Heaven's Net Is Wide

by Hearn, Lian

  Kiyoshige argued with him. They talked in whispers, for the sorcerers from the Tribe could both hear and see from afar. The other world of goblins, ghosts, and inhuman powers lay alongside their own; occasionally the membrane between the two worlds thinned and one rolled into the other. There were stories, too, of people who strayed into the other world and then came back to find a hundred years had passed in a single night. Or of beings that came from the moon or the sky and seemed like women and made men fall in love with them. There was a road leading toward the south where a beautiful woman with a long neck like a snake enticed young men into the forest and fed on their flesh.

  “Hiroki used to cry about the goblins,” Kiyoshige said. “And now he’s living here among them!”

  “He cries at everything,” Takeshi said scornfully.

  5

  Isamu’s body was buried first by falling leaves and then by snow and lay undiscovered until the following spring when the village boys began to search the mountains for mushrooms and birds’ eggs. By that time his murderer, his cousin Kotaro, was long back in Inuyama, the clan capital of Iida Sadayoshi and the Tohan, where he ran a business making soybean products, lent money, and behaved much like any other merchant of the city. Kotaro told no one of the precise details, only that the execution had been carried out and Isamu was dead, and he tried to put the whole affair out of his mind with his customary callousness, but at night Isamu’s face floated before his eyes and he was often woken by his cousin’s fearless and incomprehensible laughter. He was tormented by the fact that Isamu had refused to defend himself, had spoken of forgiveness and obedience to some lord. Death had not removed his rival, the traitor; it had made him more powerful—indeed, invincible.

  Kotaro had at his command a network of spies, for the Tribe operated throughout the Three Countries, working at this time mainly for the Iida family as they tightened their grip on the East and began to consider how they might expand into the Middle Country and beyond. The Iida family kept a close watch on the Otori, whom they correctly judged to be their main rivals; the clans in the West were less warlike, more prepared to make alliances through marriage. The Middle Country, moreover, was rich, had many silver mines, and controlled fishing and trade in the northern and southern seas. The Otori would not relinquish it lightly.

  Kotaro began to make inquiries about the villages that might lie near where he had tracked Isamu down. None was recorded on any map or counted as a source of taxation by any domain. There were many places like this throughout the Three Countries; the Tribe had a few themselves. Two things made Kotaro uneasy. The lingering fear that Isamu might have left a child and the gradual uncovering of something he had known little about: a secret sect who lived unrecognized among the poorest—peasants, outcasts, prostitutes—where people had too hard a struggle of their own to concern themselves overmuch about their neighbors; for this reason the sect members were known as the Hidden.

  Kotaro began to gather fragments of information about them, information he was careful to pass on to his contacts among Iida’s warriors, in particular a man called Ando, whose lineage was obscure but who had come to be one of Sadayoshi’s most trusted retainers on account of his cruel tastes and brutal skill with the sword. The two main facts that emerged about the Hidden—that they would take no life, including their own, and that they paid allegiance to an unseen god, greater than any lord—were both serious affronts to the warrior class. It was not hard, through Ando, to inspire Sadayoshi’s son, Sadamu, with hatred for this sect and to initiate the drive to eradicate them.

  Kotaro never found the village but he trusted sooner or later Iida Sadamu and his warriors would, and any children Isamu might have left behind would be dealt with.

  6

  The colts grew and at three years old were broken in by Lord Mori with Kiyoshige’s help. The routine of study and training continued. Shigeru and Kiyoshige were joined by the two sons of Kitano Tadakazu, Tadao and Masaji. Tadakazu was the lord of Tsuwano, a small castle town three days’ journey to the south of Hagi, in the shadow of the main mountain range that divided the Middle Country. It was an important stopping place on the high road to Yamagata, the second city of the Otori clan, and had many inns and eating places. The Kitano family had a residence in Hagi, where the boys lived while pursuing their education with others of their generation. They became a close-knit group, encouraged by their teachers not to compete with one another but to form strong ties of loyalty and comradeship that would be the basis of the future stability of the clan. Their different abilities were recognized and fostered: Shigeru with the sword, Tadao with the bow, Kiyoshige with horses, Masaji with the spear.

  As they began to grow to their adult stature, they also experienced together the first urgencies of desire. Shigeru dreamed often of the girl in the river, though he never saw her again, and found himself gazing with longing at the form of a maid kneeling in the doorway, the white nape of her neck, the curve of her body beneath the soft robe. Kiyoshige, although a year younger, was precocious in development and equally stirred. In the way of close friends, they turned to each other, discovering the pleasures of the body, sealing the bonds between them with passion. One day one of the maids, a year or two older than Shigeru, came into the room, surprising them—she apologized deeply, but her breathing quickened and a flush rose in her cheeks; she loosened her robe and joined in with great willingness. Shigeru was enthralled by her for two weeks—he was enchanted by the feel of her skin and by her silky pelt, the scent that emanated from her body and the way her desire matched his without shame—until she disappeared suddenly and his father summoned him.

  To his surprise they were alone in the room—the first time he could remember ever being in his father’s presence without the senior retainers or his uncles there. Lord Otori beckoned to him to come closer, and when they sat knee to knee his father scrutinized his face.

  “You are nearly a man, it seems, and you must learn how to behave with women. They are among the great pleasures of life, and enjoyment of them is entirely natural. But your position means that you cannot indulge yourself as freely as your friends might. It is a question of inheritance and legitimacy. The woman in question has been sent away; if she has conceived a child, it could cause problems, particularly if we do not know if the father is you or Kiyoshige. At the right time I will provide you with a concubine, who will be yours alone. It will be best not to have children with her. Children should be born only to your legitimate wife. A marriage will be arranged, of course, but at the moment you are too young, and there is no suitable alliance.”

  His voice changed slightly. He leaned forward and spoke more quietly. “I must also counsel you to resist becoming infatuated. There is nothing more contemptible than a man who is distracted from his duty, turned from his purpose, or weakened in some other way because of love for a woman. You are young and the young are very susceptible. Be on your guard. Many women are not what they seem. I am going to tell you of my own experience: I hope it will prevent you from making the mistake I did—one that has haunted me all my life.”

  Shigeru found he also leaned forward to catch every word.

  “I was about your age—fifteen—when I started to notice a girl who worked here, a maid. She was not beautiful, but there was something about her that I found immensely attractive, irresistible. She was full of life, very graceful, and seemed very self-contained. She was always perfectly respectful and her ways of service were irreproachable, yet something lurked in her expression, as if she were laughing—at men in general, at the lords of the castle, myself included. She knew how I felt—she was very quick-witted and observant: you felt she could hear your thoughts and she came to me one night when I was alone and gave herself to me. We were each other’s first lovers; I became obsessed with her, and she told me often that she loved me. My own father had spoken to me as I have to you, about the dangers of sleeping with maids and the folly of falling in love, but I did not seem able to combat the way I felt. It was tru
ly stronger than I was.”

  He paused, sunk in memories of his remote youth. “Anyway, she came to me one day unexpectedly, saying she had to talk to me. It was the hour of study; I was waiting for one of my teachers and tried to send her away. But at the same time I could not resist taking her in my arms. My teacher came to the door. I asked him to wait, saying I felt unwell. I tried to hide her, but there was no need. She heard him coming long before I did; it was as if she had disappeared. There was no sign of her in the room. When the man had left, she was there again. One moment she was nowhere; the next she stood in front of me. All the strange things I knew about her ran through my mind: her unnaturally acute hearing, the curious lines on her palms, which seemed to cut her hand in half. I thought I understood my infatuation; clearly she had bewitched me. I thought she must be some kind of sorceress. I realized with a sort of sick dread the risks I had been taking. She told me then who she was—one of the Tribe.”

  He paused and looked questioningly at Shigeru. “Do you know what that means?”

  “I have heard of the name,” Shigeru replied. “Sometimes the boys talk about them.” He paused, then added, “People seem afraid of them.”

  “With good reason. The Tribe are a collection of families, four or five maybe, who claim to retain skills from the past—skills that the warrior class have lost. I have seen some of these skills firsthand, so I know they are real. I have seen a person disappear and come back from invisibility. The Tribe are used, in particular by the Tohan, as spies and assassins. They are invariably extremely effective.”

  “Do the Otori use them?” Shigeru asked.

  “Occasionally: but not to the same extent.” He sighed. “This woman told me she was from the Kikuta—the lines on the palms were characteristic of that family. She said she had indeed been sent as a spy, from Inuyama; she admitted it all very calmly, as though it was not by any means the most important thing she wanted to tell me. I was silent in shock. It was as though a spirit from beyond the sky or a shape-shifter had captivated me. She took my hand and made me sit in front of her. She said that she would have to leave me—we would never see each other again—but that she loved me, and that within her she carried the proof of our love: my child. I was never to tell anyone; if the truth ever known, both she and the child would die. She made me swear it to her. I had nearly lost my senses through shock and grief. I tried to seize her in my arms, gripping her roughly; maybe the thought was in my mind that I would kill her rather than lose her. She seemed to dissolve at my touch. I held her: then my arms were empty. I embraced air. She was gone. I never saw her again.

  “It is over thirty years ago, and I have never been free of longing for her. She is almost certainly dead by now—and our child, if it lived, is middle-aged. I often dream of him—I am sure it was a son. I am filled with fear that one day he will appear and claim me as his father; and I am filled with grief knowing that that day will never come. It has been like a chronic illness that I despise myself for. I delayed marriage for as long as I could—if I could not have her, I did not want any woman. I have never told anyone of this weakness, and I am trusting you never to reveal it. When I married your mother, I thought I might recover, but the many dead children and your mother’s grief, her desire to conceive, and her fear of failing to bear a live child did not bring contentment between us. I simply longed more for my one living child, forever lost to me.

  “Of course, your birth and Takeshi’s have consoled me,” he added, but there was a hollowness behind the words. Shigeru felt he should speak into the silence that followed, but he could think of nothing to say. He had never been on intimate terms with his father; he had no words to use, no patterns to follow.

  “It takes only one mistake to poison a life,” Lord Otori said bitterly. “Men are at their most foolish and most vulnerable when they are ruled by their infatuations. I am telling you all this in the hope that you will avoid the trap into which I fell. I am sending you to Matsuda at Terayama. You will find no women there. The discipline of temple life and Matsuda’s instruction will train you to control your desires. When you return, we will find you a safe woman with whom you will not fall in love, and after that a suitable wife—provided we are not by then at war with the Tohan. In that case we will have to put away our personal gratification and concentrate on the art of war.”

  7

  A few days later, the preparations for the journey were completed, and Shigeru left for Terayama with Irie Masahide, to arrive before the plum rains made travel unpleasant with their sticky warmth. Horses and men were ferried across the river in large flat boats. The stone bridge had three of its four arches completed. It will be finished when I return, Shigeru thought.

  The journey to Tsuwano would take two or three days; the road followed the river valley between the ranges, but after Tsuwano, where the land became much more mountainous, it circled the slopes and then curved back through two or three steep passes to Yamagata. Here Shigeru would spend some time reacquainting himself with the city before the short journey through the mountains to the temple.

  Kiyoshige was not to accompany him; he returned to his family house. His father was raised to a higher rank and given an increased stipend. It could hardly be considered a punishment, yet to Shigeru it felt like it. He missed the cheerful, high-spirited Kiyoshige, his irreverence and his jokes. As he rode on the black, Karasu, he missed seeing Kiyoshige’s gray, Kamome, with its black mane alongside him. But he kept his feelings to himself. The Kitano brothers went with him, summoned by their father to Tsuwano. The boys were puzzled by the sudden command. They had expected to remain in Hagi or go with Shigeru to Terayama. They envied him the opportunity to be taught by Matsuda Shingen and wondered why their father would not permit them to take advantage of these circumstances.

  “It would be better to stay in Hagi,” Tadao said for the fourth or fifth time. “We have no teachers in Tsuwano like Lord Irie or Lord Miyoshi. Father is a great warrior, but he is so old-fashioned.”

  The spring planting was completed and the clear green of the young seedlings shone against the mirror surface of the rice fields, in which the blue sky and the high white clouds were reflected. On some of the banks around the fields, beans had been planted, their white and purple flowers attracting many bees. Frogs croaked and the summer’s cicadas were beginning to drone. Shigeru would have liked to be able to look more closely at the land and talk to the farmers about their crops and methods. The last two years had been good for harvests—no infestations of insects, no great storm damage—which made everyone cheerful, but he couldn’t help wondering about their lives. He knew them only as figures from the clan records of what their fields should produce and what proportion they should pay in taxes.

  The secrets his father had told him hung in his mind. The idea that he should have a brother, so many years older, tormented and fascinated him. And the boy’s mother, the woman from the Tribe. The sorceress and shape-shifter. His father had met such a woman, had lain with her. The idea both horrified and aroused him. He reflected deeply on his father’s life and saw his weaknesses more clearly. He also wondered how many of the grooms who accompanied them now on the road, or the servants at the inns, might be Tribe members, spies or assassins. He did not share these thoughts with anyone but resolved to question Matsuda Shingen during his stay at Terayama. He did not want to listen to the other boys’ gossip and complaints; he had too much to think about. But he forced himself to joke lightly with them, masking his preoccupations, finding he could be two people—the ordinary fifteen-year-old and an inner ageless man, more watchful and more guarded, the emerging adult self.

  On the afternoon of the second day, they descended through the pass into a fertile valley that belonged to one of the Otori branch families, distant cousins of Shigeru’s. Though of extremely high rank, this family had always farmed their own land rather than exacting taxes from tenants. Shigeru was enchanted by their residence, which combined the restrained elegance of the warrior class with
a rustic informality, and he was impressed by the head of the household, Otori Eijiro, who seemed endlessly knowledgeable about the nature of the land and its crops. His family was large and boisterous, though somewhat subdued on this occasion by the status of their guest and his companions.

  After the visitors had washed the dust of the journey from their feet and hands, they sat in the main room, all the doors open to catch the soft breeze from the south. Eijiro’s wife and three daughters brought tea and sweet bean paste cakes. His sons put on a display of horsemanship in the grassy meadow to the south of the house; then they all competed with the bow, shooting both on horseback and on foot. Tadao was declared the winner, and Eijiro gave him a quiver made from deerskin. The two older girls also competed and were equal to their brothers in skill. When Shigeru commented on this—for though most Otori girls learned to ride, he had never seen women taught the arts of war—Eijiro gave his usual loud laugh.“My wife is from the Seishuu. In the West they teach their girls to fight like men. It is the influence of the Maruyama, of course. But why not? It keeps the girls healthy and strong, and they seem to love it.”