Fudoki (11 page)

Her wicker pack contained more things that surprised her. The knives were there. There was also a doeskin pouch filled with ancient coins: copper
wad
kaih
, gold
kaiki sh
h
. They were not very useful as money, of course, but the countryfolk wanted them as good-luck amulets, and she found them handy to barter for rice and a roof, when she did not find her own. Inns and villages string along the T
kaid
’s length like beads on a cord, though they grow farther apart (and more barbarous) the farther east one goes.

Winter threatened, and the traffic along the T
kaid
thinned, so that entire days would pass when she saw few people except in the villages that followed the road for a while, like idle dogs seeing one off their ground. The remaining traffic varied so much that there was no predicting what she would meet: a wagon pulled by horses, bells jangling on their necks; ox-carts with two wheels, with four; flocks of oxen tied neck to neck, being led to new pastures. Messengers and their guards cantered along the T
kaid
on sturdy, wet, irritable horses. Begging priests walked barefoot through icy mud, their
fud
scarves tight over their heads against rain.

Many people called greetings as they passed (for she did not walk fast, as she retained a cat’s lack of enthusiasm for long marches), and when she stopped at the side of the T
kaid
, to eat or rest or inspect her blisters (a disadvantage: her feet were always cold, and the clogs rubbed her toes raw; feet were not as durable as pads had been), others rested near her, and sometimes offered a bit of fish or
taro
root. She did not trust them, but no one threw anything at her, and after a time, she accepted that people generally meant no harm to this new shape. From them she learned to use the immense leaves of bog rhubarb to shelter her head, and even how to make the cheap rice-straw foot-covers that all peasants can make for themselves and their horses and oxen, and which they throw away whenever they please.