"Hearn,.Lian.-.Otori.01.-.Across.The.Nightingale.Floor.txt,.v3.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hearn Lian)

We left the inn and resumed our journey past the sulfur-smelling hot springs of Hinode and up another mountain. The rice paddles gave way to bamboo groves, just like the ones around my village; then came chestnuts, maples, and cedars. The forest steamed from the warmth of the sun, although it was so dense that little sunlight penetrated to us below. Twice, snakes slithered out of our path, one the little black adder and another, larger one the color of tea. It seemed to roll like a hoop, and it leaped into the undergrowth as though it knew Jato might lop off its head. Cicadas sang stridently, and the min-min moaned with head-splitting monotony.

We went at a brisk pace despite the heat. Sometimes Lord Otori would outstride me and I would toil up the track as if utterly alone, hearing only his footsteps ahead, and then come upon him at the top of the pass, gazing out over the view of mountains, and beyond them more mountains stretching away, and everywhere the impenetrable forest.

He seemed to know his way through this wild country. We walked for long days and slept only a few hours at night, sometimes in a solitary farmhouse, sometimes in a deserted mountain hut. Apart from the places we stopped at, we met few people on this lonely road: a woodcutter, two girls collecting mushrooms who ran away at the sight of us, a monk on a journey to a distant temple. After a few days we crossed the spine of the country. We still had steep hills to climb, but we descended more frequently. The sea became visible, a distant glint at first, then a broad silky expanse with islands jutting up like drowned mountains. I had never seen it before, and I couldn't stop looking at it. Sometimes it seemed like a high wall about to topple across the land.

My hand healed slowly, leaving a silver scar across my right palm.

The villages became larger, until we finally stopped for the night in what could only be called a town. It was on the high road between Inuyama and the coast and had many inns and eating places. We were still in Tohan territory, and the triple oak leaf was everywhere, making me afraid to go out in the streets, yet I felt the people at the inn recognized Lord Otori in some way. The usual respect people paid to him was tinged by something deeper, some old loyalty that had to be kept hidden. They treated me with affection, even though I did not speak to them. I had not spoken for days, not even to Lord Otori. It did not seem to bother him much. He was a silent man himself, wrapped up in his own thoughts, but every now and then I would sneak a look at him and find him studying me with an expression on his face that might have been pity. He would seem to be about to speak, then he'd grunt and mutter, "Never mind, never mind, things can't be helped."

The servants were full of gossip, and I liked listening to them. They were deeply interested in a woman who had arrived the night before and was staying another night. She was traveling alone to Inuyama, apparently to meet Lord Iida himself, with servants, naturally, but no husband or brother or father. She was very beautiful though quite old, thirty at least, very nice, kind, and polite to everyone but--traveling alone! What a mystery! The cook claimed to know that she was recently widowed and was going to join her son in the capital, but the chief maid said that was nonsense, the woman had never had children, never been married, and then the horse boy, who was stuffing his face with his supper, said he had heard from the palanquin bearers that she had had two children, a boy who died and a girl who was a hostage in Inuyama.

The maids sighed and murmured that even wealth and high birth could not protect you from fate, and the horse boy said, "At least the girl lives, for they are Maruyama, and they inherit through the female line."

This news brought a stir of surprise and understanding and renewed curiosity about Lady Maruyama, who held her land in her own right, the only domain to be handed down to daughters, not to sons.

"No wonder she dares to travel alone," the cook said.

Carried away by his success, the horse boy went on, "But Lord Iida finds this offensive. He seeks to take over her territory, either by force or, they say, by marriage."

The cook gave him a clip round the ear. "Watch your words! You never know who's listening!"

"We were Otori once, and will be again," the boy muttered.

The chief maid saw me hanging about in the doorway and beckoned to me to come in. "Where are you traveling to? You must have come a long way!"

I smiled and shook my head. One of the maids, passing on her way to the guest rooms, patted me on the arm and said, "He doesn't talk. Shame, isn't it?"

"What happened?" the cook said. "Someone throw dust in your mouth like the Ainu dog?"

They were teasing me, not unkindly, when the maid came back, followed by a man I gathered was one of the Maruyama servants, wearing on his jacket the crest of the mountain enclosed in a circle. To my surprise he addressed me in polite language. "My lady wishes to talk to you."

I wasn't sure if I should go with him, but he had the face of an honest man, and I was curious to see the mysterious woman for myself. I followed him along the passageway and through the courtyard. He stepped onto the veranda and knelt at the door to the room. He spoke briefly, then turned to me and beckoned to me to step up.

I snatched a rapid glance at her and then fell to my knees and bowed my head to the floor. I was sure I was in the presence of a princess. Her hair reached the ground in one long sweep of black silkiness. Her skin was as pale as snow. She wore robes of deepening shades of cream, ivory, and dove gray embroidered with red and pink peonies. She had a stillness about her that made me think first of the deep pools of the mountain and then, suddenly, of the tempered steel of Jato, the snake sword.

"They tell me you don't talk," she said, her voice as quiet and clear as water.

I felt the compassion of her gaze, and the blood rushed to my face.

"You can talk to me," she went on. Reaching forward, she took my hand and with her finger drew the sign of the Hidden on my palm. It sent a shock through me, like the sting of a nettle. I could not help pulling my hand away.

"Tell me what you saw," she said, her voice no less gentle but insistent. When I didn't reply she whispered, "It was Iida Sadamu, wasn't it?"

I looked at her almost involuntarily. She was smiling, but without mirth.

"And you are from the Hidden," she added.

Lord Otori had warned me against giving myself away. I thought I had buried my old self, along with my name, Tomasu. But in front of this woman I was helpless. I was about to nod my head, when I heard Lord Otori's footsteps cross the courtyard. I realized that I recognized him by his tread, and I knew that a woman followed him, as well as the man who had spoken to me. And then I realized that if I paid attention, I could hear everything in the inn around me. I heard the horse boy get up and leave the kitchen. I heard the gossip of the maids, and knew each one from her voice. This acuteness of hearing, which had been growing slowly ever since I'd ceased to speak, now came over me with a flood of sound. It was almost unbearable, as if I had the worst of fevers. I wondered if the woman in front of me was a sorceress who had bewitched me. I did not dare lie to her, but I could not speak.