The Harsh Cry of the Heron

Otori Takeo : ruler
of the Three Countries

Otori Kaede : his
wife

Shigeko : their
eldest daughter, heir to Maruyama

Maya & Miki : their
twin daughters

Arai Zenko : head of
the Arai clan, lord of Kumamoto

Arai Hana : his wife,
Kaede’s sister

Sunaomi  : their son

Chikara  :  their son

Muto Kenji : Master
of the Muto Family and the Tribe

Muto Shizuka. . Kenji’s
niece and successor, mother to Zenko and Taku

Muto Taku : Takeo’s
spymaster

Sada : a member of
the tribe, Maya’s companion

Mai : Sada’s sister

Yuki (Yusetsu) : Kenji’s
daughter, Hisao’s mother

Muto Yasu : a
merchant

Imai Bunta : Shizuka’s
informant

Dr Ishida : Shizuka’s
husband, Takeo’s physician

Sugita Hiroshi : senior
retainer of Maruyama

Miyoshi Kahei . . Takeo’s
commander in chief, lord of Yamagata

Miyoshi Gemba : his
brother

Sonoda Mitsuru : lord
of Inuyama

Ai : his wife, Kaede’s
sister

Matsuda Shingen : abbot
of the temple at Terayama

Kubo Makoto (later
Eikan):  his successor, Takeo’s closest friend

Minoru : Takeo’s
scribe

Kuroda junpei  : Takeo’s
bodyguard

Kuroda Shinsaku :
Takeo’s bodyguard

Terada Fumio : explorer
and sea captain

Lord Kono : a
nobleman, son of Lord Fujiwara

Saga Hideki : the
Emperor’s general, lord of the Eastern Isles

Don Joao : a foreign
merchant

Don Carlo : a foreign
priest

Madaren : their
interpreter

Kikuta Akio : Master
of the Kikuta family

Kikuta Hisao : his
son

Kikuta Gosaburo : Akio’s
uncle

Horses

Tenba : a black horse
given by Shigeko to Takeo

The two sons of Raku,
both grey with black mane and tail

Ryume : Taku ‘s horse

Keri : Hiroshi’s
horse

Ashige : Shigeko’s
greyhorse

The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes

the impermanence of all things.

The colour of the sala flowers reveals the truth

that the prosperous must decline.

The proud do not endure, they are like a dream

on a spring night;

The mighty fall at last, they are

as dust before the wind.

The Tale of the Heike

Translated by Helen Craig McCullough

Come quickly! Father
and Mother are fighting!’ Otori Takeo heard his daughter’s voice clearly as she
called to her sisters from within the residence at Inuyama castle, in the same
way he heard all the mingled sounds of the castle and the town beyond. Yet he
ignored them, as he ignored the song of the boards of the nightingale floor
beneath his feet, concentrating only on his opponent: his wife, Kaede.

They were fighting
with wooden poles: he was taller, but she was naturally left-handed and hence
as strong with either hand, whereas his right hand had been crippled by a knife
cut many years ago and he had had to learn to use his left; nor was this the
only injury to slow him.

It was the last day
of the year, bitterly cold, the sky pale grey, the winter sun feeble. Often in
winter they practised this way: it warmed the body and kept the joints
flexible, and Kaede liked her daughters to see how a woman might fight like a
man.

The girls came
running: with the new year the eldest, Shigeko, would turn fifteen, the two
younger ones thirteen. The boards sang under Shigeko’s tread, but the twins
stepped lightly in the way of the Tribe. They had run across the nightingale
floor since they were infants, and had learned almost unconsciously how to keep
it silent.

Kaede’s head was
covered with a red silk scarf wound around her face, so Takeo could only see
her eyes. They were filled with the energy of the fight, and her movements were
swift and strong. It was hard to believe she was the mother of three children:
she still moved with the strength and freedom of a girl. Her attack made him
all too aware of his age and his physical weaknesses. The jar of Kaede’s blow
on his pole set his hand aching.

‘I concede,’ he said.

‘Mother won!’ the
girls crowed.

Shigeko ran to her
mother with a towel. ‘For the victor,’ she said, bowing and offering the towel
in both hands.

‘We must be thankful
we are at peace,’ Kaede said, smiling and wiping her face. ‘Your father has
learned the skills of diplomacy and no longer needs to fight for his life!’

‘At least I am warm
now!’ Takeo said, beckoning to one of the guards, who had been watching from
the garden, to take the poles.

‘Let us fight you,
Father!’ Miki, the younger of the twins, pleaded. She went to the edge of the
veranda and held her hands out to the guard. He was careful not to look at her
or touch her as he handed over the pole.

Takeo noticed his
reluctance. Even grown men, hardened soldiers, were afraid of the twins - even,
he thought with sorrow, their own mother.

‘Let me see what
Shigeko has learned,’ he said. ‘You may each have one bout with her.’

For several years his
eldest daughter had spent the greater part of the year at Terayama, where under
the supervision of the old abbot, Matsuda Shingen, who had been Takeo’s
teacher, she studied the Way of the Houou. She had arrived at Inuyama the day
before, to celebrate the New Year with her family, and her own coming of age.
Takeo watched her now as she took the pole he had used and made sure Miki had
the lighter one. Physically she was very like her mother, with the same
slenderness and apparent fragility, but she had a character all her own,
practical, good-humoured and steadfast. The Way of the Houou was rigorous in
its discipline, and its teachers made no allowances for age or sex, yet she had
accepted the teaching and training, the long days of silence and solitude, with
wholehearted eagerness. She had gone to Terayama by her own choice, for the Way
of the Houou was a way of peace, and from childhood she had shared in her
father’s vision of a peaceful land where violence was never allowed to spread.

Her method of
fighting was quite different from the way he had been taught, and he loved to
watch her, appreciating how the traditional moves of attack had been turned
into self-defence, with the aim of disarming the opponent without hurting him.

‘No cheating,’
Shigeko said to Miki, for the twins had all their father’s Tribe skills - even
more, he suspected. Now they were turning thirteen these skills were developing
rapidly, and though they were forbidden to use them in everyday life sometimes
the temptation to tease their teachers and outwit their servants became too
great.

‘Why can’t I show
Father what I have learned?’ Miki said, for she had also recently returned from
training - in the Tribe village with the Muto family. Her sister Maya would
return there after the celebrations. It was rare these days for the whole
family to be together: the children’s different education, the parents’ need to
give equal attention to all of the Three Countries meant constant travel and
frequent separations. The demands of government were increasing: negotiations
with the foreigners; exploration and trade; the maintenance and development of
weaponry; the supervision of local districts who organized their own
administration; agricultural experiments; the import of foreign craftsmen and
new technologies; the tribunals that heard complaints and grievances. Takeo and
Kaede shared these burdens equally, she dealing mainly with the West, he with
the Middle Country and both of them jointly with the East, where Kaede’s sister
Ai and her husband, Sonoda Mitsuru, held the former Tohan domain, including the
castle at Inuyama, where the family were staying for the winter.

Miki was half a head
shorter than her sister, but very strong and quick; Shigeko seemed hardly to
move at all in comparison, yet the younger girl could not get past her guard,
and within moments Miki had lost her pole: it seemed to fly from her fingers,
and as it soared upwards Shigeko caught it effortlessly.

‘You cheated!’ Miki
gasped.

‘Lord Gemba taught me
how to do that,’ Shigeko said proudly.

The other twin, Maya,
tried next with the same effect.

Shigeko said, her
cheeks flushed, ‘Father, let me fight you!’

‘Very well,’ he
agreed, for he was impressed by what she had learned and curious to see how it
would stand up against the strength of a trained warrior.

He attacked her
quickly, with no holding back, and the first bout took her by surprise. His
pole touched her chest; he restrained the thrust so it would not hurt her.

‘A sword would have
killed you,’ he said.

‘Again,’ she replied
calmly, and this time she was ready for him; she moved with effortless speed,
evaded two blows and came at his right side where the hand was weaker, gave a
little, enough to unsettle his balance, and then twisted her whole body. His
pole slipped to the ground.

He heard the twins,
and the guards, gasp.

‘Well done,’ he said.

‘You weren’t really
trying,’ Shigeko said, disappointed.

‘Indeed I was trying.
Just as much as the first time. Of course, I was already tired out by your
mother, as well as being old and unfit!’

‘No,’ Maya cried. ‘Shigeko
beat you fairly!’

‘But it is like
cheating,’ Miki said seriously. ‘How do you do it?’

Shigeko smiled,
shaking her head. ‘It’s something you do with thought, and spirit and hand, all
together. It took me months to get it. I can’t just show you.’

‘You did very well,’
Kaede said. ‘I am proud of you.’ Her voice was full of love and admiration, as
it usually was for her eldest daughter.

The twins glanced at
each other.

They are jealous,
Takeo thought. They know she does not have the same strength of feeling for
them. And he felt the familiar rush of protectiveness towards his younger
daughters. He seemed always to be trying to keep them from harm - ever since
the hour of their birth, when Chiyo had wanted to take the second one, Miki,
away and let her die. This was the usual practice with twins in those days, and
probably still was in most of the country, for the birth of twins was
considered unnatural for human beings, making them seem more like an animal, a
cat or a dog.