His adversary was fast, strong, and cunning-a fighter of great ability, possibly the most skillful Shigeru had ever encountered apart from Matsuda Shingen. In brief moments between the complete concentration of the fight, he wondered why Harada remained apart from it. This was no ordinary challenge but an unprovoked surprise attack. There was no honor involved. As he felt himself begin to tire, he wondered if Harada had in fact betrayed him, had lured him to this place precisely for such an attack. But the fern, no one knew of that-had she betrayed him? The thought filled him with such rage and despair that it gave him supernatural power. He drove at his opponent with fury, forcing the man to retreat a few steps onto the veranda. Here the boy, with great resourcefulness, thrust a pole between his legs and tripped him up, while the girl threw the teakettle full in his face.
Shigeru finished him off, Jato taking his head. He was astonished by the intervention of the pair-normally villagers took no part in warriors’ battles, large or small. He would have expected these two to run away and hide. The boy was trembling, perhaps partly at his own temerity, but he said to his sister, “Go and tell Father,” and then, “Are you hurt, Lord Ot-” He broke off. “Sir, I mean!”
“No. I thank you.” He was breathing hard, still in the grip of the shock and intensity of the sudden attack. “Help me carry the bodies outside. And bring water. We will wash the blood before it stains the floor.”
“How did they dare!” the boy exclaimed. “To attack you within the shrine! Truly the god punished them!”
“With your help,” Shigeru added.
“It was wrong of me! I should not have interfered. But I was so angry.”
With Harada’s help, they dragged the bodies beyond the shrine precinct, and the boy brought water from the spring and sluiced the floor. The dead men stared with sightless eyes while their blood turned the clear water pink.
“Who were they?” Shigeru said to Harada.
“Lord Otori; I have no idea. This had nothing to do with me, I swear it.”
“Then why did you bring me to this place? And leave me to fight them alone?”
“You suggested the meeting place,” Harada said hurriedly. “I could not have known-”
“You had time to inform your accomplices.”
“I did not! I would never betray you. You know who sent me. Sh-they are your ally. They have already proved that.”
“Yet you stood aside and did nothing.”
“This is what I wished to explain to Lord Otori. There is this matter I have to speak to you about.” Harada glanced around-the sound of scrubbing came from the shrine hall where the boy was fully occupied. The girl had not yet returned with her father. Harada said swiftly, “I have to ask you to release me from your service.”
“You seem to have released yourself already!” Shigeru accused him. “No arms, no fighting spirit. What has happened to you?”
“I have taken a vow never to kill again,” Harada replied quietly. “That is why I ask you to release me. I can no longer serve you as a warrior should.”
“So you have become one of the Hidden,” Shigeru said. He recalled how this thought had occurred to him months ago, before the battle: he had wondered then what effect it would have on the allegiance of a warrior like Harada.
“I was wounded at Yaegahara,” Harada said, touching his empty eyesocket. “When I lay near death, I had a vision. A being called to me out of a white light and told me I was to live and to serve only him. I felt God had spoken to me. It seemed a miracle that I was not discovered and killed by the Tohan, a miracle that I recovered-proof of the truth of the vision. I made my way to Maruyama and found Nesutoro and Mari. They taught me about the Secret God and gave me rebirth in their custom through water. I took the name Tomasu, after the man I carried on my back. Forgive me, Lord Otori. I cannot serve both the Secret One and you. I will never kill again; nor am I permitted to kill myself. I will understand if you feel it necessary to take my life, and I pray that the Secret One will forgive you.”
Shigeru listened to this speech with mounting consternation. Harada was obviously completely sincere: in the past he had believed the man to be dogged in his devotion. Out of all the men he had known, Harada had a single-mindedness and simplicity about him: he was not given to fanciful imaginings; only the deepest conviction could lead him to take this extraordinary step and ask to be released from his allegiance. Only such a conviction, verging on madness, could make him stand by passively while his liege lord, the head of his clan, was attacked and nearly murdered.
His feelings also included embarrassment and an obscure sense of shame. His own warrior had failed him, while two peasant children had come to his aid. Truly his world had been turned upside down! And Harada’s world as well. But how could the man bear to live under such humiliation? It would surely be doing him a favor to release him into death, where he could commune with white lights and secret gods as much as he liked.
Harada seemed to read his thoughts and extended his neck. His eyes were closed; he said a few words quietly, and Shigeru recalled hearing them before, spoken by Nesutoro at the time of death of his wife and children and friends-the prayers the Hidden speak at the moment of their passing. He remembered his insight that the pruned bush grows more vigorously. Despite Iida’s fiercest attempts to eradicate them, the Hidden still spread; their numbers increased. He had thought it an obscure belief of the downtrodden, the lowest levels of society: but it had emerged in one of his own warriors.
His hand had been on Jato’s hilt, and he had been about to wield it. But now he let his hand drop to his side.
“I ask one final service of you,” he said. “Take my reply back. Once that is done, I release you from all obligations to me. You are no longer part of the Otori clan.”
The words struck him as appalling. He had never said them to anyone in his life. Harada had made himself masterless, a man of the waves, as it was said, by his own choice.
“There will be other ways I can serve you,” Harada murmured.
“Go now,” Shigeru ordered him, “before anyone else knows you came. Farewell.”
Harada got to his feet, muttering words of thanks, and walked swiftly away. For a while silence returned to the shrine, apart from the splash of water and the hollow echo of the bucket, the wind in the oaks, and the rustle as leaves fell. A thrush sang loudly. The air was growing cold, almost as if there would be a frost.
In the distance, Shigeru could hear people approaching. The young girl came running up the hill, followed by her father and most of the men of the village. They carried sticks, staves, and mattocks, and their faces were set in anger.
“These men came to the village earlier,” the priest said. “They asked for Lord Otori. We told them nothing, except to look for him in Hagi. But they must have hidden in the forest and followed you here.”
“Who would dare to do such a thing!” one of the younger men exclaimed.
“We know who would dare!” another replied, raising his sickle. “We should go to Hagi ourselves and protest.”
Shigeru did not recognize the dead men. They wore no crests on their clothes, and when the bodies were stripped, they had no tattoos or other marks save the scars of old wounds. Kenji’s warning came back vividly to him.
“Could they have been bandits?” he asked the priest. If bands of masterless men were operating openly so close to Hagi, they would have to be dealt with.
“I suppose it’s possible,” the man replied. “Many warriors were left without lords or land after Yaegahara. But we have not been attacked; nor have we heard of any such bands in these mountains. I am afraid you were their chosen target,” he added. “We will show those in Hagi that such actions will not be tolerated in the Middle Country.”