Grass for His Pillow by Lian Hearn

Author:Lian Hearn [Hearn, Lian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Historical
ISBN: 9780330412735
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2004-04-01T23:00:00+00:00

Yuki was carrying my child. It was to be raised by the Tribe. I would probably never even set eyes on it.

The Kikuta had killed my father because he had broken the rules of the Tribe, and they would not hesitate to kill me.

I made no decisions and came to no conclusions. I simply lay awake for long hours of the night, holding the thoughts as I would hold black pebbles in my hand, and looking at them.

The mountains fell directly to the sea around Hagi, and we had to turn inland and climb steeply before we crossed the last pass and began the descent toward the town.

My heart was full of emotion, though I said nothing and gave nothing away. The town lay as it always had, in the cradle of the bay, encircled by its twin rivers and the sea. It was late afternoon on the day of the winter solstice, and a pale sun was struggling through gray clouds. The trees were bare, fallen leaves thick underfoot. Smoke from the burning of the last rice stalks spread a blue haze that hung above the rivers, level with the stone bridge.

Preparations were already being made for the New Year Festival: Sacred ropes of straw hung everywhere and dark-leaved pine trees had been placed by doorways; the shrines were filling with visitors. The river was swollen with the tide that was just past the turn and ebbing. It sang its wild song to me, and beneath its churning waters I seemed to hear the voice of the stonemason, walled up inside his creation, carrying on his endless conversation with the river. A heron rose from the shallows at our approach.

When we crossed the bridge I read again the inscription that Shigeru had read to me: The Otori clan welcomes the just and the loyal. Let the unjust and the disloyal beware.

Unjust and disloyal I was both: disloyal to Shigeru, who had entrusted his lands to me, and unjust as the Tribe are, unjust and pitiless.

I walked through the streets, head down and eyes lowered, changing the set of my features in the way Kenji had taught me. I did not think anyone would recognize me. I had grown a little and had be-l$

come both leaner and more muscular during the past months. My hair was cut short; my clothes were those of an artisan. My body language, my speech, my gait—everything about me was changed since the days when I’d walked through these streets as a young lord of the Otori clan.

We went to a brewery on the edge of town. I’d walked by it dozens of times in the past, knowing nothing of its real trade. But, I thought, Shigeru would have known. The idea pleased me: that he had kept track of the Tribe’s activities, had known things that they were ignorant of, had known of my existence.

The place was busy with preparations for the winters work. Huge amounts of wood were being gathered to heat the vats, and the air was thick with the smell of fermenting rice.

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