All these thoughts flashed through Shigeru’s mind as Mori Yusuke prostrated himself before the three Otori brothers. He was a horseman and taught Shigeru and the other warriors’ sons. He bred and broke the Otori horses, who were said to be fathered by the river spirit; now the river had taken his son in return. His family were middle-rank but wealthy. Their own ability and their water meadows had brought them prosperity. Shigemori favored Yusuke to the extent of entrusting his son’s education to him.

Yusuke was pale but composed. He raised his head on Shigemori’s command and spoke in a low, clear voice.

“Lord Otori, I deeply regret the pain I have caused you. I have come to offer you my life. I ask only that you will permit me to kill myself after the fashion of a warrior.”

Shigemori said nothing for a few moments. Yusuke lowered his head again. Shigeru saw his father’s indecisiveness: he knew its causes. The clan could not afford to lose a man of Yusuke’s competence, but the affront had to be addressed or his father would lose face and be perceived as weak. He thought he saw impatience in his uncles’ expression, and Endo was frowning deeply too.

Shoichi cleared his throat. “May I speak, brother?”

“I would like to hear your opinion,” Lord Otori said.

“The insult and grievance to the family are unpardonable in my view. It is almost too much of an honor to allow this person to take his own life. The lives of his whole family should also be required, and the confiscation of his lands and property.”

Shigemori blinked rapidly. “This seems somewhat excessive,” he said. “Masahiro, what are your thoughts?”

“I must agree with my brother.” Masahiro ran his tongue over his lips. “Your beloved son Lord Takeshi nearly died. Lord Shigeru was also endangered. Our shock and grief were extreme. The Mori family must pay for this.”

Shigeru did not know his uncles well. He had barely seen them when he lived at his mother’s house. They were both considerably younger than his father, born of a second wife who still lived with her oldest son, Shoichi; he knew they had young children of their own, still toddlers or infants, but he had never set eyes on them. Now he saw his uncles’ faces and heard their words as he would a stranger’s. The expressions were those of loyalty to their older brother and devotion to the family, but he thought he discerned something deeper and more self-serving behind the soft-spoken phrases. And his father was right: the punishment demanded was far too harsh; there was no reason to ask for the lives of the family-he recalled the boy sobbing on the weir and the other brother; the woman who had screamed like a curlew on the bank-unless his uncles coveted what they had: Yusuke’s fertile land and crops, and above all his horses.

His father broke into his thoughts. “Lord Shigeru, you were the most immediately affected by these unfortunate events. What would be, in your opinion, a punishment both just and sufficient?”

It was the first time he had ever been asked to speak during an audience, though he had been present at many.

“I am sure my uncles are prompted only by devotion to my father,” he said, and bowed deeply. Sitting up, he went on. “But I think Lord Otori’s judgment is correct. Lord Mori must not take his own life-rather, he must continue to serve the clan, which benefits highly from his loyal service and his skills. He has lost his oldest son and has therefore already been punished by Heaven. Let him make recompense by dedicating one of his other sons to the river god, to serve at the shrine, and by donating horses to the shrine also.”

Shoichi said, “Lord Shigeru displays wisdom beyond his years. Yet I do not believe this deals with the insult to the family.”

“The insult was not so great,” Shigeru said. “It was an accident that happened during a boys’ game. Other families’ sons were involved. Are their fathers to be held responsible too?”

All the fathers involved were present in the room-Endo, Miyoshi, Mori, and his own. Something sparked anger in him, and he burst out, “We should not kill our own. Our enemies are eager enough to do that.”

His argument sounded hopelessly childish in his own ears and he fell silent. He thought he saw scorn in Masahiro’s expression.

Lord Otori said, “I agree with my son’s judgment. It will be as he suggests. With one addition: Mori, you have two surviving sons, I believe. Let the younger go to the shrine and send the older one here. He will enter Shigeru’s service and be educated with him.”

“The honor is too great,” Mori began to protest, but Shigemori held up a hand. “This is my decision.”

Shigeru was aware of his uncles’ hidden annoyance at his father’s judgment, and it puzzled him. They had all the advantages of rank and sufficient wealth, yet they were not satisfied. They had desired Mori’s death not for the sake of honor but for darker reasons of their own-greed, cruelty, envy. He did not feel able to voice this to his father or to the senior retainers-it seemed too disloyal to the family-but from that day on, he watched them carefully without seeming to, and he lost all trust in them.

4

Mori Kiyoshige became Shigeru’s closest companion. While his younger brother had been sobbing on the weir, Kiyoshige had run to his home to fetch help. He had not cried then or later: it was said of him that he never shed tears. His mother had been prepared for her husband’s death and the family’s ruin; when Yusuke returned home alive and with the news that Kiyoshige was to go to the castle, she wept in relief and joy.

Kiyoshige was small in stature but already immensely strong for his age. Like his father, he had a great love of horses and great skill with them. He was self-confident almost to the point of brashness and, once he had got over his shyness, treated Shigeru in the same way as he’d treated Yuta, arguing with him, teasing him, even occasionally scrapping with him. His teachers found him irrepressible-Ichiro in particular found his patience stretched to the limit-but Kiyoshige’s good humor, cheerfulness, physical courage, and skills at horsemanship endeared him to his elders as much as he irritated them, and his loyalty to Shigeru was complete.

Despite their relative prosperity, the family had been brought up with great frugality and a disciplined way of life. Kiyoshige was used to rising before sunrise and helping his father with the horses, then working in the fields before the morning’s lessons. At night, while his mother and sisters did sewing work, he and his brothers were expected to study, if they were not engaged in more practical tasks, like making sandals from straw while their father read to them from the classics or discussed theories of horse breeding.

The Otori valued two sorts of horses above all others-blacks and pale grays with black manes and tails. Mori bred both sorts and ran them in the water meadows. Occasionally a gray would be so pale as to be almost white, with white mane and tail. When the horses galloped together, they were like a storm cloud of black and white. The year Kiyoshige went to the castle, his father gave a young black colt to Shigeru and a black-maned gray the same age to his son. He presented a pure white horse to the shrine along with his youngest son, Hiroki. The white horse became a sort of god itself. Every day it was led to a stall in the shrine grounds, where people brought it carrots, grain, and other offerings. It became very fat and rather greedy. The shrine was not far from Shigeru’s mother’s house, and occasionally he and his brother were taken to festivals there. Shigeru felt sorry for the horse that could not run free with the others, but it seemed perfectly content with its new divine status.

“Father chose this one because of its placid nature,” Kiyoshige confided in Shigeru one day that summer as they hung over the poles at the front of the horse’s stall. “It would never make a warhorse, he said.”