by Lian Hearn
“Jealous of you? She did not even mention you!”
“She is afraid of my influence over you. She is moving to establish herself within the castle so she can influence the selection of your wife, and after your marriage the girl herself. Who is she, by the way?”
“She is some distant relative. I forgot to ask her name.”
“I suppose you will always act with such indifference,” Akane said. “Truly, the women of your class have wretched lives.”
“I am sure I will respect her, and we will have children, of course.” It was a cold night, and Akane had ordered the rice wine to be warmed. Now she called for another flask and filled his cup; he filled hers in return and she drank it in one gulp.
“Something has upset you?” he said as he filled her cup again.
“What will become of me when you are married?”
“I imagine our arrangement will continue.” He smiled at her. “If you want it to, of course. If you don’t, this house is yours, as long as you are discreet.”
“Discreet? What does that mean?”
“I cannot bear the thought of another man here,” he admitted, surprised himself by the sudden pain the idea gave him.
“You see, no one is immune to jealousy, not even warriors!” Akane said with an air of triumph. “You must have come to care for me!”
“I think you know that,” he replied. “And do you care enough for me to be jealous of my wife?”
“Don’t joke about jealousy,” she said, drinking again. “I’ve seen women driven insane by it, by the casual behavior of men they’ve fallen in love with. Love affairs are just a distraction for men. For women, they are our whole life.”
“Have you ever been in love, Akane?”
“No, nor do I intend to be!” She saw a look of disappointment flash briefly across his face. We are all the same, she thought. We want to be loved yet will not fall ourselves.
“What about the man called Hayato?”
“Hayato was very kind to me when my father died.”
“He is said to be driven out of his mind by his love for you.”
“Poor Hayato,” Akane said. “If I had not come to your attention, then I would be living with him now.”
The wine had made her speak with honesty, yet she saw that she had displeased him and regretted saying so much.
“It is better that neither of us fall in love,” said Shigeru, the coldness that she feared returning.
“Lord Shigeru, you are young, forgive me for pointing it out. I am older than you—three years older; I propose we make a pact. We will not fall in love, but we will try not to give each other cause for jealousy. You have to marry; you have to have children. You must treat your wife with honor. But I also have certain claims on you now, and I expect you to honor them.”
He was surprised by her seriousness and found himself admiring her. The lamplight accentuated her cheekbones: something about the strength of her face reminded him of the woman from the Hidden who had spoken to him as if she were his equal.
He had little knowledge of what made a marriage. His own parents lived separate lives, and he had barely spoken to his uncles’ wives, who lived in the deep interior of the castle with their attendants and servants. He cast his mind around further and suddenly remembered Otori Eijiro and his wife: there had been affection and respect between them, and the woman and her daughters had moved freely and on equal terms with the men. It is the influence of the Maruyama, Eijiro had said, and then had told him about Lady Naomi.
“What are you thinking?” Akane said, surprised by his long silence.
“Of marriage, of what happens between men and women; of Maruyama, where they say women have greater freedom.”
“Maruyama will go the way of all the other great domains,” Akane said. “And Naomi will be the last female head of the clan.”
“You know of her?”
“I listen to men talking, and that’s what they say. Her husband has close connections with the Tohan, and they hate the idea that a woman should inherit.”
“And do the Seishuu hate the Tohan in return? Enough to enter into an alliance with the Otori? What do you hear about that?”
It was the first time the idea had occurred to him: an alliance with the Seishuu—if a marriage would secure that, he would agree to it.
“Men gossip about all sorts of things at Haruna’s,” Akane said. “But they don’t know what they’re talking about half the time. Most of them have never been out of the Middle Country.”
“We should send a delegation to Maruyama or to the Arai at Kumamoto,” Shigeru said, thinking aloud. “Find out what their true opinions are.”
Akane did not want to talk about politics. She called softly to the maids and, when they came to remove the dishes, asked them to spread out the bedding. Shigeru was as passionate and responsive as usual, but he did not stay with her, saying he had affairs to discuss with Lord Irie. After he had left, she returned to bed. It had grown even colder, the wind off the sea rattling the shutters and moaning through every chink in the walls. She wished she had a man alongside her to keep her warm, thought of Hayato with some regret, and then with uncharacteristic anxiety about her future. Men did fall in love with their wives; it was not uncommon, and the woman within the house held many advantages over the woman of pleasure. She had told Shigeru she had certain claims on him, but in reality she had none; his wife would have children; he would love them with all the warmth of his nature, and surely that would lead him to love their mother. She could not bear the thought of it. He will fall in love with me, she vowed.
It was not only that she feared being abandoned by him, unable to take any new lover. The idea of him with another woman clawed at her heart despite the rational words she had spoken earlier. Then the idea came to her to go to the old priest and seek a spell from him that would make the wife barren, that would make Shigeru hate her . . .
She had been careful not to conceive a child: Haruna had supplied her with pessaries that annulled the male seed and potions to drink should her bleeding be delayed, and she knew enough about her body’s rhythms to avoid the days when she was fertile. But she often fantasized about having Shigeru’s child: it would be a boy, of course, of great beauty and courage; his father would adore him, would acknowledge him or, even better, adopt him; he would become the heir to the Otori clan . . . If Shigeru loved her, he would want to give her a child. The thought warmed her; she drew the covers closer around her and drifted into sleep.
SHIGERU DISCUSSED the subject of marriage with Irie, suggesting the idea of a closer alliance with one of the great families of the West. Following this, further deliberations were entered into by the elders, by Shigeru’s father and his uncles. Meanwhile, his mother moved to the castle, appropriating the best rooms in the deep interior for herself and offending her sisters-in-law, who had to move out to make room for her. In subtle ways her presence changed the balance of power among the Otori lords, and though Shigeru resented her interference in his private affairs—she managed to make it clear that she disapproved of Akane without ever mentioning her and often seemed to find it essential to speak to him at the end of the day when it was his custom to go to the house beneath the pines—he was grateful for her implacable opposition to any appeasement of the Tohan and, above all, any marriage dictated by them. His father, who now spent more time with his wife than at any other period in his life, came gradually under her influence and began to share her views and to rely on her advice rather than on the shamans.
His uncles opposed the idea of the Seishuu alliance on the grounds that it would insult and enrage the Tohan—and in any case, they argued, who was available? Maruyama Naomi was already married; the Arai had no daughters; the Shirakawa had girls, but they were mere infants. So a compromise was reached, and in the end it was agreed, as Shigeru’s mother had first said to him, that the best strategy would be to arrange a betrothal as soon as possible to an Otori girl and pretend that it had been a long-standing co
mmitment.
HER NAME WAS Yanagi Moe: Her family were closely related to the Otori lords and to Shigeru’s mother. They lived in the mountain town of Kushimoto and were a proud, austere family of the old style. Moe was their oldest child and only daughter, and had been brought up to think highly of herself, her family, and her forebears. The Otori marriage was exactly what she had hoped for, believing it to be no more than her right. She had been born the year before Shigeru, and at seventeen, was small and very slight, charming and graceful enough, reserved by nature, overprotected by her family, with little knowledge or interest in the world beyond the walls of her parents’ house. She was fond of reading, wrote passable poetry, and liked playing draughts, though she never mastered chess or Go. She had been well taught how to supervise the running of a household, and she knew how to reduce a maid to tears with a few words. She secretly had no very high opinion of men, having several younger brothers who had replaced her completely in her mother’s affections.
The betrothal took place in Yamagata a little before the winter solstice, and the marriage in Hagi in the spring. There were huge celebrations: gifts of money, rice cakes, and wine were distributed among the townspeople; singing and dancing went on late into the night. Akane listened to the sounds from her house with a bitter heart. She drove her nails into her palms when she thought of him with his bride. Her only consolation was the charm she had received from the old priest. He had laughed when she told him what she wanted and had looked at her with sharp, serious eyes.
“Be careful what you wish for, Akane. It will come true, you know.”
She had let him fondle her breasts in payment, and the charm now lay buried in the garden, together with clippings from Shigeru’s hair and fingernails, and drops of Akane’s menstrual blood.
She did not see Shigeru for a week and had begun to despair, but when he finally came, after dark, alone except for two guards, he took her in his arms at once, without even waiting for the beds to be prepared, and made love with a ferocious desperation that she had never known in him before but which aroused her passion in response. Afterward she held him while he wept—she had never seen him cry—and wondered what had happened to so bruise his sense of self.
It seemed indelicate to pry into the reasons for his distress. She said very little, called for wine to be brought, and poured it for him. He drank several cups in swift succession, and then said abruptly, “She cannot make love.”
“She was a virgin,” Akane replied. “These things can take time. Be patient.”
“She is still a virgin.” He laughed bitterly. “I was not able to get her to open. Everything I did caused her pain and, it seemed, terror. She shrank from me; she had no desire at all for me. I think she has already come to hate me.”
“She is your wife,” Akane said. “She cannot continue to refuse you. You must have children together.” She spoke quietly and calmly, but inwardly she was rejoicing. I’ll let the old man suck my mouth! she vowed.
“I never expected it,” Shigeru said. “I thought I could please her. I thought she would be like you!”
Akane took his hand and rubbed her fingers against the ball of the thumb. She liked the feel of the muscle below the skin, strong and flexible from years of practice with the sword.
“What will I do?” he said. “It is clear that I have not deflowered her.”
“Be patient,” Akane said again. “If you still have no success, it is your mother’s duty to instruct her. Surely she can show her books, reassure her that it is all quite normal. If everything fails, you can repudiate her.”
“And be laughed at from here to Inuyama?”
“Cut yourself and spill blood on the bedding,” Akane said. “It will be enough to silence gossip in the castle. It will give you time. She must come to love you.”
She gazed on him, thinking how any woman in her right mind would do so, inveighing against the fate that had made Yanagi Moe his wife and not Akane herself. If I were married to him, how I would love him, she told herself. I would make him happy.
Maybe the charm had greater powers than she thought; maybe the sight of his vulnerability had weakened her; she found herself suddenly trembling, fearful in an unfamiliar and exquisite way. I am on the brink, she thought. I must not fall. How I will suffer if I do. Yet her defenses seemed so thin and poorly founded, especially against his need.
And his need for her became more apparent. He visited more often and seemed genuinely reluctant to leave. He spoke little about his wife, but she knew matters had not improved between them. Sometimes she felt guilty about what she had done, but then she rejoiced as the strength of their feelings for each other increased.
20
Yanagi Moe had anticipated her marriage with delight, but by the time the plum rains had ended, it was clear to her that she could expect nothing but suffering from it. Her body had betrayed her by its rigidity and tension: she knew she was a failure as a wife. Shigeru’s mother, Lady Otori, dominated and bullied her; the other women of the deep interior treated her with icy politeness that barely disguised their contempt.
And he, her husband, whom she had imagined she would respect and please, must also despise her. It was open knowledge among everyone that he kept a concubine. That did not shock her—it was common enough among men of his class—but the women of the deep interior often talked about Akane, about her charm and wit, and whispered among themselves that Shigeru was besotted by her.
If Shigeru had been as inexperienced as she was, they might have reassured each other; if he had been older, he might have treated her with more patience and restraint. But he was enmeshed in his first adult affair, which already gave him deep physical and emotional pleasure. Moe’s reluctance and frigidity repelled him; he could not bring himself to demand what was so clearly repugnant to her. He was angered by her in the end, knowing that he must create heirs for the sake of the clan, not wanting to hurt her or insult her family, unable to decide what the solution to such a problem might be, reluctant to discuss it with anyone but Akane. And Akane always said the same thing, “Be patient,” all the while smiling secretively.
Moe, in her turn, became angry with him. Once she knew about Akane, she placed all the blame for the failure of the marriage on her. Her pride was wounded deeply; she came to detest both her husband and the woman she thought he loved.
The end of the rainy season brought some relief from a situation that had become poisonous. Shigeru returned to the border country and spent the summer there with Kiyoshige and Takeshi. They took Miyoshi Kahei with them: like Takeshi, he was only thirteen, but the situation did not seem threatening and his father wanted him to benefit from the experience. Kitano Tadao was allowed to return to Tsuwano. The threat from the Tohan seemed to have subsided a little. The borders were quiet, apart from the customary to-and-fro of merchants on the high road to Inuyama. They brought news from the Tohan capital—most significantly of the death of Iida Sadayoshi and the subsequent elevation of Sadamu to the leadership of the clan. Kiyoshige and Shigeru entertained the boys by repeating the story of Sadamu’s unfortunate accident; they would not have laughed so uproariously had they known how many Tohan spies in Chigawa watched Shigeru’s every move and reported back to Inuyama.
AKANE FOUND the long hot days intolerably boring, but she was not altogether sorry that Shigeru was away. If he was not with her, neither was he with his wife, and his absence gave her a little space to regain control over her emotions. She behaved with discretion, visited her mother, the temples at Daishoin and Tokoji, where she always made generous donations, and various merchants from whom she ordered luxurious items: perfumes, teas, lacquerware, new robes for autumn and winter. She did not go to Haruna, but she often visited the garden near the volcano; she was more than a little impressed by what the old man’s charms had achieved. The hot weather did not agree with him; she arranged for medicines to be delivered to him, cooling teas and herbs to purify the blood, and instructed her gardeners to help him water his plants whi
le she kept him company. One day she was returning through the garden to where she had left the palanquin; it was almost a year to the day since her first night with Shigeru, and she was recalling it with mixed feelings as she passed the hedge that bordered the rear garden of Haruna’s house. She quickened her step, not wanting to be seen by anyone there, but as she went by the entrance, she heard running footsteps. Her former lover, Hayato, called out to her, “Akane! Akane!”
