Free Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn Page B

grieved genuinely when he
died after four years, leaving her with a young daughter and a baby son. She
was determined her daughter would inherit her estate. Her son died
mysteriously, some said poisoned, and in the years that followed the battle of
Yaegahara, the widowed Naomi attracted the attention of Iida Sadamu himself.
    “But by that time she had met Shigeru,” I said, wishing I knew
where and how. “And now you are her heir.” Kaede’s mother had been Lady
Maruyama’s cousin, and Kaede was the closest living relative to the former head
of the clan, for Lady Maruyama’s daughter Mariko had died with her mother in
the river at Inuyana.
    “If I am allowed to inherit,” Kaede replied. “When her senior
retainer, Sugita Haruki, came to me late last year, he swore the Maruyama clan
would support me, but Nariaki may have already moved in.”
    “Then we will drive him out.”
    On the morning of the sixth day we came to the domain border.
Kahei halted his men a few hundred paces before it, and I rode forward to join
him.
    “I was hoping my brother would have met us before now,” he said
quietly.
    I had been hoping the same. Miyoshi Gemba had been sent to
Maruyama before my marriage to Kaede to convey the news of our imminent
arrival. But we had had heard nothing from him since. Apart from my concerns
for his safety, I would have liked some information about the situation in the
domain before we entered it, the whereabouts of Iida Nariaki, the feelings in
the town toward us.
    The barrier stood at a crossroads. The guard post was silent, the
roads on all sides deserted. Amano took Jiro and they rode off to the south.
When they reappeared, Amano was shouting.
    “A large army has been through: There are many hoofprints and horse
droppings.“
    “Heading into the domain?” I called.
    Yes!
    Kahei rode closer to the guard post and shouted, “Is anyone
there? Lord Otori Takeo is bringing his wife, Lady Shirakawa Kaede, heir to
Lady Maruyama Naomi, into her domain.”
    No answer came from the wooden building. A wisp of smoke rose
from an unseen hearth. I could hear no sound, other than the army behind me,
the stamping of restless horses, the breathing of a thousand men. My skin was
tinglmg. I expected at any moment to hear the hiss and clack of arrows,
    I rode Shun forward to join Kahei. “Let’s take a look.” He
glanced at me, but he’d given up trying to persuade me to stay behind. We
dismounted, called to Jiro to hold the horses’ reins, and drew our swords.
    The barrier itself had been thrown down and crushed in the rush
of men and horses that had trampled over it. A peculiar silence hung around the
place. A bush warbler called from the forest, its song star-tlingly loud. The
sky was partly covered with large gray clouds, but the ram had ceased again and
the breeze from the south was mild.
    I could smell blood and smoke on it. As we approached the
guardhouse we saw the first of the bodies just inside the threshold. The man
had fallen across the hearth and his clothes were smoldering. They would have
burned if they had not been soaked with blood from where his belly had been
slashed open. His hand still gripped his sword, but the blade was clean. Behind
him lay two others, on their backs; their clothes were stained with their own
last evacuations, but not with blood.
    “They’ve been strangled,” I said to Kahei. It chilled me, for
only the Tribe use garrotes.
    He nodded, turning one over to look at the crest on his back.
“Maruyama.”
    “How long since they died?” I asked, looking round the room. Two
of the men had been taken completely by surprise, the third stabbed before he
could use his sword. I felt fury rise in me, the same fury I’d felt against the
guards in Hagi when they’d let Kenji into the garden or when I’d slipped past
them—fury at the dullness of ordinary men who were so easily outwitted by the
Tribe. They’d been surprised while they’d been eating, killed by assassins
before any