"It's often easier to claim from a dead man than a live one," Gosaburo added apologetically.

I did not know this easygoing, pleasure-loving, irresponsible man, and I did not want to kill him. But I did. A few days later I went at night to his house on the outskirts of town, silenced the dogs, went invisible, and slipped past the guards. The house was well barred but I waited for him outside the privy. I had been watching the house and I knew he always rose in the early hours to relieve himself. He was a large, fleshy man who'd long since given up any training and who had handed over the heavy work on the land to his sons. He'd grown soft. He died with hardly a sound.

When I untwisted the garrote, rain had started to fall. The tiles of the walls were slippery. The night was at its darkest. The rain could almost be sleet. I returned to the Kikuta house silenced by the darkness and the cold as if they had crept inside me and left a shadow on my soul.

Furoda's sons paid his debts, and Gosaburo was pleased with me. I let no one see how much the murder had disturbed me, but the next one was worse. It was on the orders of the Yoshida family. Determined to put a stop to the unrest among the villagers before winter, they put in a request for the leader to be eradicated. I knew the man, knew his secret fields, though I had not yet revealed them to anyone. Now I told Gosaburo and Akio where he could be found alone every evening, and they sent me to meet him there.

He had rice and sweet potatoes concealed in a small cave, cut into the side of the mountain and covered with stones and brushwood. He was working on the banks of the field when I came silently up the slope. I'd misjudged him: He was stronger than I thought, and he fought back with his hoe. As we struggled together, my hood slipped back and he saw my face. Recognition came into his eyes, mixed with a sort of horror. In that moment I used my second self, came behind him, and cut his throat, but I'd heard him call out to my image.

"Lord Shigeru!"

I was covered with blood, his and mine, and dizzy from the blow I'd not quite avoided. The hoe had glanced against my scalp and the sc.r.a.pe was bleeding freely. His words disturbed me deeply. Had he been calling to Shigeru's spirit for help, or had he seen my likeness and mistaken me for him? I wanted to question him, but his eyes stared blankly up at the twilight sky. He was beyond speech forever.

I went invisible and stayed so until I was nearly back at the Kikuta house, the longest period I had ever used it for. I would have stayed like that forever if I could. I could not forget the man's last words, and then I remembered what Shigeru had said, so long ago, in Hagi: I have never kilkd an unarmed man, nor killed for pleasure. I have never kilkd an unarmed man, nor killed for pleasure.

The clan lords were highly satisfied. The man's death had taken the heart out of the unrest. The villagers promptly became docile and obedient. Many of them would die of starvation before the end of winter. It was an excellent result, Gosaburo said.

But I began to dream of Shigeru every night. He entered the room and stood before me as if he had just come out of the river, blood and water streaming from him, saying nothing, his eyes fixed on me as if he were waiting for me-the same way he had waited with the patience of the heron for me to speak again.

Slowly it began to dawn on me that I could not bear the life I was living, but I did not know how to escape it. I had made a bargain with the Kikuta that I was now finding impossible to keep. I'd made the bargain in the heat of pa.s.sion, not expecting to live beyond that night, and with no understanding of my own self. I'd thought the Kikuta master, who seemed to know me, would help me resolve the deep divisions and contradictions of my nature, but he had sent me away to Matsue with Akio, where my life with the Tribe might be teaching me how to hide these contradictions but was doing nothing to solve them; they were merely being driven deeper inside me.

My black mood worsened when Yuki went away. She said nothing to me about it, just vanished one day. In the morning I heard her voice and her tread while we were at training. I heard her go to the front door and leave without bidding anyone farewell. I listened all day for her return, but she did not come back. I tried asking casually where she was; the replies were evasive and I did not want to question Akio or Gosaburo directly. I missed her deeply but was also relieved that I no longer had to face the question of whether to sleep with her or not. Every day since she had told me about Kaede I'd resolved I would not, and every night I did.

Two days later, while I was thinking about her during the meditation period at the end of the morning exercises, I heard one of the servants come to the door and call softly to Akio. He opened his eyes slowly and, with the air of calm composure that he always a.s.sumed after meditating (and which I was convinced was only a.s.sumed), he rose and went to the door.

"The master is here," the girl said. "He is waiting for you."

"Hey, Dog," Akio called to me. The others sat without moving a muscle, without looking up, as I stood. Akio jerked his head and I followed him to the main room of the house, where Kikuta Kotaro was drinking tea with Gosaburo.

We entered the room and bowed to the floor before him.

"Sit up," he said, and studied me for a few moments. Then he addressed Akio. "Have there been any problems?"

"Not really" Akio said, implying there had been quite a few.

"What about att.i.tude? You have no complaints?"

Akio shook his head slowly.

"Yet, before you left Yamagata... ?"

I felt that Kotaro was letting me know he knew everything about me.

"It was dealt with," Akio replied briefly.

"He's been quite useful to me," Gosaburo put in.

"I'm glad to hear it," Kotaro said dryly.

His brother got to his feet and excused himself-the pressures of business, the need to be in the shop. When he had left the master said, "I spoke to Yuki last night."

"Where is she?"

"That doesn't matter. But she told me something that disturbs me a little. We did not know that Shigeru went to Mino expressly to find you. He let Muto Kenji believe the encounter happened by chance."

He paused but I said nothing. I remembered the day Yuki had found this out, while she was cutting my hair. She had thought it important information, important enough to pa.s.s on to the master. No doubt she had told him everything else about me.

"It makes me suspect Shigeru had a greater knowledge of the Tribe than we realized," Kotaro said. "Is that true?"

"It's true that he knew who I was," I replied. "He had been friends with the Muto master for many years. That's all I know of his relationship with the Tribe."

"He never spoke to you of anything more?"

"No." I was lying. In fact Shigeru had told me more, the night we had talked in Tsuwano-that he had made it his business to find out about the Tribe and that he probably knew more about them than any other outsider. I had never shared this information with Kenji and I saw no reason to pa.s.s it on to Kotaro. Shigeru was dead, I was now bound to the Tribe, but I was not going to betray his secrets.

I tried to make my voice and face guileless and said, "Yuki asked me the same thing. What does it matter now?"

"We thought we knew Shigeru, knew his life," Kotaro answered. "He keeps surprising us, even after his death. He kept things hidden even from Kenji-the affair with Maruyama Naomi, for example. What else was he hiding?"

I shrugged slightly. I thought of Shigeru, nicknamed the Farmer, with his openhearted smile, his seeming frankness and simplicity. Everyone had misjudged him, especially the Tribe. He had been so much more than any of them had suspected.

"Is it possible that he kept records of what he knew about the Tribe?"

"He kept many records of all sorts of things," I said, sounding puzzled. "The seasons, his farming experiments, the land and crops, his retainers. Ichiro, his former teacher, helped him with them, but he often wrote himself."

I could see him, writing late into the night, the lamp flickering, the cold penetrating, his face alert and intelligent, quite different from its usual bland expression.

"The journeys he made-did you go with him?"

"No, apart from our flight from Mino."

"How often did he travel?"

"I'm not sure; while I was in Hagi he did not leave the city."

Kotaro grunted. Silence crept into the room. I could barely hear the others' breathing. From beyond came the noon sounds of shop and house, the click of the abacus, the voices of customers, peddlers crying in the street outside. The wind was rising, whistling under the eaves, shaking the screens. Already its breath held the hint of snow.

The master spoke finally. "It seems most likely that he did keep records, in which case they must be recovered. If they should fall into Arai's hands at this moment, it would be a disaster. You will have to go to Hagi. Find out if the records exist and bring them back here."

I could hardly believe it. I had thought I would never go there again. Now I was to be sent back to the house I loved so much.

"It's a matter of the nightingale floor," Kotaro said. "I believe Shigeru had one built around his house and you mastered it."

It seemed I was back there: I felt the heavy night air of the sixth month, saw myself run as silently as a ghost, heard Shigeru's voice: Can you do it again? Can you do it again?

I tried to keep my face under control, but I felt a flicker in the smile muscles.

"You must leave at once," Kotaro went on. "You have to get there and back before the snows begin. It's nearly the end of the year. By the middle of the first month both Hagi and Matsue will be closed by snow."

He had not sounded angry before, but now I realized he was- profoundly. Perhaps he had sensed my smile.

"Why did you never tell anyone this?" he demanded. "Why did you keep it from Kenji?"

I felt my own anger rise in response. "Lord Shigeru did so and I followed his lead. My first allegiance was to him. I would never have revealed something he wanted kept secret. I was one of the Otori then, after all."

"And still thinks he is," Akio put in. "It's a question of loyalties. It always will be with him." He added under his breath, "A dog only knows one master."

I turned my gaze on him, willing him to look at me so I could shut him up, put him to sleep, but after one swift, contemptuous glance, he stared at the floor again.

"Well, that will be proved one way or the other," Kotaro replied. "I think this mission will test your loyalties to the full. If this Ichiro knows of the existence and contents of the records, he'll have to be removed, of course."

I bowed without saying anything, wondering if my heart had been hardened to the extent where I could kill Ichiro, the old man who had been Shigeru's teacher and then mine: I'd thought I wanted to often enough when he was chastising me and forcing me to learn, but he was one of the Otori, one of Shigeru's household. I was bound to him by duty and loyalty as well as by my own grudging respect and, I realized now, affection.

At the same time I was exploring the master's anger, feeling its taste in my mouth. It had a quality to it that was like Akio's more or less permanent state of rage against me, as if they both hated and feared me. "The Kikuta were delighted to discover Isamu had left a son," Kenji's wife had said. If they were so delighted why were they so angry with me? But hadn't she also said, "We all were"? And then Yuki had told me of her mother's old feelings for Shintaro. Could his death really have delighted her?

She had seemed at that moment like a garrulous old woman, and I had taken her words at face value. But moments later she'd allowed me a glimpse of her skills. She'd been flattering me, stroking my vanity in the same way she'd stroked my temples with her phantom hands. The reaction of the Kikuta to my sudden appearance was darker and more complex than they would have me believe: Maybe they were delighted with my skills, but there was also something about me that alarmed them, and I still did not understand what it was.

The anger that should have cowed me into obedience instead made me more stubborn-indeed, struck fire on that stubbornness and gave me energy. I felt it coiled inside me as I wondered at the fate that was sending me back to Hagi.

"We are entering a dangerous time," the master said, studying me as if he could read my thoughts. "The Muto house in Yamagata was searched and ransacked. Someone suspected you had been there. However, Arai has returned to Inuyama now, and Hagi is a long way from there. It's a risk for you to return, but the risk of records coming into anyone else's hands is far greater."

"What if they aren't in Lord Shigeru's house? They could be hidden anywhere."

"Presumably, Ichiro will know. Question him, and bring them back from wherever they are."

"Am I to leave immediately?"

"The sooner the better."

"As an actor?"

"No actors travel at this time of year," Akio said scornfully. "Besides, we will go alone."

I'd been offering a silent prayer that he would not be coming with me. The master said, "Akio will accompany you. His grandfather- your grandfather-has died, and you are returning to Hagi for the memorial service."

"I would prefer not to travel with Akio," I said.

Akio drew his breath in sharply. Kotaro said, "There are no preferences for you. Only obedience."

I felt the stubbornness spark, and looked directly at him. He was staring into my eyes as he had once before: He had put me to sleep immediately then. But this time I could meet his gaze without giving into it. There was something behind his eyes that made him flinch slightly from me. I searched his look and a suspicion leaped into my mind.

This is the man who killed my father.

I felt a moment of terror at what I was doing, then my own gaze steadied and held. I bared my teeth, though I was far from smiling. I saw the master's look of astonishment and saw his vision cloud. Then Akio was on his feet, striking me in the face, almost knocking me to the ground.

"How dare you do that to the master? You have no respect, you sc.u.m."

Kotaro said, "Sit down, Akio."

My eyes snapped back to him, but he was not looking at me.

"I'm sorry, master," I said softly. "Forgive me."

We both knew my apology was hollow. He stood swiftly and covered the moment with anger.

"Ever since we located you we have been trying to protect you from yourself." He did not raise his voice but there was no mistaking his fury. "Not only for your own sake, of course. You know what your talents are and how useful they could be to us. But your upbringing, your mixed blood, your own character, all work against you. I thought training here would help, but we don't have time to continue it. Akio will go with you to Hagi and you will continue to obey him in all things. He is far more experienced than you; he knows where the safe houses are, whom to contact and who can be trusted."

He paused while I bowed in acceptance, and then went on, "You and I made a bargain at Inuyama. You chose to disobey my orders then and return to the castle. The results of Iida's death have not been good for us. We were far better off under him than under Arai. Apart from our own laws of obedience that any child learns before they turn seven, your life is already forfeit to me by your own promise."

I did not reply. I felt he was close to giving up on me, that his patience with me, the understanding of my nature that had calmed and soothed me, was running dry. As was my trust in him. The terrible suspicion lay in my mind; once it had arisen there was no eradicating it: My father had died at the hands of the Tribe, maybe even killed by Kotaro himself, because he had tried to leave them. Later I would realize that this explained many things about the Kikuta's dealings with me-their insistence on my obedience, their ambivalent att.i.tude to my skills, their contempt of my loyalty to Shigeru-but at that time it only increased my depression. Akio hated me, I had insulted and offended the Kikuta master, Yuki had left me, Kaede was probably dead... I did not want to go on with the list. I gazed with unseeing eyes at the floor while Kikuta and Akio discussed details of the journey.

We left the following morning. There were many travelers on the road, taking advantage of the last weeks before the snow fell, going home for the New Year Festival. We mingled with them, two brothers returning to our hometown for a funeral. It was no hardship to pretend to be overcome by grief. It seemed to have become my natural state. The only thing that lightened the blackness that enveloped me was the thought of seeing the house in Hagi and hearing for one last time its winter song.

My training partner, Hajime, traveled with us for the first day; he was on his way to join a wrestling stable for the winter to prepare for the spring tournaments. We stayed that night with the wrestlers and ate the evening meal with them. They consumed huge stews of vegetables and chicken, a meat they considered lucky because the chicken's hands never touch the ground, with noodles made of rice and buckwheat, more for each one than most families would eat in a week. Hajime, with his large bulk and calm face, resembled them already. He had been connected with this stable, which was run by the Kikuta, since he was a child, and the wrestlers treated him with teasing affection.

Before the meal we bathed with them in the vast steamy bathhouse, built across a scalding, sulfurous spring. Ma.s.seurs and trainers mingled among them, rubbing and scrubbing the ma.s.sive limbs and torsos. It was like being among a race of giants. They all knew Akio, of course, and treated him with ironic deference, because he was the boss's family, mixed with kindly scorn, because he was not a wrestler. Nothing was said about me, and n.o.body paid me any attention. They were absorbed in their own world. I obviously had only the slightest connection to it and therefore was of no interest to them.

So I said nothing, but listened. I overheard plans for the spring tournament, the hopes and desires of the wrestlers, the jokes whispered by the ma.s.seurs, the propositions made, spurned, or accepted. And much later, when Akio had ordered me to bed and I was already lying on a mat in the communal hall, I heard him and Hajime in the room below. They had decided to sit up for a while and drink together before they parted the next day.

I tuned out the snores of the wrestlers and concentrated on the voices below. I could hear them clearly through the floor. It always amazed me that Akio seemed to forget how acute my hearing was. I supposed he did not want to acknowledge my gifts, and this made him underestimate me. At first I thought it was a weakness in him, almost the only one; later it occurred to me that there were some things he might have wanted me to hear.

The conversation was commonplace-the training Hajime would undergo, the friends they'd caught up with-until the wine began to loosen their tongues.

"You'll go to Yamagata, presumably?" Hajime asked.

"Probably not. The Muto master is still in the mountains, and the house is empty."

"I a.s.sumed Yuki had gone back to her family."

"No, she's gone to the Kikuta village, north of Matsue. She'll stay there until the child is born."

"The child?" Hajime sounded as dumbfounded as I was.

There was a long silence. I heard Akio drink and swallow. When he spoke again his voice was much quieter. "She is carrying the Dog's child."

Hajime hissed through his teeth. "Sorry, Cousin, I don't want to upset you, but was that part of the plan?"

"Why should it not have been?"

"I always thought, you and she... that you would marry eventually."

"We have been promised to each other since we were children," Akio said. "We may still marry. The masters wanted her to sleep with him, to keep him quiet, to distract him, to get a child if possible."

If he felt pain he was not showing it. "I was to pretend suspicion and jealousy," he said flatly. "If the Dog knew he was being manipulated, he might never have gone with her. Well, I did not have to pretend it: I did not realize realize she would enjoy it so much. I could not believe how she was with him, seeking him out day and night like a b.i.t.c.h in heat-" His voice broke off. I heard him gulp down a cup of wine and heard the clink and gurgle of the flask as more was poured. she would enjoy it so much. I could not believe how she was with him, seeking him out day and night like a b.i.t.c.h in heat-" His voice broke off. I heard him gulp down a cup of wine and heard the clink and gurgle of the flask as more was poured.

"Good must come of it, though," Hajime suggested, his voice regaining some of its cheerfulness. "The child will inherit a rare combination of talents."

"So the Kikuta master thinks. And this child will be with us from birth. It will be raised properly, with none of the Dog's deficiencies."