He asked them if they knew the temple, Seisenji, and they gave him directions.

“But surely you won’t walk through the night?” the older man said.

“I’m afraid the weather is changing,” Shigeru said.

“You’re right! It’ll rain tomorrow. Probably after midday.” He glanced at the younger man. They could be father and son, Shigeru thought. “Stay here tonight. You can share our catch. We’ve been lucky this week.”

They had many birds-quail, pigeons, and pheasants-hanging by the neck on cords from the rafters of the hut. The quail they supplied to a traveler who transported them to a merchant in Kibi. The rest they dried and salted to feed their families. They were reluctant to reveal too much about their hunting, and he gathered that it was not exactly allowed, but the local lord overlooked it when it suited him.

The pigeon’s flesh was dark and strong-flavored. While sucking the bones, he asked the men if they had heard of the Battle of Yaegahara. They shook their heads: they lived in their isolated village or on the mountain, where little news penetrated from the outside world.

He slept lightly, not quite trusting them. It was a cold night, and the younger man got up several times to put more wood on the fire. Shigeru woke each time and lay for a while thinking about this chance meeting and how his life must be from now on, needing help and support as all men do, yet never able to trust anyone; relying on his own skill and watchfulness to discern threat and defend himself against it, but avoiding living in constant fear and suspicion, which would destroy him more slowly than the sword but as effectively.

They rose in the gray dawn, the men keen to return home before the rain began. They hung the strings of birds around their necks and waists, wrapped their loincloths and leggings over them, and covered their upper bodies with loose cloaks.

“Keeps you warm!” The younger man laughed, and pretended to shiver. “Feels like my wife’s fingers on my balls!”

Shigeru could imagine the caress of the soft down against the skin.

They walked together for several hours until the track forked at the head of two narrow valleys. Here they parted, the hunters going north, Shigeru south.

He thanked them and wished them well; they responded cheerfully and briefly, hardly breaking their stride, not bowing or using deferential language. They did not seem in the least curious about him. He was glad they had no interest in the world beyond, and that they did not care who he was.

He had not gone far down the track before the rain started, at first a light drizzle, just enough to make the path slippery, then, as the wind picked up, heavier and drenching. The wide conical hat protected his head and shoulders, but his legs were soaked, his sandals muddied and falling apart. He tried to quicken his pace, anxious to reach Seisenji before nightfall, but the track became more treacherous-in places water ran down it like a river-and he began to fear the deluge would force him to spend the night in the forest. He started to question what he was doing as the rain dripped from his hat and his feet lost all feeling. What did he expect from the meeting-if indeed they ever met? Why was he making this journey, unpleasant and dangerous as it was? Would she come at all? Would she come only to betray him?

He remembered vividly the moment when he had longed to slide his hands under her hair and feel the shape of her head, but he sternly tried to put this from him. She had rebuked him for seeing her only as a woman, for not taking her seriously as a ruler: he would not make that mistake again. If she were there at all… Anyway, he wanted no more involvement with women, dreading the pain and disappointment that passion dealt out-but her hair!

It was almost dark when the mountain path, now resembling a waterfall more than anything else, dropped steeply down to join a wider, more level road that led up a slight slope. At the top of the slope, almost hidden by the driving rain and the dark cedars, was a small building with curved roof and deep eaves. Four horses, one a pretty mare, backs to the wind, were tethered beneath a barely adequate shelter roofed with straw that shook in the gusts of wind, shedding stalks and chaff like huge raindrops.

He stopped at the steps and removed his sandals and hat, sodden as they were. Despite the rain, the doors were all open. He stepped up onto the veranda and looked in.

The rain streamed from the eaves and splashed up from the ground, enclosing the building like a living curtain. Lamps were lit inside, but the main room of the temple was empty, the floor bare boards. It seemed hardly used: a wooden statue of the Enlightened One sat on a small platform; in front of him vases held fresh flowers, the yellow-flowered silver leaf and branches of red-berried sacred bamboo. There were few other decorations or artifacts, only, below the rafters, votive pictures of oxen and horses.

He called softly and heard her voice speak to her companion Sachie, heard the woman get to her feet and approach the doorway. She turned and whispered back into the interior room.

“It is he.”

He made a sign to Sachie, fearing she would speak his name but she said simply, “Come in. We are expecting you,” and bobbed her head. He remembered her as an elegant and refined woman of high rank, but now she looked younger and less polished, and the clothes she wore were plain, cut like a man’s. The interior room was matted, and he hesitated on the threshold, not wanting to sit down in his wet, muddied clothes.

Lady Maruyama sat by a small lamp, but it was too dark inside to see her face. She stood and approached him. She, also, was in men’s clothes, made from dark cloth, her hair tied back with cords. In contrast with Sachie, her garments made her look older, taller, in every way stronger, but they could not dispel the mystery of her long hair or the new spareness that grief had brought to her face, revealing the beauty of the bones beneath the white skin. Her look was frank; her gaze direct and open.

“I am so glad to see you. Thank you for coming all this way. You must be tired. And you are wet through. Sachie, can we provide dry clothes?”

“I will ask the groom,” the woman replied and went quietly from the room through the worship hall to the veranda. After a few moments she returned with a dry robe that smelled faintly of horses, as if it had recently been unpacked from a saddle pannier.

Shigeru went with Sachie to the other side of the hall, where there was a similar space divided into storerooms and an office with matted floor. The temple’s records were stacked in moldering piles, and a cracked inkstone lay abandoned on a low writing table.

“Does no one live here?” he asked.

“The local people believe this temple to be haunted,” she replied. “They won’t come near it. Priests are driven mad here. They kill themselves or run away. No one will disturb us; and if anyone sees us, they will think we are ghosts.”

She brought a bowl of cold water to the veranda, and he washed his face, hands, and feet.

“I will prepare something to eat,” she murmured. After she had gone, he stripped off his clothes, dried himself, and put on the borrowed robe. It had been made for a smaller man. He tied it as best he could, put Jato into the sash, and his knife inside the breast. It was becoming colder, and despite the dry clothes, his skin was beginning to tremble.

He returned to the matted room, and Lady Maruyama indicated that he should sit. She must have brought some furnishings with her on the packhorse, for there were crimson silk cushions on the floor that surely did not belong to the temple; a sword lay next to her.

“Thank you for your message,” he said. “I was very sorry to hear of your son’s death, and so soon after your husband.”

“I will tell you about it later,” she replied. “You have also suffered terrible loss.”