by Lian Hearn
Lady Maruyama said, “I believe my son was murdered.”
“How old was he?”
“Eight months.”
“Infants die from many causes,” Shigeru replied. Indeed, many children were not named until the second year of their life, when their chances of survival into adulthood seemed more ensured.
“He was an unusually robust child; he was never ill. But apart from that, I was given warnings that if I did not follow my late husband’s family’s wishes, I would be punished in some way.” Her eyes had become more luminous in the lamplight, but she spoke calmly and dispassionately.
“I would ask you how anyone dared dictate to you,” he said. “But the truth is, I am in the same situation. My life is now subject to my uncles’ wishes.”
“We are both betrayed by our closest relatives. Because your uncles, like my husband’s family, are willing—eager even—to appease and accommodate Iida Sadamu and the Tohan. It is only to be expected; in the short term they profit from it. But eventually such self-serving behavior can only lead to the downfall of the Western clans as well as the Otori. The Three Countries will be ruled from sea to sea by the Tohan with their cruelty. The female succession of Maruyama will come to an end.”
Shigeru leaned forward a little and spoke even more softly. “I will confide in you, though I have never spoken openly of this. I will have my revenge on Iida and destroy him, no matter how long it takes. Even he must have some weakness. I said I was learning patience: I am waiting for some strategy to be revealed to me, waiting for him to let down his guard or make some mistake. That is the only reason I am still alive. I will see him dead first.”
She smiled. “I am glad. It’s what I hoped to hear from you. It is my secret desire also. We will work together and share information and such resources as we have.”
“Yet it must be kept secret—perhaps for years.”
“What is kept hidden from the world increases in strength and worth,” she replied.
“I heard a rumor that Iida seeks to secure the Maruyama domain by marrying you himself,” Shigeru said, hoping he did not sound too abrupt.
“This is what my husband’s family hope to force me into. Neither the death of my son nor threats to my daughter’s life will make me do that. I would rather be dead.”
After a pause she said, “I should tell you something of my life so that you understand me. My husband, Ueki Tadashi, was from a small clan on the borders of the East and the Middle Country. He had been married before, to a woman from the East, and had three children: the eldest, a daughter, was older than I—already sixteen and married herself to a cousin of Sadamu’s, Iida Nariaki, whom my husband adopted, though Nariaki retained the Iida surname.”
“It is none of my business,” Shigeru said, “but who arranged this marriage? Did you choose your own husband?”
“I was somewhat against it, I confess. I did not like the idea of having stepchildren, and I was uneasy about such a close alliance with the Iida family. But I allowed myself to be persuaded and did not regret it at first: my husband was a delightful man—intelligent, kind, and a complete support to me.”
Shigeru tried to dismiss a sudden pang of something akin to jealousy.
Naomi went on, “But his children were another matter, and the very kindness of his nature meant he did not control them as he should. The daughter acted as though she were the heir to Maruyama. When my own daughter was born, she did not hide her rage and disappointment but began to insist that she be recognized legally. My husband never refused her as such but merely prevaricated. His health began to fail. When our son was born, he seemed to recover a little—he was very happy—but this lasted only for a matter of weeks. His health had been poor all summer, and he died before our son was a month old, from a tumor, it was believed.”
“You have my deepest sympathy,” Shigeru said.
“I had not realized to what extent he protected me until he was gone,” she said. “Since then, I have been assailed on all sides. I did not take the threats seriously until my son passed away. I had no proof that he had been poisoned, but he died so suddenly after having always been so strong. My accusations and suspicions were dismissed. I was held to be crazed with grief: opinions were voiced that a clan could not be led by a woman; a man would never be so weakened.”
He studied her face in the flickering lamplight. Her expression showed her sorrow, but he thought her character so steady that no grief would ever tip her into madness. He admired her enormously and wanted to tell her so, but he was afraid to reveal the depth of an emotion that he had not yet admitted to himself. He became awkward, speaking in short, abrupt sentences that rang false in his own ears. He wanted to tell her about his dream of his fern-child and how much her message had meant to him, but he was reluctant to express his own grief, in case he was softened by it and then . . .
The outcome of their conversation seemed thin and disappointing: he could offer her nothing in the way of political or military support, merely that they were united in their desire for Iida’s death.
However, the gap between desire and reality seemed insurmountable. All he could promise her was silent support—years of waiting and secrecy. It was hardly worth putting into words. Finally, even their desultory conversation failed completely and they sat in silence for many moments. The wind howled outside, shaking the roof, driving the rain against the walls, sending cold drafts through all the chinks.
“I suppose we may write to each other,” Shigeru said eventually, and she made a movement of acquiescence with her head but did not speak except to wish him good night. He bade her good night in reply and went to the office, where he lay and shivered most of the night in the thin, ill-fitting robe, fighting down the thought that she slept not twenty paces from him and that she had summoned him with other reasons in mind, now that they were both unmarried.
It was impossible not to admire her: she was beautiful, intelligent, brave, and possessed of deep feelings—everything a woman should be. But she had spoken of her husband so warmly: she had obviously loved him and still mourned him; for his part, he did not want to be involved with any woman, least of all one of such high rank, who was already desired by his greatest enemy and whom, he already knew, he would never be allowed to marry.
When he woke, the rain had stopped, though the early morning sky remained overcast. His own clothes were still damp, but he put them on again, leaving the borrowed robe folded on the floor. Sachie and Bunta had gone to the neighboring village to buy food for the return journey, for they were all eager to take advantage of the break in the weather.
Naomi invited Shigeru to stay until the others returned, for he could then take food with him, but he was anxious to cross the first pass before nightfall.
“Should I leave you alone?” he questioned.
She became almost angry with him. “If you want to leave, go now! I am in no danger, and even if I were, I am perfectly capable of defending myself.” She indicated the sword next to her. “There are also spears outside,” she said. “I assure you I can fight with both.”
They parted formally, with a certain sense of disappointment on both sides.
A wasted journey, he thought. We are both hopelessly weakened. He could not see how they could help each other, yet he could not imagine achieving anything without her. She was his only ally.
The farther he went, the worse he felt about leaving her. He wanted to tell her more; he felt he had not expressed his gratitude to her for supporting him against Iida, for understanding his grief, for making the journey to see him. It might be months before they met again. The thought was suddenly unbearable. He had walked for scarcely two hours when the rain began again, heavier than ever. Faced with the prospect of spending the night without shelter, he told himself it would be wiser to turn back; as soon as he turned, his spirits lifted. He walked swiftly, often breaking into a run, hardly noticing the rain lashing at him, soaking him, his heart pounding from exertion, from anticipation.
He saw immediately that the woman, Sachie, and the groom had not returned. Only the one horse, the pretty mare, stood in the shelter. She turned her head at his approach and whickered gently. He splashed through the puddles, undid his sandals, and leaped up onto the boards of the veranda.
He heard the sound of a sword sliding from the scabbard and put his hand to Jato, calling out, yet not wanting to name either himself or her. As he stepped into the temple area, the door to his left slid open and she stepped out, the drawn sword in her hand. For a moment they stared at each other without speaking. A flush lay beneath her normally white skin, and her eyes were brilliant with emotion.
“I . . . came back,” he said.
“I did not expect it to be you.” She looked at the sword and lowered it. “You are soaked.”
“Yes. The rain.” He gestured toward the outdoors, where the rain fell in a solid curtain.
“Sachie and Bunta will have stayed in the village,” she murmured. “Let me take your wet clothes.”
Pools of water were already collecting around him where his garments dripped on the floor. He took the sword from his sash and placed it inside the doorway of the matted room. She laid her sword next to it, then stepped toward him, her face still, her movements deliberate. He smelled her perfume, her hair, and then her breath. She stood close to him and her hands went to the knot in his sash. She undid it carefully and then looked up into his face as she pushed the outer garment back from his shoulders. Her hands brushed against the cold skin at his neck, and he remembered the birds’ plumage; she led him into the room, loosened her girdle, and drew him down onto the crimson cushions. He thought, I must not do this, but he was beyond choice, and then he thought, Everything else is denied to me; this one desired thing I will have. He remembered all he had feared for women, their frailty, their weakness, but she did not receive him with passiveness or weakness but gave herself to him and took him, all his strength and his need, with her own strength and power. Beneath the silk undergarments, her body was both slender and muscular, desiring his as much as his desired hers, astonishing and delighting him.
They clung to each other like fugitives in the deserted temple. While the rain fell, they were safe: no one would come as long as the rain kept falling. They were emperors in a palace above the clouds, in a world beyond time where anything was possible.
This is what it is to fall in love, he thought with a kind of wonder, never having expected to experience it, having always guarded himself against it on his father’s advice; now realizing the impossibility of resisting it, he laughed aloud.
She was seized by the same merriment and became playful, like a child. She brought tea and poured it not like a great lady but like a serving girl.
“I should serve you,” he said. “You are the head of your clan, and I am dispossessed. I am nothing.”
She shook her head. “You will always be Lord of the Otori clan. But we will serve each other. Here”—she spoke in familiar language—“take. Drink.” The abrupt words coming from her mouth made him laugh again.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know. And I you. There is a bond between us from a former life—from many lives, maybe. We have been everything to each other—parent and child, brother and sister, closest friends.”
“We will be husband and wife,” he said.
“Nothing can prevent it,” she replied, adding frankly, caressing him, “it is what we already are. I knew I loved you as soon as I saw you at Terayama. I recognized you in some way, as though I had known you deeply but had forgotten about you. My husband was still alive, and I knew I could never admit my love for you. But I did not stop thinking about you or praying for your safety. When my husband and my son died, it was only the thought of you that sustained me. I decided that so much had been taken from me, I would grasp the one thing I truly wanted.”
“I felt the same,” he said. “But what future is there for us? Before, you were a faint dream, a distant possibility. Now you have become my reality. What meaning will our lives have if we are only to be separated?”
“Why should we not marry? Come to Maruyama. We will marry there.” Her voice was warm and untroubled, and her optimism led him into a reverie where it was all possible: he would marry and live with this woman; they would establish a peaceful land in the West . . . they would have children.
“Would it ever be permitted?” he asked. “My uncles are now the heads of the Otori clan. My marriage would be of some importance to them. They would never approve of a union that so increased my standing and power. And there is Iida Sadamu.”
“The Tohan decided my first marriage. Why should they have any further say in my life? I am a ruler in my own right. I will not be dictated to!”
Her imperiousness made him smile, despite his forebodings. He saw her confidence—the assurance of a woman who knows she is loved by the man she loves. Despite the losses of the previous year, she still had a look of youth. Grief had marked her but had not corroded her spirit.
“Let us work toward it,” he said. “But can we keep such a thing secret? We might be able to meet once or twice without being discovered, but . . .”
“Let us not talk of danger now,” she interrupted him gently. “Both of us know the danger; we have to live with it daily. If we cannot meet, we may at least write to each other, as you said last night. I will send letters, as before, through Sachie’s sister.”
It reminded him of her previous message, brought by his former retainer.
“You met one of my warriors, Harada? I was astonished by his conversion to the Hidden.” He spoke more quietly, though there was no chance of being overheard through the downpour, and tentatively, unsure of how much she would reveal.
“Yes, Harada had some sort of vision. It is not uncommon among these people. Their god speaks to them directly when they pray to him. It seems, once heard, it is a voice that is hard to ignore.”
He felt that she was speaking of some direct experience. “Have you heard it?”
She smiled slightly. “There is much that appeals to me in these teachings,” she replied. “My children taught me how precious life is, how terrible it is to take it. As the leader of my clan, though, to give up the sword would condemn my people to immediate defeat by all those armed warriors who surround us. We must have some power to stand up to the cruel and the ambitious in their pursuit of conquest. But if everyone believed they faced a divine judge after death, maybe their fear of punishment would rein them in.”
He doubted it, feeling that men like Iida, who feared nothing in Heaven or on Earth, would be controlled only through strength of arms.
“Sometimes I think the voice is calling to me, but because of my position, I believe I am unable to answer. It seems offensive to me that people who will not defend themselves should be persecuted and tortured,” she went on. “They should be allowed to live in peace.”
“They give allegiance to a heavenly power, not their earthly rulers,” Shigeru said. “Therefore they cannot be trusted. I deeply regret Harada’s leaving my service.”
“You can trust Harada,” she said.
“Would you stand by and watch me take on three men?”
“No, I would fight alongside you. I do not claim to be one of the Hidden, only to admire and respect some of their teachings.”
There was so much to talk about, so many things to tell each other, and everything they learned about each other only increased their desire. When desire was slaked, they talked again, for the rest of the day, as the gray light slowly faded and night came, increasing their sense of isolation from the world, as if they had been transported to some bewitched mansion beyond time. The rain continued to pelt down; they hardly slept, totally absorbed in each other, body and mind, until exhaustion and passion blurred all barriers between them and it seemed they had truly become one person.
