Free Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn

straw. The smoke hung over the
fields between the river and the mountains, turning the landscape silver and
gold. Fumio had been teaching me to swim, and my hair was wet, making me shiver
a little. I was thinking about hot water and wondering if I could get something
to eat from Chiyo before the evening meal, and whether Ichiro would be in a bad
enough temper to beat me, and at the same time I was listening, as I always
did, for the moment when I would begin to hear the distinct song of the house
from the street.
    I thought I heard something else,
something that made me stop and look twice at the corner of the wall, just
before our gate. I did not think there was anyone there, then almost in the
same instant I saw there was someone, a man squatting on his heels in the
shadow of the tile roof.
    I was only a few yards from him, on
the opposite side of the street. I knew he'd seen me. After a few moments he
stood up slowly as if waiting for me to approach him.
    He was the most ordinary-looking
person I'd ever seen, average height and build, hair going a little gray, face
pale rather than brown, with unmemorable features, the sort that you can never
be sure of recognizing again. Even as I studied him, trying to work him out,
his features seemed to change shape before my eyes. And yet, beneath the very
ordinariness lay something extraordinary, something deft and quick that slipped
away when I tried to pinpoint it.
    He was wearing faded blue-gray
clothes and carrying no visible weapon. He did not look like a workman, a
merchant, or a warrior. I could not place him in any way, but some inner sense
warned me that he was very dangerous.
    At the same time there was something
about him that fascinated me. I could not pass by without acknowledging him.
But I stayed on the far side of the street, and was already judging how far it
was to the gate, the guards, and the dogs.
    He gave me a nod and a smile,
almost of approval. “Good day, young lord!” he called, in a voice that held
mockery just below the surface. “You're right not to trust me. I've heard
you're clever like that. But I'll never harm you, I promise you.” I felt his
speech was as slippery as his appearance, and I did not count his promise for
much.
    “I want to talk to you,” he said,
“and to Shigeru too.”
    I was astonished to hear him speak
of the lord in that familiar way.
    “What do you have to say to me?”
    “I can't shout it to you from
here,” he replied with a laugh. “Walk with me to the gate and I'll tell you.”
    “You can walk to the gate on that
side of the road and I'll walk on this side,” I said, watching his hands to
catch the first movement towards a hidden weapon. “Then I'll speak to Lord
Otori and he can decide if you are to meet him or not.”
    The man smiled to himself and
shrugged, and we walked separately to the gate, he as calmly as if he were
taking an evening stroll, me as jumpy as a cat before a storm. When we got to
the gate and the guards greeted us, he seemed to have grown older and more
faded. He looked like such a harmless old man, I was almost ashamed of my
mistrust.
    “You are in trouble, Takeo,” one of
the men said. “Master Ichiro has been looking for you for an hour!”
    “Hey, Grandpa,” the other called to
the old man. “What are you after, a bowl of noodles or something?”
    Indeed, the old man did look as if
he needed a square meal. He waited humbly, saying nothing, just outside the
gate sill.
    “Where'd you pick him up, Takeo?
You're too softhearted, that's your trouble! Get rid of him.”
    “I said I would tell Lord Otori he
was here, and I will,” I replied. “But watch his every movement, and whatever
you do, don't let him into the garden.”
    I turned to the stranger to say
“Wait here” and caught a flash of something from him. He was dangerous, all
right, but it was almost as if he were letting me see a side of him that he
kept hidden from the guards. I wondered if I should leave him with them.