He had come farther into the forest than ever before; there was no sun. He had no idea where he was; he hoped Kotaro would be as lost. He hoped his cousin would die here in the mountains on this lonely slope above a deep ravine. But he would not kill him. He who had killed so many times would never kill anyone again, not even to save his own life. He had made that vow, and he knew he was not going to break it.

The wind had shifted to the east and it had become much colder, but the pursuit had made Kotaro sweat; Isamu could see the gleaming drops as his cousin approached him. Neither of them breathed hard, despite their exertions. Beneath their deceptively slight build lay iron-hard muscles and years of training.

Kotaro stopped and drew a twig from within his jacket. He held it out, saying, “It’s nothing personal, cousin. I want to make that clear. The decision was made by the Kikuta family. We drew lots and I got the short piece. But whatever possessed you to try to leave the Tribe?”

When Isamu made no reply, Kotaro went on, “I assume that’s what you are trying to do. It’s the conclusion the whole family came to when we heard nothing from you for over a year, when you did not return to Inuyama or to the Middle Country, when you failed to carry out tasks assigned to you, commissioned-and paid for, I might add-by Iida Sadayoshi himself. Some argued that you were dead, but no one had reported it and I found it hard to believe. Who could kill you, Isamu? No one could get near enough to do it with knife or sword or garrote. You never fall asleep; you never get drunk. You have made yourself immune to all poisons; your body heals itself from all sickness. There’s never been an assassin like you in the history of the Tribe; even I admit your superiority, though it sticks in my gullet to say it. Now I find you here, very much alive, a very long way from where you are supposed to be. I have to accept that you have absconded from the Tribe, for which there is only one punishment.”

Isamu smiled slightly but still said nothing. Kotaro replaced the twig inside the front fold of his jacket. “I don’t want to kill you,” he said quietly. “That’s the judgment of the Kikuta family, unless you return with me. As I said, we drew lots.”

All the while his stance was alert, his eyes restless, his whole body tense in expectation of the coming fight.

Isamu said, “I don’t want to kill you either. But I will not return with you. You are right to say I have left the Tribe. I have left it forever. I will never go back.”

“Then I am under orders to execute you,” Kotaro said, speaking more formally, like one who delivers a sentence of justice. “For disobedience to your family and to the Tribe.”

“I understand,” Isamu replied, equally formally.

Neither of them moved. Kotaro was still sweating profusely despite the cold wind. Their eyes met and Isamu felt the power of his cousin’s gaze. Both of them possessed the ability to induce sleep in an opponent; both were equally adept at withstanding it. The silent struggle continued between them for many moments before Kotaro brought an end to it by pulling out his knife. His movements were clumsy and fumbling, with none of his usual dexterity.

“You must do what you have to do,” Isamu said. “I forgive you, and I pray Heaven will, too.”

His words seemed to unnerve Kotaro even further. “You forgive me? What sort of language is this? Who in the Tribe ever forgives anyone? There is either total obedience or punishment. If you have forgotten this you have turned stupid or mad-in any case the only cure is death!”

“I know all this as well as you. Just as I know I cannot escape you or this judgment. So carry it out, knowing that I absolve you from any guilt. I leave no one to avenge me. You will have been obedient to the Tribe and I… to my lord.”

“You will not defend yourself? You will not even try to fight me?” Kotaro demanded.

“If I try to fight you, I will almost certainly succeed in killing you. I think we both know that.” Isamu laughed. In all the years that he and Kotaro had striven with each other, he had never felt such power over the other man. He held his arms wide, his chest open and undefended. He was still laughing when the knife entered his heart; the pain flooded through him, the sky darkened, his lips formed the words of parting. He began the journey on which he in his time had sent so many others. His last thought was of the girl and for the warm body in which-though he did not know it-he had left a part of himself.

2

These were the years when the warlord Iida Sadayoshi, who employed so many members of the Tribe, including Kikuta Kotaro, was engaged in unifying the East of the Three Countries and compelling minor families and clans to submit to the triple oak leaf of the Tohan. The Middle Country had been held for hundreds of years by the Otori, and the current head of the clan, Lord Shigemori, had two young sons, Shigeru and Takeshi, and two discontented and ambitious half brothers, Shoichi and Masahiro.

Takeshi had been born the year Lady Otori turned thirty-two; many women were already holding their grandchildren by that age. She had been married to Shigemori when she was seventeen and he twenty-five. She had conceived a child almost immediately, giving great hope for a swift guarantee of succession, but the child, a boy, had been still-born, and the next, a girl, lived only a few hours after birth. Several miscarriages followed, all water-children consigned to the care of Jizo; it seemed her womb was too unstable to carry a living child to full term. Doctors, then priests, were consulted, and finally a shaman from the mountains. The doctors prescribed foods to strengthen the womb: sticky rice, eggs, and fermented soybeans; they advised against eating eel or any other lively fish and brewed teas that were reputed to have calming properties. The priests chanted prayers and filled the house with incense and talismans from distant shrines; the shaman tied a straw cord round her belly to hold the child in and forbade her from looking on the color red lest she revive the womb’s desire to bleed. Lord Shigemori was privately advised by his senior retainers to take a concubine-or several-but his half brothers Shoichi and Masahiro were inclined to oppose this idea, arguing that the Otori succession had always been through legitimate heirs; other clans might arrange their affairs differently, but the Otori, after all, were descended from the imperial family, and it would surely be an insult to the Emperor to create an illegitimate heir. The child could of course have been adopted and so legitimized, but Shoichi and Masahiro were not so loyal to their older brother that they did not harbor their own ideas about inheritance.

Chiyo, the senior maid in Lady Otori’s household, who had been her wet nurse and had brought her up, went secretly into the mountains to a shrine sacred to Kannon, and brought back a talisman woven from horsehair and strands of paper as light as gossamer and holding within it a spell, which she stitched into the hem of her lady’s night robe, saying nothing about it to anyone. When the child was conceived, Chiyo made sure her own regimen for a safe pregnancy was followed: rest, good food and no excitement, no doctors, priests, or shamans. Depressed by her many lost babies, Lady Otori held little hope for the life of this one; indeed, hardly anyone dared hope for a live child. When the child was born and it was a boy and, furthermore, showed every sign of intending to survive, Lord Shigemori’s joy and relief were extreme. Convinced the boy was born only to be taken from her, Lady Otori could not nurse the child herself. Chiyo’s daughter, who had just given birth to her second son, became his wet nurse. At two years old the child was named Shigeru.