To Break the Demon Gate Read online

  “Lead on, then.”

  I had to say that the workmen had been more than diligent. While the water in the small garden pond was now a muddy brown, at least the worst of the water weeds and scum had been cleared away. As for the rest of the garden, the brush had been cleared and the path relined, and the trees properly pruned. On the house itself, two of the sliding screens facing the gate had been replaced completely and the rest expertly patched. Another day or two and the place would be better than presentable.

  Nidai kneeled again by the main screen serving as the doorway and slid it aside, bowed me through, and then closed it again. I entered warily enough, but the half-expected ambush did not materialize. Instead, I was in a large central room; the floor had been freshly scrubbed and cushions spread near a small dais. The setup reminded me of Princess Teiko’s audience chamber, though on a smaller scale and with only Nidai and myself in attendance. The lady, if any, was nowhere to be seen.

  “So, do I now await the pleasure of your mysterious employer? If I am to do so, I will at least be comfortable.” But before I could sit, Nidai quickly steered me away from the floor cushions and up onto a low stool on the dais itself.

  “Your seat is up here, my lord. It is my mistress who craves audience.”

  “Well,” I said, for want of something more clever or to the point.

  Curious.

  Nidai bowed low. “Will you see my mistress now?”

  “That is why I am here,” I said.

  Wearing a three-layered kimono with formal overcoat, the woman entered through the left-hand door and more floated than walked to a cushion in front of the dais. She then kneeled in one smooth motion and bowed low to me. I followed all this with an interest that was slowly overshadowed by a growing certainty. I knew her. The lovely face, the long black hair tied back with two separate ribbons, the grace and beauty of her movements, all as I remembered.

  “You are the asobi at Yasada Shrine in Gion. I saw you dancing near there.”

  She did not look up. “I am honored that you noticed this worthless person. I am called Hikaru-no-Yuki.”

  Shining Snow.

  It wasn’t an actual name; rather a professional or use-name of the sort asobi often adopted. A girl of a poor family was often apprenticed—sold, really—to an older asobi with no daughters of her own, thus to be raised by the older woman and trained to become an asobi in her turn and support her mentor when the older woman could no longer make her living as a dancer, singer, and courtesan. Yet there was training, and then there was being born to, raised with, and living a higher esthetic for the entirety of one’s existence. If the exquisite creature kneeling before me now had ever been a peasant, then I was the Goddess of the Sun.

  “I would like to know your true name,” I said. “And please look at me as we speak.”

  She raised her head. “This is my true name, Lord Yamada, so far as such things matter to either of us. You must realize that I once bore another, and I do not deny it. Please also realize that I am trying my best to forget that name. It no longer belongs to me.”

  I could have insisted, but even if I had done so there would have been no way to tell if she spoke the truth or not; she had as much as said that she had no intention of doing so, at least so far as her name was concerned. I wondered if I would hear any truth at all this evening. I had been pondering that very question long before keeping the appointment, and was no closer to knowing the answer now.

  “Why am I here?” I asked.

  “Because I can help you,” she said.

  “Then perhaps a better question might be ‘why are you here?’ ”

  She smiled a grim smile. Even so, her dimples reminded me very painfully of Princess Teiko’s.

  “Quite properly asked, Lord Yamada. As a woman forced to make her own way in this world, I full well understand the necessity of fair exchange. I am here because I believe you can help me.”

  Now, perhaps, we were getting to the core of the matter. “What do you want of me, Lady Snow?”

  She sighed. “I am no lady, as surely you know. But I thank you for the courtesy.”

  “And I am barely a lord, as surely you know. Courtesy for the same, or call it a whim of mine. Now please answer my question . . . oh, but before you do—surely you know that Nidai is listening at the door?”

  She smiled again and raised her voice just slightly. “Nidai-kun, if you are not well away from that door before I finish speaking, you will consider yourself dismissed. Are you still there?”

  The frantic scramble out on the veranda did, in fact, begin well before Lady Snow had finished speaking, and the sound of Nidai running across bare wood had already ceased by the time she had gotten to her final word.

  “He’s a good boy,” she said, “in his way.”

  I grunted. “He’ll be a bandit or worse before he’s fifteen.”

  “More than likely. Unless an alternative presents itself.”

  “Which you seem to have done. Lady Snow, I gladly concede your perhaps misplaced benevolence toward that little scoundrel, but you have made implications in my regard which I know full well are beyond your power or anyone else’s to implement.”

  “Mine? Of course. I have no power. Yet do not be so certain of the latter, Lord Yamada. Will you at least listen?” I indicated assent and she went on. “Now then, your father was executed during one of the northern campaigns, some seventeen years ago, yes? Upon his death it was revealed that he had, in fact, been an agent of one of the northern clans in league with the barbarians, yes?”

  “Whether this is true or not, the ‘facts’ of the matter are common knowledge . . . among those who need to be aware of such things,” I said.

  “You’d be surprised how many things become ‘common knowledge’ far from their original spheres, Lord Yamada. You’re of course right to wonder why one such as myself should have any interest or knowledge of this, but I trust it soon will become clear to you. Now then, if you’ll pardon my bluntness, I must ask—was your father guilty of what he was accused of?”

  I shrugged. There was no point in evading the issue so far as I could see. “I believe he was, which is one reason I have my doubts anything can be changed now.”

  “That seems a rather harsh view of your father’s honor.”

  I almost laughed. “My father was never more than a very minor provincial lord completely under the domination of the northern branch of the Fujiwara. Like many others, he had a little and wanted more. It does my father no discredit to admit he was ambitious. It is simply the truth. If he saw treachery as the best means to an end, he very well might have seized it.”

  “So certain of that, are you? Suppose I tell you he was not a traitor, and that the persons deliberately responsible for his ruin and disgrace are still alive?”

  I didn’t answer for a moment. I wondered if this small emotion I was feeling was hope or resignation. “I would need proof, and very definitive and substantial proof at that.”

  “Which is the one thing I do not have, unfortunately. Yet. That little omission also brings me back to your question. In this matter, at least, our desires can be said to be in harmony.”

  I frowned. “I don’t understand. What concern is this matter of yours? Did you know my father?”

  “Yamada no Seburo? No. But I knew an acquaintance of his. His name was Fujiwara no Kiyoshi.”

  Again, that name. For a man dead fifteen years who didn’t happen to be a ghost, Kiyoshi certainly managed to insert himself repeatedly into my life. Judging from what happened the last time his name resurfaced, I wasn’t sure I liked the turn this conversation was taking. I chose my words very carefully.

  “Again, what is he to me?”

  “He was your friend,” she said softly. “And he was my lover. I was barely sixteen when he was murdered.”

  I frowned. “Murdered? He died in battle.”

  She looked at the floor. “I know the official account of the battle as well as you do, Lord Yamada, and I repeat:
murdered. As was your father.”

  My mind was spinning like a boulder falling down a mountain. I thought I saw something to grasp, and I did. “You are Taira no Hoshiko?”

  Her expression was unreadable, but the ice in her voice seemed to lower the temperature of the room. “Lady Hoshiko . . . that creature with no mind or will of her own, that brittle, simpering little doll? Do not insult me so, Lord Yamada. Please understand—I have no doubt Kiyoshi would have made the little fool his official wife, or at least attempted to do so. Her family connections were second only to his own, and he did have some fondness for her, whereas I . . . well, we know my circumstances. But he belonged to me nonetheless, and he was stolen. You asked what I wanted from you, Lord Yamada, and I will tell you: I want you to help me win justice. If we achieve it for Yamada no Seburo, I achieve it for Fujiwara no Kiyoshi as well. The two were slain by the scheming of the same man.”

  “Who?”

  “Fujiwara no Sentaro. Formerly the Emperor’s Minister of Justice and now known as Dai-wa, Chief Priest of Enryaku Temple.”

  Part Three

  The spring sakura

  Hides not from the bitter wind,

  or the frost of night.

  These things blight or not at whim.

  Does the flower heed its fate?

  Lady Snow had, after dropping her metaphorical rock upon my head, paused to prepare tea. I continued my stunned and silent brooding while she poured for us. I took my cup and sipped. I already knew that the woman was not who she appeared to be and I should have been concerned about poison, but I really wasn’t; if she’d intended that and nothing more, there would have been far easier ways to go about it.

  “You don’t believe me,” she said finally.

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I do not.”

  She didn’t look insulted. She looked, rather, as if she had expected no less. “Why not, may I ask? I assure you that Kiyoshi and I were lovers. I had barely begun at my trade when we met. He was my first. He was kind. I only later learned how rare a trait that was.”

  “You do realize, do you not, that your relationship with Kiyoshi is not the portion of your story with the least credibility?”

  She smiled faintly. “Lord Sentaro.”

  I sighed. “Exactly. While I willingly concede the man is both ambitious and lacking in scruple, perhaps even to an excessive degree, you’re telling me he arranged the murder of his own nephew!”

  She sipped her tea. “Yes. That is exactly what I am telling you, because it is a fact.”

  “Kiyoshi kept out of political matters and, as I personally knew, had no ambition in that regard. He was neither a rival nor a threat to his uncle’s position. What possible reason could Lord Sentaro have to wish him harm?”

  “Kiyoshi learned of his uncle’s plot against your father and meant to expose it. That is why he was killed. Perhaps Lord Sentaro did so reluctantly; I do not know. I only know what happened.”

  “And how could you possibly know this?”

  She set her cup aside, and instead of answering, asked a question of me instead. “Do you know a man named Murakami no Fusao?”

  I frowned; another name associated with Kiyoshi. “Yes, I remember him. An old retainer of the Fujiwara and Kiyoshi’s chief attendant.”

  She smiled then. “More like Kiyoshi’s shadow. His proximity was not always . . . convenient, for us.”

  That much I could believe. He was an old man even when I knew him, but he had been Kiyoshi’s personal attendant and servant almost from birth, and his devotion to his young charge was beyond question. You seldom saw one without the other.

  “What of him?”

  “Soon after Kiyoshi’s death, he left the Fujiwara’s service forever and took up trade as a painter in Otsu. Did you not think anything odd in that?”

  “I had other matters on my mind at the time,” I said.

  She bowed in apology. “Of course. You wouldn’t have known that the choice was his; he was not dismissed. He left because of what he knew and dared not say.”

  “What did he know, then?”

  “Your father, as I said before, was innocent. He was accused of acting as a spy for the Abe Clan, which had allied itself with the northerners even then. He was executed at Lord Sentaro’s order.”

  “And as I said before, everyone knows this. Lady Snow, your company is charming and your tea delightful, but I’m beginning to think you’re wasting my time.”

  “Here’s something you do not know: Lord Sentaro himself ordered your father to meet with the barbarian prince. That was the meeting that Sentaro in turn claimed proved your father’s guilt. I learned this from Fusao himself. He learned it, in turn, from Kiyoshi. That is why Kiyoshi was killed, and almost certainly on Lord Sentaro’s orders. Fusao says the arrow that killed his Master was fired from his own ranks.”

  I was intrigued despite my better judgment. As I recalled, one of my father’s frequent letters had mentioned instructions from Lord Sentaro. Yet what did that prove? It could have been a reference to almost anything, taken by itself. As for Kiyoshi . . .

  “Targets can be uncertain in wartime. Accidents happen.”

  “This was no accident. You forget that Fusao was present during the battle, and he says he saw the man aiming quite deliberately at Kiyoshi but too late to sound a warning. Afterwards the archer could not be found.”

  I considered. “Interesting. Can Fusao attest to this? Would he be willing?”

  Lady Snow looked unhappy. “Unfortunately, no. He has since died. We met through an intermediary last year. It seemed the old man knew his time was short and wished for a bit of . . . comfort, toward the end. It was not until I actually arrived that we recognized one another. He told me everything he knew.”

  “An interesting story but a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  She looked resigned. “If one accepts that one’s destiny is fixed, then there is very little that is really ‘coincidence’. Yet I do acknowledge that what I say strains credibility. You do not know me, Lord Yamada. I suppose I cannot blame you for doubting what I tell you, though I did hope for better.”

  I grunted. “There’s a part of the story you’re leaving out and, frankly, the part that strains my belief even more than your chance meeting with Fusao: why would Lord Sentaro bother to betray my father? I know the man, and a minor noble of my father’s stature would be beneath his notice, save as a useful tool. What did he possibly have to gain?”

  Lady Snow met my gaze squarely. “I do not know.”

  Now that answer did surprise me. Assuming that everything Lady Snow had told me from start to finish was a fabrication for reasons I could not yet fathom, she would certainly have no difficulty coming up with a suitable lie for such an easily anticipated and basic question.

  “You really do not know?”

  “How could I? Fusao did not know. Perhaps only Kiyoshi himself knew the whole story. I certainly would think there had to be more to it, for my lord to be willing to expose the machinations of his own uncle.”

  I rubbed my chin. “Lady Snow, thank you for the tea and the very interesting tale. I am quite entertained, but I feel I must be going.”

  She looked disappointed but far from defeated. “What reason have I to lie to you about this matter or any other? What would it take to convince you?”

  I sighed and got to my feet. “Lady Snow, as to the first I do not know but gladly concede that it’s an interesting question which I must ponder at some later point. As to the second, proof would go a long way toward easing my doubts. Yet, by your own admission, you have none. If your story does not sway me, a man with a personal stake in the matter, consider how much less weight it would have at the Imperial Ministry.”

  She looked thoughtful. “I’m afraid I must defer to your judgment there. Perhaps I let my eagerness get the better of me.”

  I hesitated. “Lady, I do not, as I said, know what possible reason you might have for lying to me. Yet whether what you say i
s true or not, there are those who would not like to hear such tales spread around. I urge discretion, for your own sake.”

  She smiled at me then, not bothering to cover her face. “I will certainly take your warning to heart. Yet I will not promise that this is the end of the matter, Lord Yamada. Suppose I find something that would satisfy even you? I have some avenues that I wish to explore yet, but travel may be required. Compensation can be arranged, if perhaps you were willing . . . ?”

  I sighed. “Lady Snow, even if I believed all you have said, I have other pressing matters within the capital just now and simply cannot leave. If you learn more and still wish to persuade me, send word. You are very agreeable company and I am still prepared to listen. I can promise no more than that.”

  She blushed just slightly and bowed low. “Short of your good opinion, which I must warn you I still seek, your promise will have to do. Good day to you, Lord Yamada.”

  “And good fortune to you, Lady Snow.”

  I found Nidai nervously pacing near the gate. He bowed to me.

  “Was I in time?” he asked.

  I suppressed a smile and did my best to look severe. “Just barely. You are still in Lady Snow’s employ for now, but I would mind my step from here on if I were you. I would certainly wash my face.”

  Nidai ignored my comment on his personal cleanliness. “Lady Snow? That is a nice name. May I call her that? She has only permitted ‘mistress’ before now.”

  “I think you had better ask her,” I said. “But, just between the two of us, I do not think she will mind.”

  The moon was starting to set as Nidai closed the gate behind me. While I didn’t mind walking the dark streets as much as some, caution was never a poor option. Already I could see onibi flaring here and there, the ghost-flames an unmistakable sign of unquiet spirits. As I walked I saw more and more.

  While ghost-lights were common in the city at night, it was a bit unusual to see so many. At first I put the matter down to the location; for some reason the ghosts around Lady Snow’s home were particularly active. But after I had walked some distance from the repaired home, the rei activity did not abate; if anything it intensified. Besides the onibi, other manifestations began to appear: a paper umbrella with one eye hopped quickly past me and disappeared into a narrow gap between two storehouses. A dark, shadowy neko-rei howled from a rooftop and, once it had my attention, gave me a startled look as if I had surprised it and not the other way around. It disappeared, leaving a scent like cat-urine.