He finally broke the silence. “What news do you bring me from the West? I suppose you stopped at Noguchi. I hope Noguchi is keeping Arai under control.”
“Lord Arai is one of Lord Noguchi’s most trusted retainers now,” she replied.
“And what do you hear of the Otori?”
“Very little. I have not even set foot in the domain for years.”
“Yet I hear you have a fondness for herons.”
“I saw one of Heaven’s creatures suffering,” she replied quietly. “I did not understand what it meant.”
“You understand now, though? ‘Loyalty to the Heron.’ It is almost laughable. These people do not know what Shigeru has become; I’ll wager they would not rally under the banner ‘Loyalty to the Farmer’!”
He laughed and waited for her to smile. “The Farmer is growing a fine crop of sesame, they tell me,” he sneered.
He does not know, she realized.
“I suppose sesame is a useful seed,” she said, pretending disdain.
“Shigeru is far more useful as a farmer than he ever was as a warrior,” Iida muttered. “All the same, I would be a lot happier if he were dead.”
She could not bring herself to acquiesce, simply raised her eyebrows slightly and smiled.
“He had some reputation once as a swordsman,” Iida said. “Now people speak of his integrity and honor. I would like to have him in my power: I would like to see his honor then. But he’s too wily ever to leave the Middle Country.”
“No one is as great a warrior as Lord Iida,” she murmured, thinking how fortunate it was that he was a vain man and no flattery was ever too excessive for him.
“I suppose you have seen my nightingale floor?” he said. “My skills as a warrior are not all that I have. I am also cunning and suspicious, never forget that!”
The audience came to an end and she returned to her rooms.
The days passed, long and tedious apart from the pleasure of being with her daughter. Her anxieties mounted. Her monthly bleeding was two days late, three days, then a week. She feared that the physical changes in her body, especially the onset of morning sickness, would be all too quickly observed and knew that she must not delay her departure. She lay awake at night trying to plan what must take place as soon as she got back to Maruyama. Who would be able to help her? Her normal physicians were all men; she could not bear to disclose her secret to them. And she could not ask either Sachie or her sister, Eriko, to help her kill her child, even though both had a knowledge of herbs, medicine, and healing. The only person she could think of was Shizuka. Surely Shizuka knew about such things? And she would understand and not judge…
The day before she left Inuyama, she sent Bunta with a message begging Shizuka to come to Maruyama at once.
Mariko was deeply disappointed at her leaving, and they parted with tears on both sides. The journey back was difficult: it seemed everything conspired to make her miserable. The weather became suddenly unseasonably hot; the rains began before she left Yamagata, but she insisted on returning home and not staying in the city, so the last week of travel was in constant rain. In Bunta’s absence the horses were bad-tempered and difficult. Everything was soaked and smelled of mildew. Sachie caught a cold, which made her even more unhappy about Naomi’s inexplicable urgency. But unpleasant as the journey was, what she feared at home was even more alarming. She did not know how she would find the strength to do what she knew she had to do.
45
By the time Naomi had arrived home, her compan-ion, Sachie, who knew her so intimately, had begun to suspect what had happened. When they were alone inside the residence, the two women stared at each other. Sachie’s eyes held the question. Naomi could only nod.
“But how?” Sachie began.
“At Terayama. He was there. Don’t say anything to me. I know what a fool I have been. Now I am going to get rid of it.”
She saw Sachie flinch and was unreasonably angry with her. “I am not asking you to have anything to do with it. If it offends you, then leave me. Someone is coming to help me.” She was silent for a moment, then said, her voice breaking, “But she must come soon.”
“Lady Naomi!” Sachie reached out to her as if she would embrace her, but Naomi stood rigid. “I would never leave you at a time like this. But is there no alternative?”
“I cannot think of one,” Naomi said bitterly. “If you can devise some way out, some way for me not to kill Lord Shigeru’s child, then tell me. Otherwise don’t pity me, or you will weaken me. I will weep later when it is all over.”
Sachie bowed her head, tears in her eyes.
“In the meantime you may tell the household I have caught a severe cold. I will see no one, except the woman with whom we rode to Yamagata, Muto Shizuka. She must come soon,” she repeated, gazing into the garden where the rain fell steadily.
Two days later there was a brief break in the weather, and in a patch of sunshine and blue skies, Shizuka arrived with Bunta.
Alone in the room with Naomi, she listened in silence to the curt request, asked for no explanations, and offered no sympathy.
“I will be back tonight,” she said. “Eat and drink nothing. Try to rest. You will not sleep tonight, and it will be painful.”
She returned with herbs from which she made a bitter infusion and helped Naomi drink it. Within hours the cramps began, followed by severe pain and heavy bleeding. Shizuka stayed with her throughout the night, wiping the sweat from her face, washing away the blood, reassuring her that it would soon pass.
“You will have other children,” she whispered. “As I did.”
“You have been through this too,” Naomi said, letting the tears flow now as much for Shizuka as for herself.
“Yes, my first child. It did not suit the Tribe for me to have it at that time. My aunt gave me this same brew. I was very unhappy. But if the Tribe had not done that to me, I would never have dared defy them to help Lord Shigeru and to keep your secret. Men cannot foresee what the results of their actions will be because they do not take account of the human heart.”
“Are you in love with Lord Shigeru?” Naomi heard herself asking. “Is that why you do so much for us?” The darkness, the intimacy between them, made her dare to utter such words.
Shizuka replied with the same honesty. “I love him deeply, but we will never be together in this life. That precious fate is yours.”
“It is a fate that has brought me little but sorrow,” Naomi said. “But I would not choose any other.”
Toward dawn the pain eased and she slept a little; when she woke, Sachie was in the room and Shizuka was preparing to leave. Naomi was filled with dread at the idea of her departure.
“Stay a little longer! Don’t leave me yet!”
“Lady, I cannot stay. I should not be here. Someone will find out, and it will bring us all into danger.”
“You will not tell Lord Shigeru?” Naomi began to weep at his name.
“Of course not! It may anyway be a long time till I am able to see him. You may see him yourself before then. You must rest and recover your strength. You have many who love you and who will take care of you.”
When Naomi wept more despairingly, Shizuka tried to comfort her. “Next time I go to Hagi, I will come here first. You may send a message to him then.”
It was nine weeks to the day when Naomi had lain down next to Shigeru as if in a dream.
The child’s life had been extinguished swiftly and easily. She could not even pray openly for its soul or express her grief and her anger that she could not live freely with the man she loved. Her mood became very dark, as if a heavy spirit had possessed her, and she was given to outbursts of rage against her retainers and servants, which led the elders to express among themselves the opinion that she was showing all the irrationality of a woman and was maybe not fit to govern alone. They began to suggest marriage to Iida or to someone chosen by him, thus enraging her further.