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As he fell forward onto his knees Jato struck again, and his head
bounced at my feet, his eyes still full of fury, his lips snarling.
That scene remains engraved in my memory, but little else does.
There was no time to feel fear, no time to think at all. The moves I'd
been taught by Shigeru and by Matsuda came to my sword through my arm
but not by my conscious will. Once Nariaki was dead, I turned to Shun.
Blinking the sweat from my eyes, I saw Jo-An at his head; the outcast
held my enemy's horse too.
"Get them out of the way," I shouted. Hiroshi had been right about the
terrain. As the Tohan and Seishuu troops were driven back and we
advanced, the crush intensified. Terrified horses stumbled in holes,
breaking their legs, or were forced up against boulders, unable to go
forward or back, panicking.
Jo-An scrambled like a monkey onto Shun's back and forced his way
through the milling men. From time to time I was aware of him, moving
through the fray, taking riderless, panic-stricken animals to the
forest. As he'd said, there are many tasks in a battle besides killing.
Soon I could see the Otori and Maruyama banners ahead of us, and I saw
the Miyoshi crest too. The army between us was trapped. They continued
to fight savagely, but they had no way out and no hope.
I don't think one of them escaped alive. The river foamed red with
their blood. After it was all over and silence had descended, the
outcasts took care of the bodies and laid them out in rows. When we met
up with Sugita we walked along the lines of the dead, and he was able
to identify many of them. Jo-An and his men had already taken charge of
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dozens of horses. Now they stripped the dead of their weapons and armor
and arranged to burn the corpses.
The day had passed without my noticing time. It must have been the Hour
of the Dog; the battle had lasted five or six hours. Our armies had
been roughly equal: a little under two thousand men on each side. But
the Tohan had lost all of theirs, while we had less than a hundred dead
and two hundred wounded.
Jo-An brought Shun back to me and I rode with Sugita into the
forest where Kaede had been waiting. Manami had managed to set up camp
with her usual efficiency and had lit a fire and boiled water. Kaede
knelt on a carpet beneath the trees. We could see her figure through
the silver-gray trunks of the beeches, cloaked by her hair, her back
straight. As we drew nearer I saw that her eyes were closed.
Manami came to meet us, her eyes bright and red-rimmed. "She has been
praying," she whispered. "She has sat like that for hours."
I dismounted and called her name. Kaede opened her eyes and joy
and relief leaped into her face. She bowed her head to the ground, her
lips moving in silent thanks. I knelt before her and Sugita did
likewise.
"We have won a great victory," he said. "lida Nariaki is dead, and
nothing now will stop you from taking possession of your domain at
Maruyama."
"I am immensely grateful to you for your loyalty and courage," she
said to him, and then turned to me.
"Are you hurt?"
"I don't think so." The frenzy of battle was fading and I was aching
all over. My ears were ringing, and the smell of blood and death that
clung to me was nauseating me. Kaede looked unattainably clean and pure.
"I prayed for your safety," she said, her voice low. Sugita's presence
made us awkward with each other.
"Take some tea," Manami urged us. I realized my mouth was completely
dry, my lips caked with blood.
"We are so dirty..." I began, but she put the cup in my hand and
I drank it gratefully.
It was past sunset and the evening light was clear and tinged with
blue. The wind had dropped and birds were singing their last songs of
the day. I heard a rustling in the grass and looked up to see a hare
cross the clearing in the distance. I drank the tea and looked at the
hare. It gazed back at me with its large, wild eyes for many moments
before it bounded away. The tea's taste was smoky and bitter.
Two battles lay behind us, three ahead, if the prophecy was to be
believed: Two now to win and one to lose.
One month earlier, after Shirakawa Kaede had left with the Miyoshi
brothers to go to the temple guest house at Terayama, Muto Shizuka had
set out for the secret village of her Tribe family, hidden in the
mountains on the far side of Yamagata. Kaede had wept when they said
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farewell to each other, had pressed money on Shizuka and insisted she
take one of the packhorses and send it back when she could, but Shizuka
knew she would be quickly forgotten once Kaede was with Takeo.
Shizuka was deeply uneasy about leaving Kaede and about the impetuous
decision to marry Takeo. She rode silently, brooding on the madness of
love and the disaster the marriage would be to them. She had no doubt
they would marry: Now that fate had brought them together again,
nothing would stop them. But she feared for them once Arai heard the
news. And when her thoughts turned to Lord Fujiwara, a chill came over
her despite the spring sunshine. She knew he could only be insulted and
outraged, and she dreaded what he might do in revenge.
Kondo rode with her, his mood no better than hers. He seemed distressed
and annoyed at being dismissed so suddenly. Several times he said, "She
could have trusted me! After all I've done for her! I swore allegiance
to her, after all. I would never do anything to harm her."
Kaede's spell has fallen on him too, Shizuka thought. He's been
flattered by her reliance on him. She turned to him so often; now she
will turn to Takeo.
"It was Takeo's order that we leave," she told him. "He is right. He
cannot trust any one of us."
"What a mess," Kondo said gloomily. "Where shall I go now, I wonder. I
liked it with Lady Shirakawa. The place suited me." He threw his head
back and sniffed.
"The Muto family may have new instructions for both of us," Shizuka
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