“So you saved your wife’s life?” Irie had been silent till now, watching and listening carefully.

“She is not dead, nor are our children; but she does not thank me for it. She obeyed me, as a wife should, but she feels she disobeyed the teachings of her god. Those who died have become martyrs, saints, and live in Paradise. She is afraid she will be cast into hell.”

“THIS IS THE REASON the Tohan hate this sect so much,” Irie said later, after the headman had been dismissed and they had eaten a sparse meal. “Wives should obey their husbands, vassals their lords, but these people have another loyalty-to an unseen power.”

“Unseen and nonexistent,” Kiyoshige said briefly.

“Yet we’ve seen tangible proof of the strength of their belief,” Shigeru observed.

“Proof of the belief, not of the god’s existence.”

“What proof is there of the existence of any spirit?” Shigeru said, but then remembered how he himself had seen-had talked to-a fox-spirit who could appear and disappear at will.

Kiyoshige grinned. “It’s better not to question too closely. The monks and priests could occupy you for years with their discussions.”

“I agree,” Irie said. “Religious practices should keep the fabric of society in good shape-they should not unravel it.”

“Well.” Shigeru stretched his legs, then settled himself cross-legged and changed the subject. “From tomorrow we will ride the length of the border, from sea to sea. We must know the full extent of Tohan incursion. We have nine weeks-maybe three months before the first typhoons.”

“We have few men for a long campaign,” Irie said. “And the Tohan will be seeking revenge for this recent defeat.”

“I will write tonight to Yamagata and Kushimoto. They can each send a couple of hundred. You and Kiyoshige may go north with half of them. I will go south with the others.”

“I should accompany Lord Shigeru,” Irie protested. “And, forgive me, Lord Kiyoshige is too young to undertake such a mission.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Kiyoshige muttered.

Shigeru smiled. “Kiyoshige-and all of us-need all the experience we can get. That is why you will go with him. We are not engaging in a major battle; we are simply demonstrating to the Iida that we will not tolerate encroachment of our borders. But I fully expect these skirmishes to lead to all-out war. You can wait for the extra men in Chigawa. We will ride there together tomorrow. I will send Harada tonight with the letters. And then I wish to speak to the man we rescued.”

HE HAD CARRIED writing materials and his seal with him, as always, in the saddlebags, and now he asked for more lamps to be brought and water for the inkstone. He mixed the ink and wrote swiftly to Nagai at Yamagata and to Lord Yanagi of Kushimoto, ordering them to send men directly to Chigawa. Then he gave the letters to Harada, saying, “There is no need to contact Hagi or anyone else. Above all, Kitano must not be told. You must impress upon them both: They must obey at once.”

“Lord Otori.” The man sprang into the saddle with no sign of fatigue and, accompanied by two soldiers carrying torches, rode off into the night.

Shigeru watched the lights shrink until they were indistinguishable from the fireflies or the stars against the utter blackness of the Yaegahara plain.

“I hope you approve,” he said to Irie, who stood beside him. “Am I doing the right thing?”

“You have acted decisively,” Irie replied. “That is the right thing, whatever the consequences.”

Those I have to live with, Shigeru thought, but did not say it to Irie. He felt the sense of liberation that action brought. Irie was right: far better to act decisively than to sit in endless discussion and consultation, paralyzed by superstition and fear.

“Now I will speak to Nesutoro,” he said. “There is no need for you to come with me.”

Irie bowed and went back to the shrine. As Shigeru walked to the house where the village headman lived and where his brother-in-law was being tended, Kiyoshige joined him out of the shadows.

“The horses are tethered and fed. And guards have been set all around the village. There’s not a lot to eat, but the men are not complaining. In fact, they’re happy-they can’t wait to have another go at the Tohan.”

“I think they’ll get that soon enough,” Shigeru replied. “Word of this encounter will reach Inuyama within days, and the Tohan will respond. But by then we’ll have reinforcements. And from now on our borders will be patrolled and guarded properly.”

They came to the headman’s small house. It had an earthen floor with a tiny raised matted area for sleeping. Here Nesutoro lay, a woman kneeling beside him. When she saw the visitors, she bowed to the floor, staying low until her husband spoke quietly to her. Then she rose and brought cushions for them, placing the cushions on the step near the injured man. She helped her brother to sit and leaned his head against her own body, acting as a support to him. In the dim lamplight her face appeared drawn, bruised with grief and tears, but Shigeru could perceive the likeness to her brother in the planed cheekbones and almost triangular eyes.

Nesutoro’s eyes glittered like coals with fever and pain, but the sharp features softened into a real smile at the sight of Shigeru.

“Are you able to talk a little?”

The man nodded.

“I am interested in your beliefs and want to know more about them.”

Nesutoro looked anguished. His sister wiped the sweat from his face.

“Answer Lord Otori,” the headman pleaded, then added apologetically, “They are so used to keeping everything hidden.”

“There is no danger from me,” Shigeru said impatiently. “But if I am to protect you from the Tohan, I must know what I am defending. I leave here at dawn. You are not fit to travel with me. So, if you are able, we must talk now.”

“What does Lord Otori want to know?”

“For a start, what are the images that you have to defile?”

The woman made a slight sound as if she was about to sob.

Nesutoro moved his hand and traced a character on the matting, two lines crossing each other, as in the number ten.

“What does it signify?”

“We believe the Secret One sent his son to Earth. The son was born to an ordinary woman and lived as a man. He was put to death in the cruelest way, nailed to a cross, but he came back from the dead and now sits in Heaven. He will judge us all after death. Those who know him and believe in him will join him in Heaven.”

“Everyone else goes to hell,” the headman added, sounding remarkably cheerful about it. His wife was weeping silently now.

“Where does this teaching come from?” Shigeru questioned.

“From far away in the West. Our founder, the saint whose name I bear, brought it from Tenjiku to Shin over a thousand years before, and from there teachers came to the Eight Islands hundreds of years ago.”

It sounded like any other legend to Shigeru, possibly founded in truth but overlaid by centuries of human imagination, wishful thinking, and self-delusion.

“You may think we are mad,” Nesutoro said, sweat pouring from him. “But we know our God’s presence: He lives inside us…”

“They have a ritual meal,” the headman explained. “When they share food and wine, they believe they eat their god.” He laughed as if to show that he did not share such outlandish beliefs.

The wife spoke suddenly. “He gave himself for us. He suffered so we might live. Everyone, anyone-even me, a woman. In his eyes I am as good as a man, as my husband, even as…”

Her husband slammed his fist into the matting. “Be quiet!” He bowed low to Shigeru. “Forgive her, Lord Otori, her grief makes her forget herself.”

Shigeru was astonished by her words and equally by the fact that she had dared to speak in his presence at all. He could not remember ever hearing a peasant woman speak directly to him. He was both affronted and intrigued. He felt Kiyoshige tense next to him and held up his hand to restrain the younger man. He thought Kiyoshige might draw his sword and cut her down-anywhere else the woman would have been punished immediately for her insolence, but here in the bare, impoverished house, alongside the suffering man, it was as if they had moved into a different world, where the rigid codes of his society no longer applied. He felt compassion stir within him. He had, after all, inquired about the beliefs of these people called the Hidden. Now he was learning about them, not only through words but directly through the person of the woman in front of him, who believed herself to be his equal.