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brothers in Inuyama, telling them that they would be more use to him there,
and that they were to send messengers immediately if any news came from Taku.
'Jun and Shin are not happy,' Minoru reported. 'They asked me what they had
done to lose Lord Otori's trust.'
'There are no Tribe families in Miyako,' Takeo replied. 'Really, I have no
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need of them there. But you know, Minoru, that my trust in them has been
eroded: not through any failing of theirs, simply that I know their first
loyalty will be to the Tribe.'
'I think you could have more confidence in them,' Minoru said.
'Well, maybe I am saving them from a painful choice, and they will thank me
one day,' Takeo said lightly, but in fact he missed his two Tribe guards,
feeling naked and unprotected without them.
Four days out of Inuyama they rode past Hinode, the village where he had
rested with Shigeru on the morning after their flight from Iida Sadamu's
soldiers and the burning village of Mino.
'My birthplace lies a day's journey from here,' he remarked to Gemba. 'I have
not been this way in nearly eighteen years. I wonder if the village still
exists. It was there that Shigeru saved my life.'
Where my sister Madaren was born, he reminded himself, where I was raised as
one of the Hidden.
'I wonder how I dare appear before the Emperor. They will all despise me for
my birth.'
He and Gemba rode side by side on the narrow track, and he spoke in a low
voice so that no one else would hear. Gemba glanced at him and replied, 'You
know I
have brought from Terayama all the documents that testify to your descent:
that Lord Shigemori was your grandfather, and that your adoption by Shigeru
was legal - and endorsed by the clan. No one can question your legitimacy.'
'Yet the Emperor already has.'
'You bear the Otori sword, and have been blessed with all the signs of
Heaven's approval.' Gemba smiled. 'You probably weren't aware of the
astonishment in Hagi when Shigeru brought you home: you were so like Takeshi.
It seemed like a miracle: Takeshi had lived with our family for some time
before he died. He was my elder brother Kahei's best friend. It was like
losing a beloved brother. But our grief was nothing to Lord Shigeru's, and it
was the final blow of many.'
'Yes, Chiyo told me the story of his many losses. His life seemed full of
grief and undeserved ill fortune; yet he gave no sign of it. I remember
something he said the night I first met Kenji: I am not made for despair. I
often think of those words, and of his courage when we rode to Inuyama under
the eye of Abe and his men.'
'You must tell yourself the same thing: you are not made for despair.'
Takeo said, 'That is how I must appear, yet, as with so much of my life, it is
a pretence.'
Gemba laughed. 'It's lucky your many skills include mimicry. Don't
underestimate yourself. Your nature is possibly darker than Shigeru's, but it
is no less powerful. Look at what you have achieved: nearly sixteen years of
peace. You and your wife have brought together all the warring factions of the
Three Countries; between you you hold the realm's well being in perfect
balance. Your daughter is your right hand, your wife supports you
completely at home. Have confidence in them. You will impress the Emperor's
court as only you can. Believe me.' Gemba fell silent and after a few moments
resumed his patient humming.
The words were more than comforting; they acted as some kind of release, not
allaying the anxiety but enabling Takeo to dominate it, and eventually to
transcend it. As the man's mind and body relaxed, so did the horse's: Tenba
lowered his neck and lengthened his stride as the miles were swallowed up, day
after day.
Takeo felt all his senses awaken: his hearing became as acute as when he was
seventeen; the eye and hand of the artist began to reassert themselves. When
he dictated letters at night to Minoru he yearned to take the brush from him.
Sometimes he did, and in the same way as he wrote, supporting the maimed right
hand with the left and holding the brush between his two remaining fingers, he
would sketch quickly some scene imprinted on his mind during the day's ride: a
flock of crows flying among cedars, a chain of geese like foreign writing
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above a curiously shaped crag, a flycatcher and a bellflower against a dark
rock. Minoru gathered the sketches and sent them with the letters to Kaede,
and Takeo recalled the drawing of the flycatcher he had given her so many
years ago at Terayama. The disability had prevented him from painting for a
long time, but learning to overcome it had honed his natural talent into a
unique and striking style.
The road from Inuyama to the border was well maintained and broad enough for
three to ride abreast. Its surface was trodden smooth, for Miyoshi Kahei had
come this way just a few weeks previously with the advance guard of the army,
about one thousand men, most of them horsemen, as well as supplies on
packhorses and ox
carts. The rest would move up from Inuyama over the next few weeks. The border
country was mountainous. Apart from the pass through which they would travel,
the peaks were inaccessible. To keep so large an army in readiness throughout
the summer would demand huge resources, and many of the foot soldiers came
from villages where the harvest would not be brought in without their labour
in the fields.
Takeo and his retinue met up with Kahei on an upland plain just below the
pass. It was still cold, the grass splashed with white in places with the last
of the snow, the water in streams and pools icy. A small border post was
established here, though not many travellers made the journey from the East by
land, preferring to sail from Akashi. The High Cloud Range provided a natural
barrier behind which the Three Countries had sheltered for years, ignored,
until now, by the rest of the country, neither ruled nor protected by their
nominal Emperor.
The encampment was orderly and well prepared: the horses on their lines, men
well armed and trained. The plain had been transformed, with palisades erected
in arrow-head formation along each flank and storehouses swiftly constructed
to protect the provisions from weather and animals.
'There is enough room at the head of the plain for bowmen,' Kahei said. 'But
we also have sufficient firearms when the foot soldiers come up from Inuyama
to defend the road for miles behind us, as well as the surrounding
countryside. We will set up a series of blockades. But if' they fall out into
the surrounding terrain, we will use horses and swords.'
He added, 'Do we have any idea what weapons they have?'
'They have had barely a year to acquire or forge firearms and train men to use
them,' Takeo replied. 'We must be superior in that. We must have bowmen too:
firearms are too unreliable in the rain or wind. But I hope to be able to send
messages to you. I will find out all I can - except that I must at all times
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