The Harsh Cry of the Heron (5 page)

At times Otori was
reported wounded and their hopes rose, but he always recovered, even from
poison, as he had recovered from Kotaro’s poisoned blade, until even the Kikuta
began to believe that he was immortal as the common people said, and Akio’s
hatred and bitterness grew, and his love of cruelty increased. He began to look
more widely for ways to destroy Otori, to try to make alliance with Takeo’s
other enemies, to strike at him through his wife or his children. But this too
proved almost impossible. The treacherous Muto family had split the Tribe and
sworn loyalty to the Otori, taking the lesser families, Imai, Kuroda and Kudo,
with them. Since the Tribe families intermarried, many of the traitors also had
Kikuta blood, among them Muto Shizuka and her sons, Taku and Zenko. Taku, like
his mother and his great-uncle, had many talents, headed Otori’s spy network
and kept constant guard over Takeo’s family; Zenko, less talented, was allied
to Otori through marriage: they were brothers-in-law.

Recently Akio’s
cousins, Gosaburo’s two sons, had been sent with their sister to Inuyama where
the Otori family had celebrated the New Year. They had mingled among the crowds
at the shrine and had attempted to stab Lady Otori and her daughters in front
of the goddess herself. What had followed was unclear, but it appeared the
women had defended themselves with unexpected fierceness: one of the young men,
Gosaburo’s eldest son, was wounded and then beaten to death by the crowd. The
others were captured and taken to Inuyama castle. No one knew if they were dead
or alive.

The loss of three
young people, so closely related to the Master, was a terrible blow: as the
snow melted with the approach of spring, opening the roads once more, and no
news came of them, the Kikuta feared they were dead, and they began to make
arrangements for funeral rites to be held, mourning all the more that there
were no bodies to burn and no ashes.

One afternoon, when
the trees were shining with the green and silver of their new leaves and the
flooded fields were alive with cranes and herons and the croaking of frogs,
Hisao was working alone in a small terraced field, deep in the mountain. During
the long winter nights he had been brooding on an idea that had occurred to him
the previous year, when he had seen the crops - beans and pumpkins - in this
field wither and die. The fields below were watered from a fast-flowing stream,
but this one was only viable in years of great rainfall. Yet in all other ways
it held promise, facing south, sheltered from the strongest winds. He wanted to
make the water flow uphill, using a waterwheel in the stream’s channel to turn
a series of smaller wheels which would raise buckets. He had spent the winter
making the buckets and the ropes: the buckets were fashioned from the lightest
bamboo and the ropes strengthened with iron-vine that would make them rigid
enough to carry the buckets uphill yet much lighter and easier to use than
metal rods or bars.

He was concentrating
deeply on the task, working in his patient, unhurried way, when the frogs
suddenly fell silent, making him look around. He could see no one, yet he knew
there was someone there, using invisibility in the manner of the Tribe.

He thought it was one
of the children, come with some message, and called out, ‘Who’s there?’

The air shimmered in
the way that always made him feel slightly sick, and a man of indeterminate age
and unremarkable looks stood before him. Hisao’s hand went immediately to his
knife, for he was certain he had never seen the man before, but he had no
chance to use it. The man’s outline rippled as he vanished. Hisao felt the
invisible fingers close over his wrist and an immediate paralysis in his
muscles as his hand opened and the knife fell.

‘I’m not going to
hurt you,’ the stranger said, and spoke his name in a way that made Hisao
believe him, and his mother’s world washed over the edge of his; he felt her
joy and pain and the first intimation of his headache and half-vision.

‘Who are you?’ he
whispered, knowing at once that this man was someone his mother had known.

‘Can you see me?’ the
man replied.

‘No. I can’t use
invisibility, or perceive it.’

‘But you heard me
approach?’

‘Only from the frogs.
I listen to them. But I cannot hear from afar. I don’t know anyone who can do
that among the Kikuta now.’

He heard his own
voice say these things and marvelled that he who was normally so reticent
should speak so freely to a stranger.

The man came back
into sight, his face barely a hand’s breadth from Hisao’s, his eyes intent and searching.

‘You don’t look like
anyone I know,’ he said. ‘And you have no Tribe skills?’

Hisao nodded, then
looked away across the valley.

‘But you are Kikuta
Hisao, Akio’s son?’

‘Yes, and my mother’s
name was Muto Yuki.’

The man’s face
changed slightly, and he felt his mother’s response of regret and pity.

‘I thought so. In
that case, I am your grandfather: Muto Kenji.’

Hisao absorbed this
information in silence. His head ached more fiercely: Muto Kenji was a traitor,
hated by the Kikuta almost as much as Otori Takeo, but his mother’s presence
was swamping him and he could feel her voice calling, ‘Father!’

‘What is it?’ Kenji
said.

‘Nothing. My head
hurts sometimes. I’m used to it. Why have you come here? You will be killed. I
should kill you, but you say you are my grandfather, and anyway I am not very
good at it.’ He glanced down at his construction. ‘I would rather make things.’

How strange, the old
man was thinking. He has no skills, either from his father or his mother. Both
disap- pointment and relief swept through him. Who does he take after? Not the
Kikuta, or the Muto, or the Otori. He must be like Takeo’s mother, the woman
who died the day Shigeru saved Takeo’s life, with that dark skin and broad
features.

Kenji looked with
pity at the boy in front of him, knowing how hard a Tribe childhood was,
especially on those of little talent. Hisao obviously had some skills: the
contraption was both inventive and adroitly executed, and there was something
else about him, some fleeting look in his eyes that suggested he saw other
things. What did he see? And the headaches: what did they indicate? He looked a
healthy young man, a little shorter than Kenji himself but strong, with a
mostly unblemished skin and thick, glossy hair not unlike Takeo’s.

‘Let’s go and find
Akio,’ Kenji said. ‘I have certain things to say to him.’

He did not bother
dissembling his features as he followed the boy down the mountain path towards
the village. He knew he would be recognized - who else could have got this far,
evading the guards on the pass, moving unseen and unheard through the forest? -
and anyway Akio needed to know who he was, that he came from Takeo with an
offer of truce.

The walk left him
breathless, and when he paused on the edge of the flooded fields to cough he
tasted the salt blood in his throat. He was hotter than he should be, though
the air was still warm, the light turning golden as the sun descended in the
west. The dykes between the fields were brightly coloured with wild flowers,
vetch, buttercups and daisies, and the light filtered through the new green
leaves of the trees. The air was full of the music of spring, of birds, frogs
and cicadas.

If it is to be the
last day of my life, it could not be more beautiful, the old man thought with a
kind of gratitude, and felt with his tongue for the capsule of aconite tucked
neatly into the space left by a missing molar.

He had not known of
this particular place before Hisao’s birth, sixteen years before - and then it
had taken him five years to find it - but since then he had visited it from
time to time, unknown to any of its inhabitants, and had also had reports on
Hisao from Taku, his great-nephew. It was like most of the Tribe villages,
hidden in a valley like a narrow fold in the mountain range, almost inaccessible,
guarded and fortified in many different ways. He had been surprised on his
first visit by the number of inhabitants, well over two hundred, and had
subsequently found out that the Kikuta family had been retreating here ever
since Takeo began his persecution of them in the West. As he had uncovered
their hiding places within the Three Countries, they had gone north, making
this isolated village their headquarters, beyond the reach of Takeo’s warriors,
though not of his spies.

Hisao did not speak
to anyone as they walked between the low wooden houses, and though several dogs
bounded eagerly towards him he did not stop to pat them. By the time they
reached the largest building a small crowd had formed behind them; Kenji could
hear the whispering and knew he had been recognized.

The house was far
more comfortable and luxurious than the dwellings around it, with a veranda of
cypress boards and strong pillars of cedar. Like the shrine, which he could
just see in the distance, its roof was made of thin shingles, with a gentle
curve as pleasing as that of any warrior’s country mansion. Stepping out of his
sandals,

Hisao went up onto
the veranda and called into the interior. ‘Father! We have a visitor!’

Within moments a
young woman appeared, bringing water to wash the visitor’s feet. The crowd
behind Kenji fell silent. As he stepped inside the house he thought he heard a
sound like a sudden intake of air, as though all those gathered outside had
gasped as one. His chest ached sharply and he felt the urge to cough. How weak
his body had become! Once he could demand anything from it. He remembered with
regret all the skills he had had; they were a shadow of what they had been. He
longed to leave his body behind like a husk and move into the next world, the
next life, whatever lay beyond. If he could somehow save the boy . . . but who
can save anyone from the journey that fate maps out at birth?

All these thoughts
flashed through his mind as he settled himself on the matted floor and waited
for Akio. The room was dim: he could barely make out the scroll that hung on
the wall to his right. The same young woman came with a bowl of tea. Hisao had
disappeared, but he could hear him talking quietly in the back of the house. A
smell of sesame oil floated from the kitchen and he heard the quick sizzling of
food in the pan. Then there came the tread of feet; the interior door slid open
and Kikuta Akio stepped into the room, followed by two older men, one somewhat
plump and soft-looking whom Kenji knew to be Gosaburo, the merchant from
Matsue, Kotaro’s younger brother, Akio’s uncle. The other he thought must be
Imai Kazuo, who he had been told had gone against the Imai family to stay with
the Kikuta, his wife’s relatives. All these men, he knew, had sought his life
for years.

Now they tried to
hide their astonishment at his appearance among them. They sat at the other end
of the room, facing him, studying him. No one bowed or exchanged greetings.
Kenji said nothing.

Finally Akio said, ‘Put
your weapons in front of you.’

‘I have no weapons,’
Kenji replied. ‘I have come on a mission of peace.’

Gosaburo gave a sharp
laugh of disbelief. The other two men smiled, but without mirth.

‘Yes, like the wolf
in winter,’ Akio said. ‘Kazuo will search you.’

Kazuo approached him
warily and with a certain embarrassment. ‘Forgive me, Master,’ he mumbled.
Kenji allowed the man to feel his clothes with the long deft fingers that could
slip a man’s weapon from his breast without him noticing a thing.

‘He speaks the truth.
He is unarmed.’

‘Why have you come
here?’ Akio exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe you are so tired of life!’

Kenji gazed at him.
For years he had dreamed of confronting this man who had been married to his
daughter and deeply implicated in her death. Akio was approaching forty: his
face was furrowed, his hair greying. Yet the muscles were still iron hard
beneath his robe; age had neither softened nor gentled him.

‘I come with a
message from Lord Otori,’ Kenji said calmly.

‘We do not call him
Lord Otori here. He is known as Otori the Dog. He can send no message that we
will ever listen to!’

‘I am afraid one of
your sons died,’ Kenji addressed Gosaburo. ‘The eldest, Kunio. But the other
lives, and your daughter too.’

Gosaburo swallowed. ‘Let
him speak,’ he said to Akio.

‘We will never make
deals with the Dog,’ Akio replied.

‘Yet even to send a
messenger suggests a weakness,’ Gosaburo pleaded. ‘He is appealing to us. We
should at least hear what Muto has to say. We may learn from it.’ He leaned
forward slightly and questioned Kenji. ‘My daughter? She was not hurt?’

‘No, she is well.’
But my daughter has been dead for sixteen years.

‘She has not been
tortured?’

‘You must know
torture is banned in the Three Countries. Your children will face the tribunal
for attempted assassination, for which the punishment is death, but they have
not been tortured. You must have heard that Lord Otori has a compassionate
nature.’

‘This is another of
the Dog’s lies,’ Akio scoffed. ‘Leave us, uncle. Your grief weakens you. I will
speak with Muto alone.’