his companions approached the main house and stepped onto the veranda. Ayame dropped to her knees at the edge of the room, and the retainer also knelt outside. As the other man crossed the threshold Kaede let him see the three of them and then bowed to him, touching her forehead to the floor. Hana and Ai moved at exactly the same time.

The three girls sat up in unison.

The warrior knelt and announced, “I am Akita Tsutomu from Inuyama. I have been sent to Lady Shirakawa by Lord Arai.”

He bowed and stayed low. Kaede said, “Welcome, Lord Akita. I am grateful to you for your arduous journey and to Lord Arai for sending you. I am eager to learn how I may serve him.” She added, “You may sit up.”

He did so, and she gazed frankly at him. She knew women were supposed to keep their eyes cast down in the presence of men, but she hardly felt like a woman anymore. She wondered if she would ever be that sort of woman again. She realized Hana and Ai were staring in the same way at Akita, with opaque, unreadable eyes.

He was approaching middle age, his hair still black but beginning to thin. His nose was small but slightly hooked, like a bird's, giving him a rapacious look, offset by a well-formed mouth with rather large lips. His clothes were travel-stained but of good quality. His hands were square and short-fingered, with strong, splayed thumbs. She guessed he was a practical man, but also a conspirator, given to trickery. There was nothing there to trust.

“Lord Arai asks after your health,” he said, looking at each of the sisters, then returning his gaze to Kaede. “It was reported that you were unwell.”

“I am recovered,” she replied. “You may thank Lord Arai for his concern.”

He inclined his head slightly. He seemed ill at ease, as if he were more at home among men than among women and unsure of how to address her. She wondered how much he had heard of her situation, if he knew the cause of her illness.

“We heard with great regret of Lord Shirakawa's death,” he went on. “Lord Arai has been concerned about your lack of protection and wishes to make it clear that he considers you to be in as strong an alliance with him as if you were part of his family.”

Hana and Ai turned their heads, exchanged a look with each other, then resumed their silent staring. It seemed to unnerve Akita even more. He cleared his throat. “That being the case, Lord Arai wishes to receive you and your sisters at Inuyama to discuss the alliance and Lady Shirakawa's future.”

Impossible,
she thought, though she said nothing for a few moments. Then she spoke, smiling slightly: “Nothing would give me greater pleasure. However, my health is not strong enough to
permit me to travel yet, and as we are still mourning our father, it is not fitting that we should leave home. It is late in the year. We will arrange a visit to Inuyama in the spring. You may tell Lord Arai that I consider our alliance unbroken and I am grateful to him for his protection. I will consult him as far as I am able and keep him informed of my decisions.”

Again the look between Hana and Ai flashed through the room like lightning.
It really is uncanny,
Kaede thought, and suddenly wanted to laugh.

Akita said, “I must urge Lady Shirakawa to return with me.”

“It is quite impossible,” she said, meeting his gaze and adding, “It is not for you to urge me to do anything.”

The rebuke surprised him. A flush of color spread around his neck and up to his cheekbones.

Hana and Ai leaned forward very slightly and their gaze intensified. The sun went behind clouds, darkening the room, and there was a sudden rush of rain on the roof. The bamboo wind chimes rang with a hollow note.

Akita said, “I apologize. Of course you must do as seems fitting to you.”

“I will come to Inuyama in the spring,” she repeated. “You may tell Lord Arai that. You are welcome to spend the night here, but I think you will need to leave in the morning to get back before the snow.”

“Lady Shirakawa.” He bowed to the floor. As he shuffled out backward she asked, “Who are your companions?” She spoke abruptly, allowing impatience to creep into her voice, knowing instinctively that she had dominated him. Something about the
scene, her sisters, her own demeanor, had cowed him. She could almost smell it.

“My sister's son, Sonoda Mitsuru, and three of my own retainers.”

“Leave your nephew here. He may enter my service for the winter and escort us to Inuyama. He will be a guarantee of your good faith.”

He stared at the ground, taken aback at the request; yet, she thought with anger, any man in her position would have demanded the same. With the young man in her household, his uncle would be less likely to misrepresent her or otherwise betray her to Arai.

“Of course, trust between us is a symbol of my trust in Lord Arai,” Kaede said, more impatiently, as he hesitated.

“I see no reason why he should not stay here,” Akita conceded.

I have a hostage,
she thought, and marveled at the sense of power it gave her.

She bowed to Akita, Hana and Ai copying her, while he prostrated himself before them. Rain was still falling when he left, but the sun had struggled out again, turning to fragmented rainbows the drops of water that clung to the bare branches and the last of the autumn leaves. She made a sign to her sisters not to move.

Before Akita entered the guest room, he turned to look back at them. They sat motionless until he was out of sight. The sun vanished and the rain streamed down.

Ayame stood from where she had been kneeling in the shadows and closed the shutters. Kaede turned and hugged Hana.

“Did I do well?” Hana asked, her eyes lengthened and full of emotion.

“It was brilliant, almost like magic. But what was that look between you?”

“We should not have done it,” Ai said, ashamed. “It's so childish. We used to do it when Mother or Ayame was teaching us. Hana started it. They never knew if they were imagining it or not. We never dared do it in front of Father. And to do it to a great lord . . .”

“It just seemed to happen,” Hana said, laughing. “He didn't like it, did he? His eyes went all jumpy and he started to sweat.”

“He is hardly a great lord,” Kaede said. “Arai might have sent someone of higher rank.”

“Would you have done what he asked, then? Would we have gone back with him to Inuyama?”

“Even if Arai himself had come, I would not,” Kaede replied. “I will always make them wait for me.”

“Do you want to know what else I noticed?” Hana said.

“Tell me.”

“Lord Akita was afraid of you, Older Sister.”

“You have sharp eyes,” Kaede said, laughing.

“I don't want to go away,” Ai said. “I never want to leave home.”

Kaede gazed at her sister with pity. “You will have to marry someday. You may have to go to Inuyama next year and stay for a while.”

“Will I have to?” Hana asked.

“Maybe,” Kaede said. “Lots of men will want to marry you.”

For the sake of an alliance with me,
she thought, saddened that she would have to use her sisters so.

“I'll only go if Shizuka comes with us,” Hana declared.

Kaede smiled and hugged her again. There was no point in
telling her that Shizuka could never go in safety to Inuyama while Arai was there. “Go and tell Shizuka to come to me. Ayame, you had better see what meal we can give these men tonight.”

“I'm glad you told them to leave tomorrow,” Ayame said. “I don't think we could afford to feed them for longer. They are too used to eating well.” She shook her head. “Though I have to say, Lady Kaede, I don't think your father would have approved of your conduct.”

“You don't have to say it,” Kaede retorted swiftly. “And if you want to stay in this household, you will never speak to me like that again.”

Ayame flinched at her tone. “Lady Shirakawa,” she said dully, dropped to her knees, and crawled backward from the room.

Shizuka came in shortly, carrying a lamp, for dusk was now falling. Kaede told her sisters to go and change their clothes.

“How much did you hear?” she demanded when they had gone.

“Enough, and Kondo told me what Lord Akita said when he went back to the pavilion. He thought there was some supernatural power at work in this house. You terrified him. He said you were like the autumn spider, golden and deadly, weaving a web of beauty to captivate men.”

“Quite poetic,” Kaede remarked.

“Yes, Kondo thought so too!”

Kaede could picture the ironic gleam in his eyes. One day, she promised herself, he would look at her without irony. He would take her seriously. They all would, all these men who thought they were so powerful.

“And my hostage, Sonoda Mitsuru, is he terrified too?”

“Your hostage!” Shizuka laughed. “How did you dare suggest that?”

“Was I wrong?”

“No, on the contrary, it made them believe you are much stronger than was first thought. The young man is a little apprehensive about being left here. Where do you intend to put him?”

“Shoji can take him in his house and look after him. I certainly don't want him here.” Kaede paused, then went on with a trace of bitterness, “He will be better treated than I was. But what about you? He will not be any danger to you, will he?”

“Arai must know I am still with you,” Shizuka said. “I see no danger from this young man. His uncle, Lord Akita, will be careful not to upset you now. Your strength protects me—all of us. Arai probably expected to find you distraught and desperate for his help. He will hear a very different story. I told you the birds would gather.”

“So, who do we expect next?”

“I believe someone will come from Maruyama before the onset of winter, in response to the messengers Kondo sent.”

Kaede was hoping for the same thing, her mind often turning to her last meeting with her kinswoman and the promise that had been made then. Her father had told her she would have to fight for that inheritance, but she hardly knew who her adversaries would be or how to set about going to war. Who would teach her how to do it; who would lead an army on her behalf?

She said farewell the next day to Akita and his men, thankful that their stay was so short, and welcomed his nephew, summoning Shoji and handing him over. She was aware of her effect on the young man—he could not take his eyes off her and trembled in her
presence—but he did not interest her at all, other than as her hostage.