It had been a harder battle than Yaegahara, but it had not ended in defeat.
“I THINK I have found your Kikuta nephew.” Shizuka hardly waited for him to greet her or to take her safely inside the house before she whispered the news. It was almost the end of the sixth month. He had not expected visitors during the plum rains, but now that they were nearly over, he had been hoping daily that she would come.
“It has been such a long time!” he said, astonished by his pleasure in seeing her, astounded by her words. She herself was trembling with emotion.
“I had been worried about you,” he went on. “I had heard nothing from you for so long, and I have not seen Kenji this year.”
“Lord Shigeru, I don’t think I will be able to come again. I am afraid I am being watched. I came now only because this news was so important. And because I have been in Maruyama.”
“Is she well?”
“She is now, but last year… after your meeting at Terayama…”
She did not need to explain it to him; it was what he had feared each time they met.
“No!” he said. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead. Small spots danced in front of his eyes. He heard Shizuka speak as if from a great distance.
“She asks you to forgive her.”
“I should be asking for her forgiveness! All the difficulty of choice, the suffering was hers! I did not even know about it!” He felt rage such as he had not felt in years sweep through him. “I must kill Iida,” he said, “or die myself. We cannot continue living like this.”
“That is why I came to tell you about this boy. I think he is your nephew and Isamu’s son.”
Shigeru said, “Who is Isamu?”
“I have told you about him. His mother did work in the Hagi castle when your father was young. She must have been your father’s lover. She was married to a Kikuta cousin. Isamu, who was born in the first year of the marriage, turned out to have unbelievable Tribe skills, but he left the Tribe. No one ever does that. And then he died, but no one will say why. I think the Tribe killed him-that’s the usual punishment for disobedience.”
“And would be for you,” Shigeru said, amazed again at her fearlessness.
“If they ever find out! That’s why I can’t come to you anymore. I don’t think there is much more I can tell you anyway. You have your records now. You know more about the Tribe than any outsider ever has. But now this boy has appeared, among the Hidden in the East. The village is called Mino. He has an Otori look and Kikuta hands: he can only be Isamu’s son.”
“He is my nephew!” Shigeru said with a sort of wonderment. “I can’t leave him there!”
“No, you must go and get him. If the Tribe hear of him, they will certainly try to claim him, and if they don’t, he may well be massacred by Iida who is determined to eradicate the Hidden from all his domains.”
Shigeru remembered the tortured men and children he had seen with his own eyes, and his skin crawled with horror.
“And who knows, he may have inherited his father’s skills,” Shizuka said.
“He would become our assassin?”
She nodded, and they gazed at each other with excited eyes. He wanted to take her in his arms; it was more than gratitude, he realized, as desire for her flooded through him. He saw something in her expression and knew he had only to reach out to her and she would give herself to him; that they both desired it equally; that neither of them would ever mention it again and that it would be no betrayal, just a recognition of deep need. Lust engulfed him, for a woman’s body, a woman’s scent-her hands, her hair-she would rescue him from loneliness and grief. She would share his excitement and his hopes.
Neither of them moved.
The moment passed. Shizuka said, “For this reason also, I must not come again. We are becoming too close; you know what I mean.”
He nodded without speaking.
“Go to Mino,” she said. “Go as soon as possible.”
“I can never thank you for all you have done for me,” Shigeru said, speaking formally to hide his emotions. “I am in your debt forever.”
“I have risked my life for you,” Shizuka said. “I only ask that you make good use of it.”
After she left, Shigeru went to sit for a while in the garden. The air was humid and hot: not a leaf moved. From time to time a fish splashed. Cicadas droned. He realized his heart was pounding with far more than the sudden and unfulfilled desire-with excitement and anticipation. The boy was the piece in the game that opened up the way for a new attack, the unforeseen move that led to the downfall of the enemy. But more than that, the boy was the link between each of the separate seams of his life, the catalyst that united them all and opened them one to another. He was Lord Shigemori’s grandson, Shigeru’s closest relative, after Takeshi, his heir. He was the Tribe assassin’s son with the skills that would destroy Iida.
He could not sit still. He thought he would take one of the horses out; he needed to feel the animal’s rhythm while he made his plans. He had to share this news with someone; he would tell Takeshi.
Takeshi was in the former Mori water meadows with the colts, who were now in their sixth summer. He had broken them in two years before; he was riding the bay, whom he had named Kuri.
Shigeru called to him and Takeshi rode over.
“This horse is so clever,” he
