Heaven's Net Is Wide Lian Hearn (leveled readers .TXT) 📖

the way of political or military support, merely that they were united in their desire for Iida’s death.

However, the gap between desire and reality seemed insurmountable. All he could promise her was silent support-years of waiting and secrecy. It was hardly worth putting into words. Finally, even their desultory conversation failed completely and they sat in silence for many moments. The wind howled outside, shaking the roof, driving the rain against the walls, sending cold drafts through all the chinks.

“I suppose we may write to each other,” Shigeru said eventually, and she made a movement of acquiescence with her head but did not speak except to wish him good night. He bade her good night in reply and went to the office, where he lay and shivered most of the night in the thin, ill-fitting robe, fighting down the thought that she slept not twenty paces from him and that she had summoned him with other reasons in mind, now that they were both unmarried.

It was impossible not to admire her: she was beautiful, intelligent, brave, and possessed of deep feelings-everything a woman should be. But she had spoken of her husband so warmly: she had obviously loved him and still mourned him; for his part, he did not want to be involved with any woman, least of all one of such high rank, who was already desired by his greatest enemy and whom, he already knew, he would never be allowed to marry.

When he woke, the rain had stopped, though the early morning sky remained overcast. His own clothes were still damp, but he put them on again, leaving the borrowed robe folded on the floor. Sachie and Bunta had gone to the neighboring village to buy food for the return journey, for they were all eager to take advantage of the break in the weather.

Naomi invited Shigeru to stay until the others returned, for he could then take food with him, but he was anxious to cross the first pass before nightfall.

“Should I leave you alone?” he questioned.

She became almost angry with him. “If you want to leave, go now! I am in no danger, and even if I were, I am perfectly capable of defending myself.” She indicated the sword next to her. “There are also spears outside,” she said. “I assure you I can fight with both.”

They parted formally, with a certain sense of disappointment on both sides.

A wasted journey, he thought. We are both hopelessly weakened. He could not see how they could help each other, yet he could not imagine achieving anything without her. She was his only ally.

The farther he went, the worse he felt about leaving her. He wanted to tell her more; he felt he had not expressed his gratitude to her for supporting him against Iida, for understanding his grief, for making the journey to see him. It might be months before they met again. The thought was suddenly unbearable. He had walked for scarcely two hours when the rain began again, heavier than ever. Faced with the prospect of spending the night without shelter, he told himself it would be wiser to turn back; as soon as he turned, his spirits lifted. He walked swiftly, often breaking into a run, hardly noticing the rain lashing at him, soaking him, his heart pounding from exertion, from anticipation.

He saw immediately that the woman, Sachie, and the groom had not returned. Only the one horse, the pretty mare, stood in the shelter. She turned her head at his approach and whickered gently. He splashed through the puddles, undid his sandals, and leaped up onto the boards of the veranda.

He heard the sound of a sword sliding from the scabbard and put his hand to Jato, calling out, yet not wanting to name either himself or her. As he stepped into the temple area, the door to his left slid open and she stepped out, the drawn sword in her hand. For a moment they stared at each other without speaking. A flush lay beneath her normally white skin, and her eyes were brilliant with emotion.

“I… came back,” he said.

“I did not expect it to be you.” She looked at the sword and lowered it. “You are soaked.”

“Yes. The rain.” He gestured toward the outdoors, where the rain fell in a solid curtain.

“Sachie and Bunta will have stayed in the village,” she murmured. “Let me take your wet clothes.”

Pools of water were already collecting around him where his garments dripped on the floor. He took the sword from his sash and placed it inside the doorway of the matted room. She laid her sword next to it, then stepped toward him, her face still, her movements deliberate. He smelled her perfume, her hair, and then her breath. She stood close to him and her hands went to the knot in his sash. She undid it carefully and then looked up into his face as she pushed the outer garment back from his shoulders. Her hands brushed against the cold skin at his neck, and he remembered the birds’ plumage; she led him into the room, loosened her girdle, and drew him down onto the crimson cushions. He thought, I must not do this, but he was beyond choice, and then he thought, Everything else is denied to me; this one desired thing I will have. He remembered all he had feared for women, their frailty, their weakness, but she did not receive him with passiveness or weakness but gave herself to him and took him, all his strength and his need, with her own strength and power. Beneath the silk undergarments, her body was both slender and muscular, desiring his as much as his desired hers, astonishing and delighting him.

They clung to each other like fugitives in the deserted temple. While the rain fell, they were safe: no one would come as long as the rain kept falling. They were emperors in a palace above the clouds, in a world beyond time where