“Just a humble merchant, as you are a farmer!” Kenji replied.

“Let’s drink to the friendship between them. The farmer and the merchant!”

They both emptied their cups and refilled them.

“What other news do you have?” Shigeru asked.

“You may be interested to hear that Arai Daiichi was forced to submit to Iida. He’s been dispatched to serve Noguchi in the new castle Iida’s building for him.”

“Did your niece go with him?”

“Shizuka? Yes, she’s living in the town. They had a child, you know?”

Shigeru shook his head.

“A boy. They called him Zenko.”

Shigeru emptied his cup, poured more wine, and drank to hide his emotion. She had betrayed him; she was rewarded with a son! “Will Arai acknowledge him as his heir?”

“I doubt it. Anyway, Shizuka’s children belong to the Tribe. Arai’s younger than you. He’ll marry and have legitimate children. He would have been married by now, but the Three Countries have been in chaos since Yaegahara. The Western allegiances are all up in the air. They won’t fight Iida, but they’ll make life difficult for him. He’s demanding concessions: the Shirakawa will probably have to give up their daughters as hostages; the Maruyama offended the Tohan by their refusal to attack the Otori from the West. Lady Maruyama’s husband died in the autumn, just after the birth of his son, and the son died recently. She’ll probably have to give up her daughter too.”

“Poor woman,” Shigeru said, after a moment’s silence. He was amazed and grateful to her for her staunchness.

“If she were a man, she would have paid for her defiance with her life, but since she’s a woman, Sadamu doesn’t really take her seriously. My prediction is he will marry either her or her daughter in order to claim the domain.”

“But he must already be married, at his age?”

“Yes, he is married, but there are many ways to get rid of a wife.”

Shigeru did not reply, reminded again sharply of the fragility of women and the weeks of mourning Moe.

“Forgive me,” Kenji said, his tone of voice changing. “I should not have spoken so, given your circumstances.”

“It is the reality of the world,” Shigeru said. “Iida is an expert in such marriage politics. I wish my father had been as skilled!” Surely Lady Maruyama will never marry Iida, he thought.

After Kenji had departed the following morning, Shigeru went to Ichiro’s room and took out a fresh scroll. It continued to rain, though not as heavily; the air smelled of mold, moist and humid.

Muto Yuzuru, he wrote. Brewer in Hagi.

Muto Kenji, the Fox, soybean-product manufacturer in Yamagata.

Muto Shizuka, his niece, concubine and spy.

Her son by Arai Daiichi, Zenko.

He looked at these sparse pieces of information for some time. Then he added: Kikuta woman (name unknown).

Her son by Otori Shigemori (name unknown).

He rolled the scroll inside one on crop rotation and hid it in the bottom of a chest.

39

The rains came to an end, and the heat of summer followed. Shigeru rose early and spent the days in the rice fields, watching the farmers protecting the crops from insects and birds. No one ever spoke of the society Kenji had mentioned-Loyalty to the Heron-yet he was aware of some deep understanding of his desire for anonymity. Beyond his own estate, he was never addressed by name. Outside Hagi, few knew him by sight, and if he was recognized, no one gave any indication of it.

Then the rice was harvested with sickles, the grain separated out with flails and sticks and dried on mats in the sun. Small children kept constant watch over it, setting up a cacophony with bells and gongs. In the vegetable fields, the water-powered deer-scarers beat out their erratic rhythm. The Festival of the Weaver Star was celebrated, and then the Festival of the Dead. Shigeru did not go to Terayama, as in the previous year, but instead attended the memorial at Daishoin, where so many of the Otori of his generation had their final resting place, and where Moe and his daughter were buried. Custom dictated that his uncles should also be present at this ceremony, and Shigeru greeted them with deference and humility, knowing that he must convince them of his new identity if he was to live. He did not speak much to them directly, but talked enthusiastically about the harvest in their hearing. A few days later his mother, who still had some contact with the deep interior, the women’s part of the residence, spoke to him, trying to conceal her displeasure.

“They are referring to you as ‘the farmer.’ Can you not at least maintain some dignity, some consciousness of who you are?”

He gave the frank smile that was becoming second nature to him.

“‘The farmer.’ It is a good name. It is what I am-hardly something to be ashamed of.”

Lady Otori wept in private and goaded him when she spoke to him. He said nothing to her of his true intentions; nor did he tell anyone else, though from time to time he would catch Ichiro regarding him curiously, and he wondered how much his astute old teacher suspected.

Takeshi did not hide the fact that Shigeru’s behavior puzzled and shamed him. The nickname of “the farmer” spread, and Takeshi hated it, frequently getting into fights over it-and over other perceived insults to Shigeru or himself. He was at the age when the turbulence of becoming a man increased his innate recklessness tenfold. He loved women, and while it was considered perfectly natural for young men of his age to visit the pleasure houses, Takeshi showed none of Shigeru’s reticence or self-control. On the contrary, people began to whisper that he would become as lecherous as his uncle Masahiro.

Chiyo brought these rumors to Shigeru’s notice, and he spoke to Takeshi severely about it, which led to angry scenes that surprised and distressed him. He had thought his brother would always be obedient to him and heedful of his advice. He tried to remind Takeshi obliquely of his resolve for revenge, but he had no plans to spell out, and Takeshi was impatient and dismissive. Shigeru realized the extent to which grief, humiliation, and loss of status had undermined Takeshi’s loyalty and loosened the bond between them. Not that the bond was any weaker on Shigeru’s side. His love and concern for his brother were stronger than ever. Yet he could not allow understanding Takeshi’s situation to lead to indulging him. Shigeru was strong-willed, Takeshi stubborn; the confrontations between them increased.

In the ninth month, violent rain and winds lashed the country as the first typhoons swept up the coast from the south, but when the storms abated, autumn had come with clear blue skies and cool crisp air. The weather was an invitation to travel; Shigeru realized he was longing to escape the difficult atmosphere of the house, the confinement of the city, the stress of continually pretending to be what he was not. He felt he and Takeshi needed to be apart for a while but feared leaving the younger boy with only Ichiro to supervise him.

Takeshi would make his coming of age in the new year, yet in Shigeru’s eyes he was immature and still had much to learn. Shigeru increased the time they spent together, dedicating long hours in the study to classical learning and war strategy and on the riverbank to sword training.

One warm evening, when he had arranged to meet his brother, Takeshi kept him waiting. Several young men had turned up to watch the training sessions, among them Miyoshi Kahei. Shigeru practiced for a while with Kahei, noting the young man’s skill and strength, his unease at Takeshi’s lateness increasing. When at last Takeshi arrived, he did not apologize; he watched the final bout with Kahei without expression, and when it was finished, made no move to take the pole from him.

“Takeshi,” Shigeru said. “Do the warm-up exercises, and then we will spar for a while.”