Across the Nightingale Floor Read online

  “We’ll get this cut,” she muttered, and ran her hand over my face. “You don’t have much beard yet. I wonder how old you are? Sixteen?”

  I nodded. She shook her head and sighed. “Lord Shigeru wants you to eat with him,” she said, and then added quietly, “I hope you will not bring him more grief.”

  I guessed Ichiro had been sharing his misgivings with her.

  I followed her back to the house, trying to take in every aspect of it. It was almost dark by now; lamps in iron stands shed an orange glow in the corners of the rooms, but did not give enough light for me to see much. Chiyo led me to a staircase in the corner of the main living room. I had never seen one before: We had ladders in Mino, but no one had a proper staircase like this. The wood was dark, with a high polish—oak, I thought—and each step made its own tiny sound as I trod on it. Again, it seemed to me to be a work of magic, and I thought I could hear the voice of its creator within it.

  The room was empty, the screens overlooking the garden wide open. It was just beginning to rain. Chiyo bowed to me—not very deeply, I noticed—and went back down the staircase. I listened to her footsteps and heard her speak to the maids in the kitchen.

  I thought the room was the most beautiful I had ever been in. Since then I’ve known my share of castles, palaces, nobles’ residences, but nothing can compare with the way the upstairs room in Lord Otori’s house looked that evening late in the eight-month with the rain falling gently on the garden outside. At the back of the room one huge pole, the trunk of a single cedar, rose from floor to ceiling, polished to reveal the knots and the grain of the wood. The beams were of cedar, too, their soft reddish brown contrasting with the creamy white walls. The matting was already fading to soft gold, the edges joined by broad strips of indigo material with the Otori heron woven into them in white.

  A scroll hung in the alcove with a painting of a small bird on it. It looked like the green-and-white-winged flycatcher from my forest. It was so real that I half expected it to fly away. It amazed me that a great painter would have known so well the humble birds of the mountain.

  I heard footsteps below and sat down quickly on the floor, my feet tucked neatly beneath me. Through the open windows I could see a great gray and white heron standing in one of the garden pools. Its beak jabbed into the water and came up holding some little wriggling creature. The heron lifted itself elegantly upwards and flew away over the wall.

  Lord Otori came into the room, followed by two of the girls carrying trays of food. He looked at me and nodded. I bowed to the floor. It occurred to me that he, Otori Shigeru, was the heron and I was the little wriggling thing he had scooped up, plunging down the mountain into my world and swooping away again.

  The rain fell more heavily, and the house and garden began to sing with water. It overflowed from the gutters and ran down the chains and into the stream that leaped from pool to pool, every waterfall making a different sound. The house sang to me, and I fell in love with it. I wanted to belong to it. I would do anything for it, and anything its owner wanted me to do.

  When we had finished the meal and the trays had been removed, we sat by the open window as night drew in. In the last of the light, Lord Otori pointed towards the end of the garden. The stream that cascaded through it swept under a low opening in the tiled roof wall into the river beyond. The river gave a deep, constant roar and its gray-green waters filled the opening like a painted screen.

  “It’s good to come home,” he said quietly. “But just as the river is always at the door, so is the world always outside. And it is in the world that we have to live.”

  · 2 ·

  he same year Otori Shigeru rescued the boy who was to become Otori Takeo at Mino, certain events took place in a castle a long way to the south. The castle had been given to Noguchi Masayoshi by Iida Sadamu for his part in the battle of Yaegahara. Iida, having defeated his traditional enemies, the Otori, and forced their surrender on favorable terms to himself, now turned his attention to the third great clan of the Three Countries, the Seishuu, whose domains covered most of the south and west. The Seishuu preferred to make peace through alliances rather than war, and these were sealed with hostages, both from great domains, like the Maruyama, and smaller ones, like their close relatives, the Shirakawa.

  Lord Shirakawa’s eldest daughter, Kaede, went to Noguchi Castle as a hostage when she had just changed her sash of childhood for a girl’s, and she had now lived there for half her life—long enough to think of a thousand things she detested about it. At night, when she was too tired to sleep and did not dare even toss and turn in case one of the older girls reached over and slapped her, she made lists of them inside her head. She had learned early to keep her thoughts to herself. At least no one could reach inside and slap her mind, although she knew more than one of them longed to. Which was why they slapped her so often on her body or face.

  She clung with a child’s single-mindedness to the faint memories she had of the home she had left when she was seven. She had not seen her mother or her younger sisters since the day her father had escorted her to the castle.

  Her father had returned three times since then, only to find she was housed with the servants, not with the Noguchi children, as would have been suitable for the daughter of a warrior family. His humiliation was complete: He was unable even to protest, although she, unnaturally observant even at that age, had seen the shock and fury in his eyes. The first two times they had been allowed to speak in private for a few moments. Her clearest memory was of him holding her by the shoulders and saying in an intense voice, “If only you had been born a boy!” The third time he was permitted only to look at her. After that he had not come again, and she had had no word from her home.

  She understood his reasons perfectly. By the time she was twelve, through a mixture of keeping her eyes and ears open and engaging the few people sympathetic to her in seemingly innocent conversation, she knew her own position: She was a hostage, a pawn in the struggles between the clans. Her life was worth nothing to the lords who virtually owned her, except in what she added to their bargaining power. Her father was the lord of the strategically important domain of Shirakawa; her mother was closely related to the Maruyama. Since her father had no sons, he would adopt as his heir whoever Kaede was married to. The Noguchi, by possessing her, also possessed his loyalty, his alliance, and his inheritance.

  She no longer even considered the great things—fear, homesickness, loneliness—but the sense that the Noguchi did not even value her as a hostage headed her list of things she hated, as she hated the way the girls teased her for being left-handed and clumsy, the stench of the guards’ room by the gate, the steep stairs that were so hard to climb when you were carrying things . . . And she was always carrying things: bowls of cold water, kettles of hot water, food for the always-ravenous men to cram into their mouths, things they had forgotten or were too lazy to fetch for themselves. She hated the castle itself, the massive stones of the foundations, the dark oppressiveness of the upper rooms, where the twisted roof beams seemed to echo her feelings, wanted to break free of the distortion they were trapped in and fly back to the forest they came from.

  And the men. How she hated them. The older she grew, the more they harassed her. The maids her age competed for their attentions. They flattered and cosseted the men, putting on childish voices, pretending to be delicate, even simpleminded, to gain the protection of one soldier or another. Kaede did not blame them for it—she had come to believe that all women should use every weapon they had to protect themselves in the battle that life seemed to be—but she would not stoop to that. She could not. Her only value, her only escape from the castle, lay in marriage to someone of her own class. If she threw that chance away, she was as good as dead.

  She knew she should not have to endure it. She should go to someone and complain. Of course it was unthinkable to approach Lord Noguchi, but maybe she could ask to speak to the lady. On second thought, even to be allowed access to her seemed un
likely. The truth was, there was no one to turn to. She would have to protect herself. But the men were so strong. She was tall for a girl—too tall, the other girls said maliciously—and not weak—the hard work saw to that—but once or twice a man had grabbed her in play and held her just with one hand, and she had not been able to escape. The memory made her shiver with fear.

  And every month it became harder to avoid their attentions. Late in the eighth month of her fifteenth year a typhoon in the West brought days of heavy rain. Kaede hated the rain, the way it made everything smell of mold and dampness, and she hated the way her skimpy robes clung to her when they were wet, showing the curve of her back and thighs, making the men call after her even more.

  “Hey, Kaede, little sister!” a guard shouted to her as she ran through the rain from the kitchen, past the second turreted gate. “Don’t go so fast! I’ve got an errand for you! Tell Captain Arai to come down, will you? His lordship wants him to check out a new horse.”

  The rain was pouring like a river from the crenellations, from the tiles, from the gutters, from the dolphins that topped every roof as a protection against fire. The whole castle spouted water. Within seconds she was soaked, her sandals saturated, making her slip and stumble on the cobbled steps. But she obeyed without too much bitterness; for, of everyone in the castle, Arai was the only person she did not hate. He always spoke nicely to her, he didn’t tease or harass her, and she knew his lands lay alongside her father’s and he spoke with the same slight accent of the West.

  “Hey, Kaede!” The guard leered as she entered the main keep. “You’re always running everywhere! Stop and chat!”

  When she ignored him and started up the stairs, he shouted after her, “They say you’re really a boy! Come here and show me you’re not a boy!”

  “Fool!” she muttered, her legs aching as she began the second flight of stairs.

  The guards on the top floor were playing some kind of gambling game with a knife. Arai got to his feet as soon as he saw her and greeted her by name.

  “Lady Shirakawa.” He was a big man, with an impressive presence and intelligent eyes. She gave him the message. He thanked her, looking for a moment as though he would say something more to her, but seemed to change his mind. He went hastily down the stairs.

  She lingered, gazing out of the windows. The wind from the mountains blew in, raw and damp. The view was almost completely blotted out by clouds, but below her was the Noguchi residence, where, she thought resentfully, she should by rights be living, not running around in the rain at everyone’s beck and call.

  “If you’re going to dawdle, Lady Shirakawa, come and sit down with us,” one of the guards said, coming up behind her and patting her on the backside.

  “Get your hands off me!” she said angrily.

  The men laughed. She feared their mood: They were bored and tense, fed up with the rain, the constant watching and waiting, the lack of action.

  “Ah, the captain forgot his knife,” one of them said. “Kaede, run down after him.”

  She took the knife, feeling its weight and balance in her left hand.

  “She looks dangerous!” the men joked. “Don’t cut yourself, little sister!”

  She ran down the stairs, but Arai had already left the keep. She heard his voice in the yard and was about to call to him, but before she could get outside, the man who had spoken to her earlier stepped out of the guardroom. She stopped dead, hiding the knife behind her back. He stood right in front of her, too close, blocking the dim gray light from outside.

  “Come on, Kaede, show me you’re not a boy!”

  He grabbed her by the right hand and pulled her close to him, pushing one leg between hers, forcing her thighs apart. She felt the hard bulge of his sex against her, and with her left hand, almost without thinking, she jabbed the knife into his neck.

  He cried out instantly and let go of her, clasping his hands to his neck and staring at her with amazed eyes. He was not badly hurt, but the wound was bleeding freely. She could not believe what she had done. I am dead, she thought. As the man began to shout for help, Arai came back through the doorway. He took in the scene at a glance, grabbed the knife from Kaede, and without hesitation slit the guard’s throat. The man fell, gurgling, to the ground.

  Arai pulled Kaede outside. The rain sluiced over them. He whispered, “He tried to rape you. I came back and killed him. Anything else and we are both dead.”

  She nodded. He had left his weapon behind, she had stabbed a guard: both unforgivable offenses. Arai’s swift action had removed the only witness. She thought she would be shocked at the man’s death and at her part in it, but she found she was only glad. So may they all die, she thought, the Noguchi, the Tohan, the whole clan.

  “I will speak to his lordship on your behalf, Lady Shirakawa,” Arai said, making her start with surprise. “He should not leave you unprotected.” He added, almost to himself, “A man of honor would not do that.”

  He gave a great shout up the stairwell for the guards, then said to Kaede, “Don’t forget, I saved your life. More than your life!”

  She looked at him directly. “Don’t forget, it was your knife,” she returned.

  He gave a wry smile of forced respect. “We are in each other’s hands, then.”

  “What about them?” she said, hearing the thud of steps on the stairs. “They know I left with the knife.”

  “They will not betray me,” he replied. “I can trust them.”

  “I trust no one,” she whispered.

  “You must trust me,” he said.

  Later that day Kaede was told she was to move to the Noguchi family residence. As she wrapped her few belongings into her carrying cloth, she stroked the faded pattern, with its crests of the white river for her family and the setting sun of the Seishuu. She was bitterly ashamed of how little she owned. The events of the day kept going through her mind: the feel of the knife in the forbidden left hand, the grip of the man, his lust, the way he had died. And Arai’s words: A man of honor would not do that! He should not have spoken of his lord like that. He would never have dared to, not even to her, if he did not already have rebellion in his mind. Why had he treated her so well, not only at that vital moment, but previously? Was he, too, seeking allies? He was already a powerful and popular man; now she saw that he might have greater ambitions. He was capable of acting in an instant, seizing opportunities.

  She weighed all these things carefully, knowing that even the smallest of them added to her holding in the currency of power.

  All day the other girls avoided her, talking together in huddled groups, falling silent when she passed them. Two had red eyes; perhaps the dead man had been a favorite or a lover. No one showed her any sympathy. Their resentment made her hate them more. Most of them had homes in the town or nearby villages: They had parents and families they could turn to. They were not hostages. And he, the dead guard, had grabbed her, had tried to force her. Anyone who loved such a man was an idiot.

  A servant girl she had never seen before came to fetch her, addressing her as Lady Shirakawa and bowing respectfully to her. Kaede followed her down the steep cobbled steps that led from the castle to the residence, through the bailey, under the huge gate, where the guards turned their faces away from her in anger, and into the gardens that surrounded Lord Noguchi’s house.

  She had often seen the gardens from the castle, but this was the first time she had walked in them since she was seven years old. They went to the back of the large house, and Kaede was shown into a small room.

  “Please wait here for a few minutes, lady.”

  After the girl had gone, Kaede knelt on the floor. The room was of good proportions, even though it was not large, and the doors stood open onto a tiny garden. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining fitfully, turning the dripping garden into a mass of shimmering light. She gazed at the stone lantern, the little twisted pine, the cistern of clear water. Crickets were singing in the branches; a frog croaked briefly. The peace
and the silence melted something in her heart, and she suddenly felt near tears.

  She fought them back, fixing her mind on how much she hated the Noguchi. She slipped her arms inside her sleeves and felt the bruises. She hated them all the more for living in this beautiful place, while she, of the Shirakawa family, had been housed with servants.

  The internal door behind her slid open, and a woman’s voice said, “Lord Noguchi wishes to speak with you, lady.”

  “Then you must help me get ready,” she said. She could not bear to go into his presence looking as she did, her hair undressed, her clothes old and dirty.

  The woman stepped into the room, and Kaede turned to look at her. She was old, and although her face was smooth and her hair still black, her hands were wrinkled and gnarled like a monkey’s paws. She studied Kaede with a look of surprise on her face. Then, without speaking, she unpacked the bundle, taking out a slightly cleaner robe, a comb, and hairpins.

  “Where are my lady’s other clothes?”

  “I came here when I was seven,” Kaede said angrily. “Don’t you think I might have grown since then? My mother sent better things for me, but I was not allowed to keep them!”

  The woman clicked her tongue. “It’s lucky that my lady’s beauty is such that she has no need of adornment.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kaede said, for she had no idea what she looked like.

  “I’ll dress your hair now. And find you clean footwear. I am Junko. Lady Noguchi has sent me to wait on you. I’ll speak to her later about clothes.”

  Junko left the room and came back with two girls carrying a bowl of water, clean socks, and a small carved box. Junko washed Kaede’s face, hands and feet, and combed out her long black hair. The maids murmured as if in amazement.

  “What is it? What do they mean?” Kaede said nervously.