Read Online Red Chrysanthemum by Laura Joh Rowland - Free Book Online Page A

the ordeal of waiting would begin again.
How could he do this to we?
Lady Mori grieved.
    Enju tried to comfort her. “Don’t worry, Mother,” he said as she knelt before the Buddhist altar in the family chapel and prayed for Lord Mori to love her again. “This affair won’t last. Father will soon come to his senses.”
    Lady Mori knew that Enju felt just as abandoned as she did. Lord Mori had used to spend hours every day with Enju, teaching him the complex business of governing the provinces he would inherit. Now he rarely spoke to Enju. Lady Mori supposed he felt guilty for hurting her and the sight of her son made him feel worse. How she wished this nightmare would end!
    One evening she sat in the garden, listening to the crickets. Lord Mori had taken to staying away for longer periods, and this time he’d been gone four whole days. Lady Mori thought she would die of grief. But now she heard a servant call, “The master is home!”
    Her heart leapt with joy and revived hope that he was back to stay where he belonged. But when she hurried to his private chambers to greet him, she heard a woman’s shrill giggle. She saw Lady Reiko run through the garden, her robes and long hair flying. Lord Mori ran after her.
    “Catch me if you can!” Reiko cried.
    They didn’t notice Lady Mori. She stood staring in horror that her husband had brought his mistress into their home. Lord Mori caught Reiko. They tumbled to the ground. He tore her robes open. She squealed. He flung off his loincloth, mounted her, and took her there in the grass. Lady Mori watched, fraught with jealousy and despair.
    Night after night Lord Mori brought Reiko to the estate. Lady Mori spied on them through his bedchamber window. A sick compulsion made her want to see them together, to wallow in torment. If they knew she was there, they didn’t care; they were so absorbed in wild, depraved antics. Once they fought each other naked with swords before they coupled. Another time Reiko whipped Lord Mori until he went berserk with fury and took her from behind, like wolves mating. Lady Mori wondered if this was what her husband had craved all the years of their marriage, if he’d forsaken her because Reiko could give him the excitement that she herself could not. Yet she nursed the hope that he would tire of Reiko, that carnal passion couldn’t permanently eclipse longtime love.
    Many days passed in this terrible manner. A warm, wet summer night found Lady Mori kneeling on the veranda, once again spying through the window. Her husband and Reiko had just finished making love. They lay naked, her back against him, his arms around her. The rain streamed from the eaves, splashed on the veranda, and wet Lady Mori’s robes. The lamp shone on Lord Mori and Reiko, cozy inside. Suddenly Lady Mori noticed that Reiko’s stomach looked swollen. Dismay stirred, cold and ominous as a snake rousing from hibernation, through Lady Mori.
    Lord Mori caressed Reiko’s belly. “Our child is getting big,” he said in a proud, pleased voice.
    Lady Mori went sick with shock. Reiko was pregnant, by her husband! But how could the pregnancy be so far advanced, when Reiko and Lord Mori had met such a short time ago? How could the baby be his?
    “Well, it’s been growing almost five months,” Reiko said. “You must have planted your seed the first time you bedded me.”
    A second, worse shock hit Lady Mori. Their affair had been going on longer than she’d thought. They’d been lovers before that night on the river, when they’d pretended to be new acquaintances.
    “Does Chamberlain Sano know?” Lord Mori asked Reiko.
    A mischievous smile twisted her lips. “Oh, he knows I’m pregnant. He’s very pleased. He minks it’s his baby.” She giggled. “He also thinks my son, Masahiro, is his. My honorable husband doesn’t know the truth, which is mat if I’d waited for him to make me pregnant instead of having love affairs, I’d be barren because he’s not capable of