Lian Hearn - Heaven's Net Is Wide

“I no longer know who I am,” Shigeru confessed. “What am I, if I am not the head of the clan?”

“This is what you will learn,” Matsuda said. “What it is that makes you a man. It will be a harder battle than Yaegahara.”

Shigeru was silent for a few moments. “My wife is expecting a child,” he said abruptly.

“I hope it is a girl,” Matsuda said. “Your uncles will be very disturbed if you have a son.”

They were interrupted by a sound outside, and the door slid open. Takeshi rushed in and threw himself at his brother as Shigeru rose to embrace him. Shigeru felt his eyes grow hot; he held Takeshi by the shoulders and looked at him. Takeshi had grown and filled out; his face was thinner and more mature, showing the high cheekbones and strong nose that gave the Otori their hawkish look. Takeshi’s eyes were bright, and he sniffed a couple of times but fought back tears.

“Have you come here to kill yourself?” he demanded. “You must let me join you. Lord Matsuda will assist us.”

“No, we are going to live,” Shigeru replied. “It was our father’s express wish. We will live.”

“Then we must take to the mountains and fight the Tohan there!” Takeshi exclaimed. “We can rally what is left of the Otori army!”

Shigeru interrupted him. “We can only do what is possible. I have signed the surrender treaty and have agreed to retire from political life. You must do the same, unless you want to serve our uncles, swear allegiance to the Tohan, and fight for them.”

He remembered his concern about Takeshi’s future: he had hoped to give him a domain of his own. Now that would never happen. What would Takeshi do with the rest of his life?

“Swear allegiance to the Tohan?” Takeshi repeated incredulously. “If you were not my brother, I would think you were insulting me! We must act with honor-it is all that is left to us. I would rather take my own life than serve my uncles!”

“That is something I forbid you to do. You are not yet an adult; you must obey me.”

“You are no longer the heir to the clan.” Takeshi’s voice was bitter; it was clear he sought to wound him.

“But I am still your older brother.” Shigeru could understand that Takeshi was disappointed in him; nevertheless, he found it painful.

“Lord Shigeru is right,” Matsuda said mildly. “You must obey him. He wants you to return to Hagi with him.”

“I suppose anything’s preferable to staying here,”Takeshi muttered. “But what am I to do in Hagi?”

“There will be much to do: continue your studies, assist me.” And learn what I have to learn, Shigeru thought, how to be a man.

“Tomorrow we will bid our father farewell,” he said. “As soon as the festival is over, we will return home.”

TAKESHI DID NOT weep during the short service, but he obeyed Shigeru without argument and said good-bye to Matsuda with gratitude, for all his teaching, and what seemed like sincere affection. They returned the same way Shigeru had come, on foot, in unmarked clothes, through the mountains.

Takeshi asked once, “Is this how we must always be, from now on?”

“It is very hard,” Shigeru admitted. “And will get harder still. But it will not be forever.”

Takeshi’s face, which had been sullen and closed, brightened a little. “We will take our revenge?”

They were alone in a way that they might not be again for months or years. Shigeru said quietly, “We will. I promise you that. Our father’s death and our defeat will be avenged. But it means secrecy and deception, something neither of us has ever practiced. We have to learn how to do nothing.”

“But not forever?” Takeshi said and smiled.

THE WEEKS PASSED. Life resumed its rhythms. In order to keep Takeshi occupied, Shigeru found his own days filled. Takeshi no longer trained in the castle areas with his cousins and the other boys and young men of the clan. Instead, Shigeru taught him on the riverbank or in the forest. Miyoshi Kahei and his younger brother, Gemba, often accompanied them with their father’s permission and many other young men sneaked away to observe, for Shigeru, taught by Matsuda, had become a swordsman of great skill, and Takeshi seemed set to equal or even surpass him.

One day Mori Hiroki, Kiyoshige’s brother and the last surviving son of the horsebreaker’s family, was among the small crowd at the edge of the river. He had been dedicated to the shrine of the river god six years ago, after the stone battle in which his oldest brother, Yuta, had drowned and Takeshi had nearly died. He was now fourteen years old. He approached Shigeru after the training session and asked if he might speak to him.

Shigeru had always had a certain interest in the young man, who had been the subject of his first adult decision. He had suggested that Hiroki be sent to the shrine to serve the river god; he had advised the boys’ father, Yusuke, not to take his own life but to continue to serve the Otori clan with his great skills as a horseman. He had watched Hiroki grow into a well-educated and perceptive young man, who had retained his love of dancing and become highly skilled at it.

“My father has certain things he wants to say to you,” Hiroki said. “Would it be possible for you to come to visit him?”

“I would like to,” Shigeru replied, feeling there was much he should tell Kiyoshige’s father about his son’s life and death. He made arrangements for the following day and left early in the morning, taking Takeshi with him. Ichiro had suggested Takeshi might be better employed in studying handwriting, history, and philosophy. Takeshi might excel at the martial arts, but his energetic nature disliked inactivity and he lacked the self-mastery required for diligent learning. Both Ichiro and Shigeru tried to impress on him how intellectual understanding enhanced physical skills and how self-control was acquired through devoting oneself with as much enthusiasm to what one disliked as to one’s favorite pursuits, if not more. Takeshi received all this advice with ill-concealed impatience and often disappeared from the house, fighting in stone battles with boys from the town and even in forbidden sword fights with warriors’ sons. Shigeru was torn between anger at his brother’s conduct and fear that Takeshi would be killed or would run away altogether and join the bands of lawless men who were living rough in the forest, preying on farmers and travelers. They pretended to be unvanquished warriors but in reality were little better than bandits. He made every effort to involve Takeshi in his own life and interests.

They did not cross the river by the fish weir but walked across the stone bridge. Shigeru paused to make an offering and pray at the stonemason’s grave, hoping Akane’s restless spirit would find peace. He thought of her often, raged against her, missed her and grieved for her in equal measures, as Moe’s body swelled with his child. Moe’s sickness abated as the weeks passed, but she remained sallow-looking and thin apart from her belly, as though the growing child drained all nourishment from her, and her physical discomfort was replaced by a mental anguish as her time drew nearer, for she had always had a deep-rooted fear of childbirth.

They went on foot since Shigeru had no horse-Karasu had died in the battle, and he had not yet replaced him. Almost as many horses had been killed as men; the living ones had been appropriated gleefully by the Tohan. Among all the Otori losses, the shortage of horses was one of the deepest felt and most resented.

They were accompanied by one of the few old men that remained of his mother’s retainers. The man walked a few paces behind him, his demeanor subdued, yet he and Takeshi must have been aware, as Shigeru himself was, of the buzz that went ahead of them-the murmur, a mixture of sorrow and excitement that brought merchants from their warehouses and craftsmen from their workshops to stare in his direction, drop to their knees as he passed by, then rise to follow him with their eyes.