Grass for His Pillow (34 page)

“Yes, well, it must be some madness in the Otori blood,” he retorted, but his expression had softened and his eyes took on a musing look.

“It's true,” he said finally. “Their love did last. And it illuminated all their plans and hopes. If they had married, and brought about the alliance they dreamed of between the Middle Country and the West, who knows what they might not have achieved?” He reached down and patted me on the shoulder. “It's as if their spirits have brought about a second chance in you and Lady Shirakawa. And I can't deny it: To make Maruyama your base makes a great deal of sense. For that reason, as much as for the sake of the dead, I will agree to this marriage. You may start making the necessary preparations.”

“I've never been to this sort of wedding,” I confessed after I had bowed to the ground in gratitude. “What needs to be done?”

“The woman that came with her will know. Ask her. I hope I haven't reached my dotage,” he added before dismissing me.

It was nearly time for the midday meal. I went to wash and change my clothes. I dressed with care, putting on another of the silk robes with the Otori crest on the back that had been given to me when I arrived at Terayama after my journey through the snow. I ate distractedly, hardly tasting the food, listening all the time for her arrival.

Finally I heard Kahei's voice outside the eating hall. I called to him and he came in to join me.

“Lady Shirakawa is at the women's guest rooms,” he said. “Fifty more men have come from Hagi. We'll billet them in the village. Gemba is arranging it.”

“I'll see them tonight,” I said, my heart lifting from both pieces of news. I left him eating and went back to my room, where I knelt at the writing table and took out the scrolls the abbot had told me to read. I thought I would die of impatience before I saw Kaede again, but gradually I became absorbed in the art of war: the accounts of battles won and lost, strategy and tactics, the roles played by heaven and earth. The problem he had set me was how to take the town of Yamagata. It had been a theoretical problem, no more; Yamagata was still under the control of Arai through his interim governor, though there had been reports that the Otori planned to retake their former city and were assembling an army on their southern border near Tsuwano. Matsuda had intended to approach Arai on my behalf and make peace between us, whereupon I would serve Arai while pursuing the Otori inheritance. However, I was now acutely aware that if I risked inciting Arai's enmity anew by marrying Kaede I might very well need to take Yamagata at once. It added a certain sense of reality to my studies of strategy.

I knew the town so well: I'd explored every street; I'd climbed into the castle. And I knew the terrain around it, its mountains, valleys, hills, and rivers. My main difficulty was having so few men at my command, a thousand at most. Yamagata was a prosperous town, but the winter had been hard on everyone. If I attacked in early spring, could the castle withstand a long siege? Would diplomacy bring about a surrender where force would not? What advantages did I have over the defenders?

While I was brooding over these problems, my thoughts turned to the outcast, Jo-An. I had said I would send for him in the spring, but I was still not sure I wanted to. I could never forget the hungry, passionate look in his eyes, in the eyes of the boatman and the other outcasts. “He's your man now,” Jo-An had said of the boatman. “We all are.” Could I add outcasts to my army, or the farmers who came daily to pray and make offerings at Shigeru's grave? I had no doubt that I could count on these men if I wanted them. But was this what the warrior class did? I had never read of battles where farmers fought. Usually they stayed well clear of the combat, hating both sides equally and afterward stripping the dead impartially.

As it often did, the face of the farmer I had murdered in his secret field in the hills behind Matsue floated before my mind's eye. I heard his voice call again, “Lord Shigeru!” As much as anything else, I wanted to lay his ghost to rest. But he also brought into my mind the courage and determination of his fellows, resources that at the moment were wasted. If I used them, would he stop haunting me?

The farmers in the Otori lands, both in the existing ones around Hagi and those that had been ceded to the Tohan—Yamagata included—had loved Shigeru. They had already risen in fury after his death. I believed they would also support me, but I feared using them would weaken the loyalty of my warriors.

Back to the theoretical problem of Yamagata: If I could get rid of the interim lieutenant Arai had placed in the castle, there was a much greater chance of the city surrendering without a long siege. What I needed was an assassin I could trust. The Tribe had admitted I was the only person who could have climbed alone into Yamagata Castle, but it did not seem like a good scheme for the
commander-in-chief to undertake. My thoughts began to drift a little, reminding me I'd hardly slept the night before. I wondered if I could train young boys and girls in the way the Tribe trained them. They might not have innate skills, but there was much that was simply a matter of teaching. I could see all the advantages of a network of spies. Might there not be some disaffected Tribe members who could be persuaded to serve me? I put the thought away for the time being, but it was to return to me later.

As the day warmed up, time slowed even more. Flies, having woken from their winter sleep, were buzzing against the screens. I heard the first bush warbler calling from the forest, the glide of the swallows' wings and the snap of their beaks as they took insects. The sounds of the temple murmured around me: the tread of feet, the swish of robes, the rise and fall of chanting, the sudden clear note of a bell.

A light breeze was blowing from the south, full of the fragrance of spring. Within a week Kaede and I would be married. Life seemed to rise around me, embracing me with its vigor and energy. Yet, I was kneeling here, rapt in the study of war.

And when Kaede and I met that evening, we did not talk of love but of strategy. We had no need to talk of love; we were to be married, we were to become husband and wife. But if we were to live long enough to have children, we needed to act swiftly to consolidate our power.

I had been right in my instinct, when Makoto first told me that she was raising an army, that Kaede would make a formidable ally. She agreed with me that we should go straight to Maruyama; she told me of her meeting with Sugita Haruki in the autumn. He was
waiting to hear from her, and she suggested sending some of her men to the domain to let him know of our intentions. I agreed, and thought the younger of the Miyoshi brothers, Gemba, might go with them. We sent no messages to Inuyama: The less Arai knew of our plans, the better.

“Shizuka said our marriage will enrage him,” Kaede said.

I knew it probably would. We should have known better. We should have been patient. Perhaps if we had approached Arai through the proper channels, through Gemba and Kahei's aunt or through Matsuda or Sugita, he would have decided in our favor. But we were both seized by a desperate sense of urgency, knowing how short our lives might be. And so we were married a few days later, before the shrine, in the shadow of the trees that surrounded Shigeru's grave, in accordance with his will but in defiance of all the rules of our class. I suppose I might say in our defense that neither of us had had a typical upbringing. We had both escaped, for different reasons, the rigid training in obedience of most warriors' children. It gave us freedom to act as we pleased, but the elders of our class were to make us pay for it.

The weather continued warm under the south wind. On our wedding day the cherry blossoms were fully open, a mass of pink and white. Kaede's men had now been allowed to join mine and the highest-ranking warrior among them, Amano Tenzo, spoke for her and on behalf of the Shirakawa clan. When Kaede was led forward by the shrine maiden, in the red and white robes Manami had somehow managed to find for her, she looked beautiful in a timeless way, as if she were a sacred being. I spoke my name as Otori Takeo and named Shigeru and the Otori clan as my ancestors. We
exchanged the ritual cups of wine, three times thrice, and as the sacred branches were offered, a sudden gust of wind sent a snowstorm of petals down on us.

It might have seemed a chilly omen, but that night after the feasting and the celebrations, when we were finally alone together, we had no thoughts of omens. In Inuyama we had made love in a sort of wild desperation, expecting to die before morning. But now, in the safety of Terayama, we had time to explore each other's bodies, to give and take pleasure slowly. And besides, since then Yuki had taught me something of the art of love.

We talked about our lives since we had been separated, especially about the child. We thought about its soul, launched again into the cycle of birth and death, and prayed for it. I told Kaede about my visit to Hagi and my flight through the snow. I did not tell her about Yuki, and she kept secrets from me, for though she told me a little about Lord Fujiwara, she did not go into details as to the pact they had made. I knew he had given her large amounts of money and food, and it worried me, for it made me think his views on the marriage were more fixed than hers. I felt a slight chill in my spine that may have been a premonition, but I put the thought away, for I wanted nothing to spoil my joy.

I woke toward dawn to find her sleeping in my arms. Her skin was white, silky to my touch, both warm and cool at the same time. Her hair, so long and thick it covered us both like a shawl, smelled of jasmine. I had thought her like the flower on the high mountain, completely beyond my reach, but she was here, she was mine. The world stood still in the silent night as the realization sank in. The backs of my eyes stung as tears came. Heaven was benign. The gods loved me. They had given me Kaede.

For a few days heaven continued to smile on us, giving us gentle spring weather, every day sunny. Everyone at the temple seemed happy for us—from Manami, who beamed with delight when she brought us tea the first morning, to the abbot, who resumed my lessons, teasing me unmercifully if he caught me yawning. Scores of people made the climb up the mountain to bring gifts and wish us well, just as the village people would have done in Mino.

Only Makoto sounded a different note. “Make the most of your happiness,” he said to me. “I am happy for you, believe me, but I fear it will not last.”

I already knew this: I had learned it from Shigeru. “Death comes suddenly and life is fragile and brief,” he had told me the day after he had saved my life in Mino. “No one can alter this either by prayers or spells.” It was the fragility of life that made it so precious. Our happiness was all the more intense for our awareness of how fleeting it might be.

The cherry blossoms were already falling, the days lengthening as the season turned. The winter of preparation was over: Spring was giving way to summer, and summer was the season of war. Five battles lay ahead of us, four to win and one to lose.

I would like to thank the Asialink Foundation and all my friends in Japan and Australia who have helped me in researching and writing Tales of the Otori.

In
Grass for His Pillow
I particularly want to thank Ms. Sugiyama Kazuko for her calligraphy and Simon Higgins for his advice on martial arts.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

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