CHAPTER FIFTY

A BELL ON THE END OF A POLE

On the road to Nissaka, at the pass called the Middle Mountain of Little Night, a cluster of tiny shops sold the sweet rice cakes that were the local specialty. The hour was late, and all the shops had closed but this one. Its lantern was a welcome beacon in the darkness.

As Cat bought the rice cakes, wrapped in bamboo sheaths, she could see the proprietress’s children sitting around a small firewell in the platform at the rear of the single room. Their belongings hung on pegs or lay scattered about. The exposed and homely clutter of the shop seemed especially poignant against the wilderness that surrounded it.

As Cat and Kasane left, the proprietress extinguished the flame in the lantern out front. Then she slid the heavy wooden shutters across the shop’s wide front opening, leaving Cat and Kasane feeling alone and abandoned. But the light from their small travel lantern cheered them as it skipped and slid along the rocky path. The lantern’s glow threw into relief portions of the huge cryptomeria trees around them. The deep shadows just beyond the trees made them seem even more immense and mysterious.

Kasane peered nervously into the darkness beyond the massive trunks. She knew of an astonishing array of supernatural beings. To pass the long miles she had told Cat stories of those who lived in rivers and streams and wells or who lurked around bridges and gates and even privies. But according to Kasane, more varieties of demons, ogres, and ghosts lived in the mountains than everywhere else put together. On this particular stretch of mountain road Kasane was apprehensive about tengu, the long-nosed devils who inhabited cryptomeria trees.

“Teach me a song.” Cat didn’t want to hear any of Kasane’s terrifying stories here.

Kasane thought a moment. “They sing this one in my village.” She gathered her confidence, then sang in her high, sweet tremolo.

There are men you marry
And life is boring.
There are men you don’t marry
And love consumes you.

“Shame is thrown aside when one travels.” Cat smiled at her. “You must be thinking of your Traveler and not the man you’re betrothed to.”

Kasane blushed.

“Beware of men who want a marriage not entered in the temple registry, elder sister.”

“I’ve met some of them.” Kasane’s breath caught in her chest at the thought of them.

She remembered the procurer peddling her from inn to inn. She remembered men poking her and pinching her as though she were a fish for the table. She remembered the pirate, probing to feel if she was intact, and her face grew hot.

They walked a while in silence, then Cat sang softly.

The loves of a short time ago
And the smoke of tobacco
After a while leave only ashes.

Its plaintive notes lingered in the stillness.

“It’s lovely, mistress. Did you learn it …” Kasane paused shyly.”In that place?”

“Yes.” When Cat told Kasane the story of her father’s death and her mother’s ruin, she had included her decision to sell herself into the pleasure district and Kira’s attempt to murder her there. Cat was amused by the fact that Kasane, who a day ago had known nothing about the Yoshiwara, was now as avid for fashionable gossip, Floating World—talk, as any jaded Edokko.

“Are the young men handsome in that place?” Kasane asked.

“Some of them are, I suppose.” Cat thought back on the many men she had entertained and the very few for whom she had consented to loosen her sash. She couldn’t recall a single face. It was as though they had never existed. “Lust is applauded in the Floating World,” she said. “But love is not permitted.” She thought of the other connotation of “Floating World,” an existence of suffering and impermanence. “If I could have supported my mother from hell, I would have preferred to go there.”

“Higher than the mountain, deeper than the sea.” Kasane didn’t have to elaborate. All children, high and low, learned the saying as soon as they could speak. It described the height, depth, and breadth of their obligation to their parents.

Cat also knew that Kasane must be unhappy about failing her own mother and father. “If fate allows it,” Cat said, “you will see your parents again.”

“The fallen blossom never returns to the branch,” Kasane murmured sadly.

When they came to a clearing in the trees, they sat on a large flat stone in the brilliant starlight. A shallow depression had been worn in the stone by the countless other travelers who had rested there. Kasane put out the flame to save oil, and soon their eyes became accustomed to the light from the stars. As they cooled down after the exertion of walking, they doubled their travel cloaks and sat under them, shoulder to shoulder, to share their body heat. Cat unwrapped a rice cake and handed half to Kasane.

In a niche cut in the rock face beside them stood a weathered stone statue of Jiz, the guardian of travelers, pregnant women, and children. Jiz-sama was a comfort in such a lonely place. Some grieving mother who had lost a child had supplied him with a new bib and infant’s cap of red cloth. Worshipers had put pebbles on his shoulders and arms and heaped them at his feet.

In the afterlife, a hag-like demon stood at Sanzu, the River of the Three Ways, and reviled sinners crossing over to hell. She stole the clothes from the deceased children who came within her grasp. She forced them to pile stones endlessly on the river’s banks. To help Jiz-sama ease the children’s terrible burden, travelers had piled up the pebbles.

In the road in front of Cat and Kasane stood a rounded boulder, about head high and firmly planted. The boulder was spectral in the starlight, as though awash with silver made molten in cold fires.

“The guidebook says it’s called the Night-Weeping Stone.” Cat spoke in a hushed voice. The starlit scene was too chimerical to disturb with loud talk.

“Does it really weep?”

“So they say.” Cat divided a second rice cake with Kasane.

“One night, long ago, a woman heavy with child set out from Nissaka. She was headed for Kanaya to find her husband. At this very spot bandits attacked her and killed her.” Cat lowered her voice even further. “Blood fell on the stone, and it has wept ever since. They say it’s the dwelling place of the woman’s spirit.”

“Did they catch the murderers?”

“The merciful goddess Kannon-sama passed by disguised as a priest. She took the child from the dead woman’s body and raised him. Years later the son took revenge for his mother’s murder.”

“As you will avenge the spirit of your father, mistress.”

Cat stared at the haunted rock standing so lonely and eloquent in this desolate place. She savored the taste of sweet rice cakes shared with a young peasant woman who had become, she realized, a beloved companion.

“Sea Weed,” Cat said suddenly, softly. “My father called my mother Sea Weed.”

Kasane said nothing. Cat’s confession of something so personal was too astonishing for a reply.

“The name comes from his favorite poem.” Cat recited part of it in a voice strained with grief.

Pliant as the swaying sea tangle
She lies beside me,
The woman I love with a love
Deep as the ocean.

The ensuing silence was broken by the sound of running footsteps, a rhythmic crunch in the darkness on the road behind them. Maybe the steps belonged to a courier. Maybe they didn’t.

Cat tied her towel over her head and knotted it under her lower lip. She tugged the fold at her brow low to shroud her face in shadow. She loosened the iron cap over the blade of her spear but left it in place.

“We can hide in the bushes, mistress,” Kasane whispered. “They’ll pass without seeing us.”

“They’ll only meet us somewhere ahead, in a place not so secluded.” Cat moved to stand facing the northeast, with the Night-Weeping Stone at her back. She held her staff ready.

“You have a higher purpose.” Kasane was bolder now that Cat had entrusted her with the secret of her mission. A straightforward, albeit dangerous, elopement had turned into something much greater. And in any case, a good servant took an active interest in her mistress’s affairs. “Do not throw your life away before you’ve achieved it, my lady.”

“The warrior-priest Saigyo once asked, ‘Why regret leaving a world that merits no regrets?’” Cat smiled sadly at Kasane. “He said we save ourselves only when we cast ourselves away.”

Kasane sighed. She selected a rock from the road and twisted it into her towel. She swung it to test its heft and balance. She picked up another rock to throw and waited for an enemy to come within range.

They heard loud, rhythmic panting, then a lone figure rounded the bend. His face was shrouded by shadow and by the towel he wore low on his forehead. Cat couldn’t see that he was the young rnin who called himself Nameless, the one whose nose she had broken at the ferry. He had exchanged his clothes for those of a nondescript underling of the merchant class. His sword was inside the rolled sleeping mat on his back.

When Nameless saw Cat standing in the road, staff poised, he improvised. He yelped in surprise and dropped to his knees. Before he prostrated himself he yanked on the paper cord that suspended the cloth purse inside the front of his torn and faded jacket. He broke the cord and shied the clinking bag ahead of him. It skidded to a halt not far from Cat’s feet.

“In the name of the Merciful Buddha, most kind sir, have pity on me.” He had learned to disguise his west country dialect, but he hadn’t quite gotten the Edo accent right. His face was so low to the ground, though, that his body muffled his voice, which was trembling with exertion. “A thousand apologies for the thinness of my purse. May those few miserable coins help you in your time of need.”

“What are you doing on the road at night?” Cat asked sternly.”When honest folk are in their beds.”

“I’m just a miserable, poorly paid dry-goods clerk, Your Honor.” Nameless adopted the manner of a clerk who seemed to think he would be safe as long as he kept talking. “I heard the mysterious call to Ise and dropped the abacus and account book. My master was generous with his blessings, but he withheld aid of a more fiscal nature. I calculated that my finances would not fit around a leisurely journey to the holy shrine, so I decided to shrink the journey to accommodate my finances.”

“You’re traveling night and day?”

“As long as the moon and stars provide light, Your Honor. By running I’ll spend fewer days on the road, thereby eating less and requiring fewer nights’ lodging.”

“And has there been a holy call to Ise?”

“Oh, yes, Your Honor. The road to the east is as crowded with pilgrims as sardines in a tub. If you wait, you’ll soon meet far richer”—Nameless searched for a polite term for his situation—“clients than the poverty-stricken wretch you see before you.”

“I’m not a bandit, you simpleton,” Cat growled.

“Oh, I could tell you weren’t, kind sir.”

“No.” Cat smiled mischievously at his supine back. “I’m an ogre in disguise. And I have a particular fondness for the taste of human flesh.” She paused to see what effect that would have.

“We are not destined to live forever, Your Honor.” Nameless shook as though afflicted with ague.

“You’ve run so far already, you look stringy.” Cat poked his side with the butt of her staff. He curled up tighter. “I could boil you a year and still wear out my teeth on you.” As she talked Cat motioned for Kasane to hide in the bushes. “Can you count, Dry-Goods Clerk?”

“Surely, Your Honor. Counting is my speciality. It’s the only thing I can do.”

“Count slowly to eighty-eight in a loud voice.” Cat was becoming tired of his chatter. “Then pick up your purse and go. If you look up while you’re counting, I’ll shave your scrawny limbs into flakes like dried bonito and make soup of you.”

Nameless started counting, but he interrupted himself continually with pleas for mercy and sad stories of all the people who were depending on him and the intense grief his master would suffer if he didn’t return. Cat slipped a pilgrim’s gift of a small silver coin into his bag. On top of the bag she set the last rice cake wrapped in a bamboo sheath. Then she joined Kasane in the underbrush.

They stifled their laughter as they watched Nameless reach fifty, raise his head slightly, and look up. He stood cautiously and stared up the road. He turned and stared down it. Then he picked up his purse and retreated back the way he came.

“He’s a chatterer,” Kasane managed to gasp through her laughter. “A bell on the end of a pole.”

Cat and Kasane added pebbles to the piles at Jiz’s stubby bare feet. They each pressed their palms together in front of their faces, bowed low, and prayed to the smiling god for protection on the dark road across the mountain. Then, laughing softly, they continued their journey.