by Hearn, Lian
Shigeru had always had a certain interest in the young man, who had been the subject of his first adult decision. He had suggested that Hiroki be sent to the shrine to serve the river god; he had advised the boys’ father, Yusuke, not to take his own life but to continue to serve the Otori clan with his great skills as a horseman. He had watched Hiroki grow into a well-educated and perceptive young man, who had retained his love of dancing and become highly skilled at it.
“My father has certain things he wants to say to you,” Hiroki said. “Would it be possible for you to come to visit him?”
“I would like to,” Shigeru replied, feeling there was much he should tell Kiyoshige’s father about his son’s life and death. He made arrangements for the following day and left early in the morning, taking Takeshi with him. Ichiro had suggested Takeshi might be better employed in studying handwriting, history, and philosophy. Takeshi might excel at the martial arts, but his energetic nature disliked inactivity and he lacked the self-mastery required for diligent learning. Both Ichiro and Shigeru tried to impress on him how intellectual understanding enhanced physical skills and how self-control was acquired through devoting oneself with as much enthusiasm to what one disliked as to one’s favorite pursuits, if not more. Takeshi received all this advice with ill-concealed impatience and often disappeared from the house, fighting in stone battles with boys from the town and even in forbidden sword fights with warriors’ sons. Shigeru was torn between anger at his brother’s conduct and fear that Takeshi would be killed or would run away altogether and join the bands of lawless men who were living rough in the forest, preying on farmers and travelers. They pretended to be unvanquished warriors but in reality were little better than bandits. He made every effort to involve Takeshi in his own life and interests.
They did not cross the river by the fish weir but walked across the stone bridge. Shigeru paused to make an offering and pray at the stonemason’s grave, hoping Akane’s restless spirit would find peace. He thought of her often, raged against her, missed her and grieved for her in equal measures, as Moe’s body swelled with his child. Moe’s sickness abated as the weeks passed, but she remained sallow-looking and thin apart from her belly, as though the growing child drained all nourishment from her, and her physical discomfort was replaced by a mental anguish as her time drew nearer, for she had always had a deep-rooted fear of childbirth.
They went on foot since Shigeru had no horse—Karasu had died in the battle, and he had not yet replaced him. Almost as many horses had been killed as men; the living ones had been appropriated gleefully by the Tohan. Among all the Otori losses, the shortage of horses was one of the deepest felt and most resented.
They were accompanied by one of the few old men that remained of his mother’s retainers. The man walked a few paces behind him, his demeanor subdued, yet he and Takeshi must have been aware, as Shigeru himself was, of the buzz that went ahead of them—the murmur, a mixture of sorrow and excitement that brought merchants from their warehouses and craftsmen from their workshops to stare in his direction, drop to their knees as he passed by, then rise to follow him with their eyes.
The Mori residence lay a short way upstream from the lands that belonged to Shigeru’s mother, on the southern bank of the Higashigawa. It had become almost a second home to Shigeru during his boyhood: it had always been a place of quiet cheerfulness, despite the frugality and discipline of the Mori’s way of life. It saddened him now to enter the untended garden, to see the deserted stables and meadows. There were a few mares with foals at foot, and the old black stallion who had fathered Karasu but no full-grown horses, and only four two-year-old colts: two blacks, two black-maned grays.
Hiroki met them at the gate to the house, thanked them for coming, and led them across the wide wooden veranda to the main room, where his father was already sitting. Fresh flowers had been placed in the alcove and silken cushions spread on the floor for the visitors. An old man was trying to restore order to the garden, the rasp of his bamboo rake the only sound apart from the cicadas’ constant background song.
Yusuke looked calm, but he had grown very thin, and the powerful horseman’s muscles in neck and shoulder had wasted. He was dressed in a plain white robe, and Shigeru felt a pang of sorrow and regret, for the white robe signaled that Yusuke intended to kill himself and was already dressed for burial.
They exchanged deep bows, and Shigeru sat in the place of honor, his back to the alcove, looking out over the neglected garden. Yet even its wildness had a certain beauty: he could see how nature struggled to take possession of it again, the seeds sprouting where they fell, the shrubs bursting into their natural shape, escaping from the hand of man. This place of honor was no longer his, yet neither he nor Yusuke could conceive of any other way of relating to each other.
“I am very sorry for your son’s death,” he said.
“They tell me he died through the treachery of Noguchi.”
“I am ashamed to have to report it,” Shigeru said. “It is true.”
“It was terrible news,” Takeshi added. “I cannot believe my friend died in such a way.”
“And Kamome?” the old man said, for his horses were nearly as dear to him as his sons.
“Kamome was brought down by the Noguchi arrows. Kiyoshige died with his drawn sword in his hand, as if he would fight the entire Noguchi clan himself. He was the best friend anyone could have.” They sat in silence for a few moments; then Shigeru said, “You have lost both your sons to my family. I deeply regret it.”
He wanted to tell Yusuke that he intended to seek revenge, that he would wait patiently, that Iida and Noguchi would pay for Kiyoshige’s death, and his father’s . . . But he did not know who might be listening, and he knew he must not speak rashly. He prayed Takeshi would also keep silent.
“The lives of our entire family already belong to Lord Shigeru,” Yusuke replied. “It’s only through your wisdom and compassion that we have lived till now.” He smiled and tears shone suddenly in his eyes. “You were only twelve years old! But this is the reason I’ve asked you to come today. As I say, my life is yours. I’m asking you to release me from this obligation. I cannot serve your uncles. My only surviving son is a priest: I do not expect the river god to give him back to me. My only wish is to end my life. I seek your permission to do so and ask that you will assist me.”
“Father!” Hiroki said, but Yusuke held up a hand to silence him. “I see you have your father’s sword,” he said to Shigeru. “Use Jato on me.”
Again Shigeru felt the pull toward death. How could he take the life of this skilled and loyal man and live himself? He feared Yusuke would be the first of many—fathers who had lost their sons, warriors who had survived the battle, who would not live with the shame and dishonor of defeat. The best of the Otori would follow those already lost; the clan would destroy itself. But if he were already dead, none of this would concern him. Better perhaps to accept it, order his wife, mother, brother, to kill themselves and die himself. He could almost feel Takeshi next to him willing him to do it.
He heard the stallion neigh from the field, a sound so like Karasu’s it was as if he were hearing a ghost.
“We need more horses,” he said. “I will release you from your obligations to me—indeed your son, Kiyoshige, has paid all debts many times over—but I have one more request to make of you: that you will build up the horse herds before you leave us.”
He could think of nothing that would better restore the clan’s pride and spirit than to restore their horses.
The stallion neighed again, and one of the colts answered, echoing, challenging its father.
“I’d have to travel to look for some,” Yusuke said. “We won’t find any in the Three Countries for a while; the horses of the West are too small and too slow, and the Tohan certainly won’t help us.”
“Father used to talk, in the past, of the horses of the steppes,” Hiroki said. “Didn’t Father always wish to travel to the mainland and see them for himself?
”
“The horses from the edge of the world,” Yusuke murmured. “Fiercer than lions, faster than the wind.”
“Bring back some of them as your last service to the Otori,” Shigeru said.
Yusuke sat in silence for many long moments. When he spoke, his voice, which had been so firm before, was broken. “It seems I put on my funeral robe prematurely. I will obey you, Lord Shigeru. I will live. I will go to the edge of the world and bring back horses.”
The tears that he had not shed before were now coursing down his cheeks.
“Forgive me,” he said, wiping them away with the white sleeve. “This is the grief I had hoped to escape. It is far harder and more painful to live than to die.”
Takeshi said very little, but when they left, he murmured to his brother, “Lord Mori is right. It is harder to live.”
“For my sake, you must live,” Shigeru replied.
“I would take my own life if you ordered me to; if you tell me not to, I suppose I must obey you. But it seems so shameful.”
“We are obeying our father, there is no shame in that. And never forget, it will not be forever.”
36
Moe’s fears increased as the child grew. Everything conspired to alarm her. It was common knowledge in the city that Shigeru’s uncles were not pleased by the prospect of the birth: people whispered of plots to poison mother and child, to assassinate Shigeru and Takeshi, to bring about Moe’s death by spells and sorcery. The winter was unusually bitter, the snows coming early and lasting into the third month, the wind howling from the northwest, bringing freezing temperatures and fresh blizzards. Food and firewood became scarce, charcoal hardly obtainable; the ground was frozen hard as stone, and the weight of icicles broke roofs and trees.
Despite Shigeru’s efforts the previous summer, the harvest had suffered from the setbacks of the defeat and its aftermath. Food was running short; beggars flocked to the city, where they died in the streets from starvation or cold. Moe did not dare step outside. It seemed death was everywhere, stalking her and her child. She rarely felt safe, except in the deep recesses of the house where Chiyo sat with her, massaged her shoulders and legs to relax her, and, to allay her fears, told her gentle tales about tiny magical children born from peach stones or bamboo trunks.
But neither the safety of the house nor all Chiyo’s skill could protect her in the end. Her time was overdue: the baby was awkwardly placed, her labor prolonged and yet ineffective. Her screams went on for a day and a night, but before the end of the next chill day they were stilled. The child, a girl, never cried at all but died at the same time as her mother and was buried with her.
The passing of the young woman whom no one had particularly liked plunged the whole household into deepest sorrow. The deaths were trivial—a woman, a girl child—compared to the losses already sustained, yet they inspired almost inconsolable grief. Maybe it was felt that the child had promised a new life, a new start; and now even this small comfort had been denied. Maybe his own family began to believe that the house of Otori Shigeru was cursed.
Shigeru’s grief, compounded as it was by remorse and regret, was the heaviest and most intractable. For several weeks he did not leave the house, except to attend the necessary ceremonies. He drank no wine and ate very little and spent long hours in silent meditation, recalling everything about his wife and the distorted love they had crafted from their marriage. He remembered with shame how he had wished for her death; he had wanted to remove her from his life as one would slap a mosquito: she had been an irritation to him; more, they had hated each other, but they had lain together to make the child that had killed her. They had both been forced down this path: they were husband and wife; their marriage had been designed to produce legitimate children. No one could blame him for giving his wife a child: it was the function of women to bear children.
However, it was his first experience of the danger and pain of childbirth. He knew how much Moe had feared it: though he had been kept from the room, he could not remain unaware of her terror and agony. It amazed and saddened him that women should endure such things: they carried the full result of men’s desire for their bodies; they went to the edge of the world and brought back sons and daughters. And often they did not come back but were pulled, struggling vainly to live, into the darkness, their young, fragile bodies torn apart.
He dreamed of his daughter often, once most vividly of her body in the earth: as spring warmed the cold limbs, pale green plants sprouted from them like young ferns.
Both Akane and Moe had been given to him. Akane he had asked for and got; Moe had been supplied. And now both of them were dead, at just over twenty years old. He thought often about all that Akane had taught him; he wished he had told her that he loved her, that he had let his love for her flower instead of denying it; he wished he had loved his wife, that she had given herself to him willingly and ardently because she loved him. Maybe if they had lived . . . but they were both gone. He would never see either of them again.
Then his grief would be intensified by longing. After a few weeks, Chiyo, with her usual practicality, arranged for one or another of the maids to linger after they had spread out the bedding, but Shigeru could not bring himself to touch them, telling himself he would never sleep with a woman again.
SPRING CAME LATE but with all the more intensity. The southerly breezes had never been so welcomed for their soft warmth; the sky had never seemed so deeply blue; nor had the new leaves ever been such a brilliant green against it. As the days lengthened, Shigeru mastered his grief, realizing that even though he no longer had any definable role in the clan, he still had a part to plan in its recovery. If he could reshape his life, then so could the Otori clan.
In his time of meditation, he had thought much about his future. He would never give up the intention to confront and kill Sadamu, avenge his father’s death and his clan’s defeat; but in order to achieve this, he knew he must keep it completely hidden. He would make the world think he had genuinely retired, that he was no more than a farmer; he would be innocuous and blameless, and he would wait patiently for as long as he had to, hoping and praying that some opportunity would present itself.
He began practicing this role at home. He dispensed with all formality in the house, somewhat to his mother’s displeasure, took to wearing old, simple clothes, and concerned himself with the development of the garden and of his mother’s estate. He talked to anyone who would listen about experimental farming, when the rains would come, how best to deter caterpillars, moths, and locusts; such work was patently necessary, for the whole country had suffered the previous winter and food stores were almost completely depleted. It did not escape notice that while Shigeru was concerning himself with restoring the land in order that the people might be fed, Shoichi and Masahiro were living in luxury in the castle, expanding and redecorating the residence and making no concessions in their demands for taxation. Craftsmen and painters worked with gold leaf, ebony, and mother-of-pearl while five hundred people died in a week on the streets of Hagi.
37
Of course, it was a great relief to Sadamu,” Kikuta Kotaro remarked to Muto Kenji. It was over a year since the Battle of Yaegahara and the Tribe Masters had met by prior arrangement in the port town of Hofu, now ceded to the former Otori vassal, the traitor Noguchi. “If Shigeru had had a son, followed by other healthy children, it would have added considerably to Sadamu’s anxieties. Or so it was reported to me in Inuyama.”
Shizuka poured more wine into the bowls and the two men drank deeply. They were both her uncles, Kotaro on her mother’s side, Kenji on her father’s. She listened carefully to the conversation, hiding her feelings, which were complex toward Lord Shigeru. She had never been able to completely forgive herself for her betrayal of him. She felt a stab of pity for him now, wondering if he grieved for his wife’s death; he must surely regret that of his child, even if it was not a son. She thought with a sense of pride of her own son, now six months old, a robust and prec
ocious child, the image of his father, Arai Daiichi. He was sleeping in another room, but she could hardly bear to let him out of her sight, and her pride was mixed with an anxiousness for him that made her breasts tingle and the milk start to flow.
She was half ashamed of her sentiments, she who had always been praised for her ruthlessness and lack of emotion, so valued by the Tribe. She pressed her arms across her chest, hoping the milk would not stain or smell, knowing that both the men in the room would catch the change in her scent.
