Heaven's Net Is Wide, Lian Hearn [reading the story of the txt] 📗

of life, very graceful, and seemed very self-contained. She was always perfectly respectful and her ways of service were irreproachable, yet something lurked in her expression, as if she were laughing-at men in general, at the lords of the castle, myself included. She knew how I felt-she was very quick-witted and observant: you felt she could hear your thoughts and she came to me one night when I was alone and gave herself to me. We were each other’s first lovers; I became obsessed with her, and she told me often that she loved me. My own father had spoken to me as I have to you, about the dangers of sleeping with maids and the folly of falling in love, but I did not seem able to combat the way I felt. It was truly stronger than I was.”

He paused, sunk in memories of his remote youth. “Anyway, she came to me one day unexpectedly, saying she had to talk to me. It was the hour of study; I was waiting for one of my teachers and tried to send her away. But at the same time I could not resist taking her in my arms. My teacher came to the door. I asked him to wait, saying I felt unwell. I tried to hide her, but there was no need. She heard him coming long before I did; it was as if she had disappeared. There was no sign of her in the room. When the man had left, she was there again. One moment she was nowhere; the next she stood in front of me. All the strange things I knew about her ran through my mind: her unnaturally acute hearing, the curious lines on her palms, which seemed to cut her hand in half. I thought I understood my infatuation; clearly she had bewitched me. I thought she must be some kind of sorceress. I realized with a sort of sick dread the risks I had been taking. She told me then who she was-one of the Tribe.”

He paused and looked questioningly at Shigeru. “Do you know what that means?”

“I have heard of the name,” Shigeru replied. “Sometimes the boys talk about them.” He paused, then added, “People seem afraid of them.”

“With good reason. The Tribe are a collection of families, four or five maybe, who claim to retain skills from the past-skills that the warrior class have lost. I have seen some of these skills firsthand, so I know they are real. I have seen a person disappear and come back from invisibility. The Tribe are used, in particular by the Tohan, as spies and assassins. They are invariably extremely effective.”

“Do the Otori use them?” Shigeru asked.

“Occasionally: but not to the same extent.” He sighed. “This woman told me she was from the Kikuta-the lines on the palms were characteristic of that family. She said she had indeed been sent as a spy, from Inuyama; she admitted it all very calmly, as though it was not by any means the most important thing she wanted to tell me. I was silent in shock. It was as though a spirit from beyond the sky or a shape-shifter had captivated me. She took my hand and made me sit in front of her. She said that she would have to leave me-we would never see each other again-but that she loved me, and that within her she carried the proof of our love: my child. I was never to tell anyone; if the truth ever known, both she and the child would die. She made me swear it to her. I had nearly lost my senses through shock and grief. I tried to seize her in my arms, gripping her roughly; maybe the thought was in my mind that I would kill her rather than lose her. She seemed to dissolve at my touch. I held her: then my arms were empty. I embraced air. She was gone. I never saw her again.

“It is over thirty years ago, and I have never been free of longing for her. She is almost certainly dead by now-and our child, if it lived, is middle-aged. I often dream of him-I am sure it was a son. I am filled with fear that one day he will appear and claim me as his father; and I am filled with grief knowing that that day will never come. It has been like a chronic illness that I despise myself for. I delayed marriage for as long as I could-if I could not have her, I did not want any woman. I have never told anyone of this weakness, and I am trusting you never to reveal it. When I married your mother, I thought I might recover, but the many dead children and your mother’s grief, her desire to conceive, and her fear of failing to bear a live child did not bring contentment between us. I simply longed more for my one living child, forever lost to me.

“Of course, your birth and Takeshi’s have consoled me,” he added, but there was a hollowness behind the words. Shigeru felt he should speak into the silence that followed, but he could think of nothing to say. He had never been on intimate terms with his father; he had no words to use, no patterns to follow.

“It takes only one mistake to poison a life,” Lord Otori said bitterly. “Men are at their most foolish and most vulnerable when they are ruled by their infatuations. I am telling you all this in the hope that you will avoid the trap into which I fell. I am sending you to Matsuda at Terayama. You will find no women there. The discipline of temple life and Matsuda’s instruction will train you to control your desires. When you return, we will find you a safe woman with whom you will not fall in love, and after that a suitable wife-provided we are not by then at war