"What would be best for her?" Lord Norimasa asked Aki.

"If she could find someone else, my lord," she said.

"Does that seem likely?"

"No, my lord."

"What must I do?"

"It is not for me to advise you," Aki said, "but I think we must rely on passing time. She is beginning to write again."

"Poems?"

"I don't know," Aki said. "She does not let me see what she writes. She rarely has."

"I am grateful for your advice," said Lord Norimasa. "You may go."

When Aki left, a man who had been standing behind a tall screen stepped forward. He was Matsuhito, who, although young, was trusted and relied on by Lord Norimasa above everyone else.

"You heard it all, Matsuhito?" asked Lord Norimasa.

"I did," he said.

"And what is your opinion?"

"I am no expert in women," Matsuhito said. "But the woman was right. Passing time is the only medicine I am sure of."

"I am not happy to hear that," said the lord.

"Why is the lady so unhappy?" Matsuhito asked.

Lord Norimasa hesitated, and then told him everything that had happened.

"I see," said Matsuhito.

"What do you see?"

"Probably you have forgotten the first time you killed a man, and how you suffered afterward. Many men see the man they murdered drifting toward them in fogs. They grow afraid of cemeteries, especially when the stones are shrouded in mist. They consider finding the man's family and making reparation to them. Their own bodies feel like mist, and they look down at their feet to be sure they are visible and they themselves have not died. Some behave quite crazily. One man beat his horse to death and then lay on the beast, refusing to have it moved. It is no wonder there is trouble if a woman has such experiences, and since women are more emotional, probably the lady has experienced something worse than even you and I."

"I cannot remember such a reaction to the first time I killed a man," Lord Norimasa said. "Although it is true that everyone complained of my temper and it was around that time when I set fire to my wife's robe when she did something trivial."

"Perhaps you have forgotten even more," Matsuhito suggested.

"If I did," he said, "I do not want to remember it." Memories were beginning to lick at him like flames. "So I must give her time," Lord Norimasa said.

"Yes," said Matsuhito.

"And you?" he asked. "How far have you progressed with your thinking about our next campaign?"

"Quite far, my lord."

"Good," said Lord Norimasa.

Excerpted from The Snow Fox © Copyright 2012 by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. Reprinted with permission by W. W. Norton. All rights reserved.