“I hope she is pretty,” the young woman murmured with a sidelong glance. “She is a lucky person to have so handsome an admirer.”
With an effort Hitomaro came back to the present. He realized that this woman was flirting with him in public, and since she was very beautiful and had come from a house of assignation, he decided she must be one of the famous hinin courtesans. Perhaps she had entertained a customer and passed the auntie her fee before going home.The old woman still stood in the door, watching them, her head cocked and her pointed nose twitching.
He turned his eyes back to the enchanting girl. “Yes, she was beautiful,” he said, his voice shaking a little,“as beautiful as you. Could I… would you allow me to…” He flushed at his awkwardness and pulled a string of coppers from his sleeve. Seeing her eyebrow srise, he delved into his sleeve again and came up with a silver bar. “Is this enough?” he asked, extending it to her.
She looked at the silver andstarted to laugh. “Naughty man,” she murmured. “If you wish an introduction,you must ask permission of my aunt, Mrs. Omeya.” She nodded toward the older woman, bowed, and walked away quickly.
Ah, so that’s the way to do the business, Hitomaro thought and turned to the auntie. “How much and when shouldI return?”
Old Sharpnose stared after the young woman. Her mouth twitched. Then she snatched the silver out of Hitomaro’shand. “This will do, and come back tomorrow, same time.” She slipped back into the house and slammed the door in his face.
“Wait! What’s her name?” Toolate; the old one was gone and so was the only woman who had set his blood racing in years. He stood for another moment, a bemused smile on his face, and then walked off toward the wineshop at the end of the road. Suddenly he felt like drinking.
The wineshop was no more than a single room. Two walls on either side were lined with low wooden seating platforms, the third with large wine barrels, a rack of shelves holding earthenware cups, and another curtained doorway. It was empty, but an oil lamp flickered on a sake barrel, and the straw mats on the platforms were reasonably clean. Hitomaro sat down and shouted, “Oy!”
A young woman appeared through the doorway. She was small and pert and had unusually curly hair and snapping black eyes which lingered on Hitomaro after the first glance, but Hitomaro’s mind was on a pale goddess he hoped to hold in his arms the next day. It had been too long. To think that such a perfect creature was a prostitute-an outcast who sold her body to any man with money.
Absentmindedly he ordered the wine, then remembered that his report was due tonight and that he might not be able to return tomorrow.
The waitress brought a flaskand cup just as he hit his head with the palm of his hand and cried, “I’m a fool!”
She giggled. “Not at all, sir.The wine is excellent here.”
“Oh. Sorry. It’s just that I forgot something I have to do.” Taking notice of her for the first time, he blurted out, “I like your hair. I’ve never seen hair curl like that. What do you do to it?”
Her smile froze. “Nothing. I was born with it. And I don’t like it when people make fun of me.”
He was bewildered. “No, I really like it. It’s very attractive. But I guess they used to tease you in school.”
“School? Hardly. I’m an outcast. An untouchable.”
Hitomaro greeted that withpleased surprise. “Oh? Are you really? Well, that explains it. I was told all outcast women are beautiful. I see it’s true.”
There was a pause, then she asked, “You’re not from here?” When he shook his head, she said bitterly, “Most people think of us as animals. They only treat our women decently when they want their bodies. Untouchable! Pah! They can’t get enough of touching us in bed.” Her voice shook with anger.
Hitomaro was sorry and said so.
She tossed her head. “Don’t be!We make them pay.”
Remembering the silver bar, he said awkwardly, “Let me buy you dinner tonight.” Seeing her flush, he added quickly, “No strings attached. I’d like to make up for mentioning your hair.”
She chuckled at that. “I was wrong about you. I tell you what. You can be my guest. I’m Yasuko. We have a beautiful salmon at home, and if you don’t mind eating with outcasts, I can promise you a fine meal.”
Hitomaro accepted eagerly.Before he left the wineshop, he got directions to her village. The intervening hours he passed talking to market vendors about the three convicts.
Shortly after sunset he was walking rapidly along the country road in the gatheringdusk. He carried a gift of rice cakes stuffed with sweet bean paste, and felt ageneral sense of satisfaction with his day. His master would be especiallypleased to hear that he had already made friends with two of the hinin.
Because Hitomaro was preoccupied with the genealogy that had produced two such extraordinary women as his curly-haired hostess and the pale goddess he had met earlier, he was unprepared for an ambush.
At a bend in the narrow road,near a stand of pines surrounding a small shrine to the fox spirit, a band of rough men, their faces covered with black cloth below their eyes, fell upon him with cudgels and staffs. Dropping his packages, he went into a defensive stance,ducking and fending off the blows, but he was unarmed and badly outnumbered. He took them for a band of robbers at first, but since he was wearing old clothes,they could hardly have expected to enrich themselves.
When he realized who they were,he fought back with renewed fury though he was at a disadvantage against somany cudgels, wielded with such expertise. At first they struck at his arms and legs and his lower back. He landed a few kicks to a groin or two and put his fist into a few faces, but then a well-placed hit to the side of his head senthim reeling. Flashes of red-hot pain exploded behind his eyes and his kneesbuckled. He collapsed in the roadway.
When he came to he was still lying down. Every part of his body hurt, but mostly his head. He tried to push the pain aside to concentrate on where he was. Odd sounds of rummaging and murmuring meant he was among people, and he opened his eyes a slit. He seemedto be lying on a dirt floor, looking up at an opening in a strange conical roof. Firelight flickered across beams and rafters that were tied together withvines. Nets, woven from sedge and holding various household goods, hungsuspended from them. The flickering light and a certain warmth on one side ofhis body told him that he lay next to a fire. Its smoke spiraled up toward apatch of starry sky.
He turned his head painfully and verified that the fire was contained in a sunken pit. Beyond he saw dim shapes-people- seated or standing in the outer gloom that the firelight did notreach. He grunted experimentally, and one of the shapes approached and becameYasuko, the waitress from the wineshop.
“Oh, it’s you,” he mumbled. “Idon’t remember getting here.” He grimaced and felt his scalp gingerly, wincing again at the sharp pain in his shoulder and arm. He noticed blood on his hand and sleeve, and his hand looked bruised and swollen. Memory returned suddenly,and he jerked upright with a string of bloodcurdling curses.
“Lie down!” instructed a deep,commanding voice. Hitomaro obeyed because pain and a sudden dizziness made theroom spin crazily. When his head cleared, he looked up at an old man with a silken mane of white hair and a long beard. The old man was bending over him to apply a cool and fragrant compress to his head. Hitomaro sighed with relief and closed his eyes again.
Then Yasuko began to wash the blood from his hands and face and he looked at her. She smiled. “You are in good hands,” she said. “The master himself was visiting our village when Kaoru brought you home.”
She was very gentle with him.Hitomaro murmured, “Oh. Much obliged. I was way laid near a fox shrine.” When she was done, he raised himself again, more carefully, and looked around. “I had some rice dumplings I meant to give you, but I must’ve dropped them when those bastards jumped me. At first, I thought it was a hell of a thing to do to a fellow for a few dumplings … Who’s Kaoru?”