Autumn Bridge (70 page)

They were a troop of thirty-one, thirty samurai and one former lady-in-waiting, moving northwest around Cape Muroto, into the hidden mountain passes of Shikoku island. Behind them — a burning castle called Cloud of Sparrows, pursuers in their thousands, the ashes of their lord and lady, the headless corpses of the traitors who murdered them.

Ayamé sat in the saddle like a samurai. She could not be ladylike and ride as hard as she must. In her arms, she held Lady Sen. She would tell Chiaki of Lady Shizuka’s prediction, that Ayamé’s own child would be a son, and that he was adopted before he was born, before he was conceived, into the Okumichi clan. He would be Great Lord, Shizuka said, and he would marry Sen.

Ayamé will tell Chiaki all this, but later. Now she saw that his mourning was too heavy for him to bear anything else. He mourned his father, whom he loved, who was a traitor. He mourned his lord, a great leader who might have been Shogun.

But most of all, he mourned Lady Shizuka, as Ayamé did.

After the next rise, they would descend onto a valley pathway. Ayamé turned for a last look.

She could not see Cloud of Sparrows. It was too far away. She could not even see the smoke from its flames.

It did not take long for so small a troop to pass.

Soon it was as it had been before they appeared.

The green pines of Muroto.

The sky above.

The earth below.

Takashi Matsuoka grew up in Hawaii. He lives in Honolulu, where he was employed at a Zen Buddhist temple before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of the acclaimed novel
Cloud of Sparrows,
which has been translated into fifteen languages, including German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Czech, and Hebrew. It is available in paperback from Dell.

Cloud of Sparrows