Autumn Bridge Read Free

after Lord Kiyori left the room. Then she rose and went to the window where he had stood and looked outside. Had he seen what she now saw? The evergreen hills of Shikoku Island, the heavy gray sky, the white fringes of waves whipped to life by distant ocean storms and winter winds? She should have asked him. Perhaps tonight she would. They would stand together by this window in the high tower of their castle, and they would look out over their domain of Akaoka. It would be their last night together. They would never see each other again.
    “My lady.”
    “Enter.”
    The door slid open. Her chief lady-in-waiting, Ayam�and four other attendants bowed at the
doorway. None of them bowed in the normal ladylike manner, with both hands placed on the floor and
the forehead lowered gracefully nearly all the way down. Instead, they knelt on one knee only and
bowed at a slight incline from the waist, the bow of warriors on the battlefield. They were dressed
in trouser like
hakama
instead of the elaborate, flowing kimonos of women of the inner chamber, and the sleeves of their abbreviated jackets were tied back out of the way, so their arms could more freely wield the long-bladed
naginata
lances they carried. In addition to the naginata, each of the attendants had a short
wakizashi
sword tucked into her sash. Ayamé alone had two swords at her waist, a long-bladed
katana
in addition to the wakizashi. Except that she was a young woman of seventeen, she was the picture of a heroic samurai. Even her hair had been cut, no longer flowing to the floor and behind her, but truncated into a ponytail that stuck out barely ten inches from her head. Man or woman, how easy it would be to fall in love with someone so handsome.
    Ayamé said, “It is as you said it would be, my lady. Lord Hironobu has not returned from the hunt. No messenger has come from him. And here at the castle, none of the samurai known to be loyal to the lord and to you can be found.”
    “My lady,” said one of the attendants behind Ayamé, “it is not too late to flee. Take a horse now and ride to Lord Hikari’s castle. He will surely protect you.”
    “Lord Hikari is dead,” Shizuka said. She went on as shocked gasps came from her ladies. “So is Lord Bandan. And their heirs and all their families. Treachery has reached almost everywhere. Tonight, their castles will go up in flames. Tomorrow night, the traitors will be here.”
    Ayamé bowed, again the short military bow of the battlefield, her eyes locked with Shizuka’s. “We will take many of them with us, my lady.”
    “Yes, we will,” Shizuka said. “And though we will die, they will not triumph. Lord Hironobu’s line will continue long after theirs have been extinguished.” She felt the child kick and placed a palm on her swollen belly. Patience, child, patience. You will enter this tragic world soon enough.
    Her attendants bowed their heads and wept. Ayamé, the bravest of them, fought back her tears. They welled in her eyes, but did not fall.
    It was as dramatic as a scene in one of those Kabuki plays that Lord Kiyori sometimes mentioned. But, of course, there was no such thing now. Kabuki would not be invented for another three hundred years.
     
1860, CLOUD OF SPARROWS CASTLE
     
    Shigeru alternated between great stillness and sudden movement, sliding from shadow to shadow through the corridors of his own clan’s castle as stealthily as an assassin. Though the ordinary eye could apprehend him if it alighted upon him, he moved in such a way that neither servants nor samurai noticed him. If they had, they would have acknowledged his presence, greeted him respectfully, and bowed. He in turn, seeing what was not there, would draw his swords and cut them down. This was his fear and the reason for his stealth. His control was slipping and he didn’t know how much he had left.
    His ears resonated with a demonic cacophony. His eyes struggled to ignore transparent images of torture and slaughter.