Lian Hearn - Tales of the Otori 01 - Across the Nightingale Floor

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Across the Nightingale Floor

Tales of the Otori - Book One

by Lian Hearn

e-text based on the 1st hardcover edition, 2002, ISBN I-57322-225-9

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The three books that make up the Tales of the Otori are set in an imaginary country in a feudal

period. Neither the setting nor the period is intended to correspond to any true historical era, though

echoes of many Japanese customs and traditions will be found, and the landscape and seasons are

those of Japan. Nightingale floors (uguisubari) are real inventions and were constructed around

many residences and temples; the most famous examples can be seen in Kyoto at Nijo Castle and

Chion’In. I have used Japanese names for places, but these have little connection with real places,

apart from Hagi and Matsue, which are more or less in their true geographical positions. As for

characters, they are all invented, apart from the artist Sesshu, who seemed impossible to replicate.

I hope I will be forgiven by purists for the liberties I have taken. My only excuse is that this is a

work of the imagination.

The deer that weds

The autumn bush clover

They say

Sires a single fawn

And this fawn of mine

This lone boy

Sets off on a journey

Grass for his pillow

MANYOSHU VOL. 9,

NO. 1,790

Across the Nightingale Floor

Chapter 1

My mother used to threaten to tear me into eight pieces if I knocked over the water bucket, or

pretended not to hear her calling me to come home as the dusk thickened and the cicadas’ shrilling

increased. I would hear her voice, rough and fierce, echoing through the lonely valley. “Where’s

that wretched boy? I’ll tear him apart when he gets back.”

But when I did get back, muddy from sliding down the hillside, bruised from fighting, once

bleeding great spouts of blood from a stone wound to the head (I still have the scar, like a silvered

thumbnail), there would be the fire, and the smell of soup, and my mother’s arms not tearing me

apart but trying to hold me, clean my face, or straighten my hair, while I twisted like a lizard to get

away from her. She was strong from endless hard work, and not old: She’d given birth to me before

she was seventeen, and when she held me I could see we had the same skin, although in other ways

we were not much alike, she having broad, placid features, while mine, I’d been told (for we had no

mirrors in the remote mountain village of Mino), were finer, like a hawk’s. The wrestling usually

ended with her winning, her prize being the hug I could not escape from. And her voice would

whisper in my ears the words of blessing of the Hidden, while my stepfather grumbled mildly that

she spoiled me, and the little girls, my half-sisters, jumped around us for their share of the hug and

the blessing.

So I thought it was a manner of speaking. Mino was a peaceful place, too isolated to be touched by

the savage battles of the clans. I had never imagined men and women could actually be torn into

eight pieces, their strong, honey-colored limbs wrenched from their sockets and thrown down to the

waiting dogs. Raised among the Hidden, with all their gentleness, I did not know men did such

things to each other.

I turned fifteen and my mother began to lose our wrestling matches. I grew six inches in a year, and

by the time I was sixteen I was taller than my stepfather. He grumbled more often, that I should

settle down, stop roaming the mountain like a wild monkey, marry into one of the village families. I

did not mind the idea of marriage to one of the girls I’d grown up with, and that summer I worked

harder alongside him, ready to take my place among the men of the village. But every now and then

I could not resist the lure of the mountain, and at the end of the day I slipped away, through the

bamboo grove with its tall, smooth trunks and green slanting light, up the rocky path past the shrine

of the mountain god, where the villagers left offerings of millet and oranges, into the forest of birch

and cedar, where the cuckoo and the nightingale called enticingly, where I watched foxes and deer

and heard the melancholy cry of kites overhead.

That evening I’d been right over the mountain to a place where the best mushrooms grew. I had a

cloth full of them, the little white ones like threads, and the dark orange ones like fans. I was

thinking how pleased my mother would be, and how the mushrooms would still my stepfather’s

scolding. I could already taste them on my tongue. As I ran through the bamboo and out into the

rice fields where the red autumn lilies were already in flower, I thought I could smell cooking on

the wind.

The village dogs were barking, as they often did at the end of the day. The smell grew stronger and

turned acrid. I was not frightened, not then, but some premonition made my heart start to beat more

quickly. There was a fire ahead of me.

Fires often broke out in the village: Almost everything we owned was made of wood or straw. But I

could hear no shouting, no sounds of the buckets being passed from hand to hand, none of the usual

cries and curses. The cicadas shrilled as loudly as ever; frogs were calling from the paddies. In the

distance thunder echoed round the mountains. The air was heavy and humid.

I was sweating, but the sweat was turning cold on my forehead. I jumped across the ditch of the last

terraced field and looked down to where my home had always been. The house was gone.

I went closer. Flames still crept and licked at the blackened beams. There was no sign of my mother

or my sisters. I tried to call out, but my tongue had suddenly become too big for my mouth, and the

smoke was choking me and making my eyes stream. The whole village was on fire, but where was

everyone?

Then the screaming began.

It came from the direction of the shrine, around which most of the houses clustered. It was like the

sound of a dog howling in pain, except the dog could speak human words, scream them in agony. I

thought I recognized the prayers of the Hidden, and all the hair stood up on my neck and arms.

Slipping like a ghost between the burning houses, I went towards the sound.

The village was deserted. I could not imagine where everyone had gone. I told myself they had run

away: My mother had taken my sisters to the safety of the forest. I would go and find them just as

soon as I had found out who was screaming. But as I stepped out of the alley into the main street I

saw two men lying on the ground. A soft evening rain was beginning to fall and they looked

surprised, as though they had no idea why they were lying there in the rain. They would never get

up again, and it did not matter that their clothes were getting wet.

One of them was my stepfather.

At that moment the world changed for me. A kind of fog rose before my eyes, and when it cleared

nothing seemed real. I felt I had crossed over to the other world, the one that lies alongside our own,

that we visit in dreams. My stepfather was wearing his best clothes. The indigo cloth was dark with

rain and blood. I was sorry they were spoiled: He had been so proud of them.

I stepped past the bodies, through the gates and into the shrine. The rain was cool on my face. The

screaming stopped abruptly.

Inside the grounds were men I did not know. They looked as if they were carrying out some ritual

for a festival. They had cloths tied round their heads; they had taken off their jackets and their arms

gleamed with sweat and rain. They were panting and grunting, grinning with white teeth, as though

killing were as hard work as bringing in the rice harvest.

Water trickled from the cistern where you washed your hands and mouth to purify yourself on

entering the shrine. Earlier, when the world was normal, someone must have lit incense in the great

cauldron. The last of it drifted across the courtyard, masking the bitter smell of blood and death.

The man who had been torn apart lay on the wet stones. I could just make out the features on the

severed head. It was Isao, the leader of the Hidden. His mouth was still open, frozen in a last

contortion of pain.

The murderers had left their jackets in a neat pile against a pillar. I could see clearly the crest of the

triple oak leaf. These were Tohan men, from the clan capital of Inuyama. I remembered a traveler

who had passed through the village at the end of the seventh month. He’d stayed the night at our

house, and when my mother had prayed before the meal, he had tried to silence her. “Don’t you

know that the Tohan hate the Hidden and plan to move against us? Lord Iida has vowed to wipe us

out,” he whispered. My parents had gone to Isao the next day to tell him, but no one had believed

them. We were far from the capital, and the power struggles of the clans had never concerned us. In

our village the Hidden lived alongside everyone else, looking the same, acting the same, except for

our prayers. Why would anyone want to harm us? It seemed unthinkable.

And so it still seemed to me as I stood frozen by the cistern. The water trickled and trickled, and I

wanted to take some and wipe the blood from Isao’s face and gently close his mouth, but I could

not move. I knew at any moment the men from the Tohan clan would turn, and their gaze would

fall on me, and they would tear me apart. They would have neither pity nor mercy. They were

already polluted by death, having killed a man within the shrine itself.

In the distance I could hear with acute clarity the drumming sound of a galloping horse. As the

hoofbeats drew nearer I had the sense of forward memory that comes to you in dreams. I knew who

I was going to see, framed between the shrine gates. I had never seen him before in my life, but my

mother had held him up to us as a sort of ogre with which to frighten us into obedience: Don’t stray

on the mountain, don’t play by the river, or Iida will get you! I recognized him at once. Iida

Sadamu, lord of the Tohan.

The horse reared and whinnied at the smell of blood. Iida sat as still as if he were cast in iron. He

was clad from head to foot in black armor, his helmet crowned with antlers. He wore a short black

beard beneath his cruel mouth. His eyes were bright, like a man hunting deer.

Those bright eyes met mine. I knew at once two things about him: first, that he was afraid of

nothing in heaven or on earth; second, that he loved to kill for the sake of killing. Now that he had

seen me, there was no hope.

His sword was in his hand. The only thing that saved me was the horse’s reluctance to pass beneath

the gate. It reared again, prancing backwards. Iida shouted. The men already inside the shrine

turned and saw me, crying out in their rough Tohan accents. I grabbed the last of the incense,

hardly noticing as it seared my hand, and ran out through the gates. As the horse shied towards me I

thrust the incense against its flank. It reared over me, its huge feet flailing past my cheeks. I heard

the hiss of the sword descending through the air. I was aware of the Tohan all around me. It did not

seem possible that they could miss me, but I felt as if I had split in two. I saw Iida’s sword fall on

me, yet I was untouched by it. I lunged at the horse again. It gave a snort of pain and a savage

series of bucks. Iida, unbalanced by the sword thrust that had somehow missed its target, fell

forward over its neck and slid heavily to the ground.

Horror gripped me, and in its wake panic. I had unhorsed the lord of the Tohan. There would be no

limit to the torture and pain to atone for such an act. I should have thrown myself to the ground and

demanded death. But I knew I did not want to die. Something stirred in my blood, telling me I

would not die before Iida. I would see him dead first.

I knew nothing of the wars of the clans, nothing of their rigid codes and their feuds. I had spent my

whole life among the Hidden, who are forbidden to kill and taught to forgive each other. But at that

moment Revenge took me as a pupil. I recognized her at once and learned her lessons instantly. She

was what I desired; she would save me from the feeling that I was a living ghost. In that split

second I took her into my heart. I kicked out at the man closest to me, getting him between the legs,

sank my teeth into a hand that grabbed my wrist, broke away from them, and ran towards the forest.

Three of them came after me. They were bigger than I was and could run faster, but I knew the

ground, and darkness was falling. So was the rain, heavier now, making the steep tracks of the

mountain slippery and treacherous. Two of the men kept calling out to me, telling me what they

would take great pleasure in doing to me, swearing at me in words whose meaning I could only

guess, but the third ran silently, and he was the one I was afraid of. The other two might turn back

after a while, get back to their maize liquor or whatever foul brew the Tohan got drunk on, and

claim to have lost me on the mountain, but this other one would never give up. He would pursue

me forever until he had killed me.

As the track steepened near the waterfall the two noisy ones dropped back a bit, but the third

quickened his pace as an animal will when it runs uphill. We passed by the shrine; a bird was

pecking at the millet and it flew off with a flash of green and white in its wings. The track curved a

little round the trunk of a huge cedar, and as I ran with stone legs and sobbing breath past the tree,

someone rose out of its shadow and blocked the path in front of me.

I ran straight into him. He grunted as though I had winded him, but he held me immediately. He

looked in my face and I saw something flicker in his eyes: surprise, recognition. Whatever it was, it

made him grip me more tightly. There was no getting away this time. I heard the Tohan man stop,

then the heavy footfalls of the other two coming up behind him.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the man I feared, his voice steady. “You have apprehended the criminal we

were chasing. Thank you.”

The man holding me turned me round to face my pursuers. I wanted to cry out to him, to plead with

him, but I knew it was no use. I could feel the soft fabric of his clothes, the smoothness of his hands.

He was some sort of lord, no doubt, just like Iida. They were all of the same cut. He would do

nothing to help me. I kept silent, thought of the prayers my mother had taught me, thought

fleetingly of the bird.

“What has this criminal done?” the lord asked.

The man in front of me had a long face, like a wolf’s. “Excuse me,” he said again, less politely.

“That is no concern of yours. It is purely the business of Iida Sadamu and the Tohan.”

“Unnh!” the lord grunted. “Is that so? And who might you be to tell me what is and what is not my

concern?”

“Just hand him over!” the wolf man snarled, all politeness gone. As he stepped forward, I knew

suddenly that the lord was not going to hand me over. With one neat movement he twisted me

behind his back and let go of me. I heard for the second time in my life the hiss of the warrior’s

sword as it is brought to life. The wolf man drew out a knife. The other two had poles. The lord

raised the sword with both hands, sidestepped under one of the poles, lopped off the head of the

man holding it, came back at the wolf man, and took off the right arm, still holding the knife.

It happened in a moment, yet took an eternity. It happened in the last of the light, in the rain, but

when I close my eyes I can still see every detail.

The headless body fell with a thud and a gush of blood, the head rolling down the slope. The third

man dropped his stick and ran backwards, calling for help. The wolf man was on his knees, trying

to stanch the blood from the stump at his elbow. He did not groan or speak.

The lord wiped the sword and returned it to its sheath in his belt. “Come on,” he said to me.

I stood shaking, unable to move. This man had appeared from nowhere. He had killed in front of

my eyes to save my life. I dropped to the ground before him, trying to find the words to thank him.

“Get up,” he said. “The rest of them will be after us in a moment.”

“I can’t leave,” I managed to say. “I must find my mother.”

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AcrosstheNightingaleFloorTalesoftheOtori-BookOnebyLianHearne-textbasedonthe1sthardcoveredition,2002,ISBNI-57322-225-9AUTHOR’SNOTEThethreebooksthatmakeuptheTalesoftheOtoriaresetinanimaginarycountryinafeudalperiod.Neitherthesettingnortheperiodisintendedtocorrespondtoanytruehistoricalera,thoughechoesof...

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