"Lian Hearn - Tales of the Otori 01 - Across the Nightingale Floor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hearn Lian)

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