Upright, the nurse was as tall as Akitada and seemed like a giantess. She stepped along with the large, noisy strides of a brawny laborer. They passed through a number of dim corridors along wooden floors that felt and looked like sheets of black ice. He caught occasional glimpses of rooms, sparsely but elegantly furnished. Once he noted a beautifully written calligraphy scroll, another time an earthenware container planted with a miniature pine tree of perfect shape.

When the big woman finally pushed open the door to her mistress’s quarters, Akitada blinked. Innumerable candles and lanterns spread light over an exotic scene that resembled a Chinese palace more than a Japanese villa. The beams overhead were lacquered bright red and green, and the room seemed filled with standing racks holding embroidered robes and brocade-trimmed curtains of state. Against the wall stood carved and lacquered tables, decorated leather trunks for clothes, and tea stands of woven bamboo with dainty cups like those Akitada had once seen in the capital in the shop of a Chinese merchant. When he stepped inside, he felt underfoot a softness, warmer and more caressing than the thickest mat of sea grass and saw that rarest of luxuries, a Chinese carpet with a colorful pattern of blossoms and butterflies. Even the sliding doors were made of lacquered latticework or covered with scenic paintings on paper. The one behind him closed with a soft swish, and he was alone with the widow.

If the room had taken his breath away, the lady who had sent for him dazzled his eyes. She was seated on a dais quite high enough for an imperial princess. The curtain stand, which by etiquette must hide a lady of gentle birth from the eyes of male visitors, was small and low. He could see almost all of her seated figure as he stood near the door.

She had covered her mourning robe with another colorful jacket, this one embroidered with plum blossoms on a sky-blue ground. Her hair framed the pale oval of her face and trailed over her narrow shoulders like liquid black lacquer. She was looking at him with large pleading eyes and softly parted lips. He stared, enchanted by her beauty, and she blushed and raised an exquisitely painted fan before her face.

“It is so kind of you to come,” she said from behind the fan, bowing to him. “Please take a seat, my lord.”

Akitada approached and seated himself on a cushion as close to her dais as he dared. “Although I have only just had the honor of meeting your late husband,” he said softly, “I think I would have come to admire him very much. I came to express my sorrow at his passing.”

“Thank you.” There was a sigh and a pause. Then she cried out, “I think I hate monks. And incense nauseates me. I got quite sick and faint in the hall, sitting there for hours, hearing nothing but the chanting, the bells and drums, and always that smell. I wanted to die.”

Akitada’s heart smote him. This was no sophisticated woman who could be expected to deal with the rigors of public mourning. She was a child, too young to grasp the significance of the ritual, too weak for the fortitude and stoicism an older woman would have prided herself in.

“I know you must find it very difficult,” he said gently. “How can I help?”

“Please, could you come to visit me sometimes? Just to talk, as you are now. It is so lonely since ...” She choked.

Akitada did not know what to say.

“Oh!” she cried. “Forgive me. You must think me awful. You are a very important person from the capital, aren’t you? I should not have asked such a thing.”

“No, no. Not at all.” Akitada took the plunge. “I will gladly call on you every day if you will permit it. I feel honored by your ladyship’s confidence.”

She gave a soft gasp of relief, and then a small hand crept out from under the hangings. Akitada stared at it. Touching a lady who was not a member of one’s household was forbidden, but the hand was so small and helpless, a mere child’s hand, smaller than that of his younger sister. She might be Lord Tachibana’s widow, but she was still a girl, no different from his sister. Only, unlike his sister, she was alone in the world and needed reassurance, someone who could, however briefly, be to her the brother or father she did not have. He leaned forward and took her hand in both of his and held it. It was pitifully cold and curled about his warm fingers eagerly.

She whispered, “Your hands are so warm. I am nearly frozen from sitting in the hall for so many hours.”

Akitada began to feel silly and intensely aware that they were alone together again. “Perhaps,” he offered, “I should call your nurse and have her bring a brazier?”

Her fingers tightened on his. “No, please don’t. She fusses too much.”

“Then will you let me be of some assistance to you in a practical way? I have legal training and there must be a great deal of paperwork and estate business to face quite soon. Did Lord Tachibana appoint an executor?”

Her hand twitched and clenched on itself. “I have no idea what that is,” she said. “I know nothing of such things. Nobody has come to see me.”

“Nobody? How odd.” His position was becoming awkward; he squeezed her fingers lightly and tried to disengage himself. She returned the pressure before releasing him and pulling back her hand. To his dismay, the sound of weeping now came from behind the curtain stand.

“I am sorry,” Akitada said inadequately. The sobbing grew louder. He pleaded, “You must not cry. Everything will be all right, you’ll see. You are young and very beautiful. Life will be happy again.”

“No,” she wailed. “No one will ever want me again. I wish I could die, too.”

Akitada rose. She had flung herself down, a slender shape in colored silks and glossy hair, her narrow shoulders and back heaving with grief, and two small feet in white socks twisted about each other in distress. He pushed the stand aside, knelt, and gathered her against his chest as one might hold a weeping child. Stroking her back, he buried his face in the scented hair and murmured soothing words to her, and she held on to him with the desperation of a lost child.

“Ahem!” The harsh, rasping sound broke into Akitada’s efforts at comforting the widow. The nurse towered above them with a disapproving frown on her unpleasant face.

Akitada released the weeping girl and scrambled up. “Oh, good. There you are,” he said. “Your mistress needs you. She is very distressed and, er, cold. Get a brazier. And something hot to drink!” Aware that he was babbling, he stepped aside.

The nurse grunted and moved past him to replace the curtain stand. There was a whispered exchange between the women, then the nurse said harshly, “She needs rest. Come back tomorrow.”

Akitada turned to leave.

“No, wait,” cried the widow.

He waited. Afraid to look at her behind her inadequate screen, he stared across the room at a painted scroll of dancing cranes between a pair of tall, carved tables, one of which held a thin-necked jade-green vase of Chinese origin.