Read Online Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn - Free Book Online Page A

I ran to the maids' room.
    “Chiyo!” I called. “Bring lights,
wake the men!”
    “Who's that?” she replied sleepily,
not knowing my voice.
    “It's me, Takeo! Wake up! Someone
tried to kill Lord Shigeru!”
    I took a light that still burned in
one of the candle stands and carried it back to the garden.
    The man had slipped further into
unconsciousness. Lord Shigeru stood staring down at him. I held the light over
him. The intruder was dressed in black, with no crest or marking on his
clothes. He was of medium height and build, his hair cut short. There was
nothing to distinguish him.
    Behind us we heard the clamor of
the household coming awake, screams as two guards were discovered garroted,
three dogs poisoned.
    Ichiro came out, pale and shaking.
“Who would dare do this?” he said. “In your own house, in the heart of Hagi?
It's an insult to the whole clan!”
    “Unless the clan ordered it,” Lord
Shigeru replied quietly.
    “It's more likely to be Iida,”
Ichiro said. He saw the knife in my hand and took it from me. He slashed the
black cloth from neck to waist, exposing the man's back. There was a hideous
scar from an old sword wound across the shoulder-blade, and the backbone was
tattooed in a delicate pattern. It flickered like a snake in the lamplight.
    “He's a hired assassin,” Lord
Shigeru said, “from the Tribe. He could have been paid by anyone.”
    “Then it must be Iida! He must know
you have the boy! Now will you get rid of him?”
    “If it hadn't been for the boy, the
assassin would have succeeded,” the lord replied. “It was he who woke me in
time. . . . He spoke to me,” he cried as realization dawned. “He spoke in my
ear and woke me up!”
    Ichiro was not particularly
impressed by this. “Has it occurred to you that he might have been the target,
not you?”
    “Lord Otori,” I said, my voice
thick and husky from weeks of disuse. “I've brought nothing but danger to you.
Let me go, send me away.” But even as I spoke, I knew he would not. I had saved
his life now, as he had saved mine, and the bond between us was stronger than
ever. Ichiro was nodding in agreement, but Chiyo spoke up: “Forgive me, Lord
Shigeru. I know it's nothing to do with me and that I'm just a foolish old
woman. But it's not true that Takeo has brought you nothing but danger. Before
you returned with him, you were half crazed with sorrow. Now you are recovered.
He has brought joy and hope as well as danger. And who dares enjoy one and
escape the other?”
    “How should I of all people not
know this?” Lord Shigeru replied. “There is some destiny that binds our lives
together. I cannot fight that, Ichiro.”
    “Maybe his brains will have
returned with his tongue,” Ichiro said scathingly.
    The assassin died without regaining
consciousness. It turned out he'd had a poison pellet in his mouth and had
crushed it as he fell. No one knew his identity, though there were plenty of
rumors. The dead guards were buried in a solemn ceremony, and mourned, and the
dogs were mourned by me, at least. I wondered what pact they had made, what
fealty they had sworn, to be caught up in the feuds of men, and to pay with
their lives. I did not voice these thoughts: There were plenty more dogs. New ones
were acquired and trained to take food from one man only, so they could not be
poisoned. There were any number of men, too, for that matter. Lord Shigeru
lived simply, with few armed retainers, but it seemed many among the Otori clan
would have happily come to serve him—enough to form an army, if he'd so
desired.
    The attack did not seem to have
alarmed or depressed him in any way. If anything, he was invigorated by it, his
delight in the pleasures of life sharpened by his escape from death. He
floated, as he had done after the meeting with Lady Maruyama. He was delighted
by my newly recovered speech and by the sharpness of my hearing.
    Maybe Ichiro was right, or maybe
his own attitude towards me softened. Whatever the