Lian Hearn - Heaven's Net Is Wide

He doubted it, feeling that men like Iida, who feared nothing in Heaven or on Earth, would be controlled only through strength of arms.

“Sometimes I think the voice is calling to me, but because of my position, I believe I am unable to answer. It seems offensive to me that people who will not defend themselves should be persecuted and tortured,” she went on. “They should be allowed to live in peace.”

“They give allegiance to a heavenly power, not their earthly rulers,” Shigeru said. “Therefore they cannot be trusted. I deeply regret Harada’s leaving my service.”

“You can trust Harada,” she said.

“Would you stand by and watch me take on three men?”

“No, I would fight alongside you. I do not claim to be one of the Hidden, only to admire and respect some of their teachings.”

There was so much to talk about, so many things to tell each other, and everything they learned about each other only increased their desire. When desire was slaked, they talked again, for the rest of the day, as the gray light slowly faded and night came, increasing their sense of isolation from the world, as if they had been transported to some bewitched mansion beyond time. The rain continued to pelt down; they hardly slept, totally absorbed in each other, body and mind, until exhaustion and passion blurred all barriers between them and it seemed they had truly become one person.

When the rain finally eased in the afternoon of the second day, the silence woke them as if from an intoxicated dream, calling them back to their separate lives, to a parting filled with anguish and joy. Sachie and Bunta returned before nightfall, full of apologies for the delay, but they fell silent when they saw Shigeru was there still. The young man went immediately outside to care for the horses. Sachie came inside and prepared food for them. They had hardly thought to eat and now were famished. She had bought eggs and winter greens, and made a broth with soybean paste and curd. Later, she cooked rice, saying she would prepare rice cakes for the journey back. She retired to sleep in the room Shigeru had previously occupied, giving no hint of her feelings in either expression or demeanor, yet clearly she was aware of what had happened between them-the very air seemed silky and heavy with their passion.

“She will never say anything to anyone,” Lady Maruyama assured Shigeru.

“And the groom?” He did not really care: he was just grateful to spend another night with her, not to lie shivering fervently paces away as he had before. He reached out and slipped his hands under the smooth mass of hair and cupped her head in his palms.

“He is a discreet and silent young man. Sachie will swear him to secrecy. I am in my own domain; I may do as I please! No one will question me or betray me.”

“Yet Iida may have spies everywhere. Even Arai’s lover works for the Tribe, and therefore possibly for Iida. How can we ever know whom to trust?”

“I am aware of all this, yet right now I feel no one can harm us,” she whispered.

When he poured himself into her, he felt the same. Yet he knew that this newborn passion could mean only greater danger for them both.

Shigeru made the return journey in a state of exhaus-tion yet buoyed up by emotions of hope and happiness that a week before would have seemed forever beyond his grasp. He knew in the uncertainty and violence of their world that they might never set eyes on each other again, yet what existed between them was eternal. It could never be taken from him. He felt again her head in his hands, the silky touch of her hair, and heard her voice-Take. Drink-and saw her face light up with laughter.

The weather continued to be changeable, with sudden drenching showers and gusts of wind tearing the leaves from the branches and massing them in drifts at the foot of the trees. As the leaves fell, the forest opened up, the bare branches glistening in the soft autumn light. Several times he saw deer on the track ahead, their black scuts quivering as they plunged away from him, and at night the lonely cry of geese flying overhead echoed through the damp air. But for him the autumn wind did not sing of love grown cold but of a love new and robust, one that would never be extinguished while he lived. He did not know when they would meet again, but now they were allies, more than allies: they were bound together. He waited for her to send another message to him.

SHE WROTE ONCE before winter, the letter arriving in the same way, concealed in more of Eijiro’s writings. The letter was unsigned: one might have thought it a copy of a tale, for it read like a fragment of a ghost story, set in an isolated temple in the rain: a warrior bewitched by love, a spirit woman who seduced him. It was written with lightness and humor: he could almost hear his spirit woman laugh.

Then the year turned; the snows came and the city of Hagi was shut off from the rest of the Three Countries.

During the long winter months, when snow was piled high in the garden and icicles hung from the eaves like rows of white radishes, the unyielding harvest of winter, Shigeru often took out the letter and read it, recalling the isolated temple, the rain, her voice, her hair.

Sometimes he could not believe what had happened, that they had dared to take what they both so deeply desired, and he was amazed by her courage and grateful to her beyond words. Her risk was greater than his, for he had nothing that tied him to this world beyond her and his intentions of revenge, whereas she had a daughter and a domain to lose.

At other times their love for each other seemed so natural and preordained that he could see no danger in it. He felt they were invulnerable, protected by fate itself.

So when Naomi wrote in the spring, her letter concealed inside a package from Eijiro’s widow containing samples of sesame seed for the first experimental plantings, telling him that she would be at a place called Katte Jinja on the northern coast of Maruyama at the full moon of the fourth month, Shigeru did not hesitate to make arrangements to go traveling again.

Over the last year he had become almost as interested in fishing as in farming, for it was from the sea that Hagi gained most of its food and its wealth. The families of fishermen had their own hierarchies, loyalties, and codes, and, Shigeru knew, these often brought them into conflict with his uncles in the castle, who saw their rich, bountiful catches as a source of no less bountiful tax. Shigeru was particularly well acquainted with Terada Fumimasa, a thickset, immensely strong, and endlessly shrewd man who ran his own fleet, and the port in general, with affable but unchallenged tyranny. He had, it was rumored, fathered half the young fishermen in Hagi but had one legitimate son, Fumio, a boy the same age as Miyoshi Gemba, who at eight years old already accompanied his father on all his voyages.

Terada had from time to time invited Shigeru to join them. Shigeru had never taken him up on it, but now a plan began to form in his mind. Terada lived near the port on the slopes of Fire Mountain. In the last year, Shigeru had often walked here, visiting the place where Akane had died, taking pleasure in the exotic gardens the old priest had created. He had made sure the gardens were not neglected after the old man’s death. It had been a way to deal with his grief and anger at Akane, as well, he thought, as preserving a memorial to her beauty and vivacity. Many young men and women came here to pray to Akane’s spirit to help them in all matters of the heart, and Shigeru half-consciously joined his prayers to theirs.

On this day in late spring, when the cherry blossom was at its peak, and the lusher scents of orange blossom also filled the air along with many perfumes of strange flowers that he could not identify, the shrine on Fire Mountain was thronged with people, all no doubt feeling like him the tug of spring in their blood, the longing for love, the desire for the beloved’s body, the craving to lie down together and make new life.