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

she was not a good traveler, did not care for horses, and found the movement of the palanquin disagreeable. She was anxious about the dangers of the road-sickness, bandits, bad weather-and the minor discomforts of fleas, stuffy rooms, and cold water irritated her. Shigeru spent as little time in her company as he could, though he treated her with unrelenting politeness. The rooms of lodging places with their flimsy screens did not encourage intimacy, and though he knew he should follow Irie’s advice and keep trying to approach her, despite his own words to Akane and his best intentions, he made no move toward her. He intended that she should spend the winter with her parents; when she returned to Hagi in the spring, they might be able to make a fresh start. He would be freed from anxiety about her and would be able to concentrate on the preparations for the war that he was increasingly convinced would break out within the next year.

It was with relief that he left Lord Yanagi’s house at Kushimoto and set out for Terayama on the journey home. He would leave his brother at the temple. He had taken Takeshi everywhere with him, wanting the boy to see the country and meet the retainers and the vassal families for himself, hoping to share with him his ideas of the fief as a farm, the need to support warriors to defend it. Takeshi was astute when it came to assessing the reactions of the Kitano, for example, and he got on well with the Yanagi boys, but it was obvious that he was more interested in swords and horses; he himself said so. Shigeru responded that without rice they would have neither: the warrior’s heroism was no use among the starving, and preparations for war included tilling the land as much as training men and arming them. However, he found little support for this view among the ruling families, apart from Eijiro; they were more interested in how taxes could be increased. Farming methods were old-fashioned; innovation if it happened was piecemeal and inconsistent. After the war is won, I will rehaul the entire fief, Shigeru promised himself. But now the most important task was to ensure the loyalty and military readiness of the whole clan. And that could be done only by confirming allegiances and not antagonizing anyone.

On the journey out he had made a point of staying two nights in Tsuwano, where Lord Kitano and his sons received him with chilly deference. The close friendship Shigeru had had with Tadao and Masaji seemed to have evaporated after Shigeru had demanded their return from Inuyama the year before. All three repeated their vows of allegiance and gave detailed reports of the troops they had sent to the eastern borders.

“I am a little surprised your sons are in Tsuwano,” Shigeru said. “I expected them to be in Chigawa until the beginning of winter.”

“Their mother has been unwell,” Kitano replied smoothly. “At one stage we feared for her life.”

“I am glad to see her so perfectly recovered!” Shigeru replied.

“If I may offer a word of advice, Lord Shigeru, it is better not to provoke Iida Sadamu any more than you already have. We have heard many reports of his bitterness against you. You have given him cause to hate you.”

“He seizes on any pretext to justify his aggression and lust for power,” Shigeru replied. “He knows that I am not afraid of him.”

“You must be aware that the Tsuwano domain would suffer the most from a Tohan attack.”

“All the more reason to ensure that it is properly defended.”

Kitano’s words stayed with him after he left Tsuwano, causing him some anxiety. He would have liked to journey farther south and meet Noguchi Masayoshi again. The memory of their first meeting also made him uneasy. Noguchi had accompanied Kitano’s sons to Inuyama: since then, Shigeru had had no word of his movements other than the formal interactions demanded by their relationship within the clan, the payment of rice levies and other taxes on the lucrative trade through Hofu. Matsuda had described Noguchi as a coward and an opportunist, and called both him and Kitano pragmatic. I should have insisted the boys come back to Hagi with me, he thought-and if only I had time to travel to Hofu.

ONE AFTERNOON TOWARD the end of the tenth month, when they were on their way back to Yamagata, Takeshi, who had been riding ahead with Kiyoshige, came cantering back to Shigeru.

“I thought you might like to know. The man we sent away in Chigawa, the burned one, is on the road ahead. I can’t imagine you want to talk to him, but… well, I was sorry I treated him so badly before, since he is in your favor, so I’m trying to make amends.”

Shigeru was going to tell Takeshi to send a servant to ask after the man’s health and give him some food, but the beauty of the autumn day and the lightening of his spirits since leaving Moe at her parents’ home suddenly prompted him to say, “We will stop for a while and rest. Tell the young woman to bring her uncle to me.”

A makeshift camp was swiftly set up beneath a small grove of trees, mats spread on the ground and covered with silk cushions, fires lit and water boiled. A small chair was provided for Shigeru, Takeshi sat next to him, and they drank the tea Moe’s parents had given them, picked on the southern slopes of Kushimoto, and ate fresh persimmons and a sweet paste made from chestnuts.

The air was crisp and clear, the sun still pleasantly warm. Ginkgo trees in the grove scattered their leaves in drifts of gold.

He can see none of this, Shigeru thought with pity as the girl led Nesutoro toward him.

“Uncle, Lord Otori is here,” he heard her whisper as she helped him kneel.

“Lord Otori?” He held his face up, as if trying to look with the last of