Cloud of Sparrows (39 page)

“I’ll do that. Mr. Stark is meeting Lady Heiko. She’s a better guide for him anyway, since she can speak his language.”

Hidé and Taro rode some distance behind the lord and lady. In their own domain, this close to the castle, attack was highly unlikely. Nevertheless, Hidé observed their surroundings with unceasing attention.

“How is his shooting?”

“Amazing,” Taro said. “I never imagined such a thing was possible. He draws and fires his gun faster than any iaido master can draw a sword. Faster even than Shigeru, I think.”

“So I told you.”

“Yes, you did. I thought you were joking. Now I know you were not. He’s accurate, too. At twenty paces, he hits his target with the first shot nine times out of ten, and always with the second. I wonder why he practices so hard. There is no one in Japan against whom he can test his skill.”

“He is a warrior like us,” Hidé said, “and war is coming. That is reason enough.”

Emily watched Genji closely. If he showed any signs of strain whatsoever, she would insist on their return. So far, he seemed fine. Being home was no doubt a great help. The climate in his domain was much milder than that of Edo. There it was winter, with all its harshness. Here it was more like early spring.

“Are winters here always so mild?”

“It is rarely colder,” Genji said, “so we have little need for Eskimo skills.”

“My lord, please.”

“Perhaps our population would be greater if it snowed.”

Emily looked away, her face hot with embarrassment. She was sure she was as red as an apple ready for plucking.

Genji laughed. “I’m sorry, Emily. I couldn’t resist.”

“You promised you would never mention it.”

“I promised I would never mention it to others. I said nothing about reminiscing with you.”

“Lord Genji, that is very ungentlemanly of you.”

“Ungentlemanly?”

“‘Un’ is a prefix meaning ‘not.’ A gentleman is a person of good character and high principle. ‘Ly’ is a suffix meaning ‘having the character of.’ ” She turned as stern a gaze on him as she could manage. “Your present behavior does not demonstrate good character and high principle.”

“An unforgivable lapse. Please accept my most profound apologies.”

“I would, were you not smiling in such obvious amusement.”

“You are smiling, too.”

“It is a grimace, not a smile.”

“Grimace?”

She refused to explain.

They rode inland in silence. Every time she cast a surreptitious glance his way, that little smile was still on his lips. She wanted to be upset with him, but she couldn’t manage it. At the same time, to act as if nothing had been said would be wrong. His jests were inappropriate, given their relationship. She was a missionary and he was the lord sponsoring her mission. Nothing had happened to change that.

She paused and looked back at Cloud of Sparrows. When she had first seen it, her dismay had been painfully keen. This was a castle? Then where were the great walls and towers of stone, the parapets, the ramparts, the crenellations and embrasures, the drawbridge, the moat? The only stone was in the base, loose-packed and unmortared, atop which stood elaborate pagodas of wood, stucco, and tile. Castles were the abodes of knights, like Wilfred of Ivanhoe. Never could she imagine him, resplendent in his armor plate and chain mail, shield and lance in hand, atop his mighty charger, coming forth from such a place. Like beauty, castles were different in Japan. As much as one difference had proved a genuine blessing, so had the other been a great disappointment.

How much her views had changed in two short weeks. Cloud of Sparrows appeared so light to the eye, its seven stories seemed to float above the rocky sea cliff. Its stone base swept upward in an elegant concave parabola to support walls of stucco as white as summer clouds. Atop the walls were the arches and curves of roofs covered with gray terra-cotta tiles. From where she sat atop her mare, some two miles distant from the castle, she could, with little effort, see the tiles as flocks of sparrows taking flight. There was an ethereal elegance here that made the heavy stone structures of her former imaginings seem pitifully earthbound in contrast.

Genji said, “Are you very angry, Emily?”

She smiled and shook her head. “No. I only think it proper not to joke about certain things.”

“You are right. I will not joke about it again.”

They came to a moderate rise in the terrain. Before they crested it, she thought she caught a familiar scent. She quickly dismissed it as a trick of her suppressed homesickness. A moment later she looked into a small valley and grew dizzy in her saddle. The air she breathed suddenly seemed thin, as if she had climbed to a great height.

“An apple orchard.” Her voice was a whisper.

It was not large, perhaps a hundred trees. When they rode down among them, and they surrounded her, they might as well have been ten thousand. She stood in her stirrups, reached up, and plucked a bright red fruit.

“Why, these are very much like the apples we grew on our farm,” Emily said.

“Perhaps they are the same,” Genji said, “Are apples native to America?”

“No, European settlers brought them. A man named Johnny Appleseed spent his life planting them all across the country. Or so I was told. It might be a fairy tale, not history.”

“There is often little difference between the two,” Genji said. He reached up to take hold of a branch, gasped, and lowered his arms. His injuries frustrated his effort. “I used to climb into these branches and have imaginary conversations. My companions were always very wise.”

“I used to climb, too,” Emily said, “and play games with my two brothers.”

“Imaginary brothers?”

“Real. Tom and Walt.”

“Are they missionaries, too?

“No. They died in childhood.”

“And your parents?”

“They also have passed away.”

“We are both orphans, then.” He looked up into the branches above. “I suppose you are no longer able to climb.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Trees. Can you still climb them? If my injuries permitted, I would go to the very top with ease.”

“I could do the same,” Emily said.

“Of course.”

“You seem doubtful, Lord Genji.”

“Well, you don’t look like much of a tree climber.”

“That sounds like a dare.” She and Tom and Walt exchanged dares all the time. The last time she was in a tree, she’d leaped from one branch to another on a dare. The branch she landed on broke. She clung to it as it swung toward the ground and barely avoided serious injury.

I’m sorry about breaking the branch, Father.

Better the branch than you. But you must not do that again.

Yes, Father.

You are very beautiful, Emily. You will be much less beautiful with a crooked leg, or a crooked back.

Yes, Father.

He always told her how beautiful she was. When he had said it, it had made her feel wonderful. How different that word was now.

Emily took off her coat and laid it across her pommel. She reached up, firmly grasped the branch above her, and left the saddle. She swung back and forth, gaining momentum, and finally threw first one leg then the other over the branch. She twisted herself around and sat, her legs swinging gaily under her, a triumphant smile on her face.

Genji bowed deeply from his saddle. “Forgive me for doubting you. You are an excellent climber indeed. When I am healed, we must have a contest.”

“And what will we stake?”

“Stake?”

“The prize the loser gives the winner.”

Genji said, “If you win, I will give you this orchard.”

“Oh, no, that is far too much. That makes it gambling, not a game.”

“Very well,” Genji said, “win or lose, I will give you this orchard. You can give me something in exchange. Then we are not gambling, are we?”

“I cannot accept a gift so grand,” Emily said. “And even if I did, I have no means to care for it properly.”

“I will give you means as well. The three villages in this valley and the next.”

“No, I cannot accept. My purpose is to spread the word of God, not to take for myself.”

Genji gestured at the rise they had come over to enter the valley. “You can build a church there. Is that not what you have come to do?”

“I thought the land for our mission was in another province.”

“You can build here, too. I promise, your church will always be full.”

Emily laughed despite her concern. He would keep his promise by issuing a command. Messengers would ride into the villages. The peasants would drop to their knees, press their heads to the ground, and hear the words of their lord. On Sundays thereafter, they would fill the pews as they had been ordered to do. They would listen to a translated sermon that meant nothing to them. When baptism was offered, every man, woman, and child would come forward to accept it.

“You cannot force people to believe, my lord. They must look into their hearts and come to the truth on their own.”

“I promise, I will come to your church, and look into my heart.”

“Lord Genji.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“You saved my life. You must let me thank you with a gift.”

“I could just as well say you saved mine. Neither of us would have survived without the other.”

“Then you owe me a gift as well. I will give you Apple Valley. What will you give me?”

Emily had to lean against the trunk to keep from falling. “Apple Valley?”

“That’s what my mother called it. Ringo-no-tani. Apple Valley, in English.” His smile remained. The expression in his eyes changed. “She was from the north. Her father’s domain was renowned for its apples. She was very young when she married, not many years beyond childhood. She missed her mother and her sisters. She missed her playmates. She missed the trees she climbed as a child, and the fruit she picked and ate in their boughs. She missed the childish garlands of blossoms she wore on her head. My father planted this orchard for her in the hopes it would ease her sorrow and, perhaps one day, even bring her joy.”

“And did it?”

“She was happy when the seedlings were planted. She put a few into the ground herself. She never saw the trees, or the blossoms, or the fruit. She died that winter, in childbirth. Her newborn, my sister, died, too.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“The sages say happiness and sorrow are one. Whenever I am here, I understand their meaning.”

Leaves and branches obscured the surrounding landscape of steep Japanese mountains. The nearness of the Pacific Ocean was masked by the scent of apples. Perched above the ground, her feet dangling in the air, Emily felt her concentration dissolve. She looked down and saw Genji on his warhorse, and it was he who was out of place, not herself. The incongruity of a samurai in her orchard made her laugh.

Her own laughter brought her back.

Coming back, she began to weep.

“My home was in Apple Valley,” Emily said. “Another Apple Valley.”

After a time, Genji said, “This place was yours before you ever saw it.”

“Lady Emily is quite nimble for such a large person,” Taro said. They watched her swing herself up into the tree.

“She is not really that large,” Hidé said. “When those two fools killed themselves, she fainted in our lord’s arms. He held her easily. Her proportions are not what we are used to, and so we misjudge her size.”

“Now that I regard her with that knowledge, I see you are entirely correct.” Taro made the maximum possible effort to gain the right perspective. Lady Emily had brought Lord Kiyori’s prophecy to fruition. It would not do to see her as large, or ungainly, or ugly. Loyalty compelled them to cast her in the best possible light. “In fact, there is a kind of ladylike daintiness to her. In an outsider sort of way.”

“True,” Hidé said. “I feel great contrition now for my former mistaken views. Surely, in her own land, where standards are based on other ideals, she is considered quite the beauty, much as Lady Heiko is in ours.”

Much as he wanted to, Taro could not bring himself to agree with his friend. With some effort, he could conceive of her as attractive to outsiders, some of them at least. But a beauty on the order of Heiko? What could he say? His skills were with sword and bow, not words.

“That might be, if the basis for such a comparison existed,” Taro said. “Lady Heiko is a geisha of the first rank, and Lady Emily . . .” He battled mightily to cut through to safety. “Do geishas exist in Lady Emily’s country?”

“It is my understanding they do not,” Hidé said. He was apparently having difficulty with his own words as well. His brow was deeply furrowed with the unaccustomed effort of sustained thought.

“That is also my understanding,” Taro said. “Then, is it appropriate to speak of Lady Emily and Lady Heiko in the same terms?”

“Not appropriate at all,” Hidé said, brightening with relief. “Clearly, I misspoke. My admiration for her caused me to go a bit too far. We do her no favor by exaggerating her merits.”