“This is my mother’s main reason for supporting Hayato’s case,” Akane said. “She longs for grandchildren. But I have no desire for children. Why bring them into this world just to suffer?” After a moment, she added, “Anyway, do I have a choice? Surely Lord Shigeru’s wishes cannot be refused?”

“His wishes have not yet been voiced as such: the Mori family were simply sounding things out, as it were. However, I had the feeling they were advising against any other precipitous decisions that you might make.”

“Hayato has hardly been discreet,” Akane said.

“It’s true. Everyone knows he is pursuing you.”

“I suppose he will be ‘advised’ as well.”

“Almost certainly.”

“So I am supposed to refuse Hayato and do nothing until Lord Shigeru voices his wishes,” Akane said with a flash of anger.

“You only need do what you have been doing: Stay here with your mother and continue not to see Hayato. As I said, money has already been provided for you. You do not need to work.”

“It’s not only money I work for,” Akane said. “How long do I have to live without a man?” She was already missing her favorite lover, longing to feel again the intensity of the passion that had momentarily numbed her grief.

“Not long,” Haruna promised. “Shall I take a favorable response back to the Mori?”

Akane sat in silence. She could hear her mother in the kitchen, the sounds of the street and the river. She stood suddenly, as if seized by anger, and walked to the door and back again. “What other response can there be?”

After Haruna had left, Akane ignored her mother’s eager questioning and went to sit in her father’s workshop, among the piles of half-carved stones. It was empty and silent. She missed its constant noise, the tap of iron on iron and the sigh of iron on stone. Wataru had returned to his own village, saying he was too old to serve anyone else, and Naizo had been taken on by another mason who had already offered to buy her father’s store of stone. Soon the oxcarts would come and carry them away. The air was full of dust, and the sun’s rays seemed almost solidified by the motes, as if they themselves were about to become stone. She let her gaze linger over all the different shades of gray that lay between white and near-black-rocks brought from mountainside, riverbed, and seashore, hewn, hauled, and lifted by men’s strength.

How strange were the workings of fate, she mused. Lord Shigemori had ordered her father’s death; if that had not taken place, she would never have come to the attention of his son. If she went to him, she would be raised to a position her family could never have dreamed of-but she would have no children.

Yet, she thought, my father has no use for grandchildren. He will not be like other spirits. He will stay forever with his bridge-many will bring him offerings and gifts, almost as if he were a god himself.

She rose then and took flowers and wine to place before the stone. It had rained and the sky was overcast-the bridge, the streets, the river’s surface all as gray as the stones.

As she had expected, there were other offerings there. Her father had worshippers now and always would have. He did not need grandchildren. She prayed to his spirit and told him what she was going to become. There seemed a certain balance in place: she also would be a sacrifice-to the river god, to the Otori-though she thought her sacrifice would not be unpleasurable.

WEEKS WENT PAST without any further word from the horsebreaker or from the castle. Akane was disappointed.

“They have changed their minds,” she said to Haruna, who called on her regularly to keep her spirits up and bring money to her mother.

“These things take time to arrange,” Haruna said. “You must be patient.”

“I have been persuaded to give up a good man for the sake of an empty dream. You had better take me back!”

“Be patient,” Haruna whispered.

Akane’s patience was wearing thin, and she became even more annoyed when one morning when she awoke early and could not sleep, rose at dawn and went to the bridge to take food and drink to her father, she saw a group of horsemen riding toward her. She recognized Mori Kiyoshige on his gray horse with the black mane and tail; Irie Masahide, the sword instructor; and Lord Shigeru himself, along with a large number of retainers. She and the others in the crowd on the bridge dropped to their knees and watched with bowed heads until the horsemen had passed, the horses’ feet padding over the stones.

“Lord Shigeru is leaving the city?” she said to the man next to her, as they both stood.

“Looks like it. Going to deal with the Tohan, I hope. It’s time someone taught them a lesson.”

They will be away all summer, she thought. Am I expected to do nothing till the typhoons come and drive them home?

She watched the group as they trotted off the bridge and along the riverbank. The young man on the black horse turned his head and looked back. It was too far away to tell if he was looking at her, but she felt he had seen her standing by her father’s grave. She continued to stare after them until they disappeared from sight. She sighed. I may as well wait, she thought.

16

Shigeru had allowed his thoughts to stray to the stone-mason’s daughter once or twice, but he did not know about Kiyoshige’s negotiations, and he had very little time to pursue any of his own in that direction-for shortly after the entombment, messengers arrived from Chigawa, a small town on the high road between Yamagata and the coast, right on the eastern border of the Middle Country. The reports were that the Tohan were carrying out some sort of campaign against their own peasantry to root out an obscure sect known as the Hidden-Shigeru remembered Nagai talking about the same sect at Yamagata. The persecuted were fleeing over the border into the Middle Country. Tohan warriors were pursuing them, torturing them and killing them, along with any Otori peasants that might have given them shelter. It was this that outraged Shigeru when he heard it. The Tohan were entitled to do what they liked within their own borders, and Shigeru did not care one way or the other about the sect: there were a lot of religious movements that sprang up and withered away, and most of them seemed harmless, presenting no threat to the stable order of society. But if the Tohan started believing they could come and go as they liked into Otori lands, sooner or later they would come and stay. A further complication was that the border incursions all took place around Chigawa, an area rich in silver and copper. Such aggressive provocation had to be met with equal boldness and decisiveness: it was the only way to stop it.

As always, and to Shigeru’s displeasure, his uncles were present at the meeting Lord Shigemori called to discuss what the Otori reaction should be. He felt that now that he was an adult and could advise his father, there was no need for his uncles to be present. It seemed to him to indicate confusion about who actually led the clan and to say that Shigemori dared do nothing without his brothers’ agreement. Again, his uncles advised appeasement, reiterating their thoughts on the strength of the Tohan and the dangers of insulting the Iida again so soon after Miura’s unfortunate death. In his turn, Shigeru voiced his opinion forcefully and was supported by the senior retainers Irie and Miyoshi.

But the arguments went on. He saw how skillfully his uncles played his father, seeming always to defer to him, flattering him, wearing him down with their persistent reasoning. They claimed always that their only goal was the well-being of the clan, but he wondered what the secret desires of their hearts might be. What advancement to themselves did placating the Tohan bring? It did occur to him, then, that they might seek to usurp both his father and himself-such baseness seemed unbelievable, and he did not think the clan would ever allow it, but he also saw how ineffectual his father had become, and he feared pragmatic men like Endo and Miyoshi might, if not actively seek, at least accept a stronger head. Which will be no one but me, he swore to himself.