“And you would have gone?”
“Well, I don’t like Inuyama. It’s too hot in the summer and freezing in winter. But the Iida are not a family to be lightly insulted,” Matsuda replied. “And Sadamu has a growing reputation as a mighty warrior.”
“But you have become a monk: you have given up that life.”
“I’ve learned I am a teacher above all. A teacher is nothing without worthy pupils who value and appreciate his teaching. I don’t know how much Iida’s son could learn from me, to be honest. He is already in his twenties: habits good or bad are usually set irrevocably by then.”
“You will not teach Iida Sadamu or anyone else from the Tohan,” Shigeru said furiously. “I forbid it and my father would too!”
Matsuda said, “If there are any worthy among the Otori, I do not need to look elsewhere.”
Shigeru remembered his thoughts from the previous night; all those desires now seemed shallow and frivolous. Yet to open his mouth and plead his own case seemed equally contemptible. He stood and picked up the carrying pole and the wooden swords, saying nothing, determined to master his anger and his pride.
They walked mostly through forest, though sometimes this cleared into grassy slopes dotted with flowers-clover, buttercups, pink vetch. Twice, startled deer leaped away, and once a cock pheasant rose whirring almost under their feet. Kites mewed overhead, their dark pinions outlined against the blue sky. The clouds were clearing; the breeze came from the south.
Around midday, Matsuda halted on the edge of one of these clearings and sat down on the grass in the shade of a huge oak. He opened the basket and lifted out one of the containers. Six small rice cakes lay on a bed of perilla leaves. Matsuda took one and held out the wicker tray to Shigeru.
Shigeru put his hands together and bowed in thanks; inside his mouth the rice cake seemed even smaller, and by the time it hit his belly, it was no more than a grain. The second one disappeared as quickly and made as little impression on his hunger.
Matsuda made up the fire, adding dry grass and twigs to the glowing charcoal. He seemed in no hurry to continue. He lay back, saying, “There are not many pleasures that can compare to this!”
Shigeru leaned against the oak’s trunk, hands behind his head. Matsuda was right, he thought; it was pleasant to be outside, unknown to anyone, unbothered by retainers and attendants, free to be oneself, to know who one really was. After a while the old man fell asleep. Shigeru’s eyes were heavy, but he did not think he should sleep; he did not want to be taken by surprise and killed by bandits. He gazed up into the branches of the oak; they spread above his head, seeming to touch the sky. The tree had a majesty about it that was almost sacred. Staring up at it lifted his own spirit skyward, made him imagine a world unknown to him that existed all around him and that he had never noticed. Spiders’ webs stretched between the twigs, catching the sun as the south wind stirred them. Insects hummed around the tree, and birds chirped and fluttered among its leaves… And always the drone of the cicadas, the constant sound of summer. It was an entire world to these creatures, giving them food and shelter.
He fell into a sort of waking dream, lulled by the warm afternoon and its myriad sounds. The sun glinted through the dappling leaves; when he closed his eyes, he could still see the patterns black against the red.
He heard a loud and unfamiliar birdcall in the branches above and opened his eyes. Perched just above him was a bird he had only ever seen in pictures, but he knew it at once: it was the houou, the sacred bird that appears when the country is at peace under a just rule. For the Otori it had special meaning, for they wrote their name with the same character and had done so ever since the Emperor had decreed it at the same time as the sword Jato had been given to Takeyoshi and he had married one of the Emperor’s concubines. Shigeru saw its red chest, the flowing pinion of its wings, its bright golden eyes.
It gazed at him with these bright eyes, opened its yellow beak and called again. All other sounds ceased. Shigeru sat transfixed, hardly daring to breathe.
A ripple of wind set the leaves dancing; a ray of sunlight struck his eyes, dazzling him. When he moved his head to look again, the bird was gone.
He jumped to his feet, peering up into the dense foliage, waking Matsuda.
“What is it?” the old man said.
“I thought I saw… I must have been dreaming.” Shigeru was half ashamed, thinking he had fallen asleep after all, despite his good intentions. But the dream had been so vivid-and a visitation even in a dream was not to be discounted.
Matsuda stood and bent down to pick up something from the ground. He held out his hand to Shigeru. On his palm lay a single feather, a white plume, its edges tipped red as though it had been dipped in blood. “A houou has been here,” he said quietly. He nodded two or three times and made a grunt of satisfaction. “The right time, the right person,” he said but did not explain more. He put the feather carefully away in the sleeve of his robe.
“I saw it,” Shigeru said excitedly. “Right in front of me; it looked directly at me. Was it real? I thought it was just a myth, something from the past.”
“The past is all around us,” Matsuda replied. “And the future… Sometimes we allow ourselves to see into both. Some places seem to act as crossroads: this tree has often proved to be one of them.”
Shigeru was silent. He wanted to ask the older man what it meant, but the words he had spoken had already diminished the memory and he did not want to weaken it further.
“The houou is special to the Otori,” Matsuda said, “but it’s a long time since one has been seen in the Three Countries. Certainly not in my lifetime. There is one feather at the temple, but it is almost decayed from age, so fragile it is no longer exposed to the air; it would fall apart at once. I will keep this. It is a message for your future: that it is you who will bring peace and justice to the Three Countries.”
He added quietly, “But the white feather is red-stained. Your death will be in the cause of justice.”
“My death?” Shigeru could not imagine it; he had never felt more alive.
Matsuda laughed. “At your age we all think we will live forever. But each of us has only one death. We should make it count. Make sure when you die that it is the right time, that your death is important. We all hope our lives have meaning; for our deaths to be significant is a rarer blessing. Value your life: don’t cling to it, but don’t discard it trivially.”
“Do I have that choice?” Shigeru wondered aloud.
“The warrior must create that choice,” Matsuda replied. “Moment by moment he must be aware of the paths that lead to life or death-his own, his followers’, his family’s, his enemies’. He must decide with a clear mind and unclouded judgment which path each must take. To develop this clarity is one goal while you are here.” He paused for a moment as if to let his words sink in. When he spoke again, his voice had lightened. “Now we must get moving again, or we’ll be spending the night in the forest.”
Shigeru picked up the wooden swords and the bundles and slung them over his shoulders. His impatience and rebelliousness of the previous day had disappeared. He pondered Matsuda’s words as he followed the teacher up the steep mountain path. He would strive to follow them and choose his own death, strive always to be conscious of the right path-but may it be many years ahead, he prayed.
10
The sun had slipped behind the mountain peaks and a blue dusk was descending when they came to a hut at a fork in the path. It was small, its roof thatched; a lean-to along one side sheltered a pile of neatly stacked logs. It had one door, a heavy wooden one, and no screens. They paused to wash their hands and drink from the nearby spring. An animal scampered under the veranda at their approach. Matsuda heaved at the door, slid it open, and peered inside. He chuckled. “It’s withstood winter well. No one’s been here since last summer.”