The gate-keeping Acolyte calls out, ‘Inner Gate opening, Sisters!’

… and when it’s been done to you once, why resist any more?

‘Unless you win your will back,’ says the girl in the pool, ‘you’ll turn into the others.’ I shall stop taking Suzaku’s drugs, Orito resolves, from tomorrow.

The stream leaves the pool through mossy grates.

My ‘tomorrow’, she realises, is proof that I must stop today.

‘How do we find our Newest Sister this evening?’ asks Master Suzaku.

Abbess Izu watches from one corner; Acolyte Chûai sits in another.

‘Master Suzaku finds me in excellent health, thank you.’

‘The sky this evening was a sky from the Pure Land, was it not, Newest Sister?’

‘In the World Below, sunsets were never this beautiful.’

Pleased, the man assesses the statement. ‘You were not aggrieved by the Goddess’s judgement this morning?’

I must hide my relief, thinks Orito, and hide that I am hiding it. ‘One learns to accept the Goddess’s judgement, does one not?’

‘You have come on a long journey in a short time, Newest Sister.’

‘Enlightenment can occur, I understand, in a single moment.’

‘Yes. Yes, it does.’ Suzaku looks at his assistant. ‘After many years of striving, Enlightenment transforms a man in a single heartbeat. Master Genmu is so pleased with your improved spirits that he referred to it in a letter to the Lord Abbot.’

He is watching me, Orito suspects, for evidence of annoyance.

‘I am unworthy,’ says the Newest Sister, ‘of Lord Enomoto’s attention.’

‘Be assured, our Lord Abbot takes a fatherly interest in all our Sisters.’

The word ‘fatherly’ evokes Orito’s father and recent wounds ache.

From the Long Room come the sounds and smells of supper being served.

‘We have no symptoms to report, then? No aches or bleedings?’

‘Truly, Master Suzaku, I cannot imagine being unwell in the House of Sisters.’

‘No constipation or diarrhoea? Haemorrhoids? Itches? Headaches?’

‘A dose of my… my daily medicine is all I would ask, if I may.’

‘With the greatest pleasure.’ Suzaku decants the muddy liquid into a thimble-sized cup and proffers it to Orito, who turns away and hides her mouth, as women of breeding do. Her body is aching with anticipation of the relief the Solace will deliver. But before she can change her mind, Orito tips the contents of the tiny cup into her well-padded sleeve where the dark blue hemp soaks it up.

‘It has a – a honeyed taste tonight,’ Orito pronounces. ‘Or do I imagine it?’

‘What’s good for the body,’ Suzaku looks at her mouth, ‘is good for the soul.’

Orito and Yayoi wash dishes whilst Sisters Kagerô and Hashihime are given words of encouragement by their Sisters – some shy and some, to judge from the laughter, not at all shy – before being led by Abbess Izu to the Altar Room to pray to the Goddess. A quarter-hour later, the Abbess leads them to their rooms where they await their Engifters. After the dishes are washed, Orito stays in the Long Room, not wanting to be alone with the thought that in one month’s time it may be her lying with an embroidered hood over her head for a master or acolyte. Her body is complaining about its denied dose of Solace. One minute she is as hot as soup, the next as cold as shaved ice. When Hatsune asks Orito to read the last New Year Letter from the First Wife’s first-born Gift, now a young woman of seventeen, Orito is glad of the distraction.

‘ “Dearest Mother,” ’ Orito peers at the feminine brushstrokes in the lamplight, ‘ “the berries are red along the verges and one may scarcely credit that another autumn is once more upon us.” ’

‘She has her mother’s elegance with words,’ murmurs Minori.

‘My Tarô is a blockhead,’ sighs Kiritsubo, ‘compared to Noriko-chan.’

In their New Year letters, Orito notices, the ‘Gifts’ regain their names.

‘But what hardworking brewer’s lad like Tarô,’ objects proud, modest Hatsune, ‘has time to notice autumn berries? I beg the Newest Sister to continue.’

‘ “Once again,” ’ reads Orito, ‘it is time to send a letter to my dear mother on distant Mount Shiranui. Last spring, when your First Month Letter was delivered to the White Crane Workshop, Ueda-san-” ’

‘Ueda-san is Noriko-chan’s Master,’ says Sadaie, ‘a famous tailor in Miyako.’

‘Is that so?’ Orito has been told ten times before. ‘ “Ueda-san gave me a half-holiday to celebrate its arrival. Before it slips my mind, Ueda-san and his wife send their sincerest compliments.” ’

‘How lucky,’ says Yayoi, ‘to have found such an honourable family.’

‘The Goddess always takes care of her Gifts,’ avows Hatsune.

‘ “Your news, Mother, brought me just as much pleasure as you kindly say my foolish scribblings bring you. How wonderful that you are blessed with another Gift. I shall pray that he finds as caring a family as the Uedas. Please give my thanks to Sister Asagao for nursing you during your chest illness, and to Master Suzaku for his daily care.” ’ Orito pauses to ask, ‘A chest illness?’

‘Oh, the trouble my cough caused! Master Genmu sent Acolyte Jiritsu – may his Soul be at rest – down to Kurozane to procure fresh herbs from the herbalist.’

A crow, Orito aches, could reach Otane’s chimney in a half-hour.

She recalls this summer’s journey to Kurozane and wants to weep.

‘Sister?’ Hatsune notices. ‘Is anything the matter?’

‘No. “What with two large Court weddings in the Fifth Month and two funerals in the Seventh, the White Crane was inundated with orders. My year has been a lucky one in any respect, Mother, though I blush to write about it. Ueda-san’s principal supplier of brocade is a merchant named Koyama-san, who visits the White Crane with his four sons every two or three months. For a couple of years the youngest son, Shingo-san, would exchange pleasantries with me as I worked. Last summer, however, during the O-bon Festivities, I was summoned to the garden teahouse where, to my surprise, Shingo-san, his parents, Ueda-san and my mistress were drinking tea.” ’ Orito glances up at the enraptured Sisters. ‘ “You shall have guessed already what was afoot, Mother – but, being a dull-witted girl, I did not.” ’

‘She isn’t dull-phitted,’ Asagao assures Hatsune, ‘just phure and innocent.’

‘ “Small-talk was made,” ’ Orito continues, ‘ “about Shingo-san’s many talents and my own pitiful accomplishments. I did my best to master my shyness, without seeming too forward, and afterwards-” ’

‘Just as you advised her, Sister,’ clucks Sawarabi, ‘two years ago.’

Orito watches the Sister swell with pride. ‘ “And afterwards, my mistress congratulated me on the favourable impression I had made. I returned to my duties, honoured by the praise but expecting to hear nothing more about the Koyamas until their next visit to the White Crane. My foolishness was short-lived. A few days later, on the Emperor’s Birthday, Ueda-san took all his apprentices to Yoyogi Park to enjoy the fireworks along Kamo River. How magical were the brief-blooming reds and yellows against the night sky! Upon our return, my master summoned me into his office, where my mistress told me that the Koyamas had proposed that I become the wife of their youngest son, Shingo. I knelt there, Mother, as if a fox had put a spell on me! Then Ueda-san’s wife mentioned that the proposal had come from Shingo. That such an upstanding young man desired me as his bride caused tears to flow down my cheeks.” ’

Yayoi hands Hotaru a paper cloth to dab her own eyes.

Orito folds the last page and unfolds the next. ‘ “I asked Ueda-san’s permission to speak frankly. My master urged me to do so. My origins were too obscure for the Koyamas, I said; my loyalties lay with the White Crane Workshop; and that if I entered the Koyama family as a bride, tongues would wag that I had used low cunning to ensnare such a fine husband.” ’