Arai was a sensual man with a prodigious appetite for all life had to offer, and enough good taste to demand the best. He knew of the Tribe-had heard them spoken of-but thought they were some sort of guild, no more. Shizuka never told him that she had been born into the Tribe, was related to the Masters of both the Muto and the Kikuta families, had inherited many skills, and had been sent to Kumamoto as a spy.
Both families at that time were employed by Iida Sadamu as spies and assassins; and through them, Iida-determined to deal with his traditional enemies the Otori, and in particular with the man he had come to hate more than anyone else in the Three Countries, Otori Shigeru-kept a close watch on the movements and intentions of the Seishuu in the West.
In the early spring, Shizuka sought her lord’s permission to visit her relatives in Yamagata. She would have visited them without his permission, but it suited her to plead with Arai and then express her gratitude for his generosity. She had received a request to visit from her family there. She had much to report to her father’s younger brother, Muto Kenji, who was about to take over the Mastership of the family from her grandfather, and a personal matter to discuss with him, one that filled her with a mixture of joy and trepidation.
She went by the same route she had traveled with Arai when they had gone to Kibi to meet Shigeru, but she already knew that she would be returning by the more easterly road through Hofu and Noguchi. She did not know what the purpose of the mission was to be but suspected it would be some secret communication between Iida and the Noguchi family, something so secret it called for the most skilled of messengers.
She went straight to the main Muto house in Yamagata and was greeted with warmth and hardly given time to wash the dust from her feet before her uncle’s wife, Seiko, said, “Kenji wants to talk to you as soon as possible. I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Shizuka followed her aunt into the interior of the house, through the shop where a cheerful older woman was packing soybean paste into wooden containers and a thin man was using an abacus and writing accounts on a scroll. The smell of fermenting beans pervaded the whole house. She could picture the vats in the sheds behind, weighted down with boulders to press the essence from the beans.
“Could I just have a mouthful of rice,” Shizuka said. “The journey has made me feel a little nauseated. If I eat something, it will pass.”
Seiko looked at her sharply and raised her eyebrows. “Do you have news for us?”
Shizuka tried to smile. “I should speak to my uncle first.”
“Yes, of course. Come and sit down. I’ll bring food and tea, and Kenji will come to you in a little while.”
Her uncle was twenty-six years of age, only eight years older than she. Like most of the Muto family, his appearance was unremarkable, his height average, his build deceptively slight. He managed to convey a mild, almost scholarly air and could discuss art and philosophy endlessly. He enjoyed wine and women but never got drunk and apparently never fell in love, though there were rumors that he had been enthralled by a fox-woman in his youth. For this reason he was sometimes known by the nickname the Fox. He had been married for several years to Seiko, who was from the Muto family, too, and they had one child-a girl of about eight years, Yuki. It was commonly held to be a disaster that Kenji had no more children, legitimate or illegitimate. It was certainly not due to any lack of activity on his part, though the old women of the Tribe muttered that he scattered his seed too liberally, that he should concentrate on one field and sow that. In him all the ancient skills of the Tribe seemed to have been concentrated to an unusually high degree, along with the equally important character traits of ruthlessness and cynicism, and for those traits not to be passed on to future generations was considered unfortunate in the extreme. Everyone’s hopes were pinned on Yuki, and she was spoiled, in particular by her father, though her mother was less indulgent. The girl was already showing signs of great talent, but she was headstrong and self-willed. Shizuka knew that it was feared she would not live long enough to have children of her own but would meet an early death through her own recklessness or carelessness. Talents were of no use unless they were linked with character and controlled by training.
Yuki came running in now, a tray in her hands.
“Careful, careful,” Shizuka said, taking it from her.
“Cousin!” the girl cried. “Welcome!”
Her face was vivid, dark-eyed and heavy-browed. Not beautiful, but full of life and energy. Her hair was thick, and she wore it plaited.
“Mother said you were hungry. We have been making rice balls. Here, eat. This one is salted plum, and this one dried octopus.”
Shizuka knelt and set the tray on the floor. Yuki knelt down beside her, waited with hardly concealed impatience for Shizuka to help herself, then took a rice ball and crammed it into her mouth. Almost immediately, she leaped to her feet again and announced that she would bring tea and, running from the room, collided with her mother. Seiko just managed to rescue the tray, laden with tea and cups; she placed it on the floor and gave her daughter a slap.
“Go and tell your father his niece is here,” she screeched. “And walk, like a girl should!
“She drives me mad,” Seiko said to Shizuka. “Sometimes I think she is possessed. Of course, her father spoils her. He wishes she was a boy and treats her like one. But she’s not going to grow up to be a man, is she? She’ll be a woman, and she has to know how to behave like one. Take my advice, Shizuka: If you have children, make sure you have sons.”
“If only one could choose,” Shizuka said, without smiling. She took the bowl of tea and drank.
“Seedlings can be thinned out,” Seiko commented, referring to the practice common among villagers of leaving newborn infants to die, especially if there were too many girls already.
“But all the children of the Tribe are valued,” Shizuka replied. “Girls as much as boys.” She felt suddenly cold and feared she might vomit; a year ago she had been given a brew of herbs by Seiko in this very house. All the fibers of her body trembled at the memory.
“If they are talented. And obedient.” Seiko sighed. They heard Yuki’s footsteps, pounding like a pony across the yard. The little girl stopped abruptly and stepped out of her sandals onto the boards of the veranda with exaggerated decorum. She came into the room, bowed gracefully to Shizuka, and said, using formal language, “My father will attend on you presently.”
“There,” Seiko said approvingly. “You can behave nicely when you want to. Be like your cousin. See how pretty Shizuka looks, how elegant her clothes are. Do you know, she has captured the heart of a mighty warrior with her charms. You would never know she has the ruthlessness and the fighting skills of a man!”
“I wish I were a boy!”Yuki said to Shizuka.
“To tell you the truth, I wished the same thing at your age,” Shizuka replied. “But if it is our fate to be born into a woman’s body, we must make the best of it. Be thankful you were born into the Tribe. If you study and train hard, you will have a better life than any woman of the warrior class.” And if you are obedient and do exactly as you are told.
“I am to go away this summer,” Yuki said, her eyes glowing. “I am going to my grandparents in the secret village.”
“You will have to behave there!” her mother told her. “Your father will not be there to run to every time you don’t get your own way.”
“It will be the making of her,” Shizuka said, remembering the years she herself had spent in the Tribe village, Kagemura, in the mountains behind Yamagata, developing her talents and learning all the skills of the Tribe. “She has a great future ahead of her.”