Autumn Bridge (30 page)

“Then it is a prediction,” Emily said, “which can only be false.”

“To us, it would so appear. But the writer recorded it as having already occurred. As history.”

Emily shook her head doubtfully. “How can someone who supposedly died six hundred years ago speak of something in the future as if it were in the past? I do not believe this was written in ancient times. I believe it is a forgery specifically intended to cause mischief.”

Hanako smiled. “You are beginning to think like us, Emily.”

“Well, I suppose that is inevitable to a certain degree,” Emily said. “These are tumultuous times, and Lord Genji has many enemies. I suppose some of them are completely without conscience, and would resort to any measure to undermine him.”

“I would like to agree with you, but I cannot,” Hanako said. “Such a plot as you describe would not be carried out this way. First, the scrolls were brought to you, a person known to be completely loyal to Lord Genji. Second, because they are in the Japanese language, it is to be expected that you would consult with another, and I am known to be your closest friend. My loyalty to Lord Genji is also beyond question. Thus there could be no expectation that the contents of these scrolls would become public knowledge, and without that, what purpose can they serve in any plot?”

“You don’t mean to say you think these scrolls are genuine?”

Hanako said, “I think we should not have come to Mushindo.”

“We had to come,” Emily said, a stubborn set to her mouth, “to disprove what is written here. Surely you are not afraid?”

Hanako said again, “We should not have come.”

Taro’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Lady Hanako, I have stationed men within and without as you have ordered. I myself will patrol the inner courtyard tonight.”

Emily said, “Please come in, Taro.”

The door slid back. Taro remained outside as he bowed. “I must see to the men, Lady Emily. If the need should arise, call out, and someone will come right away.”

“Thank you, Taro,” Emily said.

Hanako said, “The last time we were here, we were all soaked in horses’ blood.”

“That seems so long ago,” Taro said. “So much has changed since then.”

“And more changes will come,” Hanako said. “We must all be steadfast.”

Taro bowed and said, “Indeed.”

After he closed the door, Hanako listened as his footsteps receded.

“What is it?” Emily said.

“Nothing,” Hanako said. There was no need to worry Emily with her concerns, which were probably unfounded. During the entire trip, Taro’s demeanor had not been as it usually was. There was nothing specific that bothered Hanako. It was just slight differences in the look in his eyes, his posture, the tone of his voice. Most likely, he was disturbed by the unsettled state of the nation, as they all were. But a more sinister explanation was possible. She had noticed that all the men Taro had brought with him were his personal retainers. None of her husband Hidé’s samurai was among them. Ordinarily, this would not even have come to her attention. Only that slight, undefined change in Taro troubled her enough to make her look for other possible discrepancies.

Emily read the passage again.

“We will meet in Mushindo Abbey, when you enter my cell. You will speak, and I will not. When you look for me, you will not find me. How is this possible? You will not know until the child appears, then you will know without doubt.”

Hanako felt very cold.

“It doesn’t make much sense,” Emily said. “What child? And who is the ‘you’ she mentions? There is no cell anywhere on the grounds, and Mushindo is a monastery, not an abbey.”

Hanako said, “When Mushindo was built in 1292, it was an abbey, not a monastery.”

“What?” Emily could feel the blood leaving her face.

“Before it became a ruin in the battle Lord Genji fought here, it had been a ruin before, in the civil war between our clan founder, Lord Hironobu, and the traitors who murdered him. At the same time, they burned Mushindo Abbey to the ground, with everyone still in it. It remained abandoned for centuries. Old Abbot Zengen, who died just before you arrived in Japan, rebuilt it with his own hands. He was the one who made it a monastery.”

Emily struggled against what she had heard. “That still doesn’t answer the other questions.”

“No,” Hanako agreed, “but it is not difficult to guess at them.”

“I cannot. Can you?”

Hanako hesitated. She did not wish to say it, but she now believed words could do no harm. A feeling of inevitability had been growing ever since she had first seen Emily reading the scrolls back at Quiet Crane Palace in Edo. She knew whatever was to happen could not be avoided.

“The birth to which the scrolls refer,” Hanako said, “must be the birth of the heir who will continue the lineage. The ‘you’ is the person for whom the scrolls were written.”

Emily stared at her. “Hanako, you surely don’t mean
me
?”

“We are here,” Hanako said, “so we will soon see.”

“Or we will not,” Emily said with somewhat more emphasis than she had intended. “This Shizuka may have been very clever, but she was certainly no witch with supernatural powers. There is no such thing as a witch.”

“I wish you would not speak her name,” Hanako said, and did her best not to tremble.

The two women spent the night in fitful sleep, in fearful expectation of what one thought was unavoidable and one knew to be impossible. When dawn came, and they had experienced no visitation, they were both much more cheerful than they had been the previous day. Indeed, for the first time during the journey, Hanako felt a lightness of spirit. Even her suspicion of Taro vanished.

“I am glad you were right,” Hanako said. “We Japanese are too superstitious. We have heard so many old stories, we begin to believe in them despite our better judgment.”

“That will change,” Emily said. “Japan is on the verge of joining the community of civilized nations. One day, and that day is not far off, Japan will be as modern and as scientific as the United States, Great Britain, and the other great nations of the world. Logic, and not fairy tales, will guide us all.”

That afternoon, Hanako went with Kimi to admire the garden Goro cultivated. In addition to the usual vegetables, Kimi said, Goro grew edible flowers. He had learned about them by observing the wildflowers the outsider monk Jimbo collected.

“It’s such a beautiful day,” Emily said, “I think I’ll take a turn in the meadow there.”

She strolled into the woods not far outside the temple wall. The two samurai assigned by Taro followed her at a discreet distance. This was not the side of the temple that was the site of the battle. Though six years had passed, Emily had no wish to tread upon the ground where so many had died. The memory was painful to her still. Distracted by these thoughts, she had almost passed the stand of pines when she noticed the woman in its shadows, watching her. The contrast between the sunlight in which Emily stood and the shadows that cloaked the woman made her seem ephemeral. That, and the way she stood so still, had made her easy to miss.

The woman was very young, for her hair was not arranged in the style of an adult but was tied in a girl’s long ponytail. She was also exceptionally pretty, with delicate features combined with eyes less narrow than was common among the Japanese. Emily thought she must be one of the women who came back from Yokohama with Kimi and Goro. The young woman was looking at her with a mildly amused expression. She had probably never seen an outsider at so close a distance. This was a good opportunity for Emily to practice speaking Japanese with someone who would not make allowances for her accent.

“Good afternoon,” Emily said, and followed the words of Japanese with an appropriate bow in the fashion of the country. She did not get the response she expected. Instead of returning the bow and polite greeting, the woman said nothing, while her face crumpled into a look of terror.

“I am a visitor from afar,” Emily said. “My name is Emily.”

“Lady Emily.” She heard Taro’s voice behind her. “Is everything in order?”

“I was just practicing my Japanese,” Emily said. “Without much success.” She turned back toward the young woman and found that she had fled. She smiled. “It seems my Japanese is so bad, it terrifies strangers. You are very kind not to react that way. Did you see where she went?”

Taro looked at the two samurai who had been following Emily. They both shrugged.

“No,” Taro said, “I’m sorry.”

“She’s probably gone back to the monastery,” Emily said. “I’ll have Kimi introduce us properly, and show her she has nothing to fear from me.”

Taro said to the two samurai, “Did you see the woman?”

“No, Lord Taro.”

“You should pay closer attention,” Taro said. “What use are bodyguards who fail to see a potential assassin?”

“We saw no one, lord,” the other samurai said. He looked at his companion in some confusion.

“That is precisely my point, isn’t it?” Taro said sharply. He did not like hearing excuses.

Emily caught her shoe on something concealed by the grass. She had to lean against a pine to keep from falling. She bent down to look. It was a large flat rock, half buried in the dirt.

“Foundation stone,” Taro said.

“I beg your pardon?” Emily, confused, reverted to English.

Taro was no linguist, but his English had improved almost as much as Emily’s Japanese. He said, “It is an old foundation stone. Before, there was a building here, probably. With destruction and reconstruction, buildings are sometimes moved. Intentionally, to change the karma of the place. And unintentionally, because no one remembers where the old building was.”

“A building?” Emily said.

“Yes,” Taro said, looking in the grass. “Not a big one. See? Here is another foundation stone. It was a very small building.”

“A cell,” Emily said, and fainted dead away.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw Hanako looking at her with much concern, and Kimi behind her.

“She’s awake,” Kimi said.

“Are you well?” Hanako asked.

“Yes, yes,” Emily said, sitting up. “I overexerted myself slightly. Nothing serious.” She looked around and saw nearly a dozen women gathered around them. She did not see the young woman from the woods. “Are these all of the residents?”

“All but one,” Kimi said. “She went to the village on an errand. Sometimes, she takes an indirect route, and ends up wandering about in the woods.”

Emily sighed with relief. “So that’s who I saw.” She smiled at Hanako. “My imagination ran away with me. I saw the girl, then I didn’t see her. I tripped on the stone. I thought of the scrolls, and I thought it was” — she remembered Hanako’s request that she not say the name — “the one I expected to see.” She said to Kimi, “Is she very shy?”

“Yes,” Kimi said, “very, very shy.”

“The prettiest girls sometimes are,” Emily said.

“The prettiest?” Kimi looked puzzled.

“Here she comes now,” one of the women said. “Yasuko! Come here! The lady wants to meet you. You shouldn’t have run away.”

Emily watched the stocky, big-boned young woman approach. She would have looked clumsy enough even if her head didn’t hang off so strangely to one side, a defect made more prominent by the way her hair was bound in the usual tight coiffure. There was nothing graceful, beautiful, or even slightly ephemeral about her.

“In Yokohama, she hurt her neck,” Kimi said. “Now her head won’t stay up right.”

Emily grew dizzy again, but this time she didn’t faint. “Mushindo Abbey,” she whispered.

“She is delirious,” Taro said.

“I fear she is not,” Hanako said.

An old saying has it that a man is courage, a woman kindness. This has a certain pleasing blend of symmetry and contrast, and, like many things that are pleasing, is quite false.
Courage and kindness are inseparable.
If one seems to exist without the other, beware.
You are in the presence of cowardice and cruelty disguised.
AKI-NO-HASHI
(1311)

The men Taro had assigned to guard Emily during her afternoon walk were the two least reliable in the bodyguard contingent. He had brought them from Edo precisely for that attribute. They could be counted on to fail to perform their duties, which is precisely what they did, choosing instead to indulge in idle chatter with each other. Neither came close to spotting him hidden among the trees, though stealth was not one of his salient military attributes.

Like all true samurai, he disdained subterfuge and concealment, preferring to stand out in the open in a posture declarative of his intentions. The way in which he was executing his treason pained him nearly as much as the treason itself. But Lord Saemon had convinced him that this was not the time for traditional bravado. It was necessary for Taro to conceal his changed loyalties until the proper moment. He would therefore not only kill a woman and one he was pledged to protect, but he would kill her from hiding, tripling the shame he felt. He was acting to protect the ancient traditions of honor and courage that Lord Genji was so ready to abandon. Was it not strange that his first overt act in that cause should be so grotesquely cowardly? Yet it was consistent with all the other contradictions caused by the presence of the outsiders. Were he a man better able to appreciate how ridiculous life could be, he would surely be laughing at himself at this very moment.