Heaven's Net Is Wide

12

After these conversations, in the days following, master and pupil resumed their silent routine. It was the time of the greatest heat, but Shigeru learned to ignore the sticky discomfort of the body just as Matsuda did. The spring ran cool throughout the hottest days, and he often stripped off his clothes at the end of the day and bathed in the pool. He had grown during the summer and had reached his full height, well above average, and the constant exercise and discipline had built up his muscles and burned away the last vestiges of childhood. He knew he had become a man, and he was often impatient to return to the world, especially when his thoughts turned to the tensions between the clans and the untrustworthiness of his uncles, but he accepted that he still had the lessons of patience and self-control to learn.

A vixen sometimes trotted through the clearing at dusk, and once Shigeru surprised the cubs playing in a hollow. Deer and rabbits occasionally came to graze on the summer grass. Apart from the villagers, who returned, when the Festival of the Dead was over, with offerings of cucumbers, apricots, and summer vegetables, they saw no human being.

However, one day at sunset, when they had taken advantage of the cool of the evening to fight a bout with the wooden poles, they heard the unusual sound of horses coming up the track. Matsuda made a sign to Shigeru to halt; they both turned to see two men on horseback cantering up to the hut.

Shigeru had not seen a horse since he had left his own to walk to the temple. There was something astonishing about the two snorting creatures with warriors on their backs. They were both dark bay with black legs, manes, and tails. The riders wore chest armor laced with black and gold, and on their backs was the triple oak leaf of the Tohan.

The leader reined his horse in and called out a greeting. Matsuda returned it calmly. Shigeru, knowing his teacher’s moods so well, saw him tense slightly. His feet balanced themselves on the ground, and his grasp on the pole tightened.

“I am Miura Naomichi,” the man continued, “from the Tohan at Inuyama. My companion is Inaba Atsushi. I am looking for Matsuda Shingen.”

“You have found him,” Matsuda said evenly. “Dismount and tell me your business.”

Miura did so, leaping agilely down; his companion also dismounted and took the reins of both horses while Miura stepped forward and bowed slightly.

“Lord Matsuda. I am glad to have found you engaged in instruction. We were led to believe in Inuyama that you had given up teaching. There seemed no other explanation when Lord Iida, head of the Tohan, expressly commanded you to come to teach his son.”

“I am grateful for Lord Iida’s opinion of my ability, but I am under no obligation to obey any command from him. It is well known that my allegiance has always been to the Otori. Besides, Lord Sadamu is a little old for my instruction, and I am sure he has already benefited from Inuyama’s greatest swordsmen, such as Lord Miura himself.”

“I am flattered that you know me. But you must also know that my reputation is nothing in the Three Countries compared to your own.”

Shigeru heard arrogance behind false humility. He does not believe what he says. He believes himself to be better than Matsuda; he feels slighted because Iida approached Matsuda. He has come here to challenge him. There can be no other reason.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Matsuda said, apparently affably. “We live very simply here, but you are welcome to share whatever we have…”

Miura interrupted him. “I have not come all this way to drink tea and compose poems. I have come to challenge you: first, because you insult the Tohan clan by refusing my master’s invitation, and second, because if I defeat you, Lord Iida will know he does not have to look for teachers among the Otori.”

“I am no longer a warrior,” Matsuda said. “Just a monk who does not fight anymore. I have no weapon here, apart from the training poles. No insult was intended.”

“Take my sword, and I will fight with Inaba’s; that will make us equal.” Miura unsheathed the sword and took a step forward. “Either we fight or I cut you down now, you and your pupil. Fight me and whatever the outcome, I will spare him.”

It was clear the warrior was not going to be dissuaded. Shigeru felt his heartbeat pick up. He tightened his grip on the pole and moved his feet slightly so the setting sun fell over his shoulder.

Matsuda said, “Since you show such consideration for my pupil, you may fight him.”

Miura sneered. “I don’t challenge boys or novices.”

Matsuda addressed Shigeru formally. “Lord Otori, take Lord Miura’s sword.”

Shigeru bowed equally formally, handed the pole to his teacher and stepped forward. There was a moment when he felt his own complete vulnerability, unarmed before Miura’s sword. He masked it by gazing calmly at the warrior, assessing him.

Miura was a little shorter than he was, ten or fifteen years older, and much broader in the shoulders. His arms and legs were solid with muscle. Shigeru guessed his technique would be grounded in power rather than speed. His reach would be limited. His strength would be greater, but he had not been taught by Matsuda Shingen.

“Lord Otori?” Miura said, taken aback. “The oldest son? Shigeru?”

“Lord Otori is the only man who has ever bested me,” Matsuda said calmly.

And there was another advantage. Miura was disconcerted by the situation that now presented itself, into which his own blustering had led him. To challenge Matsuda and kill him was one thing; to kill the heir to the Otori clan was quite another. It might be Sadayoshi and Sadamu’s secret desire, but it could never be condoned by them publicly or forgiven by the Otori. It would plunge the Three Countries into immediate war. Miura’s life and the lives of his family would be forfeit.

Good, Shigeru thought. The sooner we fight the Tohan, the more likely we are to defeat them. My father has another son. It seemed suddenly, in that moment, a good death, and he chose it steadfastly, neither looking at the future nor dwelling on the past.

“Give me your sword,” he said.

“You will let a boy fight in your place?” Miura attempted to browbeat Matsuda.

“As I said, Lord Otori is my better. Defeat him and you defeat me. You may then take my life, worthless as it is. All the insults you imagine will be wiped out. And I certainly will not have to go to Inuyama. Give your sword to Lord Otori as you suggest. It seems quite fair to me, unless you often practice with your companion’s sword.”

“I have never held it in my hands till now,” Miura replied.

The exchange of swords was made. Shigeru took Miura’s in both hands and, stepping to one side, looked at it carefully. The cutting edge was unblemished, the curved steel perfectly honed. It was a little heavier than his own, suiting Miura’s greater bulk, but its balance was good and it responded to his grip. He made a couple of swift passes through the air and heard the steel sing as the sword came to life. He deliberately chose simple, basic exercises, knowing Miura would be watching him, hoping to maintain the disconcertion, hoping to lull him into overconfidence.

He felt his teacher’s trust and had the same confidence in him, knowing Matsuda would never put his life at risk, would have fought Miura himself rather than do that.

They faced each other on the sandy ground. Inaba took the horses a little distance away and stood between them. Matsuda was on the opposite side of the clearing. He said nothing but gazed steadily at Shigeru.

It was over quickly. Miura made a conventional attack, not unlike the sort of thing Shigeru had learned from his sword teacher in Hagi, Irie Masahide. He was strong but slow and less than wholehearted, as Shigeru had suspected. Shigeru’s upbringing and training had prepared him for this moment; he had known it would come and he was ready for it. He had not longed for it, but neither did he flinch from it. He feinted against the attack, making it look as if he would repeat the elementary exercise he had just practiced, and as Miura’s sword responded, he moved the other way and found the unprotected area between chest and groin.

He was amazed at how easily the blade slid through clothing and flesh, how swiftly it whipped back and cut again, this time into the top of the neck as Miura fell forward. Shigeru was filled with a terrible sense of anguish as the blood spurted from the neck and foamed from the belly, anguish and sorrow at the fragility of flesh and bone, and of the life they held together. It seemed an appalling thing that a man should travel so swiftly from life to death, the abrupt journey from which there was no return. He wished he could turn time back to a world in which Miura and Inaba never came at sunset to the lonely shrine, yet he knew he had to accept that Miura had come there to meet the death decreed for him at Shigeru’s hands.

“Lord Miura!” Inaba cried, dropping the horses’ reins and running forward. The horses reared at the smell of blood and trotted off across the clearing, one of them whinnying loudly, eyes rolling.

Miura died without speaking.

I have killed, Shigeru thought with neither pleasure nor elation but rather with a sense of dread and heaviness, as though he had lost the lightness of boyhood and taken on adulthood with all its burdens.

Matsuda picked up Inaba’s sword from where it had fallen. “Lord Shigeru, catch the horses before they wander off. Inaba, take your master’s head and carry it back to Inuyama. I expect you to give an accurate account of his death, which was not without honor.”

Shigeru, persuading the horses to allow themselves to be captured, heard the blow that separated the head from the body. Matsuda brought water from the spring and washed the blood from the face, wrapping it in a cloth from the hut, apologizing for the poor quality of the fabric.

Inaba’s eyes were bright with emotion, but he said nothing. He took a container from the saddle bow of his horse and placed the head reverently inside. Then he undid the scabbard from Miura’s belt, wiped the sword, checked the blade, then returned it to the scabbard.

“Lord Otori.” He bowed to Shigeru and laid the sword on the ground before him.

“You may take the body to Terayama,” Matsuda said. “They will arrange for burial there.”

“No!” Inaba said. “Lord Miura must not lie among the Otori. I will take him back to the East. When I have performed this last service for him, I will join him in death.”

“As you wish,” Matsuda said, and helped the other man strap the body onto the horse while Shigeru held the animal steady, soothing it as it trembled.

Inaba mounted and rode slowly down the slope. After a few minutes the sound of the hoofbeats died away. The sun had set completely, but it was not yet dark.

“Go and cleanse yourself,” Matsuda told Shigeru. “We will pray for the dead.”

As the light faded and the stars began to gleam, the old man chanted the sutra for the dead, the ancient words acting as a ligament between Earth and Heaven, this world and the next.

Later, Matsuda said, “I knew you were in no danger.”

“You would never allow me to be,” Shigeru replied. “It gave me confidence.”

“You did well. Miura has been an excellent fighter and a good teacher. Sadayoshi should not have slighted him.”

“It seemed almost as though you might have contrived it,” Shigeru ventured.

Matsuda replied, “I would not contrive in anyone’s death-I don’t need to, for fate brings all of us to that final encounter. But if I had wanted to, I could not have set up anything better.”

THE NEXT DAY was even hotter; the sunlight had the same bronzed tinge and the air was oppressively heavy and still, as though Heaven held its breath. The cicadas’ drone continued mercilessly, but all birds seemed silenced by the heat.

After the morning exercises, which left even Matsuda soaked in sweat, they spent the rest of the day in silent meditation. In the evening, Matsuda said, “I think we will return to the temple. Our work here seems to be completed, and I have the feeling I am needed. And you must take up your studies again before you forget how to write.”

They packed up their few belongings, and Shigeru swept out the hut for the last time. They rose before dawn. The tanuki was sitting on the veranda, watching them with round, wary eyes. Matsuda bowed to it.

“Good-bye, old friend. Thank you for sharing your home with us. It’s yours again.”

The moon had set, but Matsuda strode along the path as if it were clearly lit by the sun. Shigeru carried the fighting poles and the bundles as he had on their outward journey. He was sorry to leave the remote hut where he had learned so much, but he, too, knew that the work they had come to do had been achieved.

Day was dawning as they passed beneath the great oak where Shigeru had seen the houou, and he looked for it again in the arching canopy. Matsuda had put the feather away and now carried it in the breast of his robe. But there was no sign of the sacred bird. I will see it again, he thought; I will create a place where it can dwell. It will return to the Middle Country.

They reached the temple before midday. As soon as they entered the first courtyard, Shigeru realized something untoward had happened. A solemn hush lay over the whole place, quite different from its daily atmosphere, broken only by a monotonous chanting from the main hall. He recognized the words of one of the sutras for the dead.

“It’s as I thought,” Matsuda said quietly. “Our Abbot has passed away.”

AFTER THIS, Shigeru saw very little of Matsuda. The Abbot’s funeral was held, and after the mourning period Matsuda became the new Abbot, as had been expected. Shigeru took his place again among the other novices and followed the same routine as before but with greater diligence and self-discipline. He had the same anxieties about events in the world beyond Terayama-the activities of the Tohan, his own clan’s response-but he laid them to one side and devoted himself to meditation, exercise, and study. He took out the scrolls he had brought from Eijiro and from Yamagata and applied himself to learning them by heart. He saw that the work that lay ahead of him would be immense, and that he would need all his energy, intelligence, and strength to grapple with it. He worked, with the help of his teachers, on developing his natural abilities and curbing his weaknesses. He learned to control his body’s needs for sleep and food, to master his temper and his thoughts.

The heat of summer gave way to the onset of autumn. Then came the equinox; autumn lilies blossomed around the rice fields. The storms of late summer abated; the leaves turned red and gold; chestnuts ripened in the forest and persimmons in the gardens. Work in the fields seemed endless to bring in the harvest of rice, beans, and vegetables that would feed them through the winter. The air echoed with the sounds of flails as the grains were separated from the husk, the dull chopping of the bean straw and shelling of the pods, beans falling into baskets and buckets with a patter like hail.

One day, suddenly it seemed, the work was finished; the fields were bare and brown. Mist hung around the mountains, and the first frosts stiffened the bamboo grass and turned it white. The airy rooms of the temple that had been cool in summer became freezing as the autumn wind chilled. The year turned and snow fell, closing off the temple from the outside world.