Heaven's Net Is Wide

by Lian Hearn

  “It has not been within my experience so far,” Shigeru admitted. “I have been isolated from such everyday pleasures. Sometimes I feel like Shakyamuni before his enlightenment. He knew nothing of suffering or death, he had been shielded from them. But it was not until he lived in the world that his compassion was awakened.” He broke off and apologized. “Forgive me. I did not mean to compare myself in any way to the Enlightened One or to become so serious. One of the consolations of my new standing in life may be ordinary friendships like this. Though, of course, I am not suggesting that there is anything ordinary about you!”

  “Just a humble merchant, as you are a farmer!” Kenji replied.

  “Let’s drink to the friendship between them. The farmer and the merchant!”

  They both emptied their cups and refilled them.

  “What other news do you have?” Shigeru asked.

  “You may be interested to hear that Arai Daiichi was forced to submit to Iida. He’s been dispatched to serve Noguchi in the new castle Iida’s building for him.”

  “Did your niece go with him?”

  “Shizuka? Yes, she’s living in the town. They had a child, you know?”

  Shigeru shook his head.

  “A boy. They called him Zenko.”

  Shigeru emptied his cup, poured more wine, and drank to hide his emotion. She had betrayed him; she was rewarded with a son! “Will Arai acknowledge him as his heir?”

  “I doubt it. Anyway, Shizuka’s children belong to the Tribe. Arai’s younger than you. He’ll marry and have legitimate children. He would have been married by now, but the Three Countries have been in chaos since Yaegahara. The Western allegiances are all up in the air. They won’t fight Iida, but they’ll make life difficult for him. He’s demanding concessions: the Shirakawa will probably have to give up their daughters as hostages; the Maruyama offended the Tohan by their refusal to attack the Otori from the West. Lady Maruyama’s husband died in the autumn, just after the birth of his son, and the son died recently. She’ll probably have to give up her daughter too.”

  “Poor woman,” Shigeru said, after a moment’s silence. He was amazed and grateful to her for her staunchness.

  “If she were a man, she would have paid for her defiance with her life, but since she’s a woman, Sadamu doesn’t really take her seriously. My prediction is he will marry either her or her daughter in order to claim the domain.”

  “But he must already be married, at his age?”

  “Yes, he is married, but there are many ways to get rid of a wife.”

  Shigeru did not reply, reminded again sharply of the fragility of women and the weeks of mourning Moe.

  “Forgive me,” Kenji said, his tone of voice changing. “I should not have spoken so, given your circumstances.”

  “It is the reality of the world,” Shigeru said. “Iida is an expert in such marriage politics. I wish my father had been as skilled!” Surely Lady Maruyama will never marry Iida, he thought.

  After Kenji had departed the following morning, Shigeru went to Ichiro’s room and took out a fresh scroll. It continued to rain, though not as heavily; the air smelled of mold, moist and humid.

  Muto Yuzuru, he wrote. Brewer in Hagi.

  Muto Kenji, the Fox, soybean-product manufacturer in Yamagata.

  Muto Shizuka, his niece, concubine and spy.

  Her son by Arai Daiichi, Zenko.

  He looked at these sparse pieces of information for some time. Then he added: Kikuta woman (name unknown).

  Her son by Otori Shigemori (name unknown).

  He rolled the scroll inside one on crop rotation and hid it in the bottom of a chest.

  39

  The rains came to an end, and the heat of summer followed. Shigeru rose early and spent the days in the rice fields, watching the farmers protecting the crops from insects and birds. No one ever spoke of the society Kenji had mentioned—Loyalty to the Heron—yet he was aware of some deep understanding of his desire for anonymity. Beyond his own estate, he was never addressed by name. Outside Hagi, few knew him by sight, and if he was recognized, no one gave any indication of it.

  Then the rice was harvested with sickles, the grain separated out with flails and sticks and dried on mats in the sun. Small children kept constant watch over it, setting up a cacophony with bells and gongs. In the vegetable fields, the water-powered deer-scarers beat out their erratic rhythm. The Festival of the Weaver Star was celebrated, and then the Festival of the Dead. Shigeru did not go to Terayama, as in the previous year, but instead attended the memorial at Daishoin, where so many of the Otori of his generation had their final resting place, and where Moe and his daughter were buried. Custom dictated that his uncles should also be present at this ceremony, and Shigeru greeted them with deference and humility, knowing that he must convince them of his new identity if he was to live. He did not speak much to them directly, but talked enthusiastically about the harvest in their hearing. A few days later his mother, who still had some contact with the deep interior, the women’s part of the residence, spoke to him, trying to conceal her displeasure.

  “They are referring to you as ‘the farmer.’ Can you not at least maintain some dignity, some consciousness of who you are?”

  He gave the frank smile that was becoming second nature to him.

  “‘The farmer.’ It is a good name. It is what I am—hardly something to be ashamed of.”

  Lady Otori wept in private and goaded him when she spoke to him. He said nothing to her of his true intentions; nor did he tell anyone else, though from time to time he would catch Ichiro regarding him curiously, and he wondered how much his astute old teacher suspected.

  Takeshi did not hide the fact that Shigeru’s behavior puzzled and shamed him. The nickname of “the farmer” spread, and Takeshi hated it, frequently getting into fights over it—and over other perceived insults to Shigeru or himself. He was at the age when the turbulence of becoming a man increased his innate recklessness tenfold. He loved women, and while it was considered perfectly natural for young men of his age to visit the pleasure houses, Takeshi showed none of Shigeru’s reticence or self-control. On the contrary, people began to whisper that he would become as lecherous as his uncle Masahiro.

  Chiyo brought these rumors to Shigeru’s notice, and he spoke to Takeshi severely about it, which led to angry scenes that surprised and distressed him. He had thought his brother would always be obedient to him and heedful of his advice. He tried to remind Takeshi obliquely of his resolve for revenge, but he had no plans to spell out, and Takeshi was impatient and dismissive. Shigeru realized the extent to which grief, humiliation, and loss of status had undermined Takeshi’s loyalty and loosened the bond between them. Not that the bond was any weaker on Shigeru’s side. His love and concern for his brother were stronger than ever. Yet he could not allow understanding Takeshi’s situation to lead to indulging him. Shigeru was strong-willed, Takeshi stubborn; the confrontations between them increased.

  In the ninth month, violent rain and winds lashed the country as the first typhoons swept up the coast from the south, but when the storms abated, autumn had come with clear blue skies and cool crisp air. The weather was an invitation to travel; Shigeru realized he was longing to escape the difficult atmosphere of the house, the confinement of the city, the stress of continually pretending to be what he was not. He felt he and Takeshi needed to be apart for a while but feared leaving the younger boy with only Ichiro to supervise him.

  Takeshi would make his coming of age in the new year, yet in Shigeru’s eyes he was immature and still had much to learn. Shigeru increased the time they spent together, dedicating long hours in the study to classical learning and war strategy and on the riverbank to sword training.

  One warm evening, when he had arranged to meet his brother, Takeshi kept him waiting. Several young men had turned up to watch the training sessions, among them Miyoshi Kahei. Shigeru practiced for a while with Kahei, noting the young man’s skill and strength, his unease at Tak
eshi’s lateness increasing. When at last Takeshi arrived, he did not apologize; he watched the final bout with Kahei without expression, and when it was finished, made no move to take the pole from him.

  “Takeshi,” Shigeru said. “Do the warm-up exercises, and then we will spar for a while.”

  “I think you have taught me all you can,” Takeshi said without moving. “I have promised to meet someone shortly.”

  “You can still learn something from me, I expect,” Shigeru replied mildly. “And your first promise was to me, your first obligation to your training.”

  “What am I training for, since we do not fight?” Takeshi exclaimed. “Why don’t you teach farmers’ sons how to use the hoe?”

  Shigeru was aware of Kahei trying to control his reaction, and of the other young men: their shock, followed by their alert interest in how Shigeru would respond. His own immediate reaction was fury that Takeshi should challenge him in public: all the anxieties and irritations that his brother had caused him for months came boiling to the surface. He seized the pole from Kahei and thrust it toward Takeshi. “Take it and fight, or I’ll knock you out.”

  Takeshi was barely ready before Shigeru’s pole caught him on the right shoulder. Shigeru hit him harder than he had ever done before, unable to suppress the thought: That’ll teach him a lesson. His brother responded with equal rage and came back at him ferociously, surprising Shigeru with the intensity of the attack. He sidestepped and parried the thrusts but each blow came more swiftly and powerfully than the last, and every response he made only increased Takeshi’s fury.

  He did not believe his brother was seriously trying to harm him until one blow got past his guard; he ducked in time but knew that Takeshi had been aiming with all his power at his temple, which the pole would have cracked like a piece of pottery. His own rage ignited in response: his next thrust caught Takeshi hard in the breastbone, winding him; as he bent forward, choking for air, Shigeru’s pole returned to catch him in the side of the neck. Takeshi fell to his knees; the pole dropped from his hands.

  “I concede,” he said, his voice muffled by rage.

  “When you can get the better of me, then you may choose whether to continue your training or not,” Shigeru replied. “Until that time, you obey me.” But he was thinking, We cannot go on like this; we will end up killing each other.

  Kahei offered to help Takeshi home. The brothers did not speak for several days; their mother was distraught at Takeshi’s bruises and displeased with Shigeru for causing them. Takeshi had improved in character while he had lived apart from his mother, but now that they were both in the same house, her indulgence of the younger son and her disapproval of the elder undermined Shigeru’s authority and encouraged Takeshi’s resentment.

  Shigeru could see no solution other than to continue to insist on imposing his will, but he knew his disguise as the farmer had lost him the respect of his mother and his brother.

  A few days after the fight that nearly got out of hand, Kahei’s father Miyoshi Satoru came to visit, ostensibly to ask if Ichiro might condescend to take Kahei and Gemba as pupils. This led indirectly and with great delicacy to the suggestion that Takeshi might like to spend more time with Satoru’s sons, might even like to reside with them for a few weeks.

  Shigeru was torn between gratitude and a fear that Satoru thought he was failing in his efforts to raise his brother, that Takeshi was out of control and everyone in Hagi knew it. Satoru deftly managed to give the impression that his older son, Kahei, would benefit greatly both from Ichiro’s teaching and from the association with Takeshi. This made it possible for Shigeru to agree without any loss of face. Nevertheless, he was reluctant to pass on his personal problems to another family; he thanked Lord Miyoshi for the offer and promised to consider it and discuss it with his mother and Ichiro.

  He was sitting in Ichiro’s room that night, talking with the old man when his glance fell on what seemed to be a new addition to the boxes of scrolls that lined the walls. Somewhat to his surprise, Ichiro was all in favor of Lord Miyoshi’s suggestion; his mother had argued against it, but more out of habit than through any serious objection.

  “What is in this box?” Shigeru inquired.

  “It was delivered a few days ago. I forgot to tell you. There’s a letter inside, on the top. It’s from Otori Eijiro’s widow. The estate has been ceded to Tsuwano. She and her daughters are returning to the West. These are the last writings of her husband before he died: she wanted you to have them.”

  “Well, I’ll look through them.” It seemed a good distraction from the decision he had to make about Takeshi, though it brought its own griefs as he remembered Eijiro’s family and the happiness of their lives. He found himself recalling the week he had spent there and the deep impression it had made on him. It is the influence of the Maruyama, Eijiro had said.

  Eijiro’s wife was from the Sugita family. Lady Maruyama’s companion, Sachie, was her sister. He was thinking about Maruyama Naomi as he took out the letter and unrolled the scroll. The widow’s handwriting was strong and bold, the language restrained; he felt he could see her courage and her grief in both. Laying the letter to one side, he took out the next scroll. When he opened it, a smaller piece of paper was enclosed within it. The handwriting was different, neither Eijiro’s nor his wife’s—more fluid and graceful—and the piece was not a letter; nor was it records of farming.

  It was the night of the full moon of the ninth month, and the screens were all wide open, revealing the garden bathed in light. The air was still, all the leaves motionless, the shadows dark and long. In the closest shrub, an orb spider was weaving a web: gold and silver glinted in the moonlight together. He read:

  Like young fern shoots

  my child’s fingers curled.

  I did not expect,

  in the fifth month, frost.

  Was it a message to him, or had it been included in the papers by mistake? Lady Maruyama had said she would write to him by this very means. She did not write of alliances or intrigues; she did not even address him by name. There was nothing that might link them under any suspicious scrutiny; she wrote of grief for a lost child, yet the image she used pierced him as if he had received a sudden cut to the flesh of his heart. She must have had news of his loss; she had suffered in the same way; he had lost his wife and daughter; she, her husband and son. She might have written differently, with words of commiseration, pledges of support, but these brief lines made him believe more than anything that he could trust her and that she would be part of the pattern of his future. He thought of the game of Go: a player might seem to be completely surrounded, powerless and defeated, but an unexpected move could break the tightening ring and reverse the situation. Such a move had suddenly come to him: for the first time since the battle, his patient persistence, dogged and gray, was colored by the faintest tinge of hope.

  He folded the poem and tucked it inside the breast of his robe, then turned his attention to Eijiro’s last writings, marveling at how the energetic, intelligent voice still spoke out to him. Eijiro had been experimenting with different strains of sesame seed, used for oil for cooking and lighting. Shigeru soon became absorbed in the subject and thought he might try some of these in his own fields: he would write to Eijiro’s widow to ensure that seeds were retained and sent to him before she left for the West and he would set aside some land to sow a crop in the spring, making sure the aspect, irrigation, and fertilizing followed Eijiro’s advice. Every time I light a lamp with the oil, I’ll think of him—he could have no more fitting memorial.

  The following day Takeshi came to him and apologized.

  “Kahei told me I should,” he said awkwardly. “He explained to me how much I was in the wrong.”

  “He is a good friend to you,” Shigeru replied, and told his brother about Kahei’s father’s suggestion. “Let’s walk outside for a while.” Once they were in the garden, beyond earshot of anyone, Shigeru explained a little of his continued pretence, repeated his intention
s and the need to keep them secret; Takeshi promised to be patient. They agreed Takeshi should live with the Miyoshi family for a while, and the young man seemed to welcome it as a new challenge.