When we returned to what I had to think of now as the Yamada compound, there were two messages waiting for me. The first was from Prince Kanemore, apologizing for the delay and estimating his return in about two weeks, though the date was not set in stone. The second was from Princess Tagako, requesting that I pay her a visit. Her letter, in poem form as was her first one to me, required an appropriate reply. In truth I had been thinking of writing to her myself, but the necessity of creating an appropriate poem had slowed me considerably. Nor was I really certain such an overture would be welcome. Princess Tagako’s poem had settled the latter, which pleased me greatly, even though I knew I was being foolish.
Before my response could be composed, however, there was a more immediate concern. We had no sooner rested a bit and refreshed ourselves when Kenji looked at me.
“Lord Yamada, about Princess Shigeko . . . ”
“Not here. Walk with me in the garden.”
When we were out of earshot of the veranda, Kenji smiled. “I don’t think you trust Master Takamasa.”
“On the contrary—I trust him to act according to his interests and nature, which he has already revealed to us. Why should I doubt his sincerity?”
“In other words, you believe Takamasa is a gossip, not a spy.”
“I hope he is not a spy, but if he overhears us discussing Princess Shigeko, the difference would not be very important.”
“About that . . . earlier today, did you mean to imply His Majesty might be the target of Princess Shigeko’s obsession?” Kenji asked. “What if the reason she is remaining is that she is waiting for her husband to visit her?”
I took a deep breath. “We cannot overlook the possibility. There are some aspects to this haunting that, yes, do parallel that of the unfortunate Hanako. Yet there are also important differences. Hanako did not harm anyone except her former husband. Shigeko-hime has indeed hurt people and yet spared others. This does not fit my understanding of an angry ghost. I was assuming too much in that direction. Fortunately, if by chance, Morofusa-san put things in perspective.”
Kenji scowled. “Neither, however, does it fit my very close and personal understanding of an obsessed ghost. Nor yours, if you consider the situation for more than a heartbeat.”
I shrugged. “Yet what does this leave us? As things stand, the nature of Shigeko-hime’s haunting fits nothing. There are echoes of one thing, then another. One would expect, as our information about the circumstances of Shigeko-hime’s character and the way of her passing grows, such understanding would serve as lanterns to illuminate the path we are to follow. So far we remain in darkness.”
“Clearly, we need more and better lanterns.”
“Perhaps there is some commonality in the people who were attacked. I understand one person survived. I need to speak to this person.”
Obviously, I could not contact Lord Fujiwara no Yorinobu openly. However, he had given me an alternative, but it was only to be used at great need. The condition for such, so far as I was concerned, was already met.
“I have some writing to do,” I said. “It may take some time.”
My face must have given everything away, for Kenji grinned. “Another poem? You are going to see Princess Tagako, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, knowing dissembling would only pique his curiosity.
“Well, well . . . ”
I frowned. “Kenji, whatever you are thinking, I know it is inappropriate.”
“Actually,” he said, “whatever your meeting with Her Highness may or may not imply, perhaps this will get your mind off the current problem for a little while. Such a respite might help you approach the problem from a different perspective.”
“Let us hope this is the case, as such is clearly needed.”
Kenji excused himself, though whether to study the sutras or flirt with the servants, I didn’t concern myself. There was still light enough to see and the day was not uncomfortably cool, I sent for a writing desk and had it brought to the veranda overlooking the garden. First I wrote a quick letter to my contact. I kept the request somewhat obscure but trusted Lord Yorinobu would understand my meaning. Then I unrolled Princess Tagako’s letter and re-read what she had sent to me:
The willow tree stands
Long branches in the bay breeze
Reaching to no one.
Clear as a sunny day. My reply needed to be the same.
Willow leaf blown on the wind,
Brushes the fisherman’s cheek.
I had interpreted Princess Tagako’s poem as saying she was lonely and wished for a visit. Perhaps I was wrong, since a returning saiō should rightly expect to be receiving a multitude of visitors, but under the circumstances I was willing to concede this might not be the case. Still, and not for the first time, I wished nobles of the court would follow Prince Kanemore’s example and simply say what they meant without the necessity of poetic translation. I wasn’t that good at it, either creating or interpreting, but I did the best I could. I gave the letter to a messenger to deliver. If I had interpreted her poem correctly, she would respond with a direct invitation. If not, she might not respond at all. Until the steps of this delicate and complex dance were settled, in the instances both of Tagako-hime and Lord Yorinobu, all I could do was wait.
Princess Teiko showed herself again that evening, or perhaps I dreamed her again. I was not sure. I remained on the veranda much later than I intended, and I eventually became aware of the ghost light returning to the garden, although I could no longer recall what I had been doing in those moments before. Instead of merely showing herself, however, she appeared before the veranda just as I had seen her last, in her traveling clothes and wide-brimmed hat ringed with a veil. As before, the veil was pulled aside. She smiled at me, and it was as if a hand of ice had closed around my heart.
“You are not done,” she said, as if this was not something she had said before. I was reminded, and not for the first time, how single-minded a ghost could be.
“I know,” I said because it was what I wanted to say. “When will I be done? When will your spirit find rest?”
“You will know this as well.”
That was a new thing. It had never occurred to me the moment would reveal itself to me. I had nightmares of Princess Teiko’s ghost simply disappearing, perhaps to rest, perhaps not, and never being certain which. Was this the real reason Princess Teiko appeared to me then?
I will know.
I hoped it would be true. But that moment, if it were to come, was not now.
“Highness . . . ”
I am still not certain what I intended to say, but Teiko was gone, and the word drifted away on the night breeze. I remembered I had a comfortable sleeping mat somewhere in that great pile of a house. I went to look for it.
“Are you sure this is where we were to go?” Kenji asked.
I was. The letter I received from Lord Yorinobu’s contact had been explicit—early afternoon, Gion-sha, at the east end of the Fourth Avenue. It was where I had first met Lady Snow, as she had been called in her disguise as an asobi, back before I knew her true identity, and before she tried to kill me.
Gion was one of the busiest shrines in the Capital, so it seemed an odd choice for a clandestine meeting, yet I knew sometimes the perfect place to hide was in a crowd. Kenji and I, along with Morofusa and Ujiyasu, made our way along the avenue. My plan to travel without attracting much interest so far appeared to be working. Morofusa would have preferred me in a palanquin surrounded by twenty or more bushi and attendants as was supposedly befitting my station, but a pair of bushi with one well-dressed but not ostentatious man and one nondescript priest was a better choice, in my view. If people thought about us at all, the most they might assume was I was some minor palace official out on an errand, no different than dozens of others.
Hiding in a crowd.
We paid our respects to the kami—Kenji pointedly not abstaining since, in his view, the gods were simply manifestations of worthies in his own tradition and thus due respect. Even so, I knew Kenji was never going to be comfortable in any shrine, and this wasn’t our main reason for being there in the first place. There was a broad avenue leading from the gate to the main shrine, with various structures along the way. We stopped at the one indicated, which was off the main course only slightly, near the edge of a cluster of maple trees. Their leaves had already turned red and gold as autumn took hold. Some had already begun to fall.
“Kenji is with me,” I said. “Gentlemen, please keep watch.”
I had to discourage Morofusa from first exploring the structure. I understood his concerns, but my instructions from the contact had been explicit. Kenji and I went inside.
The building was completely empty, save for a man in a robe and hood, kneeling there as if in meditation. We could not see his face.
“Shinjurou-san?”
He bowed. “Lord Yamada. I was instructed to answer your questions.” From the man’s voice I judged him to be of middle years at most, though without seeing him clearly, it was hard to be sure.
“I am grateful. Now—you were attacked by Princess Shigeko’s ghost?”
“I was attacked inside the mansion, yes,” he said.
I frowned. That wasn’t exactly the answer to the question I had asked. “Please answer the question as stated—did Princess Shigeko’s ghost attack you?”
He hesitated. “In all honesty, Lord Yamada, I am uncertain.”
“But you were familiar with her appearance, yes?” Kenji asked.
“Oh, certainly. I have been a servant to . . . my patron, all my life. I knew her from the time she was a child,” he said. “I knew her as a kind, gentle person. I never expected . . . ” His voice broke then.
While I had mentally prepared a host of questions to follow my first one, Shinjurou’s answers made me consider the possibility I was asking the wrong questions.
“Forgive me for not understanding. Perhaps if you were to describe what happened when you entered the mansion?”
I heard Shinjurou take a long breath. “My patron had attempted entry earlier that day and been denied. I volunteered to attempt the same later that afternoon. I had served as Commander of the Guard at her estate, and she knew me. When I entered, I first heard a scream. The scream . . . did sound like Princess Shigeko. I knew she was no more, but my instinct was to find her and aid her, so I rushed in. That was when I was attacked.”
I frowned. “But not by Princess Shigeko?”
He looked up at me. I could see his eyes but very little else of him. “Yamada-sama, what attacked me was a hideous monster, a twisted and distorted mockery of a human. As I said, I knew Shigeko-hime. I simply do not believe it could have been the princess.”
“But . . . who else could it have been?” Kenji asked. “Shigeko-hime was seen at the mansion, by people who recognized her.”
“I have no answer, sir,” he said. “All I can tell you is what little I know.”
“One person, as I understand it, died in the same attempt. May I ask how you escaped?”
“That’s the strangest part of all—I didn’t. I was thrown through the screen by a powerful force, and that was the only way I could have gotten free, as the creature was too strong for me. When I landed, I was knocked unconscious. It was several days before I came back to myself. It was only later I heard another had attempted the same as I and fared far worse.”
“How were you attacked? Blows? Choking?”
“Teeth, Lord Yamada.”
Teeth?
“Shinjurou-san, forgive me, but please let me see your face.”
“As you wish.”
Shinjurou slowly lowered his hood. I was just able to control my reaction. Kenji failed.
“Oh . . . ”
Shinjurou’s entire right cheek had been ripped open. Whoever had treated him had done a good job of closing the wound, but his face was bruised and swollen, and it was clear he had been a rather handsome man just past his prime. Now he was scarred for the rest of his life, but he was alive.
He smiled wistfully. “You see the result. There are others, at my shoulder and side, even worse than this, but of the same nature. I am grateful to have my life still, gentlemen, but I will never be the same.”
I bowed slightly. “I am sorry for what has happened to you and strongly wish to make certain it does not happen to anyone else. With your permission, I would like to examine your wounds in closer detail.”
“Whatever pride I had was lost in Princess Shigeko’s mansion. If it will help, please do so.”
I made a point of examining the wound in Shinjurou’s face without flinching, and shifted his robes so I could look in turn at those in left shoulder and side.
“Thank you. Before I forget—do you have any estimate as to the creature’s size? What it looked like? Please be as specific as you can be.”
“It sounds strange, considering what the thing was able to do, but I believe it was smaller than I am. Perhaps the size of a seven- or eight-year-old child? But once it pinned my arms, I could not break its grip. I was bitten three times as I struggled, the pain blurred my vision, so as for its appearance, I really cannot add anything to what I already told you. It was hideous—even more so than I am now—and twisted. It might remind one of a human, but it was not. That is all I know.”
Shinjurou-san, I think you may know more than you realize.
“I will pray for you,” Kenji said.
“Thank you, sir, but I will recover. I would consider it a great favor if you could pray for Shigeko-hime instead.”
When we had taken our leave and walked back through the main gate, Kenji paused. “Perhaps I will pray for both.”
“If you’re referring to Shinjurou-san and Shigeko-hime, you may have even more to do.”
Kenji frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“What Shinjurou-san just described to us was impossible.”
“Well, something took three enormous bites out of that poor man. What did he lie about?”
I smiled. “I wondered if you’d noticed the nature of those wounds. Yes, three big bites, but done with relatively small mouths, human-sized. And I never said he lied. I said what he described was impossible. Even assuming Shigeko’s specter is strong enough to pin a fully grown man, she simply could not have attacked him that way while keeping his arms pinned. The face? Easily. The shoulder? Yes. The side? Not unless she has a neck three feet long. Lord Yorinobu saw her ghost, remember? I think he would have spotted such a detail.”
“Are you forgetting the rokurokubi? Such a one could have done it easily.”
I was waiting for this. “Yes, but then consider Princess Shigeko’s situation. If her head went roaming about the palace at night on an impossibly long neck, do you think for a moment it wouldn’t have been spotted? Such a place never truly sleeps, there is always someone on duty or making rounds of the property, or rising before dawn to prepare food for morning. If anyone had been attacked or such a marvel had been seen, even the Fujiwara wouldn’t have been able to keep it quiet. No, Kenji-san. Princess Shigeko was not a rokurokubi in life. Have you ever heard of a case of a mortal woman becoming one after death? Does anything we know of her sad situation in any way suggest she would become such a thing?”
Kenji sighed. “Well . . . no. But it would have explained how Shinjurou was attacked.”
“Another thing—Shinjurou’s description of his attacker, the hideously twisted visage, also does not fit a rokurokubi. Nor does it fit Princess Shigeko. A simpler and much more likely explanation is Shinjurou was not attacked by Shigeko-hime at all. You did say you thought more than one ghost was present.”
“I could have been mistaken, plus her ghost is the only one seen! You said so yourself. Lord Yorinobu recognized his adopted daughter’s ghost before he was expelled—” Kenji stopped. “Oh.”
“Exactly. Expelled, forced out of the house. Not attacked. How did Shinjurou escape? He doesn’t know, only that he was thrown through a screen with great force. Whatever or whoever did so was not gentle but it saved his life.”
“Princess Shigeko,” Kenji said thoughtfully.
“While she had reason, I do not believe Shigeko-hime is an angry ghost at all. I believe she kept Lord Yorinobu out of the house, and I believe she removed Shinjurou from the house, and both for the same reason—to protect them.”
“From what?”
“Kenji-san, I hope and pray we are finally asking the right question.”
Another letter from Tagako-hime was waiting for me when we arrived back at my compound. I think I expected another tanka to complete, but her message was much more succinct this time:
Lord Yamada, you baka. Come see me.
Well, I did recall wishing the nobility would be more direct. I suppose it proved the old proverb “one should be careful what one wished for.” I informed Morofusa-san I had another errand that afternoon and we set out well before sunset. We arrived at Prince Kanemore’s estate in good time, and the scowling Taira bushi guarding the gates grudgingly let us in but only after we had surrendered our weapons to their equally scowling commander.
“Not very friendly,” Morofusa observed.
“Why should he be? I am sure visitors complicate his responsibilities greatly and would be discouraged, for Tagako-hime’s own safety.”
“Safer, yet duller for Her Highness,” he said. “She is probably lonely.”
I considered this no more than obvious, if she was willing to bear, even request, my own poor company. For all I knew, I might be one of the very few actually allowed. When we reached the garden, I could see Princess Tagako’s kicho had been arranged on the south veranda. Morofusa decided to wait in the garden, on the premise I was the one she had invited.
“I would think she would be happy to have your company as well,” I said.
“Perhaps, and certainly a security escort might be expected, but her letter did not specify such. Prince Kanemore has a lovely garden. I think I will enjoy it for a bit.”
I thought of insisting, since for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, I found myself more than a little nervous. It certainly was not because there were Taira bushi all over the place—I expected no less, and they kept a watchful but discreet distance. As I approached, two of Tagako-hime’s attendants appeared and kneeled beside the kicho. I knew it covered a doorway where the screen had been slid aside, and in a moment I could see the familiar outline of a woman kneeling behind the screen.
I bowed low. “It is good to see you again.”
“Metaphorically speaking only, I am sure,” Tagako said. “It’s not as if we can see very much of each other. Still, decorum must be maintained.”
An attendant brought out a cushion and placed it near the kicho on the veranda for me, as well as a cup of tea, then withdrew out of earshot. “Perhaps Morofusa would like one as well,” I said. “Shall I call him over?”
“Perhaps later,” Tagako said. “I don’t wish to be rude to more than one of you at a time.”
That explained my nervousness. I must have sensed I was in trouble. “I see I have offended you. I swear this was not my intention.”
“You did not visit me until I practically had to beg you. Was this not intentional?” she asked sweetly.
“I can only plead cowardice in my defense, Highness.”
I think she frowned then. It was hard to tell with the screen between us. “Cowardice? What do you mean?”
“I was afraid you would not wish to see me or would perhaps indulge me out of politeness. I am not certain I could have borne the weight of this shame.”
She laughed, raising her sleeve to cover her mouth, even though I could not see her clearly through the veil. “Baka. You saved my life. Do you believe me so ungrateful?”
“Say rather I would not wish you to seek my company out of a feeling of obligation, and so my fear rules me once again.”
“I told you once I was nothing. I am certainly nothing to be afraid of.”
“With all respect, Highness, I must disagree on both.”
“Was that a compliment?”
I found echoes of my conversation with Lady Kuzunoha in my response. “If it wasn’t, I should have tried harder.”
She laughed again, but this time instead of raising her sleeve, she leaned forward. If the screen had not been in place, I still would not have seen her face. “Baka,” she said again, but I could almost believe, this time, there was a hint of affection in the word. There followed a few moments of a comfortable silence before she broke it.
“I think I have missed you,” she said.
I actually blushed then and was—for once—grateful for the kicho separating us.
“It is a pleasure to be in your company again,” I said, “however overdue it was. I trust you are well?”
“Well enough,” she said. “In the sense a caged bird might be safe from the cat. Most visitors are turned away on some pretext or another. I understand the reasons for it, but it is . . . difficult. Lord Yamada, forgive me for being so cross with you—I know you have other obligations that must demand your time at present. I do not pretend to know what they entail, but I am glad you were able to visit me.”
“It is true, Highness, but I have not forgotten you or your situation. I still hope to be of service to you.”
“I will hold you to this, Yamada-sama. I always knew my time in Ise was temporary and one day I would discover what the rest of my life was to be. I have my own fears where this is concerned, as I believe I once told you, but whatever my life’s path, it was waiting for me, and it still waits for me. Prince Kanemore has been a good friend, but I will not sit in this cage forever, regardless of how many assassins are waiting beyond these walls.”
I bowed. “I look forward to the day you will be without this concern. If it is within my power to do so, I will make certain of it.”
“I ask no more, even though I have no right to ask anything. You have done so much for me already.”
I had a rather belated idea. “Highness, would you mind if I asked you something?”
“Of course not. What is it?”
I took a deep breath, wondering how much was safe to reveal. “I know you’ve been away from the court for many years, but did you ever have the chance to meet Princess Shigeko?”
“His Majesty’s late consort? She made the pilgrimage to the shrine several times, and would remain for a week or more as my guest in the Bamboo Palace. I was heartbroken when I heard of her passing. Why do you ask? Or is this a question you cannot answer?”
I took a deep breath. “Not at this time, Highness, but I assure you anything you can tell me of her would be of great interest.”
“Reason enough, but I am not certain I can tell you anything you couldn’t hear from those who knew her better. She was a sweet young woman, despite her unhappiness. The reason she came to the Grand Shrine was to pray for children. Perhaps it was karma from another life, but whatever the reason, the gods chose not to answer her prayers.”
Her words did not tell me anything I did not already know, but they served as another confirmation of all I had heard of the poor woman so far. As she had been a Fujiwara and any children might have further compromised the succession, I was not enough of a hypocrite to wish the gods had granted her petition. Even so, I was starting to feel more than a little ashamed of that sentiment. Clearly, Princess Shigeko had deserved a happier life than fate had decreed. Yet if she wasn’t an angry ghost, as I now suspected, what was the true situation in the third ward mansion?
“I’m sorry I never had the chance to meet her,” I said.
“I can’t say how you would have felt—I know your opinion of the Fujiwara too well. Still, I think she would have liked you. She might even have invited you to the naming ceremony.”
For a moment I was too stunned to say anything. “Ummm . . . naming ceremony?”
Princess Tagako sounded solemn. “I admit, I thought it a little presumptuous. Perhaps one of the reasons the gods turned a deaf ear, but she was so determined, I couldn’t refuse her.”
“I don’t understand. Princess Shigeko had no children.”
“I am well aware of that. Did I not just say the gods had denied her? No, this was, I believe, her way of attempting to create the reality she profoundly hoped for—three healthy children, who did not yet exist. She gave them ‘milk names,’ of course, as they had yet to be born.”
A “milk name” wasn’t the baby’s actual or child name and wasn’t the sort of name one was normally given in a proper naming ceremony. It was a custom borrowed from the Chinese, as a way to refer to the hoped-for infant, a nickname and usually something deliberately designed to be unappealing, in the hope no evil spirits would go near them and thus allow a healthy pregnancy. Once I got over my initial surprise and considered the situation, especially the difficulty Shigeko-hime had bringing a child to term, the ceremony actually made a strange sort of sense, and the fact it didn’t work did not change this.
What if it did work?
That was a strange thought. I’d had more than my share of those in my life, and I had learned to pay attention, but what this one could possibly mean was, for the moment, beyond me. It had not worked. There had been three failed pregnancies, two miscarriages and a stillbirth, and the last one had killed the unfortunate woman. A naming ceremony hadn’t prevented any of it, and yet the impossible thought would not go away, even though I tried to put it aside for the rest of the visit. When I finally took my leave, it remained.
What if it did work?