Lian Hearn - Heaven's Net Is Wide

“I will be back tonight,” she said. “Eat and drink nothing. Try to rest. You will not sleep tonight, and it will be painful.”

She returned with herbs from which she made a bitter infusion and helped Naomi drink it. Within hours the cramps began, followed by severe pain and heavy bleeding. Shizuka stayed with her throughout the night, wiping the sweat from her face, washing away the blood, reassuring her that it would soon pass.

“You will have other children,” she whispered. “As I did.”

“You have been through this too,” Naomi said, letting the tears flow now as much for Shizuka as for herself.

“Yes, my first child. It did not suit the Tribe for me to have it at that time. My aunt gave me this same brew. I was very unhappy. But if the Tribe had not done that to me, I would never have dared defy them to help Lord Shigeru and to keep your secret. Men cannot foresee what the results of their actions will be because they do not take account of the human heart.”

“Are you in love with Lord Shigeru?” Naomi heard herself asking. “Is that why you do so much for us?” The darkness, the intimacy between them, made her dare to utter such words.

Shizuka replied with the same honesty. “I love him deeply, but we will never be together in this life. That precious fate is yours.”

“It is a fate that has brought me little but sorrow,” Naomi said. “But I would not choose any other.”

Toward dawn the pain eased and she slept a little; when she woke, Sachie was in the room and Shizuka was preparing to leave. Naomi was filled with dread at the idea of her departure.

“Stay a little longer! Don’t leave me yet!”

“Lady, I cannot stay. I should not be here. Someone will find out, and it will bring us all into danger.”

“You will not tell Lord Shigeru?” Naomi began to weep at his name.

“Of course not! It may anyway be a long time till I am able to see him. You may see him yourself before then. You must rest and recover your strength. You have many who love you and who will take care of you.”

When Naomi wept more despairingly, Shizuka tried to comfort her. “Next time I go to Hagi, I will come here first. You may send a message to him then.”

It was nine weeks to the day when Naomi had lain down next to Shigeru as if in a dream.

The child’s life had been extinguished swiftly and easily. She could not even pray openly for its soul or express her grief and her anger that she could not live freely with the man she loved. Her mood became very dark, as if a heavy spirit had possessed her, and she was given to outbursts of rage against her retainers and servants, which led the elders to express among themselves the opinion that she was showing all the irrationality of a woman and was maybe not fit to govern alone. They began to suggest marriage to Iida or to someone chosen by him, thus enraging her further.

When summer passed and the cooler autumn weather came, she had still not fully recovered, and she began to dread the coming of winter. She had meant to travel to Inuyama again but knew she was not well enough to face Iida and maintain her self-control. Yet she feared offending him and disappointing Mariko further.

“My life is hopeless,” she said in despair one night to Sachie and her sister, Eriko. “I should end it now.”

“Don’t speak in this way,” Sachie pleaded. “Things will get better. You will recover your strength.”

“There is nothing wrong with my health,” Naomi replied. “But I cannot rid myself of this terrible darkness that lies on my spirit.” She whispered, “If only I could acknowledge the-what happened-I feel I would be absolved. But I cannot, and while I cannot, I will never have any peace.”

Eriko and Sachie exchanged a quick glance, and Sachie said equally quietly, “My sister and I were unable to help you with what you needed before. But perhaps we can offer you healing now.”

“There are no herbs for this sort of ailing,” Naomi said.

“But there is one who can help you,” Eriko said hesitantly.

Naomi sat in silence for a while. She had told Shigeru that she was familiar with the teachings of the Hidden and even held a great sympathy for the persecuted sect. But she had not told him-for the secret was not hers to give away-that both Sachie and Eriko were believers; that Mari, the niece of the tortured man whom Shigeru had rescued years ago near Chigawa, worked in the castle and kept the two women in touch with the Hidden throughout the West and with the former Otori warrior Harada, who had become something of an itinerant priest after serving Nesutoro as disciple and servant. She had had many discussions with the two sisters about their faith and had in the past often felt a yearning to abandon herself like them to the love and mercy of a Supreme Being who would accept her for what she was, an ordinary human being, no better and no worse than any other. But now she had taken life, had sinned beyond forgiveness-and she could not repent, for given the same choices she would take the same action again.

“I know what you mean,” she said finally. “I would turn to any spiritual being who would give me relief. But I have offended deeply by killing my own child. I am unable to pray openly to the Enlightened One or go to the shrine. How can I turn to your god, to the Secret One, when your first commandment is not to kill?”

Eriko said, “He knows everything in your heart. His first commandment is to love him; his second, to love all men and forgive those who hate us. It is because of love that we do not take life. That is for him alone to decide. We live in the midst of the world; if we repent, I believe he understands and forgives us.”

“And will forgive you,” Sachie added, taking Naomi’s hand.

Eriko took her other hand, and they sat with bowed heads. Naomi knew the other two women were praying, and she tried to still her heart and her thoughts.

They delude themselves, she thought. There is nothing there-and even if there were, I would not be able to heed its voice, for I am a ruler and must rule with power.

Yet as the silence deepened, she was aware of something beyond herself, some greater presence that both towered above her and waited humbly for her to turn to it. She saw suddenly how this could be the highest allegiance anyone could make; one could kneel before this and genuinely submit one’s body and soul. It was the opposite to the earthly power of warlords like Iida, and maybe the only power that could check such men.

She did turn and whispered, “I am sorry,” and felt the lightest of touches, like a healing hand on her heart.

Throughout the winter she talked to Eriko and Sachie often and prayed with them, and before the beginning of the new year, she had been received into the community of the Hidden.

She realized there were many levels of belief, and many people held them whom she had not suspected of so doing. She became aware of the network they formed across her domain, throughout the West, indeed throughout the Three Countries, though in Tohan lands they were still persecuted. It was whispered that Iida himself took part in hunting them down, indulging his pleasure in killing.

In many ways, Naomi struggled against belief. It was not an easy decision. Her pride in her position and her family made her recoil from putting herself on the same level as ordinary people. She believed she had always treated them fairly, but to see them as her equals was strange and affronting to her. Yet belief brought her a sense of forgiveness, and forgiveness brought her peace.

There were other conflicts within her that seemed impossible to resolve. The beliefs of the Hidden forbade the taking of life, yet the only way to set her daughter free and bring not only happiness to herself but peace and justice to the Three Countries was for Iida to die. She remembered the discussions she had had with Shigeru about assassination; must she now abandon all these plans and leave Iida’s punishment to the Secret One, who saw everything and dealt with everyone after death?