Fragrance. The character of the forest. The sweetness of exposed bark carried on a breeze that paints the nostrils in shifting gradients.
A measured coolness. Radiant heat.
That this feels so good is because autumn was designed to be exactly this.
The end of dusk. The beginning of night. At last, she had arrived.
DOGON — do. DOGOUN. do —
Timber, roof tiles, plaster.
GOIN do — GOIN do go —
Iron stakes, wooden mallets, charcoal, stone.
She hadn't loosened the bindings, but the cargo pieces clashed and voiced their displeasure. The sound of this particular load.
Unfamiliar, isn't it? Normally, an ox cart would carry this much more slowly.
KIGIGI — do.
The creak of custom-made leather boots; the earth answering with a thud. The unnatural gouges stretching through the ruts — threatening footprints that would send any beast fleeing.
The destination drew near. Lanterns at the gate. A towering outer gate. What came into view was a residence of high standing. Its magnificent gate, as if honoring the achievements of its master.
— There'll be sweet potatoes, right?
— Rice. Anything, really.
From a distance where those structures appeared small, she could make out someone standing at the center of the Trading Hall's front gate. The bearing of a master of the house. A large frame. The face — a fox mask.
— Meat or fish.
— Yeah.
Kamado narrowed her eyes slightly at the man. The client? No — I've kept him waiting far too long. If this were a Tokugawa shipment, such a delay of more than two hours could warrant outright rejection.
— So why did he wait?
After passing the first checkpoint — a signal fire with no designated recipient. The memory flashed. A signal fire timed with a delay between two points. ...He's good at calculations.
— The man just arrived.
The two stood face to face in a taut silence.
"Your labor — no, it was magnificent."
A deep bass like a fallen tree. Faint, yet profoundly low.
"'Deliver what was commissioned to where it was commissioned.' That is all."
The fox-masked man considered this for a beat, then instructed Kamado to set down her cargo.
DOSSSSS.
A cloud of dust rose.
He reached out slowly and took hold of a beam of black ebony. Standing it upright with both hands, he murmured.
His voice shifted to something understated — and yet, strangely, carried with perfect clarity.
"This is not 'building material.'"
"This is, so to speak, a 'seal.' This pillar was carried here bearing the meaning of confining something that 'must not exist in this world.'"
Nana responded with nothing more than her eyes — unblinking.
The man turned and fixed his gaze on Nana. (More precisely, this is understood to be happening behind the fox mask.)
"I was testing you. Whether, by any logic, you could carry an 'impossible weight' to an 'impossible place.' Whether you could bear that 'meaning' to the end."
Nana wiped her sweat with a hand towel.
"Phew — that was rough."
Along the mountain path, the earth had been savagely torn by her footprints.
"Beyond all reason."
What she heard was candor. Worth seeing once? No — far beyond that, he added.
"Even with confirmation, even with proof — that such an absurd human being exists."
He was still in disbelief.
There is a matter I'd entrust to you, he prefaced, but it cannot be discussed here.
"For the time being, I will 'observe' through you, from within Iyo Province."
Nana tilted her head slightly and said:
"You can watch all you like, but payment comes first."
— Fish and meat. And sake.
Beneath the fox mask, there was a trace of a quiet laugh.
"...Can you remember this fox mask? Can your eyes learn to know — 'this is me'?"
In the space of an instant, a hypothesis raced through her mind. My prosopagnosia — does he know? From the barber? Madonna is still watching with a smile.
If there was a feast, if the payment was settled, if there was a bed — none of this she said aloud.
"Yeah."
Kamado answered.
Having received her reply, Lord Hijikawa held his gaze on Kamado, then turned his body toward the gate. With his back to her, Hijikawa seemed vast — almost like the prow of a ship draped in black.
He pressed his hand to the door and opened it. That massive outer gate yielded as if weightless. A straight stone path stretched beyond it, leading to a hermitage in the distance.
Lantern light, swallowed by the forest. Nameless insects. The dark pupils behind the mask. The crest of the Fallen Crane, floating in the light.
Unable to read the emotion directed at her, Kamado Nana deployed her reserve thoughts ahead of herself.
It would take the form of His Lordship offering her dinner.
Well, if you insist? she would permit herself to think — and eat well on favorable terms, so that when the troublesome favor inevitably came, she could decline from a comfortable distance. That, she judged, was the ideal arrangement.
— That one is shrewd.
— Madonna, get some rest.