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.