The Harsh Cry of the Heron (29 page)

‘I swear it.’

‘It’s not a good time
for all this,’ Taku said with some irritation to Sada. ‘I’m trying to keep Kono
under control and watch my brother’s activities in case he makes any unexpected
move. Still, if Takeo has requested it, I suppose I’d better keep her near me.
You can come to the castle with me tomorrow. Dress her as a boy, but live here.
You can be what you please, but she must live as a girl here. Most of the
household already know who she is; she must be protected as far as possible as
Lord Otori’s daughter. I’ll warn Hiroshi. Will anyone else recognize you?’

‘No one ever looks at
me directly,’ Maya told him. ‘Because I am a twin.’

‘Twins are rather
special to the Tribe,’ he said. ‘But where’s your sister?’

‘She stayed in Hagi.
She will go to Kagemura soon.’ Maya felt a sudden pang of longing for Miki, for
Shigeko and her parents. I am here like an orphan, she thought, or an exile.
Maybe I’ll be like Father, discovered in a remote village, with more talent
than anyone else in the Tribe.

‘Now go to bed,’ Taku
told her abruptly. ‘There are things I have to discuss with Sada.’

‘Lord Taku.’ Maya
bowed submissively to him and bade them both goodnight. No sooner had she
re-entered the house than one of the maids seized her and sent her off to
prepare the bedding. She unfolded the mats and spread the quilts, walking
softly through the long, low rooms of the house. The wind had risen and
whistled through all the cracks, autumn in its mouth, but Maya did not feel the
cold. She was listening all the time to the muffled words from the garden. They
had told her to go to bed and she had obeyed them, but they had not forbidden
her to listen.

She had her father’s
acute hearing, and all year it had been growing more sensitive and more finely
attuned. When she at last lay down she set her ears, trying to filter out the whispering
of the girls who lay on either side of her. Gradually they fell silent, their
low voices replaced by the last of the summer insects, bewailing the coming
cold and their own deaths. She heard the hushed, feathery beat of the owl’s
wings as it floated through the garden, and breathed out almost inaudibly.
Moonlight threw a latticed pattern on the paper screens; the moon tugged at her
blood, making it race through her veins.

In the distance Taku
said, ‘I brought Kono here that he might see the loyalty in Maruyama to the
Otori. I’m afraid Zenko has let him believe that the Seishuu are on the verge
of seceding once more, and that the West will not stand by Takeo.’

‘Surely Hiroshi is
completely trustworthy?’ Sada murmured.

‘If he is not, I
might as well cut my own throat,’ Taku said.

Sada laughed. ‘You
would never take your own life, cousin.’

‘I hope I never have
to. I might be forced to it out of sheer boredom if I have to put up with Lord
Kono for much longer.’

‘Maya will be a
welcome distraction, if it is boredom you fear.’

‘Or another
responsibility that I could well do without!’

‘What startled you
when you looked in her eyes?’

‘I was expecting a
girl. What I saw was nothing like a girl: it is something unformed, waiting to
find its shape.’

‘Is it a male spirit,
or something to do with the cat possession?’

‘I really have no
idea. It seemed different. She is unique - probably very powerful.’

‘And dangerous?’

‘Probably. To herself
more than anything.’

‘You are tired.’ A
note came into Sada’s voice that made Maya shiver with a mixture of longing and
jealousy.

Sada said, even more
quietly, ‘Here, I will massage your brow.’

There was a moment of
silence. Maya held her breath. Taku let out a deep sigh. Some kind of intensity
had fallen on the darkened garden, on the unseen couple. She could not bear to
listen any more, but pulled the quilt over her head.

A long time later, it
seemed, she heard their footsteps on the veranda. Taku said in a low voice, ‘I
did not expect that!’

‘We grew up together,’
Sada replied. ‘It need not mean anything.’

‘Sada, nothing
between us can be meaningless.’ He paused as if he would say more, but then
said briefly, ‘I will see you and Maya tomorrow. Bring her to the castle at
midday.’

Sada came quietly
into the room and lay down next to Maya. Pretending to be asleep, Maya rolled
against her, breathing in her smell, mingled with Taku’s, still on her. She
could not decide which one she loved the most: she wanted to embrace them both.
At that moment she felt herself theirs for life.

The next day, Sada
woke her early and set about cutting her long hair to shoulder length and then
pulling it back into a topknot, leaving the forehead unshaven, like a young boy
not yet of age.

‘You are not a pretty
girl,’ she said, laughing. ‘But you make a very nice-looking boy. Scowl a bit
more, and keep your lips together. You must not be too beautiful! Some warrior
will spirit you away.’

Maya tried to set her
features in a more boyish way, but excitement, and the unfamiliar feel of her
hair and clothes, the male words in her mouth, made her eyes gleam and brought
colour into her cheeks.

‘Calm down,’ Sada
scolded her. ‘You must not draw attention to yourself. You are one of Lord Taku’s
servants; one of the lowest, too.’

‘What will I have to
do?’

‘Very little, I
expect. Learn how to deal with boredom.’

‘Like Taku,’ Maya
said without thinking.

Sada gripped her arm.
‘You heard him say that? What else did you hear?’

Maya stared back at
her. For a moment she did not speak. Then she said, ‘I heard everything.’

Sada could not
prevent the smile curving her lips. ‘Never speak of it to anyone,’ she
murmured, with complicity. She drew Maya close and embraced her. Maya hugged
her back, felt the heat of her body, and wished she were Taku.

Some men love love,
but Muto Taku was not one of them, nor had he ever been smitten by the passion
that wants to devote itself only to the beloved. He found such extreme emotions
curious, even distasteful, and had always laughed at the infatuated, openly
despising their weakness. When women professed to love him, as they often did,
he detached himself from them. He liked women, and all the pleasures of the
body one enjoyed with them, was fond of his wife and trusted her to run his
household, bring up his children properly and be loyal to him, but the idea of
being faithful to her had never occurred to him. So the persistence of the
memory of the sudden, unexpected intimacy with Sada disturbed him. It had been
unlike anything in his experience, desire of such intensity, fulfilment so piercing
and complete; her body, as tall and as strong as his, almost like a man’s, yet
a woman’s; her responding desire for him, which yielded to him and at the same
time seized him. He had hardly been able to sleep, longing only to feel her
next to him, and now, talking to Sugita Hiroshi in the garden of the castle at
Maruyama, he was finding it hard to concentrate on what his old friend was
saying. We grew up together. It need not mean anything, she had said, and that
had been part of the thrill, she moving from companion, almost sister, to
lover; and he had said, with unknowing insight, Nothing between us can be
meaningless.

He drew his attention
back to his companion. They were the same age, turning twenty-seven in the new
year, but whereas Taku had the wiry build and nondescript, mobile face of the
Muto, Sugita Hiroshi was considered a handsome man, half a head taller than
Taku and broader in the shoulder, with the pale skin and fine features of the
warrior class. As boys they had squabbled and competed with each other for Lord
Takeo’s attention, had been lovers for one ecstatic summer, the year they had
broken in the colts together, and since then had been tied by the bonds of
deepest friendship.

It was early morning
on what promised to be a brilliant autumn day. The sky was the clear pale blue
of a bird’s egg, the sun just beginning to lift the haze from the golden
stubble of the rice fields. It was the first chance the two men had had to talk
in private since Taku had arrived in the company of Lord Kono. They had been
discussing the coming meeting between Lord Otori and Arai Zenko, which was to
take place within the next few weeks in Maruyama.

‘Takeo and Lady
Shigeko must be here by next month’s full moon,’ Hiroshi said, ‘but their
arrival has been delayed somewhat, for they were to go to Terayama to visit
Matsuda Shingen’s grave.’

‘It is sad for Takeo
to lose his two great teachers in the same year. He had barely got over Kenji’s
death,’ Taku remarked.

‘Matsuda’s passing
was neither as sudden nor as shocking as Kenji’s. Our abbot was over eighty
years, an extraordinary lifespan. And he has worthy successors. As your uncle
has in you. You will become to Lord Takeo what Kenji always was.’

‘I already miss my
uncle’s skill and perception,’ Taku confessed. ‘The situation seems to become
more complex every week. My brother’s intrigues, which even I cannot completely
fathom; Lord Kono and the demands from the Emperor; the refusal of the Kikuta
to negotiate . . .’

‘During my time in
Hagi, Takeo seemed unusually preoccupied,’ Hiroshi said tentatively.

‘Well, apart from his
grief and these affairs of state, he has other concerns, I suppose,’ Taku
replied. ‘Lady Otori’s pregnancy, problems with his daughters—’

‘Is something wrong
with Lady Shigeko?’ Hiroshi interrupted. ‘She was in good health when I saw her
recently . . .’

‘Not as far as I
know. It’s the twin girls,’ Taku said. ‘Maya is here with me; I must warn you
in case you recognize her.’

‘Here with you?’
Hiroshi repeated in surprise.

‘She’s dressed as a
boy. You probably won’t even notice her. She’s being looked after by a young
woman, also in men’s guise, a distant relative of mine: Sada is her name.’

There was no need to
speak her name, yet he could not help himself. I am obsessed, he thought.

‘Zenko and Hana are
coming,’ Hiroshi exclaimed. ‘Surely they will recognize her!’

‘I suppose Hana
might. Not much escapes her.’

‘No,’ Hiroshi agreed.
They were silent for a moment, then both laughed at the same time.

‘You know,’ Taku
said, ‘people say you never got over her, and that is why you never married!’
They had never spoken of it before, but his curiosity had been kindled by his
own new obsession.

‘It’s true at one
time I fervently wanted to marry her. I thought I adored her, and I wanted so
much to be part of that family - my own father, as you know, was killed in the
war, and my uncle and his sons took their own lives rather than surrender to
Arai Daiichi. I had no family of my own; when Maruyama settled down after the
earthquake I was living in Lord Takeo’s household. My family’s lands reverted
to the domain. I was sent to Terayama to study the Way of the Houou. I was as
foolish and conceited as any young man. I thought that Takeo would adopt me
eventually, especially when no sons were born.’ He smiled in self-mockery but
without bitterness. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I am not disappointed or
distressed. I see my life’s calling is to be of service; I am happy to be the
steward of Maruyama and to hold it for Lady Shigeko. Next month she will
receive her domain; I will soon return to Terayama, unless she needs me here.’

‘I am sure she will
need you - at least for a year or two. No need to bury yourself at Terayama
like a hermit. You should marry and have children of your own. As for land,
Takeo - or Shigeko - would give you anything you asked for.’

‘Not quite anything,’
Hiroshi said quietly, almost to himself.

‘So you are still
pining after Hana.’

‘No, I rapidly
recovered from that infatuation. Hana is a very beautiful woman, but I am glad
it is your brother who is her husband, not myself.’

‘It would be better
for Takeo if it were you,’ Taku said, wondering what else might keep Hiroshi
from marrying.

‘They feed each other’s
ambitions,’ Hiroshi agreed, and deftly changed the subject. ‘But you still have
not told me for what reason Maya is here.’

‘She needs to be kept
apart - from her cousins, who are now in Hagi, and from her twin. And someone
needs to be watching her constantly, which is why Sada came with her. I’ll have
to spend some time with her too. I can’t explain all the reasons to you. I’m
relying on you to cover my absence and entertain Lord Kono - and, incidentally,
convince him of the Seishuu clans’ complete loyalty to the Otori.’

‘Is the child in some
danger?’

‘She is the danger,’
Taku replied.

‘But why does she not
come openly, as Lord Otori’s daughter, and stay here as she often has before?’

When Taku did not
answer immediately, Hiroshi said, ‘You love intrigue for its own sake, admit
it!’

‘She is more useful
if she is not recognized,’ Taku said finally. ‘Anyway, she’s a child of the
Tribe. If she is Lady Otori Maya, that is all she can be; in the Tribe she can
take on many different roles.’