Lord of the Darkwood (10 page)

“What do you mean?” Chika asked.

“Aren't we going to keep it?” Kuro said.

“We must give it back,” Kiku declared. “We'll say we found the horse, straying. But first we need to kill a couple more merchants, so people begin to be frightened.”

Chika said doubtfully, “We'll be caught.”

“I promise you, we will never be caught,” Kiku said, with conviction. “Just tell me who we should take the shells to.”

“I suppose to whoever ordered them. This man probably took them to the same person, year after year.”

“Hmm. I should have asked him that, before he died,” Kiku said. “There's so much to learn. Well, you can make inquiries when we get to Kitakami.”

They walked a little farther and, when night fell, went off the track into the forest to rest for a while. Kuro sat by the horse, keeping watch, and Chika and Kiku lay down, side by side. Kiku seemed to fall asleep immediately, but Chika was wakeful, and when he did finally sleep he had a nightmare that one of Kuro's snakes was slithering toward him. He tried to run, but his limbs were paralyzed. The snake hissed and flickered its tongue and he knew that at any moment it would bite him and he would die. He woke to find Kiku's arms around him.

“You were screaming. What's wrong?”

“I had a bad dream.”

Kiku said, sounding surprised, “It feels nice, holding you like this.”

Chika lay without moving, letting the other boy touch him with exploring hands. He felt his body begin to respond to the pleasure. Their limbs entwined, their mouths joined, as they took the first steps on the journey of sex and death that would bind them to each other.

The second merchant was garroted by an invisible Kiku. They took his horse, loaded this time with bamboo scoops and bowls. Kuro looked after the horses while Chika and Kiku fell on each other with the ferocious lust of young males, incited by their seeming power over life and death.

“Can you kill anyone you choose?” Chika asked, as he lay panting and exhausted.

“I don't know yet. I am finding out. It's fun, isn't it? The killing, and then this afterward? I had no idea it was all so much fun. I don't understand why people don't do it all the time.”

“Some do,” Chika replied. “But it's not so much fun for the people who die.”

“If people did not die, there would be no room for new ones. And don't they just get reborn into a new life, anyway?”

They had heard monks and priests expounding the doctrine along the road.

“Can
you
be killed?” Chika asked, a new fear seizing him.

“I suppose so. Our fathers are mostly dead, and our mother.” Kiku did not want to dwell on the subject. “So who shall we kill next? You choose.”

The idea seemed suddenly irresistible, yet a few months ago it would have appalled him. His warrior upbringing was being corrupted and tainted by Kiku. He tried not to think of his father's stern teachings. He knew he was enthralled by Kiku, as by no one else in the world. He wanted to please him; he could not resist him.

“I bet you cannot kill a warrior,” he challenged.

*   *   *

He was not much of a warrior, a solitary, grizzled man with only one eye, the empty socket yawning disconcertingly. He sang ballads in a monotonous, melancholy voice outside a lodging place not far from Kitakami. Chika and Kiku watched him while the horses rested and drank and Kuro procured food. Chika found the strains of his voice, in the summer evening, curiously moving. He wondered where he had come from, what had reduced him to this.

He wore a faded green hunting robe and under it a corselet, missing much of its silk lacing; at his hip was a long sword. He did not earn enough for a meal, let alone a room, and began to walk away, his measured gait and the set of his shoulders indicating he was resigned to another night on the road.

The two boys sauntered after him, and Kuro pulled the reluctant horses along behind them. Kiku waved at his brother to fall back out of sight.

“Attract your warrior's attention,” he whispered to Chika. “I'll grab him from behind and then you can use your sword.”

Chika watched, with all the shock and thrill it always gave him, as Kiku faded into nothingness, and then, hastening his steps, called, “Hey, sir, wait a minute!”

The man turned. The sunset behind him made him appear solid, black and featureless, and for a moment Chika felt afraid, but as he came closer he saw the lines in the face and the gray hair. The remaining eye was clouded, two fingers were missing from the left hand. When the man finally moved, it was stiffly—no doubt he was troubled by old wounds.

“What do you want, boy?”

“I am traveling alone. I thought we could walk together.”

The warrior gave him a shrewd look. “What happened to your companions and the horses?”

Chika said, “They have gone their own way. Maybe they stopped for the night.”

“You carry a sword; you look like a warrior's son. Were you not taught to speak the truth, at all times?” His tone was forbearing, but the words flicked Chika like a whip.

“You are an expert on the life of a warrior, are you, you beggar?”

The man turned. “Walk by yourself. I am a little fussy in my choice of companions. If you ever learn any manners, you can approach me again.”

Chika's hand was on his sword. At the same moment the warrior drew his own, turned as fast as a snake, and struck out.

Kiku gave a shriek, breaking into sight, grasping his arm, blood beginning to drip from it.

“What are you?” the warrior cried. “Forgive me, you should not sneak up on a man like that. It's instinctive, you see. I can't help but react. Now I have cut you!” His eyes went back to Chika's sword. “What? You were intending to kill me? Two shabby boys like you? You must be desperate! I have nothing but these clothes and my sword. I'll die before I hand that over!”

“I'm bleeding,” Kiku said.

“It's not fatal,” the man assured him. “Unless you are unlucky enough to get wound fever. Wash it well, that's my advice. And now, my young friends, unless the warrior's son wants to fight me, I'll be on my way.”

“Wait,” Kiku said. His brow was taut with pain and concentration. “What are you planning to do in Kitakami?”

“None of your business, brat.”

“You must be hoping to find someone who can feed you, someone you can serve.”

The warrior laughed. “And if I am, what's it to you?”

“How would you feel about serving me?”

He laughed again but more bitterly. “The first requirement of anyone I serve is that they be rich!”

“We are rich,” Kiku said, pulling out the pearl prayer beads and fingering them. “But we don't know what to do in Kitakami and we are afraid of being cheated. We found these horses, wandering. We want to take them to their rightful owners. Not for any reward, we don't actually need it. Just to do the right thing.”

Kiku had been turning paler and paler while he talked, and now he swayed as if he was about to faint.

The warrior sheathed his sword. “Come, let me take a look at that cut.”

Chika knew he had a chance of killing him now, while he was unprepared. He saw the exact place in the neck where his blade would open the flesh and the blood vessels within. His hand flexed and clenched, his sword quivered. He was not sure if Kiku's faintness was a ploy to get the man off his guard.

“Put the sword away,” the man said. “I may be one-eyed and crippled, but you still wouldn't stand a chance against me. Here,” he tore a strip from his underrobe. “Run to the spring and wet this. We'll bind his arm.”

“What is your name?” Chika asked after the wound was bound and Kuro and the horses had caught up with them.

“Yamanaka no Tsunetomo. And yours?”

“Kuromori no Motochika.” He used his adult name.

“Huh? Everyone at Kuromori was slaughtered. So why are you still alive?”

“That's my business,” Chika said, making Tsunetomo laugh.

“That's right, my friend. Some of us are called to die and some to survive at any price. If that's your path, embrace it, without regret or shame.”

“Has it been your path?” Chika asked.

“Maybe it has,” Tsunetomo said. “At any rate, I am still alive. Now, let's see what those horses are carrying.”

It was almost dark, a warm night with no moon, the starlight diffused by the hazy air. Kuro made a fire and unloaded the baskets from the horses' backs. Tsunetomo inspected the contents.

“You found the horses straying, you say?”

Kiku nodded. His eyes were a little brighter in the firelight and his cheeks were flushed, but he no longer seemed faint, nor otherwise affected by the wound.

“What happened to the owners, I wonder?” Tsunetomo's face was expressionless, his voice bland.

“No sign of them,” Kiku said.

“Maybe someone murdered them?” Kuro suggested.

“That's what people are saying,” said Tsunetomo. “I've already heard one or two rumors—Akuzenji's ghost, or some new bandit chief, or ogres who kill people to eat them. If such rumors continue to spread, more people will become afraid and soon no one will want to travel alone.”

“That's good,” Kiku said. “We can offer them protection—you and your sword.”

“Am I to guard the whole length of the highway?” Tsunetomo laughed.

“You must know other people you can hire to help you.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“So will you serve me?” Kiku asked.

Tsunetomo stared at him. “I will,” he said finally. “You're a strange creature, but there's something about you … keep me in food and shelter, and a little extra for wine, and my sword is yours.”

 

6

ARITOMO

The fiery death of the Prince Abbot had not only shocked and grieved Lord Aritomo but had also alarmed him. His hold on power was weakened, his authority shaken. With his usual clear-sightedness he knew it would take only one more blow to dislodge him. He strengthened the capital's defenses, while making plans to retreat to Minatogura, preparing boats at Akashi, in case attacks came from Shikanoko in the east and the Kakizuki in the west.

But his enemies did not take advantage of his momentary weakness. Shikanoko vanished into the Darkwood, Lord Keita and his retinue made no move from Rakuhara. Within a few weeks Masachika, whom Aritomo came to depend on even though he could not forgive him for Takaakira's death and some days could hardly bear to look at him, finally captured Kuromori and went on to take Kumayama. The east was once more secure.

Hoping to placate the vengeful spirit of the Prince Abbot, Aritomo gave orders for Ryusonji to be rebuilt, exactly as before, and for the dragon child to be worshipped there, yet the construction progressed slowly. After a series of inexplicable accidents, the carpenters refused to work, saying the place was occupied by ghosts and untethered spirits whom no one could control now that their master was gone.

The Imperial Palace, which had burned to the ground in the Ninpei rebellion, was also being rebuilt. In the meantime the Emperor, Daigen, and his mother were living in a nearby temple. The treasures that had been destroyed were slowly being replaced, but expenses were high and even Aritomo's new taxation system could not produce enough revenue. It was his custom to visit Daigen weekly, to take part in the rituals that bound Heaven and Earth through the sacred person of the Emperor. Daigen had been the Prince Abbot's choice and Aritomo could not fault him. He was intelligent, courteous, and, most important, biddable, seemingly resigned to his role as a figurehead and happy to play it in return for beautiful companions, wine, and poetry. There was no reason for harmony not to be restored, but, as the years passed, the drought worsened; rain hardly fell, the lake shrank and the river dried up.

Aritomo tried to wipe Takaakira's dying words from his mind:
Yoshimori is the true emperor.
Yet they haunted his dreams and he often woke suddenly in the night hearing a ghostly voice speak them in the empty room.

On one of his visits the Emperor's mother sent a message through a courtier that she wanted to speak to him. He had to obey, yet he went with reluctance, fearing she was going to grumble about their living conditions or demand some new luxury for which he would have to find the money.

Lady Natsue received him alone. He prostrated himself before her, as was required, feeling a twinge of pain in his hips, regretting his sedentary life, longing for a horse beneath him, a hawk above, the brisk air and huge skies of the east.

It was a warm spring day and water trickled through the garden. The room was not unpleasant; it faced south and was elegantly appointed with flowing silk hangings and a few exquisite pieces of lacquered furniture. He could not see what she had to complain about.

“Please sit up, lord,” Lady Natsue said.

He dared to look directly at her. She had been the late emperor's second wife, always, it was whispered, jealous of the first, Momozono's mother. Yet surely no one could have surpassed her in beauty. Even now, in apparent middle age, she seemed perfect, still youthful. She spoke at length about the joys of the season and the various flowers and birds of the garden, then told an amusing anecdote about a court lady and a mouse, which His Majesty had turned into a poem. When she fell silent he said, half-irritated, half-charmed, “What can I do for Your Majesty?”

“I need to speak to you about Ryusonji.” She gestured that he should come nearer. The tone of her voice changed though it was no less attractive. “My late brother and I were very close,” she whispered. “He shared many of his secrets with me. Under his rule Ryusonji became a place of great power. Now he is gone it lies empty; its power leaks from it.”

“I am trying to rebuild it,” Aritomo replied. “But the work is proving difficult and slow. No one can replace the Prince Abbot.”