Autumn Bridge (14 page)

“That is curious indeed,” Lord Saemon said. Genji was proposing laws favorable to the very same people he had slaughtered so mercilessly not very long ago. It made no sense. But, somehow, the two facts had to be connected.

“Find and interrogate survivors. There is an answer here hidden so well we cannot even see the question without more information.”

“Lord Saemon, there were no survivors. Every hut and shed was put to the torch. One hundred and nine corpses were recovered for funeral services. Exactly that number of people lived in the village.”

“There were funeral services.”

“Yes, lord.”

“For—” Saemon stopped and, smiling to himself, substituted Genji’s word for the one he was going to say. “There were funeral services for burakumin.”

“Yes, lord.”

“That means someone went through the trouble of sifting through ashes and rubble to recover the burned corpses of outcasts. Who would do such a thing? Only those who care. Such people frequently know things others do not. Find them and question them.”

“Yes, lord.”

“Wait. One more thing. It was reported to me by the harbor police that Lord Genji’s ship, the SS
Cape Muroto
, steamed south for Akaoka Domain yesterday morning. His outsider friend, the American woman, was on board, accompanied by Lady Hanako, Lord Taro, and a contingent of samurai. A strange trunk of ancient and foreign design, containing no one knows what, went aboard with them. Find out why they are going to Akaoka and what is so precious in that trunk. Genji may be planning something dangerous in Edo, and thus seeks to remove his outsider friend to safety.”

The chamberlain said, “Perhaps he is planning to lead an uprising of burakumin.”

Lord Saemon frowned. “This is not a joking matter.”

“No, my lord.” The chamberlain bowed. “I will proceed immediately.”

When the chamberlain had gone, Lord Saemon recalled his remark and laughed out loud. An uprising of burakumin. If anyone could conceive of such a ridiculous thing, it would be Genji. How on earth had a clan led by such fools survived for so long? Perhaps they really could see the future. That would explain it. Only with an advantage so huge could they compensate for their constant political misjudgments.

Lord Saemon laughed again.

Prophetic vision. It was almost as amusing a fancy as an outcast insurrection.

Emily, Hanako, and Taro stood together at the starboard railing as the ship rounded the promontory. The low shoreline hills slid past and opened up into a bay, and across the water, the seven winged stories of Cloud of Sparrows Castle soared above the wooded cliffs.

When Emily had first seen it, shortly after her arrival in 1861, she had been sorely disappointed. It seemed so fragile, and far too elegant. Then, a castle had meant a heavy stone fortress of the European kind, just as a nobleman had to be a knight like Wilfred of Ivanhoe. She had been blind and foolish then. After six years in Japan, she knew that the lethal and the elegant could go together very well, as it did in Cloud of Sparrows Castle, and a knight could as well be a samurai or Great Lord as a prince or a duke or any European sir. We are often blind when we encounter the unexpected. When it happened again, as it surely would, she was determined to see.

Hanako, too, was looking at the castle, her thoughts tinged with melancholy. On every previous return to Akaoka Domain, the sight of those roofs like flocks of birds aflight lifted her spirits toward heaven. It did not do so today. Seeing the castle, she could not avoid thinking about the scrolls Emily had discovered. She had not yet read much. Emily had encouraged her to do so aboard ship, but Hanako feared that exposure to the salt air would damage the ancient paper, and had refrained. She had read enough, however, to feel an uneasiness that grew inexorably into dread as they neared the dock.

The “visitor.”

The first line of the first scroll mentioned a long-ago lord’s
visitor
. The use of that word instead of the more usual
guest
reminded her of the last time she had seen Lord Kiyori. It had been only hours before his death six years ago. He, too, had entertained someone, someone she neither saw nor heard, though she clearly heard Lord Kiyori speaking as if in conversation. The word in the scroll frightened her because she couldn’t shake off the persistent feeling that the long-ago lord’s visitor and Lord Kiyori’s unseen companion were one and the same.

If that was so, then the visitor could only be one whose name was better not thought of, much less spoken aloud, and she and Emily would have been better advised to avoid this place than to seek it out.

It was widely believed that Lord Kiyori had been poisoned with blowfish bile, which his son, the mad Lord Shigeru, had put into his soup. Hanako and the other maid who had served the meal were immediately seized by the lord’s bodyguards. There is no doubt they would have been tortured to death, and quite rightly, for being part of such a heinous crime, unknowingly or not. But when Lord Genji arrived, he ordered the clan physician to examine the corpse. After a brief consultation, the new Great Lord declared that his grandfather’s death was caused by a heart stoppage, a not unexpected natural outcome of old age. He then took Hanako into his household service, as Lord Kiyori had intended, saving her from the ostracism that would otherwise have resulted from lingering suspicions.

The general view was that Lord Kiyori had indeed been poisoned, but that Genji, seeking to keep scandal to a minimum, wished to avoid executing his uncle for the murder of his own father. Also, knowing the maids were blameless and feeling compassion for them, he made up the story about heart failure.

For a long time, this is what Hanako also believed. But having read those lines in Emily’s scrolls, she no longer did. She was sure the visitor had played a part in Lord Kiyori’s death and, being immortal as well as malevolent, was very likely still lurking about in the shadowy realm between the real and the unreal, patiently waiting for the next victim, someone whose thoughts and emotions exposed exactly the right vulnerabilities.

“Was the castle always seven stories high?” Emily asked.

“It had only two levels when it was captured by Lord Masamuné, the father of our first Great Lord, Hironobu.”

“Captured? I thought this was the hereditary castle of the Okumichi clan.”

“It became hereditary thereafter. Everything has a beginning.” And an end, Hanako thought, but did not say. “Masamuné added four more floors during his lifetime, and Hironobu the last.”

“So it was Hironobu who built the high tower.”

Hanako shivered. The wind moving over the water was light, a summery breeze rather than a wintry one. Perhaps she had recently grown more susceptible to chills.

Taro paid no attention to the women’s conversation. Other, more serious matters weighed on him.

Assassination.

Abduction.

Treachery.

Could he commit such acts and still call himself a samurai? And if he did not act, would his betrayal be worse?

Taro had come of age in the crisis of 1861. Lord Kiyori had died suddenly, leaving the domain in the hands of his untested grandson, Lord Genji. This provided an irresistible opportunity for the clan’s enemies to attempt its destruction. Having no confidence in Lord Genji, his two most important generals betrayed him. The greatest warrior in the domain, Kiyori’s son and Genji’s uncle, Lord Shigeru, had also chosen that most unfavorable time to go completely mad. The situation was extremely unpromising. But Taro and his good friend, Hidé, had remained true to their vows and had fought at Lord Genji’s side in the epic battles of Mié Pass and Mushindo Monastery. With their help, Lord Genji triumphed over his enemies. They had both been generously rewarded, and had continued to rise steadily in prestige and prominence. Hidé was now Lord Chamberlain in addition to being chief bodyguard. Taro, at the age of only twenty-five, was commander of the clan cavalry, the most celebrated cavalry in all Japan for five hundred years.

But did any of this still have meaning? Outsiders had entered Japan with their warships and guns and science, and the world that had belonged to the samurai for ages eternal was evaporating like mist in the morning sun. The Men of Virtue said there was only one solution: Expel the barbarians and close the country once again. More and more, it seemed to Taro that they were right.

From the beginning, doubt had plagued him. He was sworn as a samurai to follow Lord Genji. Yet, Genji, the most unsamurai-like of all the lords of all the domains of the empire, had never appeared to be committed to the warrior code that was the basis of his own authority. That something had been so since the long-ago days of his ancestors was not enough for Genji. He wanted a logical basis for his actions. Logic rather than tradition. How like the outsiders he was. A true samurai did not ask why. He did as his ancestors did, and unquestioningly followed the dictates of the way of the warrior. When Taro had pointed this out, Lord Genji had laughed.

“The way of the warrior,” Lord Genji had said. “
Bushido
. Surely you do not think our ancestors actually believed in such drivel?”

Taro was so shocked his mouth fell open.

“Loyalty to one’s lord,” Genji said, “no matter what kind of fool or scoundrel he is. Sacrifice of self, of one’s wife, one’s parents, even one’s children, for the honor of the lord. Could such evil ever be the foundation of a noble philosophy? If ever I ask you to sacrifice your children for me, Taro, you have my permission to slay me on the spot.”

“I have no children, lord.”

“Then acquire some soon. My grandfather said no one without children understands anything worth understanding.”

“You have no children, either, lord.”

“I am thinking seriously of remedying that deficiency. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, of course, revenge. Never forget a wrong, no matter how slight, and exact vengeance, even if it takes ten generations. These are not the teachings of the ancients, Taro. These are fabrications of the Tokugawa Shoguns. They created this mythology to insure that they would remain in power forever, by insuring that no one else would think to do what they did, which is make false pledges to their lord, betray their lord’s heirs, act only for their own aggrandizement, and point everyone’s attention into the past, so the future would be theirs alone.”

“Lord Genji,” Taro said, when he recovered his voice, “you know that isn’t so. Our revered ancestors—”

“—were violent, ruthless men,” Genji said, “living in violent, ruthless times. Times not unlike our own. Their way was not bushido, it was
budo
, the way of war. Budo is not a matter of tradition. It is a matter of maximum efficiency. Before we knew of Western science, budo was our science. Samurai on foot were not as effective as samurai on horseback, so we became mounted warriors. The long, straight
tachi
sword proved unwieldy in such an application, so we abandoned it and switched to shorter, curved katana swords. When castles became common battlegrounds, we found that even shorter swords were required for indoor combat — often treacherous, surprise attacks, by the way — so we took to wearing a second, even shorter wakizashi sword along with our katana. For very close-quarters work — if, for example, we needed to stab someone suddenly during a meal or a tea ceremony or an orgy — we also carried a
tanto
dagger.”

“That is false,” Taro said, so upset by Genji’s words he failed to be polite. “We have a tanto because a samurai should always be ready to kill himself if honor so demands.”

Genji smiled at Taro as if he were a not very gifted, but nevertheless favored, child. “That is what the Tokugawa Shoguns wanted us to believe, so when we thought of stabbing, we would think of stabbing ourselves instead of them.”

The conversation had taken place just before Taro had embarked on this journey.

“If we were truly the men our ancestors were,” Genji had said, “we would learn all we could from the outsiders as fast as we could, and we would abandon without hesitation or regret everything that obstructs our progress. Everything.”

Taro, too horrified and angry to trust himself to speak, had only bowed his head. Lord Genji had probably taken this as a gesture of assent. It had not been one.

Wasn’t Genji’s treason far worse than that which Taro was contemplating? It was treason against the way of the samurai itself. Genji was determined to remake them in the grotesque, immoral, honorless image of the outsiders. Of what use would loyalty be when the only value was profit? What use was courage when one killed enemies, not face-to-face at two-sword-blades’ distance, but unseen and unseeing, from miles away, with foul and noisy explosive machinery?

Taro glanced at the two women he had been sent to protect. He was commander of the most illustrious cavalry in the realm, but how long would there be cavalry in the world Lord Genji sought to create? Hanako was his best friend Hidé’s wife, but Hidé was stubbornly, blindly loyal to Lord Genji. Emily was the outsider of prophecy, whose presence had insured the victory of the Okumichi clan during the crisis, but she was just that — an outsider.

One day soon—

Taro’s hand did not go to his sword. His thoughts did.

The harsh rattle of chains preceded the splash of the anchor falling into the shallows.

“We are home,” Hanako said.

Taro sat in a room overlooking the rose garden in the central courtyard of the castle. The maids had brought various refreshments, which he completely ignored. Lost in his thoughts, he had forgotten the architect, Tsuda, sitting across from him, until he noticed the fearful look on the man’s face. They had been sitting in silence for half an hour. During that time, Taro’s thoughts had undoubtedly emphasized the natural ferocity of his expression.

More to assuage the man’s fears than to inform him of anything, Taro said, “Lady Hanako and Lady Emily are in the tower. You will wait for them here.”