Now Masahito sighed impatiently. “I’m fine, Mother,” he said. But he carefully unfolded his legs and extended them straight before him in preparation for the treatment. Although she knew the effort hurt him, his expression didn’t change. He never betrayed his pain, making himself walk without a limp and without using a cane even when he thought he was alone. He drew his kimono back as far as his groin. The left leg was sturdy and muscular, its flesh smooth and unmarked. The right was brittle and weak-looking, with healed scars and raw sores marring the withered thigh.
As usual, the sight of her son’s bad leg caused a surge of tender anguish to engulf Lady Niu. She wanted to caress and coddle him, to ease his pain with maternal care. But Masahito’s response to affection had always been unpredictable. During his childhood, he had sometimes returned her embraces, sometimes hit or kicked her. He’d hated to acknowledge his pain or accept comfort. Now he might tolerate her love or rebuke her with his sharp tongue. So instead she knelt, opened the lacquer box, and began to take out the eleven small gray moxa cones. Made of mugwort leaves gathered on the fifth day of the fifth month, ground in a pestle and rolled into shape, they were soft and flaky to the touch. She wet the base of each one with the tip of her tongue, then arranged them on Masahito’s thigh, careful to avoid the unhealed sores left by previous treatments. Unable to resist the temptation, she let her fingertips brush his skin as if by accident. Touching him gave her the most exquisite, heart-breaking pleasure… She lit the candle and used a wood splinter to transfer flame to the cones. Soon a thin smoke began to rise from them, and the mildly bitter scent of burning leaves mingled with the candle’s fragrance. The priests’ chanting droned on as they prepared Yukiko’s coffin for transport to the temple, lending a mystical atmosphere to the treatment. Masahito seemed a living Buddha and she a worshipper burning incense before him.
Lady Niu watched her son’s face for a sign that the treatment was draining away the distemperous vapors that caused his pain. She had much to discuss with him, but she didn’t want to speak until relief made him more receptive to advice. The cones smoldered. The smoke thickened. Finally his face relaxed-though whether because the moxa was healing him or because the pain caused by the burning cones distracted him, she couldn’t tell.
“This is a critical time for our family, Masahito,” she said. “It demands discreet behavior from all of us. Even sacrifices.” She paused, hoping she wouldn’t have to continue. To say exactly what she expected from him would be to voice the unspeakable. The unthinkable.
He regarded her in silence, his feverish eyes glowing in his handsome face. A faint, malicious smile played at his lips.
Faltering, she said, “Perhaps… perhaps it would be better for you to… refrain from certain activities.” Her mind recoiled from the thought of those activities.
Masahito’s smile widened, but not with humor or warmth. He shook his head. “Oh, Mother. For once in your life, why not say what you mean?” he said. “There’s no one here but us. So come. Tell me what you want me to do.” He folded his arms, waiting in exaggerated anticipation. “Well?”
He was bullying her, Lady Niu thought miserably, just as he’d once bullied his brothers and sisters and playmates. Whether larger or smaller than he, it hadn’t mattered; he could always drive them to tears or rage. The sheer force of his personality kept them from striking back and made them work harder to please him. A sudden vivid memory surfaced: Masahito, aged nine, pitting his sisters, two of his older brothers, and all the retainers’ children against each other in a violent reenactment of the Battle of Dan-no-ura, which had taken place five hundred years ago, and which had ended the emperors’ effective reign and ushered in the era of military rule. The game had resulted in many injuries, some serious, and the destruction of a garden pavilion. Of all the children, only Yukiko had resisted him and tried to stop the debacle.
Lady Niu could still remember the horror she’d felt when she’d found her small general gloating over the burning pavilion and his sobbing, bloodied troops.
“Why, Masahito?” she’d cried. “Why?”
He’d looked straight at her, his face radiant with triumph beneath the cuts and bruises. “I wanted to change history, Mother,” he said, “and I did.” His complete lack of remorse had chilled her. “Tell Father that today the Taira clan have defeated the Minamoto.”
Tell Father. Those two words had given her the real reason for what he’d done. Her fierce, angry son didn’t care about history. Unloved and ignored by his father since birth, he courted punishment because it was better than no attention at all.
Loath to discipline him herself, Lady Niu had swallowed her grief and sent him to live with her husband in their provincial castle. Maybe now that Masahito was older and beginning to excel in swordsmanship in spite of his deformity, they could be father and son. Maybe, with masculine guidance, he would grow into an honorable, decent man. But her husband, still repulsed and shamed by his crippled child, didn’t educate or reform Masahito. A loyal servant sent word to her that Lord Niu had simply locked Masahito in a remote chamber to live like a caged animal-alone, unwashed, fed on scraps of garbage. Sick with guilt, Lady Niu had him returned to Edo, where she struggled valiantly to tame his wild spirit. She would never again subject him to his father’s cruelty, despite his excesses, which grew worse over the years. She’d managed to hush up all of them, often at outrageous cost.
Now Lady Niu whispered, “Please, Masahito.” All her love and money and scheming couldn’t save him this time, if he didn’t help himself.
“What you want, Mother, is that I should forsake my pleasures and my ambitions because Yukiko is dead and the police are nosing around. You think they’ll learn things about me, even if they can’t prove I killed anyone.”
“Masahito-”
His sarcastic voice lashed her mercilessly. “You want me to stay away from the summer villa in Ueno. You want me to-”
“Stop!” Lady Niu shrieked. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle more screams. How she hated him when he tormented her like this! And how she loved him. His face seemed even more beautiful suffused with evil mischief than when he was in one of his infrequent kind moods. At times like this, she wished she loved him less. That way she could control herself as she did with everyone else, could prevail as she did in every other situation. Now she prayed for detachment and serenity. Only by putting aside her feelings for him could she bend him to her strong will, which he had inherited.
Having gotten the desired reaction from her, Masahito relented. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand and said gently, “Mother, you worry too much. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The police will find plenty of other suspicious individuals in Yukiko’s background. That actor she admired. The suitors whose marriage proposals were rejected. And anyway, with Noriyoshi dead, the danger is gone. In fact, our lives will soon be better than you ever thought possible. Believe me.”
Lady Niu savored her son’s rare affectionate gesture. She took his hand in both of hers and held it tight. She wanted to beg him to cease his dangerous activities. To do it for her, if not for himself, because her fear for him was tearing her apart. But she knew he would only grow angry at her interference and begin tormenting her again.