Suddenly he stood up, gave a great cry of anguish and rushed to the edge of the sea. There he threw himself on the stony ground and wept. A dark cloud covered his mind. At first he felt no more than a blackness and numbness within, as if a naginata blade had cloven his chest. Gradually, images rose within him: Taniko, the baby he had never seen, Horigawa.

If only she had listened to him. They could have run away together. Waves of sadness swept through him like the surf below in Hakata Bay. Two lives were in bondage to sorrow and the third snuffed out because Taniko refused to give up her status, to forget this marriage that had been made for her by fools, and run away with him. Their daughter was dead. How Taniko must have suffered. Jebu wept for the drowned child and for Taniko’s agony.

He would go and kill Horigawa. He had never hated anyone this way before, not even Arghun. His enmity towards Arghun was a matter of principle; it was only right to hate the man who had killed his father and who wanted to kill him. But even though he had fought with Arghun, he felt he hardly knew the man, and from what little he did know, he felt a degree of respect for the Mongol.

With Horigawa, it was different. Horigawa had used and abused Taniko’s body. He had killed their baby. The thought of Horigawa made his stomach churn and his fingers clench, aching to be wrapped around the man’s scrawny neck. He hated the cruelty, the waste, the stupidity of Horigawa’s act. It was Horigawa, too, who had egged on the Takashi and thereby set the great samurai families at each other’s throats. Because of Horigawa thousands of good men were dead and much of the land lay in ruins. If Horigawa were to die, how many lives might be changed for the better?

If only he had killed him when he had the chance at Daidoji. He had been a fool to let him live. Some of the hatred he felt for Horigawa was directed at himself as well. It was because of his error that Horigawa had lived to kill Jebu’s daughter.

The spasm of hatred recalled him to himself. He reached inside his robe to the secret place sewn into it, and he took out the shintai. Sitting up, he held the Jewel in both hands before his face, staring into the shifting planes of colour and light in its depths. For a moment he seemed to see the great glowing Tree of Life and some of the creatures that grew from it.

Peace spread slowly through his body. The grief was still there, a dull ache, but the hatred was gone.

Horigawa and I are one, he told himself. For me to kill him in hatred, thinking that I am ridding the world of evil, is as mad as cutting off my left hand with my right hand. Horigawa acts according to his nature and I act according to mine. If I kill him some day, it will be because it is necessary, not because I hate him and desire his death.

That, he thought with surprise, is the deepest level of insight I have achieved since Taitaro gave me the shintai.

He stood up and walked back to Moko, who was staring at him. “Shiké, what is that precious stone?”

“It is a gift to me from my fathers. Both of them.” He put his hand on Moko’s shoulder. “I’m all right now.”

“Shiké, I want to stay with you. Let me be your servant, your Bannerman, your foot soldier—anything.”

“A Zinja monk does not normally have servants. But these are not normal times. Yes, from now on you will travel with me.”

A few days later Abbot Weicho called Jebu into his chamber. “You will continue to serve the Muratomo. The Council of Abbots is convinced that there is a doom hanging over the house of Takashi. It is important to the Order that Zinja be fighting on the winning side. When the Muratomo do win, we may see the revival of the Order for which we have long hoped.”

Jebu was sent to the island of Shikoku to help a band of samurai besiege the castle of an oryoshi who was oppressing the countryside in the service of the Red Dragon. Jebu proposed to assassinate the oryoshi and was contemptuously told that it was impossible. The castle was so impregnable that a mouse could not get into it, and the oryoshi was guarded in shifts by samurai who even stood over his bed and watched him while he slept.

“He does not even send his guards away when he takes a woman,” the local Muratomo leader said.

“Assassination is a Zinja speciality,” said Jebu. “Leave this to me.”Jebu infiltrated the castle by way of a sewer outlet into the moat around it. He hid in the castle privy for a day and a night, using Zinja meditative techniques to remain motionless and silent. When his intended victim came to relieve himself, Jebu ran his sword into his bowels and escaped by the same route he had entered. Leaderless, the castle fell to the Muratomo samurai, who looked on Jebu with superstitious horror. Moko helped him to wash his clothing and equipment, and would not let him out of the bath, which he constantly replenished with fresh, steaming water, for an entire day.

Jebu fought along with one band of samurai, then another, staying at one castle for a night, at another for a week, at a few for months. He besieged and was besieged, ambushed enemies in the forest and fought pitched battles in the streets of cities and villages. It was a way of life he had grown used to after Domei’s insurrection, and one to which Moko quickly adapted.

But in spite of the Council of Abbots’ hopes, the Muratomo leaders who held out against the Takashi were, one by one, captured or killed. The insurrection came to seem more like the scattered depredations of outlaw bands than an organized rebellion. The two surviving sons of Domei remained under guard in the hands of the Takashi. The elder, Hideyori, was still under the watchful eye of Taniko’s father, Lord Shima Bokuden. His half-brother, Yukio, remained in Sogamori’s custody in the Rokuhara, the Takashi stronghold in the capital. Both publicly disavowed any warfare conducted in their family’s behalf, declaring it to be the work of bandits. They repeatedly swore their loyalty to the Emperor and to Sogamori.

Jebu’s collection of swords grew month by month. After a battle, with Moko’s help, he would find the swords of any samurai he killed, and Moko would carry them to the nearest Zinja monastery. Eventually the swords would make their way to the Teak Blossom Temple. Months later a message would arrive from Nyosan by some circuitous route, telling Jebu that the swords had arrived, and giving him the current tally.

Jebu continued his daily practice of contemplating the Jewel of Life and Death. Carefully secluding himself so that his samurai companions would not see and covet the Jewel, he would lose himself in the maze traced on the transparent sphere’s surface.

Moko felt that the Jewel must be magic, and he feared its power over his master. Jebu had told Moko the whole story of Jamuga, Taitaro, Arghun and the shintai. The Jewel was beautiful, Moko thought, but why did the shiké spend so much time staring at it?

“Well, no seeds have been sown in this field yet.”

“Only a matter of time,” said Ryuichi with an airy wave of his hand. They both laughed.

Taniko realized it was the first time she had laughed since Shikibu’s death. It was the first time since then that she had felt fully alive. She whispered her thanks to Amida, the Lord of Boundless Light.

Chapter Twenty-One

Like the Waterfowl Temple to the north, the Teak Blossom Temple of the Zinja stood at the crown of a hill overlooking the sea, which was here contained within Hakata Bay, a great, circular inlet with the small fishing town of Hakata at its head. Hakata could have been a major port, being an excellent harbour and close to Korea and China. But the wealthy families involved in foreign trade lived mostly at the capital, and it was more convenient for them to conduct their shipping from Hyogo on the Inland Sea.

Many of Jebu’s friends from the Waterfowl Temple were now living at the Teak Blossom Temple. Weicho, the short, rotund monk who had so impressed Jebu with his wickedness during his initiation, was the abbot. No longer required to pretend to play at being a bad Zinja, Weicho was now free to be his true self, a genial, simple man with only one vice, an inordinate fondness for eating.

“What’s become of Fudo, your partner in wickedness?” Jebu asked him.

A shadow crossed Weicho’s face. “He’s left the Order.”

“Left the Order? I can’t imagine anyone leaving the Order.”

Weicho shrugged. “Many strange things happen these days. Others have broken with the Order as well. In Fudo’s case his duties—the pretence, the cruelty, the occasional need to kill an innocent young novice—became too much for him. He’s converted to Buddhism. The last I heard, he was in a monastery in the eastern provinces, sitting on his arse day and night, trying to find happiness by meditating. He’s a cripple. He wasn’t strong enough to be a Zinja. Forget him.” Weicho waved the irritating memory away. Strange, Jebu thought, but Weicho almost reverted to his old role of sharp-tongued cruelty when he talked about Fudo.

Most important of all, Nyosan, Jebu’s mother, lived at the Teak Blossom Temple. Jebu had not seen her since his initiation, and whenever the busy routine of the temple permitted, mother and son spent hours in conversation.

Nyosan had charge of Jebu’s collection of swords. There were now over sixty. Many of them were the lower-grade sort turned out quickly by the swordsmiths to serve poor samurai in combat. Others were magnificent creations signed by such legendary sword makers as Yasatsuna, Sanjo and Amakuni, heirlooms whose capture by Jebu was a tragedy for the families of the samurai who had carried them. It was four years since Jebu had first vowed to undertake the project.

It was evident to Jebu that Nyosan deeply missed Taitaro. It seemed to him a cruelty that Taitaro should deliberately cut himself off from his wife and choose to live alone, but Nyosan herself never questioned his decision. From hints in her conversation, Jebu gathered that her life was not without its compensations. Indeed, it seemed the older men and women among the Zinja enjoyed their own sort of unions with one another, which were bound by no rules except that of secrecy from the younger members of the Order. So Nyosan apparently did not lack for whatever comfort might be drawn from the joys of the body. She was not alone, though she might be lonely, and she never complained. Still, Jebu resented the way Taitaro had left her. Could he not find whatever insight he sought within his union with Nyosan, rather than off in the woods by himself?

During his stay at the Teak Blossom Temple, Jebu followed the usual routine of a Zinja monk at home base—up at dawn, meditation and exercises before breakfast, practice in the military arts until noon, manual labour in the afternoon, study of Zinja lore in the evening. Each day he spent some time staring into the flickering depths of the Jewel of Life and Death. He found that it really did seem to enhance his peace of mind. The obsession with his father and Arghun, the longing for Taniko, were still there, but he accepted them, as a veteran samurai learns to live with the pain of old wounds.

He entered into a liaison with one of the temple women. It was pleasant and gave him a feeling of greater completeness. Together they studied and practised sexual magic, following ancient books from India and China. It was a fascinating pursuit. But more than once when he and his partner had devoted themselves to the sexual yoga for hours and the moment of supreme bliss should have been a moment of profound insight into the Self, instead he seemed to make contact with Taniko. At such times her face would appear in his mind as clearly as if she had supplanted the partner who sat with him in ecstatic union. Sometimes she spoke to him: “The lilac branch will always be there for the waterfowl.” Once Jebu asked his partner if she had spoken. “I don’t remember,” she answered. It remained a mystery.

One afternoon while Jebu was weeding the vegetable garden, a monk approached followed by a small, ragged figure carrying a travel box. The man had a heavy, untrimmed black beard that almost covered his entire face. Jebu did not recognize him.

“Shiké!”

Now Jebu saw the gaps in the teeth and the crossed eyes, and he knew who it was. “Moko!”

“Shiké, it has taken me this long to find my way to you. I have been over a year on the road, going from one Zinja temple to another, begging for my meals, hiding from samurai and bandits. Luckily I was able to escape with my dogu box. With my Instruments of the Way of Carpentry I was able to earn my living as I travelled. Every place I went, you had been there, but you were gone. Where you seemed to travel on wings, I followed on wooden feet.”

Jebu threw his arms around the little man and led him to the edge of the garden, where they sat on a pair of boulders. “Tell me all the news you can. Is Taniko-san well?”

Moko’s face fell and he was silent. Jebu seized his arm. “What is it?”

Moko hesitantly put his hand on Jebu’s. “Shiké, after you found us at Horigawa’s estate, I had to flee as well. The prince discovered I was your friend. I hated to leave the Lady Taniko alone with him, but I felt that my ghost would afford her small protection, so I went on my way.”

“Did he hurt her?”

“Whatever I know is only what I’ve been told by others.” And Moko told the story of the red-haired baby born to Taniko, its death, the fire and Taniko’s return to Heian Kyo. Tears streamed from Jebu’s eyes. When Moko’s story was over, Jebu sat covering his face with his hands.

Suddenly he stood up, gave a great cry of anguish and rushed to the edge of the sea. There he threw himself on the stony ground and wept. A dark cloud covered his mind. At first he felt no more than a blackness and numbness within, as if a naginata blade had cloven his chest. Gradually, images rose within him: Taniko, the baby he had never seen, Horigawa.

Taniko said, “Homage to Amida Buddha.” The samurai and the peasant woman led her away.

Chapter Twenty

His estate levelled, Prince Horigawa had no choice but to return Taniko to Heian Kyo. She was desperately ill, and he told her he hoped the carriage journey back to the capital would kill her. But she survived, and by the beginning of the new year her body had recovered. Her mind did not recover as quickly. He tried for a time to keep her in his palace, but her presence in his home unnerved him, and her bewildered manner and constant muttering of the invocation to Buddha disturbed the servants.

Finally, Horigawa took her in his state carriage to the house of Taniko’s uncle Shima Ryuichi. He decided that shame would keep her from telling anyone what he had done to the baby, and that no one could blame him for casting off a wife who had become so obviously useless.

In the slow ride through the streets of the capital she crouched on the straw mat across the carriage from him, staring at him and whispering to herself, while he directed his gaze out through the blinds, so as to avoid looking at her.

“Unfortunately, her baby was born dead,” he told Ryuichi. “She is upset. Possibly she has succumbed to the influence of an evil spirit. I think it best she remain with her family for a while.” He left abruptly, while Ryuichi looked in helpless horror at the dishevelled, murmuring Taniko.

Sometimes Taniko found herself trying to imagine what her daughter would have been like. She had red hair and grey eyes. Would she have been strange looking? Would everyone have thought her ugly? Would she have been unable to get a husband? It would not have mattered. Taniko would have loved her daughter. She would have called her Shikibu, after the author of The Tale of Genji, the book she had enjoyed while she was with child.

Gradually, Taniko once again became an accepted member of the house of Shima Ryuichi. She remained something of a recluse and spent her days reading, embroidering and incessantly reciting the invocation to Buddha. It appeared a foregone conclusion that she would not return to her husband.

Word of what had actually happened at Daidoji filtered back to Heian Kyo through the gossip of servants and samurai. Shima Ryuichi heard the story and accepted it because it was hard to believe a strong girl like Taniko could be reduced to this state by a stillbirth, a misfortune that happened to many women. He considered writing to Lord Bokuden about Horigawa’s behaviour but decided not to. Against so powerful a man as Prince Horigawa there was nothing to be done, and Bokuden might take it into his head to hold Ryuichi somehow to blame for whatever had gone wrong.

One day in the Fifth Month of the Year of the Ape Taniko was reading when a maidservant burst into her room. “You must prepare yourself, my lady. A great man has come to call upon you.”

Puzzled, Taniko slowly laid down her book. “What great man has come?” A picture of Jebu rose in her mind.

“Lord Takashi no Kiyosi, Minister of the Interior and General of the Left, is waiting in the great hall.”

Kiyosi. The image of a brown, handsome face with a small moustache replaced that of Jebu. Suddenly, she was frightened.

“I cannot possibly receive him. He cannot see me like this, and I don’t have time to prepare myself.”

“Be calm, my lady,” said the maid. “No gentleman expects a lady to receive him at once, especially if she has had no advance warning that he is coming. You have time to prepare yourself. Your esteemed uncle told me to tell you that he would consider it a great favour if you would greet Lord Kiyosi courteously.”

“Of course.”

In less than an hour Taniko had changed all her robes and dresses, found her favourite hair ornament, a mother-of-pearl butterfly, and chosen a screen painted with green shoots of young rice just emerging from pools of water, an appropriate selection for the season. In her chest of personal ornaments she found the fan with the painting of the Takashi family shrine, which Lady Akimi had long since returned to her.

She was seated comfortably, the screen was placed before her, and she sent her maid for Kiyosi.

Through the top of the screen Taniko was able to see that Kiyosi was wearing what was known at the capital as a hunting costume—a long green cloak with a yellow plum blossom print, full tan trousers and a pointed black cap. Coming from the provinces as she did, Taniko always found the term “hunting costume” laughable. Any man who actually attempted to hunt in such cumbersome clothing would soon find himself eating dust. She had heard that Kiyosi was a splendid sight in his samurai armour. She hoped she might see him that way, some day.

To control her nervousness, Taniko whispered the invocation. “What was that you said?” Kiyosi asked. “Were you speaking to me?”

“Nothing, my lord.” Then, feeling she was betraying both Amida and the midwife who taught her, she explained. “I was reciting a prayer to the Buddha.”

“Ah, yes.” The light in the room was dim and it was difficult to see Kiyosi through the screen, but he seemed to be smiling kindly. “I have heard of such prayers. This is the teaching of the Pure Land school, is it not? Invoke Amida and you will be reborn in the Western Paradise?”

“I have studied under no school, my lord,” said Taniko. “I learned the prayer from a very kind woman who helped me in an hour when I needed help badly.”

“I hope you will forgive my presumption in coming to visit you, Lady Taniko. If I may say so, having met you on several occasions I have most pleasant memories of you. I heard that you were back in the capital at your family’s house. I notice that your screen depicts sprouting rice. Perhaps in this month of rice-sprouting a new friendship might begin to grow between us.”

“I am most grateful for your thought, my lord. I am overwhelmed by your kindness.” It must be pity that had brought him here, she thought. I am old. My baby was killed. I am unattractive. Many people must think me mad.

They talked through the screen for a long time. Taniko found herself again becoming interested in the affairs of Heian Kyo and Kiyosi seemed happy enough to tell her about them. He was modest, almost embarrassed, about the rise to power of the Takashi. Under Taniko’s tactful questioning he acknowledged that his father was now virtually unquestioned ruler of the Sacred Islands.

“How fortunate you are to have such a mighty father,” said Taniko.

“How fortunate is my father to have such a family,” Kiyosi answered. “I do not speak of myself, but of the many ancestors who have paved the way for his rise to greatness—of his father, my grandfather, who wiped out the pirates on the Inland Sea, of his uncles, his brothers, even his cousins, who help him by holding high offices in the land. In a mountain range one peak always stands taller than the others, but it is all the mountains together that help the tallest stand.”

“Not least among the peaks is the samurai general who defeated the Muratomo at the battle of the Imperial Palace,” said Taniko. “But sometimes a man cannot achieve greatness unless he thinks he stands alone.”

Kiyosi slapped his thigh and laughed softly. “How true! I worry about the destiny of my family, and I do not think my accomplishments will ever match those of my father.”

He stood up suddenly. “I must leave you now, Lady Taniko. You have been most kind to receive me. I will call on you again, if I may. I—I am married, of course, and I know many women. But the conversation of women does not usually interest me. I find you fascinating to talk to.”

“You are always welcome here, Lord Kiyosi.”

A few moments after he was gone, Ryuichi hurried into the room. “This is splendid! To be quite frank, my dear, I thought your usefulness to the family had ended when Prince Horigawa cast you off, but Kiyosi is a hundred times more important than the prince. I shall write your father at once. He will be proud of you.”

“The Takashi general is not going to marry me, Uncle.”

“But he will come back?”

“He said he would.”

“That is as much as we could hope for. That is far, far better for you than mooning about the house reading old books and mumbling prayers. You are a young woman. Even if he only makes you his mistress, you can do something for the family.”

“Any small contribution I could make would be an honour, of course,” said Taniko tartly. “But I think you are selling the rice when it hasn’t even been planted.”

“That’s done all the time,” said Ryuichi with mild surprise. “Here in the capital, people barter future crops on land they own to get what they need today. Your father has neglected your education in trade.”

“Well, no seeds have been sown in this field yet.”

“Only a matter of time,” said Ryuichi with an airy wave of his hand. They both laughed.

Taniko realized it was the first time she had laughed since Shikibu’s death. It was the first time since then that she had felt fully alive. She whispered her thanks to Amida, the Lord of Boundless Light.

“I’m too weak. I can’t stop him, Help me.” The midwife stared fearfully at Taniko, then scrambled to her feet and caught up with Horigawa. Blocking the prince’s way, she fell to her knees.

“Please, my lord, give me the baby.” She held out her arms.

Holding the baby with one arm, Horigawa drew his dagger and lunged at her.

“Homage to Amida—” she screamed, but the invocation ended in a horrid choking sound. Horigawa stepped daintily around her, wiping his dagger on his sulphur-coloured robe before sheathing it. Blood splashing her kimono like the petals of a giant scarlet peony, the midwife toppled forward and fell face-down in the dust. Taniko’s scream was as much for the woman who had helped her as for the baby.

Again she dragged herself to her feet and ran after Horigawa. He stopped and called his samurai.

“Hold her till I return.”

Tentatively at first, then more firmly as he saw that the prince was watching him, the guardsman nearest Taniko gripped her arm. With a nod, Horigawa turned and walked out the front gate as the two gate guards saluted with their naginatas. The guards stared after the little man holding the crying infant in his arms. A strange stillness fell over the manor.

Another samurai removed his obi and tied it around Taniko’s waist. “You should go inside and lie down, my lady. A woman in your condition should not be up and about.”

Suddenly, through her tears, Taniko was filled with rage. “What kind of samurai are you? You’re nothing but worms! You tell me to lie down when my baby has been ripped from my arms? You let him take my baby. You let him kill a defenceless woman. You are the ones who should lie down. You’re not men. No real men would stand by and let these things happen.”

“The prince is our lord, my lady,” said the man who had given her the sash. “We are sworn to obey him in all things.”

“You call yourselves samurai. Where is the courage and the kindliness samurai are supposed to have? You are only samurai on the outside. You have the hearts of maids. I have the only samurai heart here.” She glared at the men standing in a half-circle around her. They looked at the ground. She turned to the man holding her. “Let go of me.”

Still he held her. The samurai who spoke to her said, “Let go of her. Let her do as she wishes. This thing will bring bad karma on all who are part of it.” Taniko felt the man’s hand fall away. She raced for the gate. The guards with naginatas stepped aside.

What she saw made her scream in anguish. Horigawa was half-way up the stone steps that led up to the mill on the hilltop. Like a huge spider, he climbed rapidly.

Taniko ran to the mill and started to climb. Horigawa was far above her.

“Don’t! I beg you, don’t,” she screamed at him. “I’ll do anything you want. I’ll be whatever you want me to be. Take the baby away from me. Sell her if you want. I’ll be obedient to you. Don’t hurt her!”

The sound of the waterfall and the creaking of the mill wheel drowned out her voice. She struggled on up the stone steps, feeling weaker each time she raised a foot. She felt blood running down the insides of her legs. Clawing at the steps, using her hands to drag herself upwards, she climbed on.

She was screaming, but she did not know what she was screaming. She could not think. She could not hear herself above the roar of water tumbling over black rocks. She could no longer see Horigawa. She was almost at the top of the hill.

Horigawa was standing upstream. As she caught sight of him, he lifted her daughter up over his head with both arms and hurled the screaming baby into the middle of the stream.

The baby howled in terror as she struck the black water. That was the last sound Taniko ever heard from her child. She plunged into the water. Vainly she reached out as the little body swept past her and over the edge of the fall. She felt the current pulling her. She let herself fall forward into the cold water, wanting to be carried to her death with her daughter.

Just as she neared the edge she felt strong hands seize her and pull her out of the water, powerful arms carry her over to the bank of the stream. It was the samurai who had tried to help her. Without looking at Horigawa, who stood panting by the edge of the rushing stream, he carried Taniko slowly down the steep flight of stone steps.

At the bottom, Taniko raised her head weakly. She saw peasants standing around a morsel of dead flesh lying on the grass beside the mill pond. They stared at her, horror-struck. Then all of them knelt, and one covered the little body with a blanket. Taniko was silent. She closed her eyes. She could not comprehend what she had seen.

A man emerged from the gateway of the manor carrying the body of a woman in his arms. Some of the peasants went over to him and formed a small procession to follow the woman’s body to the village at the base of the hills.

A puff of smoke rose from the women’s quarters of the manor. Taniko suddenly remembered knocking over the oil lamp in her room. Soon the smoke became a thick, black cloud reaching to heaven. Crackling red flames leaped up after it.

Some of the servants tried to throw water on the fire, but it was useless. A strong breeze was blowing, and the flames quickly spread from the one building to all the others. Broken beams blackened in the fire, and torn paper walls turned to ashes and flew skyward like so many crows.

Within minutes the entire manor had burned to the ground.

The samurai standing with Taniko said, “It is a sign. The kami are angry at the prince for what he has done. They have destroyed his house.”

Some peasants overheard him and made the gesture of warding off demons.

“Homage to Amida Buddha,” Taniko said.

Immediately, those near her echoed it: “Homage to Amida Buddha.”

A peasant woman touched Taniko on the arm. “Your home is gone, my lady. You are ill. If you will be so kind, come to my miserable cottage and we will care for you.”

Taniko said, “Homage to Amida Buddha.” The samurai and the peasant woman led her away.

“Why should anyone think the child is not yours?”

“None of my wives has ever had a child. And the story of the armed monk who came here and killed my guards has made its way to the capital.”

“That has no bearing on whether you are the father of my child.”

“You will stay here. You will bear the child here at Daidoji.” He smiled at her. “It is really best for you. Pregnant women should not travel. The custom of a woman going home for the lying-in was followed when all the best people lived right in the capital. Besides, there are excellent midwives here in the village. You will be very comfortable.”

“You are holding me prisoner.”

“Only for your own good.” He stood up and left her.

Taniko felt more alone than she had at any time in her life. She read The Tale of Genji: a beautiful illustrated copy which Akimi had sent her. She liked it better than The Tale of the Hollow Tree. As her stomach started to bulge, she carried herself straighter and tried to hold it in.

“That is good,” said the midwife from the village of rice farmers who worked the paddies around Daidoji and paid sixty per cent of their harvest to Horigawa. “Girls who have husbands and are proud of their babies always let their bellies stick out. They have a bad time when they give birth. Girls whose babies have no fathers are ashamed. They try to hide their bellies, suck them in. And always, they have an easy delivery, because all that holding in makes them strong through here.” She laughed and stroked her hands over her pelvis. “Keep holding your belly in, my lady. But why are you ashamed of this baby? You have a noble prince for a husband.”

Having no one else to confide in and liking the midwife’s smiling, moon-like face, Taniko said, “I do not know whether this baby has a noble prince for a father.”

Taniko considered the notion of going to the Shima house in Heian Kyo without the prince’s permission, but it seemed impossible. From the way his dozens of samurai watched her, she was sure they had orders to keep her on the estate. And even if she were able to slip away, it was unsafe to travel on foot or on horseback. How could she get a carriage and driver? And how could a carriage escape the mounted samurai who would inevitably come after her? No, she decided, she would only distress herself by trying to run away.

The midwife came to examine her once a month. She told Taniko the baby would probably be born in the Seventh Month. Taniko noticed that when not talking to anyone the midwife would constantly mutter under her breath, the same words over and over again. At first Taniko thought the woman was mad. It would not surprise her at all if Horigawa had provided her with a demented midwife. But the woman was pleasant and made so much sense most of the time that Taniko dismissed that explanation.

“What is it you keep saying to yourself?” she finally asked.

“Homage to Amida Buddha.”

“Ah, a prayer.”

“It is more than a prayer. If you repeat it with sincerity, you are saved for all time. When you die your spirit will be reborn in the Pure Land far to the west, where it is possible for even the weakest of us to attain enlightenment and achieve Nirvana.”

“Is that why you say it over and over again?”

“Yes. Also because it is such a great comfort. When I invoke the name of Amida Buddha over and over again, it feels as if I am carrying Buddha within me, just as you are carrying that baby inside you. Try it some time, my lady. When you are feeling sad or in pain, just say, ‘Homage to Amida Buddha’ over and over to yourself until you feel better.”

One particularly beautiful day in the Seventh Month, as she sat reading under a parasol, Taniko found herself thinking back to her ride with Jebu down the Tokaido Road to Heian Kyo. When she realized that those were very nearly the last happy days of her life, a great sadness swept over her. Feeling foolish she said, “Homage to Amida Buddha.” She repeated it. After she had said it about twenty times the sharp edge of the sadness seemed blunted. It was as if she had drunk sake, but with none of its after effects.

The next time she tried the invocation was when she began to feel labour pains. She sent a servant to the village for the midwife, then went to the chamber that had been prepared as a lying-in room and lay on her futon, saying, “Homage to Amida Buddha.”

The midwife came, and they recited the prayer together. Taniko was in labour all the rest of that day, all the night and most of the following day. Holding in her belly did not seem to have helped.

Taniko awoke to see Horigawa leaning over her. His sour breath made her feel sick, and she turned her head aside. He grasped her under the chin and forced her to look at him.

“Taniko, your baby has been born.”

“Yes.”

“It is alive. It is a daughter.”

“Good.”

“Taniko, it has red hair and grey eyes.”

Taniko felt her heart turn to ice. Feebly, she said, “Many babies are born that way—”

“No, Taniko.” Horigawa bared his teeth in what almost seemed a smile. “It is his. The monk’s.” He turned abruptly.

Taniko, her whole pain-racked body trembling, raised herself up on her elbows. “What are you going to do?”

Horigawa snatched the infant from the midwife’s arms, held the little, red naked body up as the baby squirmed and squalled. “Look, Taniko. Behold the living proof of your faithlessness.” The baby’s eyes were shut and the hair looked light brown to Taniko. She reached for her daughter. Horigawa laughed at her helplessness and ran from the lying-in room. Swaying, staggering, knocking over the one feeble oil lamp that lit the room, Taniko forced herself to get to her feet and follow him.

“What are you going to do? What are you going to do?” She ran after him through the rooms of the women’s quarters.

On the veranda the midwife caught up with her. “My lady! You’ll hurt yourself. You must lie down.” She held Taniko.

“Help me! He’s going to kill my baby!” Taniko fought free of the midwife. With a rapid stride Horigawa was crossing the front yard of the manor to the gate, the naked baby clutched to his chest. Samurai came out of the guard house to stare at him.

Heedless of the way her single robe flapped open, revealing her nakedness, Taniko ran after Horigawa and seized his arm. Horigawa whirled and knocked her to the ground with a backhanded slap. The midwife came and knelt by the gasping Taniko. She started to help Taniko rise, and Taniko gripped her hand.

“I’m too weak. I can’t stop him, Help me.” The midwife stared fearfully at Taniko, then scrambled to her feet and caught up with Horigawa. Blocking the prince’s way, she fell to her knees.

“Please, my lord, give me the baby.” She held out her arms.

Holding the baby with one arm, Horigawa drew his dagger and lunged at her.

“Homage to Amida—” she screamed, but the invocation ended in a horrid choking sound. Horigawa stepped daintily around her, wiping his dagger on his sulphur-coloured robe before sheathing it. Blood splashing her kimono like the petals of a giant scarlet peony, the midwife toppled forward and fell face-down in the dust. Taniko’s scream was as much for the woman who had helped her as for the baby.