Heaven's Net Is Wide

by Lian Hearn

  It was hardly the sort of thing he wanted to think about while he was preparing for a battle in which he would have to take the lives of many, and which he himself might not survive.

  They did not linger at Misumi, spending only one night there. Shigeru talked till late with Eijiro and received his assurances that the branch family would start preparing for war and mustering men, as far as the snow permitted: if Irie were successful with the Noguchi, he now had the whole of the Middle Country preparing for war. The western borders were safe from attack; he resolved he would send Kiyoshige and Harada back to Chigawa before the end of the year. He wished he knew what Sadamu was up to, how many men he was assembling, what alliances he was brokering. But, at least, Kiyoshige and Harada would keep an eye on what was happening beyond the border and would give warning of any imminent attack. He was not displeased with the work of the past year. But the hardest task that lay ahead of him, he suspected, would be in Hagi itself, where his adversaries were his own family, his father and his uncles.

  SHIGERU’S FIRST RESOLVE was to take control of the castle, and on the second day after his return he requested a private meeting with his father. When he arrived in the early afternoon, his mother was already in the room: she clearly intended to stay and, on the whole, he was glad of it, for he knew he could count on her support against his uncles. He had given orders that they were not to attend; if they came to the hall, they were not to be admitted. It was the first time he had opposed them so openly, but he had even more unpleasant commands in store for them, and he felt confident enough in his increased popularity and authority to confront them now.

  His father did not look well, and when Shigeru inquired after his health, he said he had been troubled by back pain, urinated frequently and consequently slept badly, and had little appetite. Wine made his symptoms only worse, and he dreaded the cold. Despite the charcoal braziers, the room was already freezing. His father’s skin was tinged with yellow, and his hands trembled as they plucked at the amulets he carried in his sleeve. A special tea was brought, heavily laced with valerian; it seemed to alleviate the shivering but made his father’s mind sluggish and confused.

  Shigeru conveyed formal greetings from the branch families and vassals and then told his parents the essence of his activities: the preparation for war, the agreement with the Arai and the Maruyama. His father looked troubled, but his mother gave him her open approval.

  “I should inform my brothers,” Shigemori said.

  “No, Father, that is precisely what I do not want you to do. All these negotiations must be kept as secret as possible. I know you think my uncles have been of some support to you in the past, but I believe their influence has not been beneficial to the clan. Now I am of age there is no need for them to involve themselves so closely in our affairs.”

  “They could be sent away,” his mother observed. “They both have country estates that are pitifully neglected. There are too many people in the castle—all those children they keep producing. Lord Shigeru is right: we no longer need your brothers’ advice. You must listen to your son.”

  Shigeru was delighted with this advice from his mother and, with his father’s reluctant permission, immediately put it into practice. He summoned his uncles the following day and told them of his desires, was unmoved by their fury or their arguments, and insisted that they retire to Shimano and Mizutani immediately.

  Unfortunately, it proved harder to get rid of them than either he or his mother had expected. There were endless excuses: one of the wives was about to give birth, a child fell ill with a dangerous fever, the day was inauspicious, the river was in flood, horses could not be found; there was even a small earthquake. Then the year turned; the festival had to be celebrated in Hagi. As Shigeru returned home from the temple at Tokoji in the early hours of the morning on the first day of the year, snow was falling. It fell almost without letup for six weeks, closing the city off from the rest of the country and, equally, preventing his uncles from leaving.

  27

  Snow fell over the Three Countries, turning the landscape white, covering the forests with the heavy blossoms of winter, muffling sound and masking color, putting an end to all outdoor activity from farming to war.

  It fell on Inuyama, where Iida Sadamu planned his spring campaigns; on the temple at Terayama, where Otori Takeshi chafed against the bitter cold and the harsh discipline; on Maruyama, where Lady Naomi realized she was expecting another child; on the plain of Yaegahara, where only wolves and foxes left their tracks; on Kushimoto, where Shigeru’s wife, Moe, refused to answer her mother’s probing questions about marriage and grandchildren, listened to her father’s fears about the coming war, and hoped war would come and that her husband would be killed in it, for she could see no other honorable escape from her marriage.

  The snow filled Akane with delight, for it would keep Shigeru in Hagi and his wife in Kushimoto. She loved winter, despite the cold and the hardship; she loved the look of the snow-covered roofs, the icicles hanging from the eaves, the icy branches of trees etched delicately against the pale winter sky. The hot spring baths were even more pleasing when the air was freezing and snow melted on hair and skin. And what could be more pleasurable than the warmth of her lover’s body on a cold night under piles of quilts when the snow fell too heavily for him to go home?

  She was glad that Moe was away and that there was no sign of reconciliation or, more importantly, of a child. The longer the marriage went without producing a child, she reasoned, the greater were her chances of being permitted to bear one. For Shigeru had to have heirs for the continuity of his family and the stability of the clan. She had to time it right, to find herself pregnant at just the right moment, and then to give him a son.

  When the weather permitted, she went to see the old man, taking him charcoal and padded clothes, hot stews and tea. And she brought back secretly the gifts he gave her in return: mummified roots like half-formed embryos, dried leaves and seeds with a bitter taste, tassels woven from human hair, all charms to help her capture Shigeru’s love and protect the child that would be born from it.

  She shared, for different reasons, Shigeru’s eagerness to see Lord Shoichi and Lord Masahiro leave the city, and she was angry and disappointed when their departure was prevented by the first snows. Masahiro had not contacted her again, but she was aware that he had her watched, and that sooner or later he would demand another payment for his leniency toward Hayato’s family.

  Her unease about this was increased by some indefinable change in Shigeru’s attitude toward her. There was no indication that the charms were working—it would be more true to say the opposite. She told herself it was because of the preoccupations of politics and war, that she could not expect him to remain the passionate boy who had been on the brink of falling in love with her. He still took delight in her company, was indeed still passionate in bed, but she knew he was not in love with her despite all the charms she had tried to bind him with. He came to her frequently—Kiyoshige was away in Chigawa, Lord Irie still in the South, Takeshi at Terayama, and he had few companions—and they talked as they always had, yet she felt he was withholding something from her: he was growing away from her. She did not think she would ever see him weep again.

  Their relationship settled into what it was supposed to be: she could not complain about it; she had accepted it, knowing what it was to be; no one had rushed her or forced her, yet she had hoped for much more and now the new coolness in Shigeru’s attitude inflamed her love for him. She had told herself she would never make the mistake of falling in love, but she found herself consumed by her need for him, her desire for his child, her craving for his love. She did not dare express it or even speak to him about jealousy anymore. When he was not with her, she longed for him with physical anguish; when they were together, the thought of his leaving was as painful as if her arm were being wrenched from her body. Yet she gave no sign of her feelings, telling herself she must enjoy what she had, how great her fortune was
compared to that of many. There was no doubt it was a convenient arrangement for him; it gave him a great amount of pleasure with very little cost or pain. But he was the heir to the clan, she a nobody, not even a warrior’s daughter. And wasn’t the world arranged for the convenience and pleasure of men? She visited Haruna from time to time to remind herself of this. Haruna returned her visits and once brought Hayato’s widow and her sons to thank Akane. The boys were intelligent and good-looking. She thought they would be kind, like their father. She became interested in their welfare and sent the family gifts. She had saved their lives—in a way, they became her children.

  She went to the stone bridge at least once a week to take offerings to her father and to listen to his voice in the icy water as the tide pulled it through the arches. One bleak afternoon, when the light was fading fast, she stepped from her palanquin and walked to the center of the bridge, her maid following her with a red umbrella, for a few flakes of snow were falling.

  The tide prevented ice from forming on the surface of the river, but the ground on the banks was frozen hard and the rushes were stiff with frost and frozen snow. Someone had placed winter oranges in front of the stone, and they were also frozen solid, embedded in the crusted snow, tiny ice particles glinting against their bright color in the last of the light.

  She took a flask of wine from the maid and poured it into a cup, tipped a few drops out onto the ground and drank the rest herself. The wind off the water brought tears to her eyes, and she allowed herself to weep for a few moments, for her father, for herself, in their imprisonment.

  She could not help being aware of the picture it must make—the red umbrella, the woman bent over in grief—and wished somehow Shigeru might be watching her while she was unaware of his gaze.

  As she clapped her hands and bowed to her father’s spirit, she realized that someone was watching her from the other side of the bridge. There were a few people in the streets, hurrying home before nightfall, heads bent against the snow, which was falling more heavily now. One or two of them glanced at Akane and called out a respectful greeting, but none of them lingered, except this one man.

  As she returned to the palanquin, he crossed the street and walked beside her for the last few paces. She stopped and looked directly at him; she did not know his name but recognized him as one of Masahiro’s retainers. She felt the sudden thud in the pulse of throat and temple as her heart seemed to plummet.

  “Lady Akane,” the man said. “Lord Masahiro sends you his greetings.”

  “I have nothing to say to him,” she replied hastily.

  “He has a request to make of you. He instructed me to give you this.” He drew a small package from his sleeve, wrapped in an ivory-and-purple-colored cloth.

  She hesitated for a moment, then took it abruptly and handed it to the maid. The man bowed to her and walked away.

  “Let us hurry home,” Akane said. “It is so cold.” She was indeed chilled to the bone.

  By the time they arrived at the house, night had already fallen. The wind soughed in the pine trees, and a dull moaning came from the waves on the beach. Suddenly Akane was sick of winter, sick of the endless snow and the cold. She gazed briefly around the colorless garden. Surely the plum, at least, would be in blossom? But the branches were still dark—the only whiteness snow and frost. She hurried into the house, calling for the maids to bring braziers and more lamps. She craved light and warmth, sunshine, color, and flowers.

  When she was a little warmer, she told the girl to bring Masahiro’s package. She untied the knot and slipped the silk wrapping away. Inside was a fan: she had seen similar ones at Haruna’s establishment. It was exquisitely painted: on one side, a woman in a spring robe gazed at wisteria flowers; on the other side, the robe had fallen open—the scene was less delicate.

  She was not shocked by the fan. The painting was beautifully executed and pleasingly erotic in mood. At any other time she would have been thrilled with this gift. The artist was well known and widely admired; the fans were collected avidly: they were extremely expensive. It was not something she wanted to receive from a man like Masahiro, but she could not bring herself to send it back or to throw it away. She wrapped it up again and told the maid to put it in the storeroom. She could not help thinking that she might have need of such treasures one day, when Shigeru tired of her or if he died. . . .

  Then she took up the letter that came with the present.

  Masahiro wrote in couched sentences: an inquiry after her health, a desire to hear her news, comments about the harsh weather and how he worried for his children when there was so much sickness around, a warmly expressed hope that they might have the pleasure of meeting soon, and his most humble and heartfelt regards to his nephew. She told the maid to bring the charcoal brazier outside into the garden, and wrapping herself in a silky fur robe, she tore the letter up and fed it piece by piece into the flames. The garden seemed full of sadness and ghosts; a sleety snow was falling against the smoke. Akane felt haunted by her dead lover and by her own sorcery. The charms by which she had closed Moe’s womb lay a few paces from her, buried in the frozen ground. Hayato, too, lay in the cold earth, along with the children they might have had together.

  Even when the letter had been reduced to ash, indistinguishable from the sleet, she felt its veiled hypocritical phrases coil around her heart.

  What did Lord Masahiro really want? Were he and his brother seriously seeking to usurp Shigeru? Or were his actions merely those of a malicious and inquisitive man who, deprived of real power, liked to play these spiteful games? She read his message without difficulty: the references to “news” and “children” were all too clear. She wished she had not met the boys: their faces with their smooth childish skin and clear eyes rose before her, as demanding as their father’s ghost. They had found their way into her heart; she could not sacrifice them now.

  She wondered if she should tell Shigeru of his uncle’s demands but feared too much losing his good opinion of her or, worse, losing him altogether. If he suspected her of spying on him or of compromising him in any way, she knew he would stop seeing her; and now his love and need for her were diminishing. She would be shamed in front of the whole city; she would never recover. I must continue to play them both, she thought. It should not be too hard: they are only men, after all.

  When she returned inside, she was shivering, and it took a long time to get warm.

  THROUGHOUT THE WINTER she delivered snippets to Masahiro that she thought might keep him interested. Some she made up; some were loosely based on what she gleaned from Shigeru. None, she thought, was of any great importance.

  28

  Muto Shizuka spent the winter in the southern town of Kumamoto with Arai Daiichi, the eldest son of the clan lord. She could have seen herself openly acknowledged as Arai’s mistress, for it was said he was so infatuated with her that he would deny her nothing, but beneath her lively, charming exterior, she was secretive by nature as well as by upbringing and training, and she preferred to keep the relationship hidden.

  Her father had died when she was twelve years old, and her mother lived with relatives in Kumamoto, a merchant family by the name of Kikuta whom the Arai knew mostly as moneylenders. Her father had been the eldest son of a Yamagata family called Muto, and Shizuka was very close to his relatives, writing to them almost every week and often sending gifts. She told Arai stories about this family, embroidering them with warmth and humor, entertaining him with their petty feuds and follies, until he felt he almost lived among them. What he did not know was that the Kikuta and the Muto were the two most important families of the Tribe.

  Like most of the warrior class, Arai knew very little about the other castes that made up the society of the Three Countries. Farmers and peasants worked the land and provided warrior families with rice and other basic supplies; they were usually easy enough to handle, having no fighting skills and very little courage. Occasionally starvation made them desperate enough to riot, but it also weakene
d them, and unrest was usually quelled without difficulty. Merchants were even more despicable than peasants, since they lived and grew fat on other people’s labor, but they seemed to become more essential every season, producing foodstuffs, wine, oil, and soybean paste as well as many luxuries that added to the delights of life—fine clothing, lacquered boxes and dishes, fans and bowls—and importing expensive and exotic items from the mainland or from distant islands to the south: spices for cooking, herbs for medicine, gold leaf and golden thread, dyes, perfumes, and incense.