“It has been such a long time,” Shigeru said. “I did not know you had been ill.”

“I was very ill. I could not eat or sleep for weeks. I should have written to you, but my illness robbed me of confidence, and I did not know what to say to you or even how to send it.”

She paused, and then went on in a low voice, “I would like to hold you now, lie down with you here on the grass, but it is impossible this time. But I am feeling more hopeful-I don’t know why: perhaps I am deluding myself-but I feel with Iida’s son growing up a healthy boy and with everything so settled now-I can see no reason why we should not marry.”

She glanced back at the house. “I must talk quickly. I don’t know how long we will have alone. I must leave tomorrow, and we may not have another opportunity. I am resolved to discuss the question with my senior retainers and the elders of the clan. They will approach your uncles with offers and promises they cannot refuse: trade, gifts, ships, maybe even part of the border country. The Arai will be in favor, and so will the rest of the Seishuu.”

“It is my sole desire,” he replied. “But we will only have one chance: if we make such a request, we risk exposing what we are to each other; if it is refused, we will lose what little we have.”

She was staring straight ahead, seemingly calm, but when she spoke, he realized her self-control was near breaking. “Come back to Maruyama with me now,” she begged. “We will marry there.”

“I cannot leave my brother in Hagi,” Shigeru said, after a moment. “I would be condemning him to certain death. And such an act would unleash war-not only on a battlefield like Yaegahara but throughout the Three Countries, in this peaceful valley, in Maruyama itself.” He added, with pain, “I already lost one terrible battle. I do not wish to begin another war unless I am sure of winning it.”

“You must start telling me about these crops,” she said swiftly, for Lady Kitano was approaching them. “But first I will say that I am so happy for this chance of seeing you, no matter how painful it is too. Just to be in your presence fills me with joy.”

“I feel the same,” he replied. “And always will.”

“Next year I will write to your uncles,” she whispered, before speaking more loudly about locusts and the harvest.

THE FOLLOWING DAY, after farewells had been made and Lady Maruyama and her party had left to ride toward Kibi, Kitano Masaji accompanied Shigeru on his way north, saying he had a young horse that needed the exercise. Shigeru had been allowing himself to indulge in dreaming: that Naomi’s plan would work, that they would marry, he would leave Hagi with all its painful associations of defeat and death, and live with her in Maruyama. He replied to Masaji’s comments and questions with only half his attention.

They had almost reached the pass at the head of the valley when a horseman appeared suddenly out of the forest on the eastern side. Shigeru’s hand went immediately to his sword, and Masaji’s did the same, as they reined the horses in and turned to face the stranger.

The man leaped from his horse, removed his helmet, and fell on one knee, bowing deeply.

“Lord Otori,” he said, not waiting for the others to speak or giving any formal greeting. “You have returned. You have come to call us to arms again. We have been waiting for you!”

Shigeru stared at him. There was something familiar about the man’s face, but he could not place him. He was young, less than twenty, his face gaunt and bony, his eyes glittering in deep sockets.

He is a madman, Shigeru thought, unhinged by some great loss.

He tried to speak gently but firmly. “I have not come to call you or anyone to arms. The war is over. We live at peace now.”

Masaji drew his sword. “This man deserves to die!”

“He is just a lunatic,” Shigeru said. “Find out where he comes from and return him to his family.”

Masaji hesitated for a moment, long enough for the stranger, with the single-minded swiftness of the insane, to mount his horse again, and rein it backward toward the forest. He cried out in a hoarse voice, “So it is true what they all say. Otori failed us at Yaegahara and fails us now.”

He turned the horse and galloped back, weaving between the trees and quickly disappearing.

“I’ll go after him and capture him,” Masaji exclaimed, and he called to his men. “Did you know him, Lord Shigeru?”

“I don’t think so,” Shigeru replied.

“There are many masterless men between here and Inuyama,” Masaji said. “They turn to banditry. My father is trying to eradicate them. Good-bye, Shigeru. I am glad we had this chance to meet again. I’ve long wanted to tell you I don’t blame you for not taking your own life, as many do. I’m sure you had good reasons, and it does not mean any lack of courage.”

There was no time to reply to this. Masaji and his men had already put their horses into a canter in pursuit of the madman. Shigeru urged Kyu into a gallop up the steep track to the pass, wanting to leave them both behind, the lunatic and the man who had once been a friend, and to forget their words, which revived all too strongly his sense of failure and dishonor. It was only that night, just before sleep, that he remembered where he had seen the man before. It had been at his wife’s parents’ house in Kushimoto. The man was from the Yanagi, who had been all but wiped out in the battle by the traitorous Noguchi, whose very name had been eradicated. It was distressing and disturbing, awakening all his feelings of guilt and grief about Moe, his doubts about the path he had chosen, his feeling that death by his own hand would have been the braver choice.

Soga Juro Sukenari waited eighteen years to avenge his father. It was only three years since Yaegahara and his own father’s death. Was he deluding himself that he would have the patience to wait as long as another fifteen years, suffering constant humiliations like those of today?

The turn of the moon had brought a change in the weather. It was much colder, and he could hear rain making its first tentative patter on the roof. He thought of the power of water. It allowed itself to be channeled by stone and soil, yet it wore away the first and washed away the second. He fell asleep to the sound of the rain, his last thought that he would be as patient as water.

42

A couple of weeks later, just before the onset of winter, Shigeru was returning home on a bitterly cold day when he became aware that someone was following him. He turned once and saw a figure hidden by a hat and cape: it was impossible to tell if it was male or female, though it was of no great height. He walked faster, his hand prepared to go to his sword. The road was frozen solid and icy underfoot. He looked almost unconsciously for a piece of firmer ground on which to make a stand if he had to, but when he turned again, his follower had vanished-though he had the feeling he was still there, unseen: he fancied he could hear the slightest footfall, the merest breath.

“Is that you, Kenji?” he demanded, for sometimes the Fox played similar tricks on him, but there was no response. The wind blew more coldly; night was falling. As he turned to hurry home, he felt someone pass by him and caught the slight scent of a woman.

“Muto Shizuka!” he said. “I know it is you. Show yourself to me.”

There was no reply. He said more angrily, “Show yourself!”

Two men came around the corner, pushing a barrow laden with chestnuts. They stared at Shigeru in amazement.

“Lord Otori! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “Nothing’s wrong. I am on my way home.”

They will think I’ve gone mad. “Not only the farmer but the crazy farmer,” he muttered as he came to the gate of his mother’s house, certain that the two would go straight to the nearest inn and start gossiping about him.