Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate (25 page)

“Just ‘Kenji,’ ” the disguised priest said. “ ‘Lord’ belongs to Yamada-san here. Considering the luck he’s had with the title, he’s welcome to it.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or hit him, but there didn’t seem much advantage in either. I just walked in silence, as did everyone else until the city was well out of sight. Then we all, I think, breathed a little easier.

“I think you can remove those clothes now,” Lady Snow said when the crest of a small hill finally shielded us from sight of the city gate. She was speaking to Kenji.

Kenji and I both just frowned for a moment, and Lady Snow blushed. “I meant Kenji-san’s disguise, of course. I assume he does not mean to travel all the way to Nara like that.”

Kenji and I glanced at each other, then I simply shrugged. It was the Enryaku-ji monks we meant to deceive, though obviously Lady Snow was more observant. There was no harm in her knowing that she traveled with a mendicant. It might avoid certain misunderstandings, at least on her side, when Kenji attempted what he was almost certainly going to attempt, somewhere along the road.

Kenji at least had the delicacy to slip behind some trees. When he re-emerged, he was back in his tatty but familiar robes. He presented the loaned clothes to me, neatly arranged, but I made him stuff them into his own small bundle.

“You’ll need them when we return,” I said.

Kenji grunted. “No doubt. One cannot be too cautious with the monks of Enryaku Temple swarming like ants over the capital.”

I frowned. “For my curiosity, Lady Snow, how did you know Kenji was a priest?”

“He walks like a priest,” she said immediately. “Left elbow carried high at his side as if the fold of a robe was draped over his arm.”

Kenji grinned. “Old habits,” he said. “My more proper ordained name is Daisho, but hardly anyone uses it, and I prefer ‘Kenji’ in any case. That was very observant of you, Lady Snow.”

She brushed the compliment aside demurely. “Simple necessity. A woman, and especially one so disreputable as to travel alone from time to time, must be aware of her surroundings. Not all men are as . . . constrained as your noble selves.”

I barely suppressed a laugh, and Kenji shot me a hard look, but said nothing. Nidai glowered.

“You are not alone now, Lady Snow.
I
will protect you,” he said, and he shook his travel staff at some invisible aggressor. “I will break the future generations of any man who dares threaten you!”

I almost smiled. I had been thinking of Nidai as a child, but realized he was well into the age when young boys started to become young men and could barely wait for the transformation, with all the confusion and unreliable certainties this entailed. A grown woman not his mother had shown him kindness, and now he was in love with her. Lady Snow. I could not blame him but hoped his inevitable disappointment would be gentler than my own.

Lady Snow simply bowed to her young servant and said, quite politely, “I am grateful for your concern, Nidai-kun, but please do not place yourself in danger on my account.”

“It is my duty,” Nidai said sternly, or as sternly as one could say anything while also looking extraordinarily happy and pleased with one’s self.

Lady Snow simply bowed again, though this time I saw her smile. There was a touch of sadness in that smile I think I understood. At least, I hoped I did.

While the way going south was somewhat easier than the mountain roads further north, our progress was still slow, and we did not quite reach the village of Uji on that first day. While I would not have been averse to finding some lodging that did not involve using grass for a pillow, I was a bit relieved. The area around the river bridge south of Uji was notorious for its bandits. After each incident the Imperial government always made a fresh attempt at restoring order, but the fact was the less-used southern road to the old capital simply was not a high priority, and for the most part policing the road was left to local officials and the provincial governor, with only limited interest and success. My own suspicion was that at least some of the villagers at Uji were complicit, and the less we did to bring attention to ourselves, the better.

We found a small cleared field just out of sight of the main road. There were the ruins of a home, but clearly no one had lived in the area for some time. We put down our burdens some distance from the abandoned building, and the three male members of the party gathered some wood for a fire. We avoided touching the rotting remains of the house, partially because the wood was wet and of little use, partly to avoid disturbing any sleeping demons or spirits.

“Keep your eyes open,” Kenji said to Nidai. “Ghosts favor such places.”

“And demons,” I added.

Nidai tried to grunt, though it came out as more of a hum. “I once slept rough on the streets of Kyoto. You think a provincial ghost is going to frighten me?”

“Well, then, you gentlemen may consider yourselves properly answered,” Lady Snow said, smiling demurely. “Though being alert is always good advice for any traveler. Now then, we have a fire. Nidai-kun, will you fetch me some fresh water? There’s a spring on the other side of the field.”

I started to ask how she knew, but realized she had been this way before. Kenji and I made ourselves comfortable while Lady Snow started to prepare a meal. When Nidai returned with a full jar of water he was moving a little faster than the situation seemed to warrant.

“There’s a ghost,” he said, apparently trying to keep his voice level and matter of fact. “It’s a girl.”

“What did you see?” I asked.

“A
girl,
” he repeated, as if I hadn’t been paying attention. “I saw her very plainly.”

“I think Lord Yamada means you should be more specific, Nidai-kun,” Kenji said. “What did she look like?”

He considered. “Maybe a year or so older than I am. Very long wild hair, dressed in white. She had no feet, and sort of floated on the opposite side of the spring, but the rest of her was plain as you are.”

“Funeral robes,” Kenji said. “It is often thus, poor thing. Perhaps I should send her to the other world . . . ”

“No!” The force of Lady Snow’s word startled all three of us. She realized we were all staring at her, then repeated in a softer voice, “No, there’s no need. She’s not dangerous.”

“I assumed you’d been here before,” I said. “Is this
rei
known to you?”

“I’ve seen her,” Lady Snow admitted. “Here and there. She means no harm, I know.”

“She should not linger here,” Kenji said, not unkindly. “A false attachment to this world will surely long delay her path to Enlightenment. It’s not right.”

Lady Snow did not look up from preparing our supper. “What is not right is that so many people must leave the world before they even have a chance to experience it properly, or understand any of it or find the one thing that, perhaps, they had been put here to experience in the first place. All paths must lead to the same place eventually, Master Daisho. Not even the wisest know the best course for everyone.”

“Kenji, please,” he said.

“You were speaking as a priest,” Lady Snow said. “I thought I should address you as such.”

Kenji smiled a rueful smile, and it was all I could do not to laugh. If this had been the game of One Hundred Poems, Lady Snow had just taken every card.

“Well then,” Kenji said wryly. “I certainly make no claims to either wisdom or great understanding. Unless the ghost attacks us or requests otherwise, I am content to leave her be.”

“It is a small matter, but thank you,” Lady Snow said.

“Small matter” indeed. Even when she had been trying so earnestly to persuade me to her cause, I had never seen her so passionate or fearful as she was concerning this one lonely ghost.

Lady Snow was heating
miso
soup and water for tea. I rose from the ground and started toward the spring.

“I’d like to wash my face.”

She shot me a hard glance and looked as if she wanted to say something but finally turned her attention back to the food without a word.

Kenji shrugged. “If you smell anything like I do, I think you should merely
start
with your face. If you do decide thus, move downstream a bit. We don’t want to foul the water. Or frighten the ghost.”

“I’ll keep this in mind for later,” I said. “So will you.”

A bath actually wasn’t a bad idea, though I felt a little uncomfortable at the idea of bathing in the presence of a strange girl, even if she was a ghost. Perhaps it could wait until Nara.

I found the spring near a bamboo grove on the side of a small hill. It welled out of a rock, flowed into a cracked stone basin, then out again into a small stream that marked the edge of the abandoned field. I looked around, but there was no sign of anyone else, ghost or otherwise. Defying Kenji, I washed my face at the stone basin.

When I looked up again, a glimmer of movement to the left caught my eye, and then in the interval from one blink of the eye to the next, I saw her. She hovered near the edge of the stream, pretty much as Nidai had described. There came a rustling of wind through the bamboo, and a sound that might have been a sigh or simply the voice of the wind. In another moment the ghost was gone. I wanted a better look at the ghost’s face, but obviously I was not going to get it. I waited for a few moments, but it did not reappear. I walked back toward our small camp, considering what I had seen. What I thought I had seen—and that was the ghost of Taira no Kei, one of the very first victims of the dark spiritual energy, whatever it was, that had ravaged the city. The girl whose body I had attended at Senrin-ji.

This far from Kyoto? This place would have no meaning to her.

While patterns and colors of the clothing of most young girl’s Kei’s age were as different as they could make them within the boundaries of taste and refinement, funeral robes were pretty much the same. One young girl prepared for burial looked a great deal like another, to one who did not know either. Doubtless I was mistaken.

Kenji hailed me from the campfire. “About time. I was about to persuade Lady Snow to start without you.”

“Kenji-san is, indeed, quite persuasive,” Lady Snow said. “But we waited nonetheless.”

The meal was simple, as befitted our current circumstances, but good and substantial. Even Kenji ate all of his portion with apparent enjoyment. When we were done, Nidai dared the stream again to wash our bowls, and Lady Snow withdrew to a discreet distance. I assumed this was to make her sleeping arrangements, but instead she reached into her bundle and pulled out a polished bamboo flute. She got to her feet and began to play. The first few mournful notes seemed to fill the air around us like the voice of melancholy itself. Lady Snow walked, her long sleeves trailing, as she played. Kenji settled back to listen, his eyes closed.

Nidai returned from his washing and packed everything away. “She’s back,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Who? The ghost?” I asked, also keeping my voice low so as not to disturb the music.

He grunted assent. “Lady Snow started playing, and the next time I looked up, the girl was there again, just across the stream.”

“Did she try to talk to you?”

He looked puzzled. “I don’t think she noticed me at all. I think she was listening to the flute.”

Curious.

What was even more curious was that Lady Snow seemed to be playing as much to the trees across the field as to us, or anyone in particular. Part of me just wanted to enjoy the music, but when the ghost showed herself on the near side of the field, my mind would not let me.

There was a belief in some quarters that a spirit could not cross running water, but that was rubbish. I’d seen Seita do it numerous times. Mostly any hesitation on the part of a spirit was simple reluctance to stray from a familiar area or path, but now the ghost girl hovered just inside the edge of the field. I had the distinct impression that she wanted to move closer but would not.

I wondered why. Was it the remnants of the house? Perhaps this place had been her home, but something had driven her into the woods to die. Was there a battle? Bandits? Plague? Any one seemed as likely as another. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the house at all. Perhaps it was us.

To test the idea, I moved closer.

The ghost did not react. I kept back far enough not to cross between Lady Snow and the far edge of the field; she was now looking directly at the ghost, and the music did not falter.

I studied the ghost. Before I had merely suspected; now I was certain. I said nothing. Finally, Lady Snow lowered the flute, and the music and the ghost vanished together. I looked at Lady Snow. She was weeping.

“That was the ghost of Taira no Kei, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Did she follow you?”

“I have seen her before. We were friends; I told you.”

It wasn’t exactly an answer, nor was it a denial. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Lady Snow. I’ve just never seen a ghost travel so far from the scene of its death before, though of course I’ve heard of such things.”

“I think she liked the music.”

“We all did. You are very skilled.”

She wiped her tears on her sleeve. “My skills are poor things hardly worth mentioning, but thank you.”

“Does she ever speak to you?” I asked.

Her face was unreadable. “I’m sorry, Lord Yamada, but I’m not certain I would know one ghost’s voice if I heard it. There are so many.”

That wasn’t exactly an answer either, though it occurred to me I was delving into matters that, perhaps, were none of my concern. That was the recurring problem when one built one’s life around asking and answering questions—sometimes it was very hard to know when to stop. I wished Lady Snow a pleasant night and withdrew. I was a little amused but not surprised when Nidai moved his bedding to lie halfway between where Kenji and I slept and where Lady Snow retired for the evening.

We crossed the river the next morning at the bridge south of Uji. We stopped in the village only long enough to trade for some fresh vegetables and set out immediately, quickly crossing the bridge. The road led into a bamboo forest where bandits were waiting.