The Harsh Cry of the Heron (59 page)

Maya made no reply,
but she looked clearly and with no sentimentality at Taku’s death. He had been
killed fighting, with a kind of honour; he had betrayed no one; he and Sada had
died together. There was nothing to regret in his death. Hisao’s baiting did
not touch her or weaken her.

‘Lord Otori is your
father,’ she said. ‘That’s why I tried to kill you, so you would not kill him.’

‘Akio is my father.’
Doubt and anger showed in his voice.

‘Akio treats you with
cruelty, abuses you and lies to you. He is not your father. You do not know how
a father should behave towards his children.’

‘He loves me,’ Hisao
whispered. ‘He hides it from everyone, but I know it’s true. He needs me.’

‘Ask your mother,’
Maya replied. ‘Didn’t I tell you to listen to her? She will tell you the truth.’

There was another
long silence. It was hot: she could feel sweat on her forehead. She was
thirsty.

‘Be the cat again,
and I will listen to her,’ he said so quietly she could barely hear him.

‘Is she here?’

‘She is always here,’
Hisao said. ‘She is tied to me by a cord, as I was once tied to her. I am never
free from her. Sometimes she is silent. That’s not so bad. It is when she wants
to talk - then the sickness comes over me.’

‘Because you try to
fight the spirit world,’ Maya said. ‘It was the same for me. When the cat
wanted to appear and I resisted it, I was ill in the same way.’

Hisao said, ‘I have
never had any Tribe skills. I’m not like you. I don’t have invisibility. I can’t
use the second self. Even witnessing these things makes me slightly sick. But
the cat doesn’t. The cat makes me feel good, powerful.’

He seemed unaware„that
his voice had changed and taken on a hypnotic quality, laced with an appeal
that she could not resist. Maya felt the cat stretch and flex with longing.
Hisao drew the supple body close to him and ran his hands through the dense
fur.

‘Stay close to me,’
he whispered, and then, more loudly, ‘I’ll listen, Mother, to what you have to
say.’

The flames of the
forge and the lamplight dimmed and flickered as a gust of warm, fetid air blew
suddenly across the dirt floor, stirring up the dust and making the shutters
rattle. Then the lamp flared up, burning more brightly, illuminating the spirit
woman as she drew close, floating just above the ground. The boy sat without
moving; the cat lay beside him, its head beneath his hand, its golden eyes
unblinking.

‘Child,’ the mother
said, her voice trembling. ‘Let me feel you, let me hold you.’ Her thin fingers
touched his forehead, stroked his hair, and he felt her form close to his, the
faintest of pressure as she embraced him.

‘I used to hold you
like this when you were a baby.’

‘I remember,’ he
whispered.

‘I could not bear to
leave you. They made me take poison, Kotaro and Akio, who wept with love for me
while he obeyed the Master and forced the pellets into my mouth, and watched me
die in agony of body and spirit. But they could not keep me from you. I was
only twenty years old. I did not want to die. Akio killed me because he hated
your father.’

His hands worked in
the cat’s fur, making it show its claws.

‘Who was my father?’

‘The girl is right.
She is your sister; Takeo is your father. I loved him. They ordered me to lie
with him, to make you. I obeyed them in everything. But they did not realize I
would love him, and that you would be born from a love of such sweet
fierceness, so they tried to destroy us all. First me; now they will use you to
kill your father, and then you too will die.’

‘You are lying,’ he
said, his throat dry.

‘I am dead,’ she
replied. ‘Only the living lie.’

‘I have hated the Dog
all my life; I cannot change now.’

‘You do not know what
you are? There is no one left in the Tribe, in all the five families, who can
recognize you. I will tell you what my father told me in the moment of his
death. You are the ghostmaster.’

Much later, when she
had returned to her room and lay sleepless, watching the darkness pale slowly
into dawn, Maya relived the moment when she had heard the spirit speak those
words: her spine had chilled; her fur had stood erect. Hisao’s hand had gripped
her neck. He had not fully understood what it meant, but Maya recalled Taku’s words:
the ghostmaster was the one who walked between the worlds, the shaman who had
the power to placate or incite the dead. She remembered the voices of the
phantoms that had pressed around her on the night of the Festival of the Dead,
on the shore in front of Akane’s house; she had felt their regret for their
violent and untimely deaths and their demand for revenge. They sought Hisao,
their master, and she, as the cat, gave him power over them. But how could
Hisao, this cruel and crooked boy, have such power? And how would Akio use him
if he discovered it?

Hisao had not wanted
her to leave him. She felt the strength of his need for her, and found it both
enticing and dangerous. But he did not seem to want Akio to know, not yet . . .
She did not fully understand what his real feelings were towards the man he had
always believed to be his father: a mixture of love and hatred, contempt and
pity, and fear.

She recognized the
emotions, for she felt the same towards him.

She did not sleep,
and when Nori brought her rice and soup for the morning meal she had little
appetite. Nori’s eyes were red, as if she had been crying.

‘You must eat,’ Nori
said. ‘And then you are to get ready to travel.’

‘Travel? Where am I
going?’

‘Lord Arai is
returning to Kumamoto. The town of Hofu is in ferment. Muto Shizuka is fasting
in Daifukuji and being fed by birds.’ Nori was trembling. ‘I shouldn’t tell you
this. The Master is to accompany him, and Hisao too. They are taking you, of
course.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she dabbed at them with the patched
sleeve of her robe. ‘Hisao is well enough to travel. I should be happy.’

Be thankful he is
going away from you, Maya thought. She said, ‘Shizuka is in Hofu?’

‘She came to bury her
younger son, and they say she has lost her mind. People blame Lord Arai - and
accuse him of being involved in Taku’s death. He is furious, and is returning
home to prepare his troops for war, before Lord Otori gets back from Miyako.’

‘What nonsense you
talk! You don’t know anything about these things!’ Maya hid her alarm with
anger.

‘I’m only telling you
because you helped Hisao,’ Nori replied. ‘I won’t say another word.’ She pursed
her lips, looking petulant and offended.

Maya picked up the
soup bowl and drained it, her mind racing. She must not let them take her to
Kumamoto. She knew Zenko’s sons, Sunaomi and Chikara, had been sent to Hagi to
guarantee their father’s loyalty, and that Zenko would not hesitate to use her
to put similar pressure on her father. Hofu was in the Middle Country and loyal
to the Otori - she knew the city and the road home. Kumamoto was far away in
the West; she had never been there. Once there she would have no chance of
escape.

‘When do we leave?’
she said slowly.

‘As soon as the
Master and Hisao are ready. You will be on the road before noon. Lord Arai is
to send guards, I heard.’ Nori picked up the bowls. ‘I have to take these back
to the kitchen.’

‘I haven’t finished.’

‘Is it my fault if
you eat so slowly?’

‘I’m not hungry
anyway’

‘It’s a long way to
Kumamoto,’ Nori said as she left the room.

Maya knew she had
very little time to make up her mind. They would surely transport her hidden in
some way, with hands tied, probably; she might outwit Zenko’s guards but she
would never get away from Akio. She began to pace the room, tiny as it was. The
heat was rising; she was hungry and tired; as she walked without thinking, she
fell into a waking dream, and saw Miki in the alley behind the house. She
snapped awake. It was perfectly possible: Shizuka would have brought Miki with
her; as soon as they heard of Taku’s death they had come to find her. Miki was
outside. They would go to Hagi together; they would go home.

She did not pause to
reflect a moment longer, but leaped into cat shape and through the walls.

A woman on the
veranda tried to swat her with a broom as she raced past; she ran across the
yard, not bothering to hide, but as she came to the outer walls she passed the
workshop building and felt Hisao’s presence there.

He must not see me.
He will never let me go.

The rear gates were
open, and from the street beyond she heard the tramp of horses approaching. She
looked back and saw Hisao run from the foundry, the weapon in his hand, his
eyes searching the yard. He saw her and called, ‘Come back!’

She felt the strength
of the command, and her resolve weakened. The cat heard its master: it would
never leave him. She was outside, in the street, but the cat’s paws were heavy.
Hisao called again. She had to go back to him.

Maya was aware out of
the corner of her eye of the vague shimmer of an invisible figure. As swift as
a sword, from across the road something came darting between the cat and Hisao,
and it possessed an indestructible sharpness that cut between them.

‘Maya,’ she heard
Miki call. ‘Maya!’ and in that moment Maya found the strength to change. Miki,
visible now, stood next to her. Her twin sister gripped her by the hand. Hisao
was shouting from the gateway, but his voice was only a boy’s. She no longer
had to listen to him.

Both girls went
invisible again, and as Lord Arai’s guards came trotting round the corner they
ran unseen into the narrow tangled streets of the port city.

Takeo’s departure
from Miyako took place with even greater ceremony and more excitement than his
arrival, though there was both surprise and disappointment that he was leaving
so soon.

‘Your appearance has
been like a comet,’ Lord Kono said, when the nobleman came to make his
farewells. ‘Blazing swiftly across the summer sky.’

Takeo wondered how
much of a true compliment this was, since the common people believed that the
comet heralded disaster and famine.

‘I am afraid I have
compelling reasons to return,’ he replied, reflecting that Kono possibly
already knew what they were; but the nobleman gave no such indication, nor did
he mention Taku’s death.

Saga Hideki was even
more outspoken in his shock and displeasure at the sudden departure, pressing
for them all to stay longer - or if Lord Otori was truly obliged to return to
the Three Countries, to leave Lady Maruyama at least to enjoy the pleasures of
summer in the capital.

‘There is so much
more that we need to discuss - I want to know the way you govern the Three
Countries, what underpins your prosperity and success, how you deal with the
barbarians.’

‘We call them
foreigners,’ Takeo dared to correct him.

Saga raised his
eyebrows. ‘Foreigners, barbarians, it’s all the same.’

‘Lord Kono spent most
of the last year with us. He has surely reported to you.’

‘Lord Otori,’ Saga
leaned forward and spoke confidentially, ‘Lord Kono gained the greater part of
his information from Arai. Circumstances have changed since then.’

‘Do I have Lord Saga’s
assurances on that?’

‘Of course! We made a
public and binding agreement. You need not concern yourself. We are allies, and
will soon be relatives.’

Takeo resisted his
persuasiveness with firm politeness; from all accounts the pleasures they would
forgo were not great, for the capital sweltered in its hill-rimmed bowl during
the weeks of the greatest heat, and the plum rains, which were due to begin at
any time, would bring humidity and mildew. He did not want to subject Shigeko
to this, any more than to Saga’s increasingly persistent courtship. He himself
longed to be home, to feel the cool sea breezes of Hagi, to see Kaede and their
son, and then to deal decisively with Zenko.

Lord Saga paid them
the great honour of accompanying them for the first week of their journey, as
far as Sanda, where he arranged a farewell feast. Saga knew how to charm as
well as how to bully, but once this was over and they had finally said their
last goodbyes and he had left them, Takeo felt his spirits lighten a little. He
had hardly expected to be returning in such triumph. He had the favour and
recognition of the Emperor, and apparently sincere offers of alliance from
Saga. The Eastern borders would be safe from attack; surely without Saga’s support
Zenko would be cured of his ambitions and would submit, accepting the reality
of Takeo’s legitimacy.

‘If there is proof of
his complicity in Taku’s death, he will be punished. But if at all possible,
for my wife’s sake and Shizuka’s, I will let him live.’

He had travelled in
the palanquin, with great formality, as far as Sanda. It was a relief once Saga
had left them to put off his elegant robes and ride Tenba again. Hiroshi had
been riding him thus far, for the horse became overexcited and hard to control
if he was not ridden every day; now Hiroshi was on his usual horse, Keri, Raku’s
son.