Book I, Chapter 6

They ran down the pass until they were exhausted, taking seven-league strides and seeming to fly, but they must needs pause for breath and wait for Nets’ke, coming down sideways like a crab.

‘Master Hide.’ It was Tomo speaking. They were seated upon a jutting rock a hundred feet or more above the water. ‘Let us take this little path. I have something to say.’

‘And me,’ cried Yuki Rose.

‘No, little mistress. You wait and rest.’

They followed a path that led precariously over a shoulder of rock and ended in a jungle of undergrowth.

‘If you have any papers,’ Tomo whispered, ‘Prince Matsuyuri will want them. I think the fire burned them, and you know nothing about any papers at all. Wait.’ Like an ape he shinned up an oak and his face appeared in the fork.

‘There is a hole here,’ he called down. ‘I think an owl lives in it, and I am sorry for the bird, but we want her house.’

He let down a piece of string.

‘Tie anything that you never had and do not know anything about to the string, Master Hide.’

The other obeyed, and his mother’s marriage certificate, together with his own and Yuki Rose’s birth certificates, were drawn up. They were wrapped in oiled silk, proof against damp. The string came back. ‘Now a stone, not too big, just to fill this hole and keep the owl out.’

Tomo descended. ‘It must be a secret, Master Hide, even from the little mistress.’

‘Oh, Yuki Rose can keep a secret,’ her brother objected.

The answer came as a shock to him. ‘Nobody can keep a secret with red-hot fire coming nearer and nearer.’ He laughed harshly, then turned up a sleeve and showed a red weal, shaped like a half-moon. ‘Not this kind of thing for little Mistress.’

‘Oh, Tomo, how did you get that?’

‘Red-hot fire,’ he said laconically. ‘The brand of the traitor.’

‘When, Tomo?’

‘When your mother fled away, Master Hide. Up over the Good Way Out. You, little Mistress and Nets’ke with her. Tomo guided them. Afterwards this–– ’ and he laughed again.

‘Ugh,’ a shudder ran through the boy. Tomo must have been but a boy himself then. ‘Why do I not remember you?’ he asked.

‘It was dark, Master Hide, and I carried you. You slept, I think.’

Hide John looked at the rugged face.

‘Who are you, Tomo?’

‘Me? Oh, nobody.’

‘Yes, but you must be. Who is your father?’

The other shrugged. ‘Prince Matsuyuri.’

The boy stared. ‘You mean my uncle? Then you are his heir?’

Another shrug. ‘The Prince and a woman. That is why I worship the Blessed Virgin.’

‘You what?’

‘Worship the Virgin Mary,’ the other repeated.

Hide John failed to see the connection. ‘Why, Tomo?’

‘Why? Because there are no virgins in Japan.’

Together they returned. What a strange fellow this Tomo was. Uncouth, yet personable. He was a cousin of some kind, then, and Hide John had gathered of what kind. The phrase kept running in his mind. ‘There are no virgins in Japan.’

There was a flagstaff upon a small jetty on the shore. Tomo hoisted a bundle, unfurled it, and behold, the proud white lily and the sprig of fir. Hide saluted: his heart was full.

‘They will send a boat,’ his cousin explained.

Brother and sister wandered away. It was all so wonderful. The breath of night stole over the lapping water, the dim mysterious shores – and everywhere, flowers fast asleep. They came back and waited on the jetty.

***

This Good Way Out will be published by Read around Asia in 2007.