Across the Nightingale Floor (7 page)

My state of half-being, my
speechlessness, persisted. I suppose I was in mourning. The Otori household
was, too, not only for Lord Otori's brother but also for his mother, who had
died in the summer from the plague. Chiyo related the story of the family to
me. Shigeru, the oldest son, had been with his father at the battle of
Yaegahara and had strongly opposed the surrender to the Tohan. The terms of the
surrender had forbidden him inheriting from his father the leadership of the
clan. Instead his uncles, Shoichi and Masahiro, were appointed by Iida.

“Iida Sadamu hates Shigeru more
than any man alive,” Chiyo said. “He is jealous of him and fears him.”

Shigeru was a thorn in the side of
his uncles as well, as the legal heir to the clan. He had ostensibly withdrawn
from the political stage and had devoted himself to his land, trying out new
methods, experimenting with different crops. He had married young, but his wife
had died two years later in childbirth, the baby dying with her.

His life seemed to me to be filled
with suffering, yet he gave no sign of it, and if I had not learned all this
from Chiyo I would not have known of it. I spent most of the day with him,
following him around like a dog, always at his side, except when I was studying
with Ichiro. They were days of waiting. Ichiro tried to teach me to read and write,
my general lack of skill and retentiveness enraging him, while he reluctantly
pursued the idea of adoption. The clan were opposed: Lord Shigeru should marry
again, he was still young, it was too soon after his mother's death. The
objections seemed to be endless. I could not help feeling that Ichiro agreed
with most of them, and they seemed perfectly valid to me too. I tried my
hardest to learn, because I did not want to disappoint the lord, but I had no
real belief or trust in my situation.

Usually in the late afternoon Lord
Shigeru would send for me, and we would sit by the window and look at the
garden. He did not say much, but he would study me when he thought I was not
looking. I felt he was waiting for something: for me to speak, for me to give some
sign—but of what I did not know. It made me anxious, and the anxiety made me
more sure that I was disappointing him and even less able to learn. One
afternoon Ichiro came to the upper room to complain again about me. He had been
exasperated to the point of beating me earlier that day. I was sulking in the
corner, nursing my bruises, tracing with my finger on the matting the shapes of
the characters I'd learned that day, in a desperate attempt to try to retain
them.

“You made a mistake,” Ichiro said.
“No one will think the worse of you if you admit it. The circumstances of your
brother's death explain it. Send the boy back to where he came from, and get on
with your life.”

And let me get on with mine , I
felt he was saying. He never let me forget the sacrifices he was making in
trying to educate me.

“You can't recreate Lord Takeshi,”
he added, softening his tone a little. “He was the result of years of education
and training—and the best blood to begin with.”

I was afraid Ichiro would get his
way. Lord Shigeru was as bound to him and Chiyo by the ties and obligations of
duty as they were to him. I'd thought he had all the power in the household,
but in fact Ichiro had his own power, and knew how to wield it. And in the
opposite direction, his uncles had power over Lord Shigeru. He had to obey the
dictates of the clan. There was no reason for him to keep me, and he would
never be allowed to adopt me.

“Watch the heron, Ichiro,” Lord
Shigeru said. “You see his patience, you see how long he stands without moving
to get what he needs. I have the same patience, and it's far from exhausted.”

Ichiro's lips were pressed tight
together in his favorite sour-plum expression. At that moment the heron stabbed
and left, clacking its wings.

I could hear the squeaking that heralded
the evening arrival of the bats, I lifted my head to see two of them swoop into
the garden. While Ichiro continued to grumble, and the lord to answer him
briefly, never losing his temper, I listened to the noises of the approaching
night. Every day my hearing grew sharper. I was becoming used to it, learning
to filter out whatever I did not need to listen to, giving no sign that I could
hear everything that went on in the house. No one knew that I could hear all
their secrets.

Now I heard the hiss of hot water
as the bath was prepared, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen, the sliding
sigh of the cook's knife, the tread of a girl in soft socks on the boards
outside, the stamp and whinny of a horse in the stables, the cry of the female
cat, feeding four kittens and always famished, a dog barking two streets away,
the clack of clogs over the wooden bridges of the canals, children singing, the
temple bells from Tokoji and Daishoin. I knew the song of the house, day and
night, in sunshine and under the rain. This evening I realized I was always
listening for something more. I was waiting too. For what? Every night before I
fell asleep my mind replayed the scene on the mountain, the severed head, the
wolf man clutching the stump of his arm. I saw again Iida Sadamu on the ground,
and the bodies of my stepfather and Isao. Was I waiting for Iida and the wolf
man to catch up with me? Or for my chance of revenge?

From time to time I still tried to
pray in the manner of the Hidden, and that night I prayed to be shown the path
I should take. I could not sleep. The air was heavy and still, the moon, a week
past full, hidden behind thick banks of cloud. The insects of the night were
noisy and restless. I could hear the suck of the gecko's feet as it crossed the
ceiling hunting them. Ichiro and Lord Shigeru were both sound asleep, Ichiro
snoring. I did not want to leave the house I'd come to love so much, but I
seemed to be bringing nothing but trouble to it. Perhaps it would be better for
everyone if I just vanished in the night.

Without any real plan to go—what
would I do? How would I live?—I began to wonder if I could get out of the house
without setting the dogs barking and arousing the guards. That was when I
started consciously listening for the dogs. Usually I heard them bark on and
off throughout the night, but I'd learned to distinguish their barks and to
ignore them mostly. I set my ears for them but heard nothing. Then I started
listening for the guards: the sound of a foot on stone, the clink of steel, a whispered
conversation. Nothing. Sounds that should have been there were missing from the
night's familiar web.

Now I was wide-awake, straining my
ears to hear above the water from the garden. The stream and river were low:
There had been no rain since the turn of the moon.

There came the slightest of sounds,
hardly more than a tremor, between the window and the ground.

For a moment I thought it was the
earth shaking, as it so often did in the Middle Country. Another tiny tremble
followed, then another.

Someone was climbing up the side of
the house.

My first instinct was to yell out,
but cunning took over. To shout would raise the household, but it would also
alert the intruder. I rose from the mattress and crept silently to Lord
Shigeru's side. My feet knew the floor, knew every creak the old house would
make. I knelt beside him and, as though I had never lost the power of speech,
whispered in his ear, “Lord Otori, someone is outside.”

He woke instantly, stared at me for
a moment, then reached for the sword and knife that lay beside him. I gestured
to the window. The faint tremor came again, just the slightest shifting of
weight against the side of the house.

Lord Shigeru passed the knife to me
and stepped to the wall. He smiled at me and pointed, and I moved to the other
side of the window. We waited for the assassin to climb in.

Step by step he came up the wall,
stealthy and unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world, confident that
there was nothing to betray him. We waited for him with the same patience,
almost as if we were boys playing a game in a barn.

Except the end was no game. He
paused on the sill to take out the garrote he planned to use on us, and then
stepped inside. Lord Shigeru took him in a stranglehold. Slippery as an eel,
the intruder wriggled backwards. I leaped at him, but before I could say knife,
let alone use it, the three of us fell into the garden like a flurry of
fighting cats.

The man fell first, across the
stream, striking his head on a boulder. Lord Shigeru landed on his feet. My
fall was broken by one of the shrubs. Winded, I dropped the knife. I scrabbled
to pick it up, but it was not needed. The intruder groaned, tried to rise, but
slipped back into the water. His body dammed the stream; it deepened around
him, then with a sudden babble flowed over him. Lord Shigeru pulled him from
the water, striking him in the face and shouting at him, “Who? Who paid you?
Where are you from?”

The man merely groaned again, his
breath coming in loud, rasping snores.

“Get a light,” Lord Shigeru said to
me. I thought the household would be awake by now, but the skirmish had
happened so quickly and silently that they all slept on. Dripping water and
leaves, I ran to the maids' room.

“Chiyo!” I called. “Bring lights,
wake the men!”

“Who's that?” she replied sleepily,
not knowing my voice.

“It's me, Takeo! Wake up! Someone
tried to kill Lord Shigeru!”

I took a light that still burned in
one of the candle stands and carried it back to the garden.

The man had slipped further into
unconsciousness. Lord Shigeru stood staring down at him. I held the light over
him. The intruder was dressed in black, with no crest or marking on his
clothes. He was of medium height and build, his hair cut short. There was
nothing to distinguish him.

Behind us we heard the clamor of
the household coming awake, screams as two guards were discovered garroted,
three dogs poisoned.

Ichiro came out, pale and shaking.
“Who would dare do this?” he said. “In your own house, in the heart of Hagi?
It's an insult to the whole clan!”

“Unless the clan ordered it,” Lord
Shigeru replied quietly.

“It's more likely to be Iida,”
Ichiro said. He saw the knife in my hand and took it from me. He slashed the
black cloth from neck to waist, exposing the man's back. There was a hideous
scar from an old sword wound across the shoulder-blade, and the backbone was
tattooed in a delicate pattern. It flickered like a snake in the lamplight.

“He's a hired assassin,” Lord
Shigeru said, “from the Tribe. He could have been paid by anyone.”

“Then it must be Iida! He must know
you have the boy! Now will you get rid of him?”

“If it hadn't been for the boy, the
assassin would have succeeded,” the lord replied. “It was he who woke me in
time. . . . He spoke to me,” he cried as realization dawned. “He spoke in my
ear and woke me up!”

Ichiro was not particularly
impressed by this. “Has it occurred to you that he might have been the target,
not you?”

“Lord Otori,” I said, my voice
thick and husky from weeks of disuse. “I've brought nothing but danger to you.
Let me go, send me away.” But even as I spoke, I knew he would not. I had saved
his life now, as he had saved mine, and the bond between us was stronger than
ever. Ichiro was nodding in agreement, but Chiyo spoke up: “Forgive me, Lord
Shigeru. I know it's nothing to do with me and that I'm just a foolish old
woman. But it's not true that Takeo has brought you nothing but danger. Before
you returned with him, you were half crazed with sorrow. Now you are recovered.
He has brought joy and hope as well as danger. And who dares enjoy one and
escape the other?”

“How should I of all people not
know this?” Lord Shigeru replied. “There is some destiny that binds our lives
together. I cannot fight that, Ichiro.”

“Maybe his brains will have
returned with his tongue,” Ichiro said scathingly.

The assassin died without regaining
consciousness. It turned out he'd had a poison pellet in his mouth and had
crushed it as he fell. No one knew his identity, though there were plenty of
rumors. The dead guards were buried in a solemn ceremony, and mourned, and the
dogs were mourned by me, at least. I wondered what pact they had made, what
fealty they had sworn, to be caught up in the feuds of men, and to pay with
their lives. I did not voice these thoughts: There were plenty more dogs. New ones
were acquired and trained to take food from one man only, so they could not be
poisoned. There were any number of men, too, for that matter. Lord Shigeru
lived simply, with few armed retainers, but it seemed many among the Otori clan
would have happily come to serve him—enough to form an army, if he'd so
desired.

The attack did not seem to have
alarmed or depressed him in any way. If anything, he was invigorated by it, his
delight in the pleasures of life sharpened by his escape from death. He
floated, as he had done after the meeting with Lady Maruyama. He was delighted
by my newly recovered speech and by the sharpness of my hearing.

Maybe Ichiro was right, or maybe
his own attitude towards me softened. Whatever the reason, from the night of
the assassination attempt on, learning became easier. Slowly the characters
began to unlock their meaning and retain their place in my brain. I even began
to enjoy them, the different shapes that flowed like water, or perched solid
and squat like black crows in winter. I wouldn't admit it to Ichiro, but
drawing them gave me a deep pleasure.

Ichiro was an acknowledged master,
well known for the beauty of his writing and the depth of his learning. He was
really far too good a teacher for me. I did not have the mind of a natural
student. But what we both discovered was that I could mimic. I could present a
passable copy of a student, just as I could copy the way he'd draw from the
shoulder, not the wrist, with boldness and concentration. I knew I was just
mimicking him, but the results were adequate.