She determines, despite her gender, to take over Shirakawa. Kaede returns to her childhood home to find the estate in disrepair, her mother dead, and her father in despair after losing a battle to Arai and not having the courage to take his own life.
One day she leaves suddenly, pregnant with his child, whom the tribe hope will inherit Takeo's extraordinary abilities. Yuki, Kenji's daughter, enters a relationship with Takeo as directed to by the Tribe, though she has genuine affection for him. Under the disguise of traveling acrobats, they head north to Matsue. Kikuta Akio, one of his abductors, is charged with teaching him, despite their mutual hatred. Meanwhile, Takeo is kept hidden inside a Tribe house in Yamagata. Kaede is pregnant with Takeo's child, but Shizuka creates the notion of a secret marriage with Shigeru before his death to explain the coming child. He sends his men to search for him, and to assassinate Shizuka, his ex-lover whom he now fears because of her association with the Tribe.
Arai is furious that Takeo has gone off with the Tribe, and realizes that he had underestimated them.
Afterwards she travels towards home, accompanied by Shizuka. Kaede slowly recovers from the Kikuta sleep given to her by Takeo, with dreams of the White Goddess: Be patient. The events in the novel cover a period of approximately 6 months (from Autumn through to Spring the next year), following directly after those in Across the Nightingale Floor. Grass for His Pillow is the second novel in Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori trilogy, published in 2003.
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