Musashi: Bushido Code by Eiji Yoshikawa

gate and barricaded all entrances. The searchers, under the direction of troops from Himeji, laid fresh plans to trap the fugitive. Thus far all their efforts had proved fruitless.
"He's killed another one!" a villager shouted.
"Where? Who was it this time?"
"Some samurai. No one's identified him yet."
    The corpse had been discovered near a path on the village outskirts, its head in a clump of tall weeds and its legs raised skyward in a bafflingly contorted position. Frightened but incurably nosy, villagers milled about, babbling among themselves. The skull had been smashed, evidently with one of the wooden reward signs, which now lay across the body soaked in blood. Those gawking at the spectacle could not avoid reading the list of promised rewards. Some laughed grimly at the blatant irony.
    Otsū's face was drawn and pale as she emerged from the crowd. Wishing she hadn't looked, she hurried toward the temple, trying to somehow blot out the image of the dead man's face lingering before her eyes. At the foot of the hill, she ran into the captain who was lodging at the temple and five or six of his men. They had heard of the gruesome killing and were on their way to investigate. Upon seeing the girl, the captain grinned. "Where've you been, Otsū?" he said with ingratiating familiarity.
    "Shopping," she replied curtly. Without bestowing so much as a glance upon him, she hurried up the temple's stone steps. She hadn't liked the man to begin with—he had a stringy mustache which she took particular exception to—but since the night he'd tried to force himself on her, the sight of him filled her with loathing.
    Takuan was sitting in front of the main hall, playing with a stray dog. She was hurrying by at some distance to avoid the mangy animal when the monk looked up and called, "Otsū, there's a letter for you."
    "For me?" she asked incredulously.
    "Yes, you were out when the runner came, so he left it with me." Taking the small scroll out of his kimono sleeve and handing it to her, he said, "You don't look too good. Is something wrong?"
    "I feel sick. I saw a dead man lying in the grass. His eyes were still open, and there was blood—"
    "You shouldn't look at things like that. But I guess the way things are now, you'd have to walk around with your eyes closed. I'm always tripping over corpses these days. Ha! And I'd heard this village was a little paradise!"
"But why is Takezō killing all these people?"
"To keep them from killing him, of course. They don't have any real reason to kill him, so why should he let them?"
"Takuan, I'm scared!" she said pleadingly. "What would we do if he came here?"
    Dark cumulus clouds were drawing their cloak over the mountains. She took her mysterious letter and went to hide in the loom shed. On the loom was an unfinished strip of cloth for a man's kimono, part of the garment which, since the year before, she'd been spending every spare moment spinning silk yarn for. It was for Matahachi, and she was excited by the prospect of sewing all the pieces together into a full kimono. She had woven every strand meticulously, as if the weaving itself were drawing him closer to her. She wanted the garment to last forever.
    Seating herself before the loom, she gazed intently at the letter. "Whoever could have sent it?" she whispered to herself, sure that the letter must have really been meant for someone else. She read the address over and over, searching for a flaw.
    The letter had obviously made a long journey to reach her. The torn and crumpled wrapper was smudged all over with fingerprints and raindrops. She broke the seal, whereupon not one but two letters fell into her lap. The first was in an unfamiliar woman's hand, a somewhat older woman, she quickly guessed.

I am writing merely to confirm what is written in the other letter, and will therefore not go into details.
I am marrying Matahachi and adopting him into my family. However, he still seems concerned about you. I think it would be a mistake