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

“You may return to the castle now with me, if you have no other plans.”

It irritated her further that he should think she had nothing else to do with her life. “It’s almost dark,” she said. “No one will see me.” She did not want to appear to be smuggled into Shigeru’s rooms.

“I will provide torches,” Kiyoshige said. “We will make a procession, if that is Lady Akane’s wish.”

He made me wait, Akane thought. I will make him wait for me. But only for one night.

“I should read the agreement,” she pleaded. “And discuss it with my mother. I will do that tonight, and tomorrow, if you would be so kind, you may return-a little earlier, I think, before sunset.” She was already imagining how it would look, the palanquin, servants with huge sunshades, the Mori retainers on horseback.

Kiyoshige raised his eyebrows. “Very well,” he agreed.

Haruna brought tea, and Akane served him. When he had left, the women hugged each other.

“A house!” Haruna exclaimed. “And built especially for you by the best carpenter in Hagi!”

“I shall make it so beautiful,” Akane replied, now visualizing the house under the pines, surrounded by the constant sighing of the sea. “I will see Shiro first thing in the morning. He must show me the site-or does that appear too eager?”

“There is no hurry,” Haruna said. “You can take your time.”

The building of the house was delayed by the first typhoons at the end of the summer, but it was sheltered in the lee of the mountain range and was not damaged. It rained hard for a week, and umbrellas replaced the sunshades when Akane made her thrice-weekly visits to the castle. As her relationship with the heir to the clan progressed, she became more flamboyant, and people began to line the street to watch her palanquin go past as if it were part of a festival.

By the time the nights had begun to cool and the maples to put on their brocade, the house was finished. It was built facing south to catch the winter sun, thatched with grass-reed stalks, with wide eaves and deep verandas of polished cypress. The screens were decorated by an artist who had long been one of Haruna’s clients. Akane herself had slept with him several times, though neither of them referred to the past. At her request he painted flowers and birds according to the seasons. Akane chose beautiful bowls and dishes in the local earthenware, made by the most famous craftsmen; mattresses and quilts filled with silk cocoons; carved wooden headrests.

When the house was complete, she had a ceremony performed to purify and bless it. Priests came down from the shrine and performed the rituals, sprinkling water and burning incense. After they had departed, late that night when she lay next to Shigeru, listening to the sea, she marveled at what fate had given her and what her life had become.

19

Shigeru now came from the castle every day around dusk. They ate and talked or played Go, which Shigeru had learned from childhood and was now reasonably skilled at; he taught Akane and she grasped the game quickly and intuitively and came to love its intricate and implacable essence. Usually after they made love, he returned to his own apartments; occasionally he stayed with her for the whole night. He did this rarely, for it was then that he felt most in danger of falling in love with her, in the surrender of self that came with falling asleep in her arms and waking in the night and in the early morning to make love again.

Usually after staying the night he would go away for several days; there were always matters to attend to: he wanted to keep an eye on the borders, visit Tsuwano with Kitano Tadao to reinforce that family’s loyalty, oversee the harvest in his mother’s estate across the river-as well as the everyday affairs of the clan, in which he now immersed himself. He tried not to think of her during that time. But he did not want to sleep with anyone else, and when he returned, his heart thumped with as much excitement as on their first night.

He frequently visited his mother at her house by the river to tell her what he was doing with the fields and forests that belonged to her. She came from a high-rank family: her brothers had died within months of each other, leaving no children; the estate had passed to their sister to be held for her sons. The castle possessed many other lands, but this estate was especially dear to Shigeru: it seemed to belong to him personally, and it was here that he could put into practice all he had learned from Eijiro’s writings, which he still kept with him. His mother said nothing about his arrangement with Akane, though she could hardly be ignorant of it-Akane had made sure the whole city knew of her new elevated status, with all the honor and prestige it entailed. However, some time after the house under the pine trees was finished, around the middle of the eleventh month, when the first frosts were beginning to silver the rice stubble, Lady Otori announced to Shigeru that she intended to move to the castle.

“Why?” he said, astonished, for she had often expressed pleasure at the warmth and comfort of her house compared to the castle in winter.

“I feel it is my duty to take my place there and to look after Takeshi and yourself, especially if you are to be married.”

“I am to be married?” He had known, of course, that this would happen sooner or later but had not been told of any firm arrangements.

“Well, not immediately, but you turn seventeen next year, and there is a very suitable young woman. I have been discussing it with Ichiro and with Lord Irie. They have broached the subject with your father, and he is inclined to give the match his approval.”

“I hope she is