Autumn Princess, Dragon Child Page 11
“That’s a head,” Kuro said with interest. “And those must have been internal organs. You can still see their shape and texture.”
“Not so unlike an animal’s,” Kiku said, equally fascinated. “There is the heart, liver, kidneys, and look, even the private parts!”
They both laughed callously. “Still with a mind of their own,” Kiku said. “Even in death.”
One of the crows cawed, breaking the silence. Gen growled and snapped at it.
“Is this the sort of thing your uncle does?” Kuro asked.
“This looks like his work,” Shika replied.
“No wonder you hate him.”
Kiku said quietly, “It takes many years to grow to a man, doesn’t it? Many times longer than for us?”
Shika nodded. This man had been an adult. What remained of his hair suggested he might have been forty years old: forty years of human life, with all its complexities and intricacies, reduced to slabs of meat exposed in the forest, food for grubs and crows.
“Who was he? Did you know him?”
There was nothing to identify the dead man. Sademasa had many retainers and even more farmers, from whom he extracted tax in produce and labor. It could be any one of them, executed and dishonored in death. How fragile were even the strongest of men.
“Can you find out?” Kiku persisted.
“How do you suggest I do that?” Shika said.
“You could use that mask, in the bag,” Kiku said.
“How do you know about that?”
“I saw you, the night before we climbed the cliff. And I’ve watched you before, at the hut. You put it on and go into some other place. Do it now.”
“Kiku’s got a plan,” Kuro said, smiling in glee, seeming to read his brother’s thoughts.
“We could tease your uncle a little,” Kiku said. “Make it easier for you to kill him.”
With some reluctance, Shika took the mask from the brocade bag. The crows cawed wildly and flew up in one dark cloud. He prayed briefly, steeling his mind against his former master, and placed it against his face. He found himself on the bank of the river of death, as when he had met Kiyoyori’s spirit. He saw again the deep, dark water and heard the splash of oars. Then he heard someone call out to him, in anguish and relief, using his childhood name.
“Kazumaru! Help me!”
“Who are you?”
“I am Naganori, your friend’s father.”
Shika’s throat closed up in horror and pity. His eyes were hot. He forced himself to speak. “What happened to you? Where is Nagatomo? Is he dead, too?”
“He was still alive when I died. Sademasa, your uncle, made him watch my agony and humiliation. My love and fear for my son has bound me to this place. I cannot cross the river until I know his fate, and until we are both avenged. My lord, Kazumaru, make your uncle pay. Make him suffer as so many have. People long for your return. Many of us regretted not helping you last year. We all knew who you were. Can you ever forgive us?”
“I will when my uncle is dead and I hold Kumayama,” Shika replied.
“Most of your house still consider themselves Kakizuki. They hate the Miboshi, who are now our overlords. Some of us whispered about it, it was only talk, but we were betrayed. Sademasa has informants everywhere. My punishment was a warning to others.”
Shika had less time on this occasion before he felt the Prince Abbot’s attention drawn to him. He saw the eyes turn and seek him out. Twice he had aroused the priest now. The Prince Abbot would not ignore such provocation. He would move against him, would send someone else after him. Not a lone monk, but armed warriors, maybe the whole Miboshi army.
“Farewell,” he said to Naganori. “Today I will avenge you; Sademasa will die and your son will be saved. If I fail, you and I and Nagatomo will cross the river together.”
He took the mask from his face. The boys were watching him with more than usual respect, their black eyes wide and gleaming.
“How much did you see and hear?” Shika asked.
“We heard everything,” Kiku replied. “We must go at once and save your friend’s life.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Kuro questioned.
“Of course it is!” Kiku gave him a cuff on the ear.
Kuro frowned. “Sometimes I’m not sure when it’s right to kill and when it’s right to save a life.”
“Trust Shikanoko,” Kiku said. “Just kill anyone he says.”
“Feel free to get rid of someone who’s attacking me, even if I haven’t specifically told you to!” Shika said, as they began to run.
“I just hope I don’t get it wrong.” Kuro sounded unusually worried.
“It doesn’t matter much,” Kiku assured him. “Everyone dies in the end.”
* * *
The fortress stood on the slopes of Kumayama, overlooking a long finger-shaped valley, through which ran the Kumagawa. On either side of the river, on every inch of flat land and on terraces cut out of the hillside, rice was grown, but all the fields were bare now, covered in their winter blankets of mulch, dead leaves, and manure, the higher ones white with frost.
Shika, Kiku, and Kuro came down Kumayama at dawn and hid themselves in thick bushes, from which they studied the fortress for a long time, without speaking. In the year since Shika had last seen his childhood home, it had been even more heavily fortified, with a new palisade of sharpened logs around it and a higher watchtower on each corner. All cover had been cleared around the palisade and guards stood in the watchtowers and at the gates. All day, groups of men rode on horseback around the open area and set up targets and practiced archery.
Laborers were working on some huge earthmoving project, excavating tons of soil and moving it, bucket load by bucket load, to the farther edge of the clearing. Shika realized they were digging a moat and building ramparts for further defense. He wondered why it would be necessary, now that the land from Miyako all the way to Minatogura was in the hands of the Miboshi. What was his uncle so afraid of? Was the control of the Miboshi not as secure as it appeared? Was Sademasa, like all turncoats, prey to guilt and suspicion? He had certainly made his fortress impregnable.
There were two strange machines on platforms on the ramparts, and any rocks that were uncovered were lugged up to their base and added to the piles amassed there.
“Catapults!” Kuro said. The boys made small ones from strips of leather that they chewed for hours to render pliable.
“Could you get inside?” Shika whispered to Kiku.
“Kuro and I can get in at night,” Kiku replied. “We can scale the fence at the corner, jump across to the roof, and burrow through the thatch. No one will see us.”
“And then what?” Kuro said.
“Shika goes inside and meets his uncle. While they’re talking we’ll tease him and unsettle him. Then he gets killed.”
“That’s more or less what I had in mind,” Shika said. “A few details need working out. What about his men? I can’t take them all on, single-handed.”
“We don’t know about them,” Kiku said. “They’re your concern. You deal with them.”
“I will be disarmed as soon as I go in,” Shika said, thinking aloud. “If I’m not killed immediately. You must take my sword, and get it to me somehow. I’ll carry my bow and knife. They will think it strange if I arrive completely unarmed. And I must offer them something they want, so they keep me alive.”
They spent the short winter day watching and listening. Shika mapped the fortress as he remembered it and Kiku’s sharp hearing enabled him to place its inhabitants within. At the end of the day, Sademasa rode out to inspect the earthworks. They could all hear him clearly as he shouted at the foremen, complaining about the slow progress and the poor quality. His face lit up as he saw the piles of rocks and the catapults. He went to the nearest machine, dismounted, and caressed its throwing arm, which was tied down, with a rock loaded in place. Then he peered down the valley, as if assessing how far the rock would be hurled.
“We know him now,” Kiku said.
“You could offer him Gen,” Kuro suggested.
“Gen?” Shika said, surprised.
The fake wolf whimpered anxiously.
“He likes strange artefacts, man-made devices. Show him Gen and tell him you have the power to make things like this—artificial animals and men. He does not have enough warriors. He needs an army.”
Night fell swiftly. There was no moon and the sky was covered with low clouds that threatened snow. Shika made the boys embrace him before they left, and the feel of their thin, scarcely human bodies against his filled him with tenderness. He wondered if they felt the same, if they were like Gen and would grow more real through affection.
He could not see them once they had moved three feet away nor could he hear them. No sound came from the fortress, no clamor as intruders were discovered. The night remained peaceful, bitterly cold.
Shika barely slept. Gen crawled close to him, but could not warm him. By daybreak he was so cold he could hardly walk. He forced himself to stand, to stretch, to run on the spot, in order to get the blood flowing into his extremities. He wondered where the boys were. He could see no sign of entry through the roof. He would have to trust that they were inside.
When he could move freely, he took up the bow and the brocade bag with the mask, slung the quiver with its twelve arrows on his back, and, with Gen at his heels, walked swiftly down to the fortress.
Men were stamping their feet and rubbing their hands together at the gate. Just inside burned a fire in an iron brazier. For a moment Shika thought how appealing the warmth was, and wanted nothing more than to sit by it for a while and thaw out. But he put aside this and all other distractions—hunger, fear, hope, revenge—and concentrated fully on what had to be done to bind the will of those surrounding him to his own.
He called at the gate, “I am Kumayama no Kazumaru, known as Shikanoko, only son of Shigetomo. I have come to pay my respects to your lord, who is also my uncle, and offer him my service and a magic gift.”
One of the men moved to the gate and peeked through it. A look of shock crossed his face and he stepped hurriedly back to confer with the others. They spoke quietly, but Shika’s hearing, though not as sharp as Kiku’s, was keener than most humans’ and he could hear them clearly.
“It’s that wild boy who turned up last year, claiming to be Kazumaru.”
“Are you sure? He was taken away by the Prince Abbot’s men to be put to death.”
“It’s him.”
“Kazumaru? He died in the mountains two years ago.”
“But he was alive last year. Some people said they recognized him. Naganori, for example.”
“Naganori! Look what happened to him!”
“What’ll we do?”
Several men came to the gate to peer at him.
“Look at him,” said one. “He’s a vagabond, been living rough in the forest and wants to get out of the cold. Cut his throat and bury him without saying anything. Save us a mountain of trouble.”
“I’m not going to murder the old lord’s son,” said the man who had first come to the gate.
His name suddenly came back to Shika and he called to him. “Tsunemasa! Let me in and tell my uncle I am here.”
Tsunemasa approached the gate, but the man who had wanted to cut Shika’s throat pushed him back. “What’s the gift?” he said.
“I remember you, Nobuto,” Shika said quietly. “I will not forget that you suggested murdering me.”
“You’ll be praying for my swift knife later today,” Nobuto threatened. “When our lord gets you in his hands, whether you are Kazumaru or some vagrant, you’ll be begging me to kill you. Show me what the gift is.”
“Open the gate and I will,” Shika said.
“Who’s with you?”
“No one. Just me and my gift.”
A man called from the watchtower. “He has come alone.”
Nobuto drew back the huge bolts and the gate swung open.
Shika stepped inside and Gen followed him closely, his nose nudging the back of his legs.
“What is that?” Nobuto exclaimed.
Shika was so used to Gen that he had forgotten how strange the fake wolf looked. Now he saw him afresh, the blue gem eyes, the human tongue, the wolf-skin coat through which the skeleton showed.
“This is my gift,” he said, feeling Gen quiver. “It is an artificial wolf. I believe my uncle loves all strange devices. I can make these things for him, and more. I can make men.”
“I will take the creature to show him,” Nobuto said.
“By all means, but I must go with him. He is easily alarmed and quite fierce.”
“Wolves don’t scare me, alive or not,” Nobuto said with a laugh.
“I do not want him destroyed through stupidity or carelessness,” Shika said.
Gen snarled, showing his tongue and his artificial teeth. The thick wolf fur on his neck bristled. Nobuto stepped back as the creature lunged at him.
“Wait here,” he said. “I will inform the lord.”
After Nobuto had left, Tsunemasa said, “Come and sit by the fire, you look frozen.” Shika shook his head. He would accept nothing that was his uncle’s; he would take it all when the usurper was dead.
He stood just inside the gate without moving. One by one people came out to take a look at him, men and women, warriors and maids, but he did not return their curious stares. With one part of his mind he was wondering where Kiku and Kuro were, but otherwise he was preparing himself for the coming confrontation.
Nobuto finally returned. “My lord will see you and examine your gift. Give me your weapons.”
When Shika handed over the bow, the quiver, and the knife, Nobuto looked at the bow carefully and then studied Shika with narrowed eyes. But all he said was, “No sword?”
“A sword is of little use in the forest,” Shika replied. “I have not been fighting men for the past two years. But I have been hunting.”
“Hmm. What’s this?” Nobuto had taken the seven-layered brocade bag that hung at Shika’s waist and was opening it.
“It is a mask made from a deer’s skull.”
“The one the monk was so thrilled to see? You should give this to the lord, too.”
“No one can wear it but me. It destroys the face of anyone else who puts it on.”
Nobuto closed the bag without looking in it and handed it hurriedly back to Shika. He ran his hands over him to check for any other weapons, opened Shika’s mouth and peered inside, pulled at his tangled hair. Shika submitted without emotion. He felt Nobuto’s fear, the fear warriors had for anything they did not understand, especially the world of magic and sorcery. And he felt gratitude again that he had been taken out of their world and given the chance to know another, of great richness and strangeness, beyond human imagination. Fate dictated every man’s path in life. His uncle’s cruelty had been an instrument in his destiny.
For that reason I will give him a swift death, he resolved.
The crowd in the yard parted before him as he followed Nobuto into the fortress, Gen, panting slightly, at his side.
He remembered his old home well, despite the changes that had been made to it—the barred windows, the internal doors that had to be unbolted, at a password, and bolted again behind him. He glimpsed trapdoors and sensed concealed rooms. He thought suddenly of his father, the tengu, and the fateful game of Go. He heard the click and rattle of stones. And then a sharp recollection of his mother, whom he had not seen since he was a child, rose in his mind. Usually, he had only the haziest of memories—the feel of a robe, an outline against an open door—and he had never understood why she had left him, but he suddenly felt assured that she had never forgotten him and that she had been praying for him all this time. It was with a softened
heart, then, that he faced his uncle.
Sademasa wore the same armor, leather laced with deep purple cords; his sword lay close to his hand. He sat on a raised platform, with no other concession to comfort or luxury than a thin straw mat. Fifteen retainers were in the reception room with him, five along each side wall, five at the back.
Shika knelt, lowering his head to the ground. Then, after an interval that was not quite respectful or long enough, he sat up and, without waiting to be addressed, said, “I hope you are well, Uncle.”
Sademasa was frowning as he answered. “My health is no concern of yours, whoever you are. I am surprised you have dared show your face here again. You must be eager to cross the river of death. I will speed your journey. I can promise you, you will not leave alive this time, even if the Prince Abbot himself should come begging for you.”
“There is no need to be hasty,” Shika said. “I can do you no injury, alone and unarmed as I am. Maybe I can be of service to you.”
Sademasa did not reply immediately, but studied Shika’s face intently.
“Stop pretending, Uncle. You must recognize me. You have looked long enough. You know it is I, Kazumaru.”
He heard the quick intake of breath from the men surrounding him.
“Kazumaru, alas, is dead,” Sademasa said without conviction. “Show me the creature and explain how it works.”
Shika pulled the reluctant Gen around and placed him in front of him. Sademasa’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“What half-aborted monstrosity is this?”
“It is a wolf, but man-made. I have many such creatures and can make many more.”
Sademasa said, without hesitation, “Can you make men?”
“Men of a sort,” Shika said, lying, for even Shisoku had never attempted a man.
“How? Do you skin the dead, as a wolf was skinned for this, and stuff them with straw?”
“It is the same process.” Shika was thinking, Where are the boys? How long can I keep up this strange conversation?
“An army of half men,” Sademasa said slowly. “That would be something. Can they be taught to fight?”