The Harsh Cry of the Heron by Lian Hearn Page B

sometimes accompanied them to
the pleasure house; it was obvious from his speech that he was uneducated and
low-born, yet his association with the foreigners gave him status and power.
They depended on him completely. He was their entry into the complex new world
they had discovered and from which they hoped to gain wealth and glory, and
they believed everything he told them, even when he was making it up.
    I could have
something of that power, for he is no better than I, Madaren thought, and she
began to try to understand Don Joao, and encouraged him to teach her. The
language was hard, full of difficult sounds and put together back to front -
everything had a gender: she could not imagine the reason, but a door was
female, and so was rain; the floor and the sun were male - but it intrigued
her; and when she spoke in the new language to Don Joao she felt as if she were
turning into another person.
    As she became more
fluent - Don Joao never mastered more than a few words of her language - they
spoke of deeper things. He had a wife and children back in Porutogaru, about
whom he wept when he had been drinking. Madaren discounted them, not believing
he would ever see them again. They were so remote she could not imagine their
life. And he spoke of his faith and his God - Deus - and his words and the
cross he wore round his neck awakened childhood memories of her family’s faith
and the rituals of the Hidden.
    He was eager to speak
of Deus, and told her of priests of his religion who longed to convert other
nations to their faith. This surprised Madaren. She remembered little of the
beliefs of the Hidden, only the need for utter secrecy and an echo of the
prayers and rituals that her family shared with their small community. The new
lord of the Three Countries, Otori Takeo, had decreed that people could worship
freely and believe whatever they chose to believe, and old prejudices were
slowly giving way. Indeed, many were interested in the foreigners’ religion and
even willing to try it if it increased trade and wealth for everyone. There
were rumours that Lord Otori himself had once been one of the Hidden, and that
the former ruler of the Maruyama domain, Maruyama Naomi, had also held their
beliefs, but Madaren did not think either was very likely - for had not Lord
Otori slain his great uncles in revenge? Had not Lady Maruyama thrown herself
into the river at Inuyama with her daughter? The one thing everyone knew about
the Hidden was that their god, the Secret One, forbade them to take life,
neither their own nor anyone else’s.
    It was on this point
that the Secret One and Deus seemed to differ, for Don Joao told her that his
countrymen were both believers and great warriors - if she understood him
properly, for she knew that she often understood every word yet did not quite
grasp the meaning. Was it both or neither, always or never, already or not yet?
He was always armed, with a long thin blade, its helm curved and guarded,
inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, and he boasted that he had had cause to
use this sword many times. He was surprised that torture was forbidden in the
Three Countries, and told her how it was used in his country and on the natives
of the Southern Islands to punish, to extract information and to save souls.
This last she found hard to understand, though it interested her that the soul
should be female and she wondered if all souls were like wives to the male
Deus.
    ‘When the priest
comes you must be baptized,’ Don Joao told her, and when she understood the
concept she remembered what her mother used to say: born by water, and she told
him her water name.
    ‘Madalena!’ he
repeated, astonished, and made the sign of the cross in the air in front of
him. He was fiercely interested in the Hidden, and wanted to meet more of them;
she caught this interest and they began to meet with believers in the shared
meal of the Hidden. Don Joao asked many questions and Madaren translated them,
and the