“These are Hidden,” Irie said behind him. “That is the prayer they use at the moment of death.”
When the dead were buried, while it was still light, Shigeru went with Irie to the top of the hill where the Tohan heads were laid out before the entrance to the shrine. The place was deserted, but signs of their enemies’ encampment were still evident-stores of food, rice and vegetables, cooking utensils, weapons, ropes, and other more sinister instruments. He gazed impassively on the dead, while Irie named those he recognized from their features or from the crests taken from their clothes and armor.
Two were, surprisingly to Shigeru, warriors of high rank: one, Maeda, closely related to the Iida family through marriage, the other, Honda. He wondered why such men should defile their reputation and honor by participating in torture. Had they been acting on Iida Sadayoshi’s orders? And what were the Hidden that they aroused this vindictiveness and cruelty? His mood was somber as he descended the steps again. He did not want to sleep near the shrine, tainted as it was with torture and death, and he sent Harada and some other men to look for alternative shelter. The one survivor of the atrocity was being looked after in the shade of a camphor laurel that grew on the bank. Shigeru went to him; fireflies were beginning to glitter in the blueness of twilight.
His face and head had been washed, and salve applied to the burns. The slashes in the skull oozed dark blood but looked clean. He was conscious, eyes open, staring upward at the dark shade of the tree, where the leaves were rustling slightly in the evening breeze.
Shigeru knelt beside him and spoke quietly.
“I hope your pain has been eased.”
The man’s head turned toward his voice. “Lord Otori.”
“I am sorry we could not save the others.”
“They are all dead, then?”
“Their suffering is over.”
The man said nothing for a moment. His eyes were already glistening and reddened. It was impossible to tell if he wept or not. He whispered something Shigeru could not quite hear, something about Heaven. Then he said more clearly, “We will all meet again.”
“What is your name?” Shigeru asked. “Do you have any other family?”
“Nesutoro,” he replied. The name was unfamiliar: Shigeru could not recall ever hearing it before.
“And the man who came to us?”
“Tomasu. Is he already dead too?”
“He had great courage.” It was the only consolation Shigeru could give.
“They all had courage,” Nesutoro replied. “Not one recanted; not one denied the Secret One. Now they sit at his feet in Paradise, in the land of the blessed.” He spoke in gasps, his voice rasping. “Last night the Tohan lit a great fire in front of the shrine. They taunted us, saying, ‘See where the light bursts forth in the east. Your god is coming to save you!’ ” Tears begin to well in his eyes then. “We believed it. We thought he would see our suffering and our fortitude and come for us. And we were not wholly wrong, for he sent you.”
“Too late, I’m afraid.”
“God’s ways are not for us to question. Lord Otori, you saved my life. I would offer it to you, but it already belongs to him.”
There was something in the way he said it, an attempt at humor that raised Shigeru’s spirits, almost comforted him. He felt an instinctive regard for this man, a recognition of his intelligence and character. At the same time the words bothered him. He did not fully understand the man’s meaning.
It was nearly dark by the time Harada returned, his men carrying torches that flamed and smoked, hastening nightfall. The village from which the Hidden had been taken lay a short distance away. Some of its buildings still offered shelter, though most had been destroyed during the Tohan attack. Many of its inhabitants had escaped, run away and hidden; they returned when they saw the Otori crest. A rough stretcher was made for the injured man, and two men carried him on foot while the rest rode, leading their horses and three others whose masters had died during the clash with the Tohan. A narrow stony track led from the hill along the side of the cultivated fields, following the course of the stream. The water babbled and sparkled in the torchlight; frogs were croaking among the reeds. The summer evening air was soft and caressing, but Shigeru’s mood was dark as they approached the village, and the sight of the destruction there angered him still more deeply. The Tohan had crossed the border and come deep into Otori land. They had tortured people who, whatever their beliefs, were Otori, and who had been unprotected by their own clan. He regretted that he had not acted earlier, that these attacks had not been punished before. If the Otori had not appeared so weak and indecisive, the Tohan would never have grown so bold. He knew he had been right to come, right to engage in the brief battle, but at the same time he was aware that the deaths of the Tohan warriors, especially those of Honda and Maeda, would enrage the Iida family and worsen relations between the two clans.
Grief and distress hung over the village. Women wept as they brought water and prepared food. Fifteen of their community had died-it must have been close to half-neighbors, friends, relatives.
Shigeru and his men were given makeshift accommodations within the small shrine, sitting under the carved figures and the votive pictures. The armor from the dead Tohan was presented to the shrine. The priest’s wife brought water to wash their feet, then tea made from roasted barley. Its pungent smell made Shigeru realize how hungry he was. It did not look as if much food would be available; he tried to put all thoughts of eating away. The gratitude of the villagers, the warmth of the welcome in the midst of suffering, only increased his unease, though he gave no outward sign of it, sitting impassively as the headman knelt before him to give his account.
“Every village from here as far as Chigawa has been attacked,” he said bitterly. He was a man of about thirty, blind in one eye but otherwise healthy and strong-looking. “The Tohan act as if this were already their land, exacting taxes, taking whatever they please, and trying to eradicate the Hidden as they do in Iida’s own domain.”
“Already?” Shigeru questioned.
“Forgive me, Lord Otori, I should not speak so bluntly, but polite lies don’t help anyone. Everyone fears the Iida plan to attack the Middle Country once they’ve unified the East. This must also be known in Hagi. For months we have been asking ourselves why no help comes, if we will be handed over to the Tohan by our own lords.”
“To what domain do you belong?”
“To Tsuwano-we send rice every year, but we are so far from them-only you and your father can save us. Help must come directly from Hagi. We thought you had already forgotten us. And anyway, Lord Kitano’s sons are in Inuyama.”
“I know it,” Shigeru replied, fighting to master his anger. Kitano’s ill-considered decision to send his sons to the Tohan capital had proved a fatal weakness in the Otori position. The boys were hostages in all but name: no wonder their father took no action on the eastern borders. Shigeru feared his former companions might pay for his attack with their lives, but the fault did not lie with him. It had been their father’s decision to send them away, a decision that Shigeru already regarded as near-treachery. If the outcome was the death of his sons, it would be no more than justice.
“If this sect fled from the East, they should be returned there,” Kiyoshige said, for no one was free just to walk away from their own land.
“It is true that some of the Hidden are from the East,” the headman replied. “But most have always lived here in the Middle Country and are of the Otori clan. The Tohan lie about them as they lie about everything.”