"Lian Hearn - Tales of the Otori 03 - Brilliance of the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hearn Lian)

(I, 2, 3) = characters first appearance, in Book I, 2, or

(d.) = character died before the start of Book I




Others too, in far-flung villages,

Will no doubt be gazing at this moon

That never asks which watcher claims the nightтАж

Loud on the unseen mountain wind,

A stagтАЩs cry quivers in the heart, And somewhere a twig lets one leaf fall.
ZEAMI, THE FULLING BLOCK (KINUTA)




T he feather lay in my palm. I held it carefully, aware of its age and its fragility. Yet its whiteness
was still translucent, the vermilion tips of the pinions still brilliant.

тАЬIt came from a sacred bird, the hououтАЭ Matsuda Shingen, the abbot of the temple at Terayama, told me.
тАЬIt appeared to your adopted father, Shigeru, when he was only fifteen, younger than you are now. Did he
ever tell you this, Takeo?тАЭ

I shook my head. Matsuda and I were standing in his room at one end of the cloister around the main
courtyard of the temple. From outside, drowning out the usual sounds of the temple, the chanting, and the
bells, came the urgent noise of preparations, of many people coming and going. I could hear Kaede, my
wife, beyond the gates, talking to Amano Tenzo about the problems of keeping our army fed on the march.
We were preparing to travel to Maruyama, the great domain in the West to which Kaede was the rightful
heir, to claim it in her nameтАФto fight for it if necessary. Since the end of winter, war-

riors had been making their way to Terayama to join me, and I now had close to a thousand men, billeted in
the temple and in the surrounding villages, not counting the local farmers who also strongly supported my
cause.

Amano was from Shirakawa, my wifeтАЩs ancestral home, and the most trusted of her retainers, a great
horseman and good with all animals. In the days that followed our marriage, Kaede and her woman,
Manami, had shown considerable skill in handling and distributing food and equipment. They discussed
everything with Amano and had him deliver their decisions to the men. That morning he was enumerating
the oxcarts and packhorses we had at our disposal. I tried to stop listening, to concentrate on what Matsuda
was telling me, but I was restless, eager to get moving.

тАЬBe patient,тАЭ Matsuda said mildly. тАЬThis will only take a minute. What do you know about the houou}тАЭ

I reluctantly pulled my attention back to the feather in my palm and tried to recall what my former teacher,
Ichiro, had taught me when I had been living in Lord ShigeruтАЩs house in Hagi. тАЬIt is the sacred bird of