Free Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn Page B

with
affection. They both looked out through the open windows. The air was chill
with autumn, a gust of wind shook the maples, and leaves fell into the stream,
turning darker red in the water before they were swept into the river.
    I thought longingly of the hot
bath, and shivered.
    Kenji broke the silence. “Why is
this boy who looks like Takeshi, but is obviously from the Tribe, living in
your household, Shigeru?”
    “Why have you come all this way to
ask me?” he replied, smiling slightly.
    “I don't mind telling you. News on
the wind was that someone heard an intruder climbing into your house. As a
result, one of the most dangerous assassins in the Three Countries is dead.”
    “We have tried to keep it secret,”
Lord Shigeru said.
    “It's our business to find out such
secrets. What was Shintaro doing in your house?”
    “Presumably he came to kill me,”
Lord Shigeru replied. “So it was Shintaro. I had my suspicions, but we had no
proof.” After a moment he added, “Someone must truly desire my death. Was he
hired by Iida?”
    “He had worked for the Tohan for
some time. But I don't think Iida would have you assassinated in secret. By all
accounts he would rather watch the event with his own eyes. Who else wants you
dead?”
    “I can think of one or two,” the
lord answered.
    “It was hard to believe Shintaro
failed,” Kenji went on. “We had to find out who the boy was. Where did you find
him?”
    “What do you hear on the wind?”
Lord Shigeru countered, still smiling.
    “The official story, of course:
that he's a distant relative of your mother's; from the superstitious, that you
took leave of your senses and believe he's your brother returned to you; from
the cynical, that he's your son, got with some peasant woman in the East.”
    Lord Shigeru laughed. “I am not
even twice his age. I would have had to have fathered him at twelve. He is not
my son.”
    “No, obviously, and despite his
looks, I don't believe he's a relative or a revenant. Anyway, he has to be from
the Tribe. Where did you find him?”
    One of the maids, Haruka, came and
lit the lamps, and immediately a large blue-green moon moth blundered into the
room and flapped towards the flame. I stood and took it in my hand, felt its
powdery wings beat against my palm, and released it into the night, sliding the
screens closed before I sat again.
    Lord Shigeru made no reply to
Kenji, and then Haruka returned with tea. Kenji did not seem angry or
frustrated. He admired the tea bowls, which were of the simple, pink-hued local
ware, and drank without saying any more, but watching me all the time.
    Finally he asked me a direct
question. “Tell me, Takeo, when you were a child, did you pull the shells off
living snails, or tear the claws from crabs?”
    I didn't understand the question.
“Maybe,” I said, pretending to drink, even though my bowl was empty.
    “Did you?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “My mother told me it was cruel.”
    “I thought so.” His voice had taken
on a note of sadness, as though he pitied me. “No wonder you've been trying to
fend me off, Shigeru. I felt a softness in the boy, an aversion to cruelty. He
was raised among the Hidden.”
    “Is it so obvious?” Lord Shigeru
said.
    “Only to me.” Kenji sat
cross-legged, eyes narrowed, one arm resting on his knee. “I think I know who
he is.”
    Lord Shigeru sighed, and his face
became still and wary. “Then, you had better tell us.”
    “He has all the signs of being
Kikuta: the long fingers, the straight line across the palm, the acute hearing.
It comes on suddenly, around puberty, sometimes accompanied by loss of speech,
usually temporary, sometimes permanent. . . . ”
    “You're making this up!” I said,
unable to keep silent any longer. In fact, a sort of horror was creeping over
me. I knew nothing of the Tribe, except that the assassin had been one of them,
but I felt as if Muto Kenji were opening a dark door before me that I dreaded
entering.
    Lord