Brilliance of the Moon Read online

  Contents

  Foreword

  Tales of the Otori Characters

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  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.

  Brilliance of the Moon

  A Riverhead Books / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2004 by Lian Hearn

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1728-3

  A RIVERHEAD BOOK®

  Riverhead Books first published by The Riverhead Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  RIVERHEAD and the “R” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: JUNE, 2004

  ALSO BY LIAN HEARN

  Across the Nightingale Floor

  Grass for His Pillow

  To B.

  FOREWORD

  These events took place in the months following the marriage of Otori Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede at the temple at Terayama. This marriage strengthened Kaede’s resolve to inherit the domain of Maruyama and gave Takeo the resources he needed to carry out his work of revenge for his adopted father Shigeru and take his place as head of the Otori clan. However, it also enraged Arai Daiichi, the warlord who now controlled most of the Three Countries, and insulted the nobleman Lord Fujiwara, who considered Kaede betrothed to him.

  The previous winter, Takeo, under the Tribe’s sentence of death, had fled to Terayama, where the detailed records of the Tribe that Shigeru had compiled were given to him, along with the Otori sword Jato. On the way, his life was saved by the outcast Jo-An, one of the forbidden sect, the Hidden, who took him to a mountain shrine to hear the prophetic words of a holy woman.

  Three bloods are mixed in you. You were born into the Hidden, but your life has been brought into the open and is no longer your own. Earth will deliver what heaven desires.

  Your lands will stretch from sea to sea, but peace comes at the price of bloodshed. Five battles will buy you peace, four to win and one to lose. . . .

  The Three Countries

  TALES OF THE OTORI

  CHARACTERS

  The Clans

  THE OTORI

  (Middle Country; castle town: Hagi)

  Otori Shigeru: rightful heir to the clan (1)

  Otori Takeshi: his younger brother, murdered by the Tohan clan (d.)

  Otori Takeo: (born Tomasu) his adopted son (1)

  Otori Shigemori: Shigeru’s father, killed at the battle of Yaegahara (d.)

  Otori Ichiro: a distant relative, Shigeru and Takeo’s teacher (1)

  Chiyo (1)

  Haruka: maids in the household (1)

  Shiro: a carpenter (1)

  Otori Shoichi: Shigeru’s uncle, now lord of the clan (1)

  Otori Masahiro: Shoichi’s younger brother (1)

  Otori Yoshitomi: Masahiro’s son (1)

  Miyoshi Kahei: brothers, friends of Takeo (1)

  Miyoshi Gemba (1)

  Miyoshi Satoru: their father, captain of the guard in Hagi castle (3)

  Endo Chikara: a senior retainer (3)

  Terada Fumifusa: a pirate (3)

  Terada Fumio: his son, friend of Takeo (1)

  Ryoma: a fisherman, Masahiro’s illegitimate son (3)

  THE TOHAN

  (The East; castle town: Inuyama)

  Iida Sadamu: lord of the clan (1)

  Iida Nariaki: Sadamu’s cousin (3)

  Ando, Abe: Iida’s retainers (1)

  Lord Noguchi: an ally (1)

  Lady Noguchi: his wife (1)

  Junko: a servant in Noguchi castle (1)

  THE SEISHUU

  (An alliance of several ancient families in the West; main castle towns: Kumamoto and Maruyama)

  Arai Daiichi: a warlord (1)

  Niwa Satoru: a retainer (2)

  Akita Tsutomu: a retainer (2)

  Sonoda Mitsuru: Akita’s nephew (2)

  Maruyama Naomi: head of the Maruyama domain, Shigeru’s lover (1)

  Mariko: her daughter (1)

  Sachie: her maid (1)

  Sugita Haruki: a retainer (1)

  Sugita Hiroshi: his nephew (3)

  Sakai Masaki: Hiroshi’s cousin (3)

  Lord Shirakawa (1)

  Kaede: Shirakawa’s eldest daughter, Lady Maruyama’s cousin (1)

  Ai, Hana: Shirakawa’s daughters (2)

  Ayame (2)

  Manami (2)

  Ayako: maids in the household (3)

  Amano Tenzo: a Shirakawa retainer (1)

  Shoji Kiyoshi: senior retainer to Lord Shirakawa (1)

  The Tribe

  THE MUTO FAMILY

  Muto Kenji: Takeo’s teacher, the Master (1)

  Muto Shizuka: Kenji’s niece, Arai’s mistress, and Kaede’s companion (1)

  Dr. Ishida: his physician

  Zenko, Taku: her sons (3)

  Muto Seiko: Kenji’s wife (2)

  Muto Yuki: their daughter (1)

  Muto Yuzuru: a cousin (2)

  Kana (3)

  Miyabi: maids (3)

  THE KIKUTA FAMILY

  Kikuta Isamu: Takeo’s real father (d.)

  Kikuta Kotaro: his cousin, the Master (1)

  Kikuta Gosaburo: Kotaro’s younger brother (2)

  Kikuta Akio: their nephew (1)

  Kikuta Hajime: a wrestler (2)

  Sadako: a maid (2)

  THE KURODA FAMILY

  Kuroda Shintaro: a famous assassin (1)

  Kondo Kiichi (2)

  Imai Kazuo (2)

  Kudo Keiko (2)

  Others

  Lord Fujiware: a nobleman, exiled from the capital (2)

  Mamoru: his protégé and companion (2)

  Ono Rieko: his cousin (3)

  Murita: a retainer (3)

  Matsuda Shingen: the abbot at Terayama (2)

  Kubo Makoto: a monk, Takeo’s closest friend (1)

  Jin-emon: a bandit (3)

  Jiro: a farmer’s son (3)

  Jo-An: an outcast (1)

  Horses

  Raku: gray with black mane and tail, Takeo’s first horse, given by him to Kaede

  Kyu: black, Shigeru’s horse, disappeared in Inuyama

  Aoi: black, half brother to Kyu

  Ki: Amano’s chestnut

  Shun: Takeo’s bay, a very clever horse

  bold = main character

  (1, 2, 3) = character’s first appearance, in Book 1, 2, or 3

  (d.) = character died before the start of Book 1

  Others too, in far-flung villages,

  Will no doubt be gazing at this moon

  That never asks which watcher claims the night . . .

  Loud on the unseen mountain wind,

  A stag’s cry quivers in the heart,

  And somewhere a twig lets one leaf fall.

  ZEAMI, THE FULLING B
LOCK (KINUTA)

  · 1·

  he feather lay in my palm. I held it carefully, aware of its age and its fragility. Yet its whiteness was still translucent, the vermilion tips of the pinions still brilliant.

  “It came from a sacred bird, the houou,” Matsuda Shingen, the abbot of the temple at Terayama, told me. “It appeared to your adopted father, Shigeru, when he was only fifteen, younger than you are now. Did he ever tell you this, Takeo?”

  I shook my head. Matsuda and I were standing in his room at one end of the cloister around the main courtyard of the temple. From outside, drowning out the usual sounds of the temple, the chanting, and the bells, came the urgent noise of preparations, of many people coming and going. I could hear Kaede, my wife, beyond the gates, talking to Amano Tenzo about the problems of keeping our army fed on the march. We were preparing to travel to Maruyama, the great domain in the West to which Kaede was the rightful heir, to claim it in her name—to fight for it if necessary. Since the end of winter, warriors had been making their way to Terayama to join me, and I now had close to a thousand men, billeted in the temple and in the surrounding villages, not counting the local farmers who also strongly supported my cause.

  Amano was from Shirakawa, my wife’s ancestral home, and the most trusted of her retainers, a great horseman and good with all animals. In the days that followed our marriage, Kaede and her woman, Manami, had shown considerable skill in handling and distributing food and equipment. They discussed everything with Amano and had him deliver their decisions to the men. That morning he was enumerating the oxcarts and packhorses we had at our disposal. I tried to stop listening, to concentrate on what Matsuda was telling me, but I was restless, eager to get moving.

  “Be patient,” Matsuda said mildly. “This will only take a minute. What do you know about the houou?”

  I reluctantly pulled my attention back to the feather in my palm and tried to recall what my former teacher, Ichiro, had taught me when I had been living in Lord Shigeru’s house in Hagi. “It is the sacred bird of legend that appears in times of justice and peace. And it is written with the same character as the name of my clan, Otori.”

  “Correct,” Matsuda said, smiling. “It does not often appear, justice and peace being something of a rarity in these times. But Shigeru saw it and I believe the vision inspired him in his pursuit of these virtues. I told him then that the feathers were tinged with blood, and indeed his blood, his death, still drive both you and me.”

  I looked more closely at the feather. It lay across the scar on my right palm where I had burned my hand a long time ago, in Mino, my birthplace, the day Shigeru had saved my life. My hand was also marked with the straight line of the Kikuta, the Tribe family to which I belonged, from which I had run away the previous winter. My inheritance, my past, and my future, all seemed to be there, held in the palm of my hand.

  “Why do you show it to me now?”

  “You will be leaving here soon. You have been with us all winter, studying and training to prepare yourself to fulfill Shigeru’s last commands to you. I wanted you to share in his vision, to remember that his goal was justice, and yours must be too.”

  “I will never forget it,” I promised. I bowed reverently over the feather, holding it gently in both hands, and offered it back to the abbot. He took it, bowed over it, and replaced it in the small lacquered box from which he had taken it. I said nothing, remembering all that Shigeru had done for me, and how much I still needed to accomplish for him.

  “Ichiro told me about the houou when he was teaching me to write my name,” I said finally. “When I saw him in Hagi last year he advised me to wait for him here, but I cannot wait much longer. We must leave for Maruyama within the week.” I had been worrying about my old teacher since the snows had melted, for I knew that the Otori lords, Shigeru’s uncles, were trying to take possession of my house and lands in Hagi and that Ichiro continued stubbornly to resist them.

  I did not know it, but Ichiro was already dead. I had the news of it the next day. I was talking with Amano in the courtyard when I heard something from far below: shouts of anger, running feet, the trampling of hooves. The sound of horses plunging up the slope was unexpected and shocking. Usually no one came to the temple at Terayama on horseback. They either walked up the steep mountain path or, if unfit or very old, were carried by sturdy porters.

  A few seconds later Amano heard it too. By then I was already running to the temple gates, calling to the guards.

  Swiftly they set about closing the gates and barring them. Matsuda came hurrying across the courtyard. He was not wearing armor, but his sword was in his belt. Before we could speak to each other, a challenge came from the guardhouse.

  “Who dares to ride to the temple gate? Dismount and approach this place of peace with respect!”

  It was Kubo Makoto’s voice. One of Terayama’s young warrior monks, he had become, over the last few months, my closest friend. I ran to the wooden stockade and climbed the ladder to the guardhouse. Makoto gestured toward the spy hole. Through the chinks in the wood I could see four horsemen. They had been galloping up the hill; now they pulled their heaving, snorting mounts to a halt. They were fully armed, but the Otori crest was clearly visible on their helmets. For a moment I thought that they might be messengers from Ichiro. Then my eyes fell on the basket tied to the bow of one of the saddles. My heart turned to stone. I could guess, only too easily, what was inside such a container.

  The horses were rearing and cavorting, not only from the exertion of the gallop, but also from alarm. Two of them were already bleeding from wounds to their hindquarters. A mob of angry men poured from the narrow path, armed with staves and sickles. I recognized some of them: they were farmers from the nearest village. The warrior at the rear made a rush at them, sword flailing, and they fell back slightly but did not disperse, maintaining their threatening stance in a tight half circle.

  The leader of the horsemen flung a look of contempt at them and then called toward the gate in a loud voice.

  “I am Fuwa Dosan of the Otori clan from Hagi. I bring a message from my lords Shoichi and Masahiro for the upstart who calls himself Otori Takeo.”

  Makoto called back, “If you are peaceful messengers, dismount and leave your swords. The gates will be opened.”

  I already knew what their message would be. I could feel blind fury building up behind my eyes.

  “There’s no need for that,” Fuwa replied scornfully. “Our message is short. Tell the so-called Takeo that the Otori do not recognize his claims and that this is how they will deal with him and any who follow him.”

  The man alongside him dropped the reins on his horse’s neck and opened the container. From it he took what I dreaded to see. Holding it by its topknot, he swung his arm and threw Ichiro’s head over the wall into the temple grounds.

  It fell with a slight thud onto the petaled grass of the garden.

  I drew my sword, Jato, from my belt.

  “Open the gate!” I shouted. “I am going out to them.”

  I leaped down the steps, Makoto behind me.

  As the gates opened, the Otori warriors turned their horses and drove them at the wall of men around them, swords sweeping. I imagine they thought the farmers would not dare attack them. Even I was astonished at what happened next. Instead of parting to let them through, the men on foot hurled themselves at the horses. Two of the farmers died immediately, cut in half by the warriors’ swords, but then the first horse came down, and its rider fell into the pack around him. The others met a similar fate. They had no chance to use their swordsmanship: They were dragged from their horses and beaten to death like dogs.

  Makoto and I tried to restrain the farmers and eventually managed to drive them back from the bodies. We restored calm only by severing the warriors’ heads and having them displayed on the temple gates. The unruly army threw insults at them for a while and then retired down the hill, promising in loud voices that if any other strangers dared approach the temple and
insult Lord Otori Takeo, the Angel of Yamagata, they would be dealt with in the same way.

  Makoto was shaking with rage—and some other emotion that he wanted to talk to me about—but I did not have the time then. I went back inside the walls. Kaede had brought white cloths and water in a wooden bowl. She was kneeling on the ground beneath the cherry trees, calmly washing the head. Its skin was blue-gray, the eyes half-closed, the neck not severed cleanly but hacked with several blows. Yet, she handled it gently, with loving care, as if it were a precious and beautiful object.

  I knelt beside her, put out my hand, and touched the hair. It was streaked with gray, but the face in death looked younger than when I had last seen it, when Ichiro was alive in the house in Hagi, grieving and haunted by ghosts yet still willing to show me affection and guidance.

  “Who is it?” Kaede said in a low voice.

  “Ichiro. He was my teacher in Hagi. Shigeru’s too.”

  My heart was too full to say more. I blinked away my tears. The memory of our last meeting rose in my mind. I wished I had said more to him, told him of my gratitude and my respect. I wondered how he had died, if his death had been humiliating and agonizing. I longed for the dead eyes to open, the bloodless lips to speak. How irretrievable the dead are, how completely they go from us! Even when their spirits return, they do not speak of their own deaths.

  I was born and raised among the Hidden, who believe that only those who follow the commandments of the Secret God will meet again in the afterlife. Everyone else will be consumed in the fires of hell. I did not know if my adopted father Shigeru had been a believer, but he was familiar with all the teachings of the Hidden and spoke their prayers at the moment of his death, along with the name of the Enlightened One. Ichiro, his adviser and the steward of his household, had never given any such sign—in fact, rather the opposite: Ichiro had suspected from the start that Shigeru had rescued me from the warlord Iida Sadamu’s persecution of the Hidden, and had watched me like a cormorant for anything that might give me away.