(eng) Lian Hearn - Tale of Shikanoko 01 by Emperor of the eight islands

Author:Emperor of the eight islands [islands, Emperor of the eight]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

13

TAMA

The island pavilion had been designed by Tama’s mother, a retreat on hot summer days, filled with poetry, music, and laughter. It had been Tama’s favorite place when she was a girl. Now it had been her cold, damp prison all winter. Every day she listened for her son’s voice, for some sign that he had been returned alive, but as the weeks went by she began to feel she would never see him again. Often she wept in grief and rage, but only the guards who kept watch outside on the tiny veranda all night heard her, and they were unmoved.

One morning, early in the new year, after the snow melted, she was woken at dawn by an earthquake. It growled like an angry beast approaching from afar, its roar growing louder and louder. The doors and screens rattled. A shutter broke loose and began banging like a drum. There were cries and shouts as the household awoke, the neighing of startled horses and frantic barking of dogs.

The guards took the boat and poled back to the shore. She watched them leave, saw the boat ground halfway to the shore, noticed the sudden flow of water toward the lake’s outlet in the southeast. She dressed quickly, hiding her prayer beads in her sleeve and slipping the golden statues into a small bag. Her dagger she kept on her day and night, hidden under her clothes. By this time the water had receded even more. Stranded fish were flapping and struggling in the mud and stones of the lake floor. The rock wall that contained it had cracked and the water was pouring through it.

Tama walked away from her island prison leaving delicate footsteps in the mud like a fox woman’s. Fire had broken out in the stables and the main residence and in the confusion no one saw her go.

Houses were destroyed all the way to the coast. Tama became one of the many homeless people seeking refuge, and at the port of Shimaura she traded one of the statues for a berth on a temple ship, bound for Minatogura.

The winds were fresh from the southwest and the sea rough. Many passengers were afflicted with seasickness, but Tama, even though she had never been on a ship before, felt as well as she ever had in her life, filled with a sense of freedom and excitement. She stood on deck hardly noticing the cold, watching the pine-covered islands, dotted here and there with the vermilion posts of a shrine. Sometimes they passed by close enough to see fragile white blossoms on the plum trees.

A group of women who were going on a pilgrimage befriended her. One of them had already shaved her head and was about to enter the convent at Muenji.

“It was founded by Miboshi Aritomo’s wife, Lady Masa, before she died, as a refuge for widows and other women: some are fleeing from violent husbands, some have been turned out of their own land and are seeking

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