The Seabird of Sanematsu (22 page)

Sanematsu did not reply as he resumed walking. Sachi watched her liege lord and her husband enter the shrine Lord Shigeni had built in honor of his son’s birth. She sighed and returned to her work. She had done all she could to stay the brewing storm. If Sanematsu chose not to prevent it, he would have to weather it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Why does Lord Sanematsu want to see me so late?” Aderyn followed Sachi across the dark courtyard. The usual group of samurai accompanied them, carrying torches to light the way to their destination, the only bright room. The flooring made subtle, almost imperceptible, squeaks and cracks as they walked along the corridor of Sanematsu’s wing. Sachi had told her of the nightingale floors, laid to prevent intruders from entering the daimyo’s chambers undetected.

“I cannot say,” Sachi answered in a hush.

Hikita met the women at the doorway and ushered them in. He refused to speak or look at his wife.

Aderyn had never been in this room before. She glanced around from the pillow where she knelt. Two lanterns placed on poles illuminated the room, and the futon lay unrolled. Suddenly, she realized she was in Sanematsu’s sleeping chamber. Had the time come for her to pay for her rescue?

Sanematsu sat at his writing table, dressed in a sleeping kosode. Tea and sake sat untouched on the tray next to him. He continued to brush ink on the paper. It seemed forever before he laid it aside and raised his eyes.

“Good evening, Sachi-sama, Tori.” His voice were pleasant, and he looked toward them but not at either woman. “I regret calling you so late. My day has been quite full, and I fear my night…”

He ordered everyone out of the room save for Aderyn. As the emptiness pressed in her, her anxiety increased. She had wished for his embrace, delighted in his touch. Now she cringed. Would Sanematsu’s embrace be any different from Matsumoto’s groping? If his plans were to assault her sexually, she prayed he would remain the gentle man she cared about.

**
*

Sanematsu stood, and the long white kosode gaped open across his chest. Barefooted, he paced with the short, quick steps of a trapped animal. He came to rest at the open shoji near the zabuton Sachi had vacated and faced Tori across the narrow space between them.

“I must leave in moments to…perform certain parts of our joining custom.” He spoke in low tones, as though he did not want to speak at all. “You are aware I am to join with Tsuta?”

“You said you would when the baby was born.” She swallowed hard. “If the child were a boy.”

“Things have changed.” It was a quick, harsh statement. “It begins now.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“I do not have time to explain everything!” He startled himself by shouting. This whole ordeal with Tsuta caused him no end of difficulties. He could not eat, drink or sleep. His even temperament flared with sharp, impatient flames. Now he had raised his voice to Ko-tori. “Sachi-sama will tell you what it involves.” He inhaled deeply to calm his nerves. “The decision came swiftly. It is…necessary. Plans…change often…” He knew he rambled. He had meant for all of this to be a matter-of-fact business. “I wanted…to inform you instead of…your hearing it from some other,” he hurried to conclude.

Hurt registered on her face but she said nothing. Had she heard him?

He wanted to apologize, overwhelmed by the urge to take her in his arms. Such a desire was foreign to him. Women in his life were for a purpose, as evidence his duty to join with Tsuta and legitimize his heir. He did not know what to do with the feeling. If he succumbed, he would never leave Tori’s side, never fulfill his karma by siring an heir. What possible path lay for them together as man and woman? They were destined to be friends; and he regretted causing pain to one of the few people he
could
call friend, the only one he could share his innermost thoughts with.

“I must go.” He moved toward the door, pausing, as he passed, a step behind her. Gazing down at her, he saw her shoulders sag as she sniffled. Aware her usual strong resolve was collapsing, he ached with new feelings.

Her hair draped the narrow expanse of her back--a rich, dark, golden-brown mantle covering an uchiki of lavender with a design of small white cranes. He reached to touch her but wavered, unable to bring himself to comfort her. One touch and he could never let her go. He could never have what he wanted most. He fled, angry he could not take away the pain he was responsible for.

**
*

As the shoji whispered open then snapped shut, Aderyn gulped and sighed. Standing, she wiped her running nose with the back of her hand as if she were a child. Unable to put a name to her confusion, she had to find Sachi. Only a woman could answer her questions.

When she emerged from Sanematsu’s sleeping chamber, Hamasaki waited for her.

“Good evening, Tori,” he greeted.

“Hamasaki-sama, I thought you had retired for the day. Has something happened to Mizuno-sama?” she inquired about her evening guard. She rubbed at her eyes, attempting to dry the tears as he led her down the engawa.

“Sachi-sama asked that I return to my duty with you.” They came to a corner, each moving the opposite direction. “Are you not going to your rooms?”

Aderyn could not face the solitary quarters. “Could you take me to Sachi-sama?”

“She is…busy with matters of Sanematsu-sama’s household.” He put his hand on her arm to steer her in the proper direction. “I must take you to your room.”

“Very well. But first…” She didn’t want to tell him where she needed to go. If she could not find Sachi, she would seek the solitude of the latrine to give in to her emotions.

“Ah, yes. This way.”

Hamasaki followed his charge to the outhouse. There, Aderyn’s thoughts closed in on her. Sachi would now desert her, also. She was pleased to have Hamasaki instead of the night guard. He was the next closest person to her, even if it was in an awkward way. She considered asking him her puzzling questions but thought better of it. He was a man.

She rejoined her guard, and they continued to her quarters. Before they entered the building, she looked back across the courtyard. In the darkness, a tall male form entered a dimly lit room.

**
*

At mid-morning the next day, Sachi greeted Tori.

“I have a wonderful outing planned,” she said with excitement as she helped braid her hair. “I am going to take you to my home.”

“That will be pleasant.” Tori’s voice was dull, quiet.

“You showed such interest in seeing where I lived.” Sachi finished the plait. “I thought today would be perfect.”

“I know what you are trying to do.”

“I am trying to share my life with you. Now, come along.” She took the tone of a mother with a disobedient child and went out into the hall. Tori sighed and followed.

**
*

Beyond a side gate in the yashiki wall, the women traveled down a path leading to a stone stairway. It wound down the hillside, through the streets of a group of houses below the castle. Sachi’s house, enclosed like all the others by a high wooden fence, was hidden among the plentiful trees. Inside the gate, a tidy garden led to the engawa of the wooden one-story house. Deep eaves dropped off the roof edges. Cryptomeria, azaleas, chrysanthemums and crepe myrtle bloomed around the house. Part of a vegetable garden was visible at the back.

Sachi led the way up the three steps to the porch. A maid appeared to take their sandals and placed them so the toes pointed away from the house, ready for stepping into when they left.

The house was open, cool and shadowy. Small objects adorned corners, and a small painting on a wooden panel hung on the wall. The ancestral shrine sat in a side room.

Down the hall, Sachi showed her the two sleeping rooms for herself and Hikita. Aderyn did not comment on how strange it was that the Hikitas did not sleep in the same room. Besides feeling it was impolite, she could not manage to care.

Farther back was a kitchen and servants’ rooms. Returning to the front room, they sat at a table where tea had been laid out.

“You did not show me your sons’ rooms.”

“My children live with their foster mothers in a small house nearby,” Sachi said matter-of-factly. “They should be away studying the fighting arts, but my husband allows them to remain a few years longer so I may see them often.”

“Who lives here? In this area?” Aderyn picked up a piece of manju, pulling at the pastry with apathy.

“These houses are called the samurai estates.” Sachi poured tea into two small cups. “Samurai who are given their own fief in Satsuma Province live there most of the year, but some choose to allow another samurai to be their retainer. Matsumoto-sama has a fief in the northeast but allows Toramoto-sama to oversee it. Those warriors without families reside in the large dormitory on the yashiki grounds.”

“Do I…know any of them?” She placed a small piece of the manju in her mouth, letting it melt on her tongue.

“Sanematsu-sama’s retainers of higher rank--Lord Matsumoto lives in the largest one,”

Sachi answered and handed her a cup. She accepted the tea, hoping Sachi did not notice the shiver running through her as she thought of how close she had passed by his house.

“Your guard, Hamasaki-sama, lives farther down from here.” Sachi sipped her tea.

Replacing the cup on the tray, Aderyn rose and went to the open shoji. Clouds built to block the sun as a storm threatened, cooling the summer air. Leaves, shaken from the tree boughs, raced across the manicured garden. Her heart sagged.

She wanted to go home. Where was home? Portugal? Wales? None of the countries her blood called home. Macao was the only place she had truly known until almost six months ago. Now, Nishikata was home. Or had been.

When she awoke that morning, she had felt alone, and alien. Before, she had imagined she belonged. Now she knew she would never belong, would forever be “the barbarian.” That she would always be “Sanematsu’s barbarian,” however, was very doubtful.

“Did you know last night that Lord Sanematsu was going to tell me about his joining with Tsuta?” She could not face Sachi.

“Yes,” Sachi admitted, as if she were guilty of conspiracy.

“Why did you not say so?” She hung her head, and the braid swung over her shoulder. She fingered the tuft at the end.

“I did not feel it my place to do so. Lord Sanematsu was the one to tell you such news.” She made the tiniest of sounds as she sipped her tea.

For long, hard minutes Aderyn remained silent. She swept her eyes over the garden unseeing, unshed tears clouding them. She blinked them away.

“Lord Sanematsu said you could explain the Nihonese way of marriage. He was very angry when I questioned him about it.” Questions, answers--all her days were filled with learning new things. She did not think she really wanted to understand the marriage process.

“The ritual takes place over three nights,” her teacher cleared her throat and began. “The man visits the woman, supposedly in secrecy. He will send her a poem if he is pleased after the first visit.”

“And if not?” Could she hope Sanematsu would be displeased with the prostitute he had slept with for years?

“Seldom do things proceed so far for her to be displaced. It must be a very offensive matter, such as dishonesty about chastity or an infirmity. It is not required that a women be a virgin, but if the male is led to believe she is such it must be, or he may put her aside.”

Sachi breathed deeply.
Is this as hard for her to say as for me to hear?

“The lady then sends a gift after receiving his poem, to show her affection. He returns for the second night, arriving at the middle of the Hour of the Rat and departing at dawn so no one sees him.

“The third night is different. The lady will serve tea, sake and some food. He will depart publicly in the late morning. From that day on, she will be his wife.” Sachi paused for a sip of tea. “Some days later, a priest will come and perform a purification ritual, a public ceremony symbolizing their joining. Then there is a feast.” She folded her hands in her lap as though closing a book.

“When will Tsuta be able…?” She faced Sachi. “When could she request that Lord Sanematsu…get rid of me?” She stood as if made of stone while Sachi studied her face. What words could her friend use to remove her torment? Only Lord Sanematsu could soothe the hurt.

“Tori, no one tells Lord Sanematsu what to do--” Sachi began.

“Sachi-sama, who are you trying to fool?” She came back to where Sachi sat. “Everyone tells him! Traditions and customs, Lord Shigehide, the Council of Elders, Matsumoto, probably his sister--and you! And everyone knows it except Lord Sanematsu!”

“Certainly, Sanematsu-sama must follow tradition, and he must consult with others in making decisions concerning military and governmental matters. He must consider all suggestions to make a just decision,” She could see how hard Sachi struggled to explain with the proper diplomacy. “Tsuta, as Sanematsu’s wife, will have no more influence over her husband than any other Nihonese wife. And she would have no right or reason to be rid of you.”