text: They left the boat early the following morning after paying the boatman off with a handful of silver. He hastened back downriver, anxious to spend the largesse at the festival. They climbed up the long path to the shrine. The way was decorated by vertical banners, the offerings of the devout. They rubbed shoulders with pilgrims in white, villagers from the area in colorful coats, priests in formal robes. In the background, above the sound of drumming and the chatter and hum of the talking and praying celebrants, could be heard a muted roar.
  
  The forest path was bordered by stone plaques and statues, small rest houses, and minor shrines. The sound of music grew stronger, the crowds thicker. They came to the flight of steps heading up to the shrine. They passed through the torii archways, painted a brilliant vermillion, to the shrine complex. On one side loomed the red-painted structures that had been at Nachi shrine from times immemorial. On the other stood the newly built massive hall constructed at the orders of the Taiko some thirty years before.
  
  Okiku paused in awe. The contrast between the red-painted building and the verdant forest that held it, the background of limitless wooden slopes, brought tears to her eyes. She wished she were a poet, able to express the beauty of the moment in words. Jiro peered over the heads of the crowds that thronged the courtyard. He noted and dismissed several figures dressed in yamabushi white or checks. None had the travel-stained look of someone who had been through the mountains. The vermillion building pleased him, but his eye was attracted to a troupe of dancers performing a dengaku dance to the sound of flute and drum. The steps were as ancient as the shrine, and his hands and feet twitched in time to the dancers' movements. He wished to join them, knowing full well that his unshaven pate and double swords kept him from the simpler life of the people he saw.
  
  Rosamund could not contain herself. She was bursting with unanswered questions. Her face, well powdered to hide its paleness under her purple coif, was as expressionless as she could make it, but her eyes turned from sight to sight in wonder and awe. The people burning incense and fanning the smoke over themselves were comprehensible to her: in England and the Low Countries, where she had been born and raised, people did similar things to ward off evil. But the strange caperings of the dancers in their gorgeous costumes were out of a dream. She wondered about the interior of the shrine and whether her Buddhist nun's guise would keep her from entering, and she wondered about the white-and-red-clad woman dancing on a stage before a group of men, naked sword and a cluster of bells held in her hand. Other people were busily washing hands and mouths at the water front or tying slips of paper to bushes on the grounds that were laden with paper slips knotted about their branches like exotic flowers.
  
  Goemon, having seen this festival before, watched his companions out of the corner of his eye. Rosamund's eyes were goggling with delight. He hoped their blueness would not be too obvious. Okiku was transported into some private joy of her own, her face held as still as an ivory statue, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Jiro's eyes were roving over the crowd, observing the people around them, automatically searching for any threat, but his attention kept returning to the joyous movements of the dancers as they sweated and pranced in the sun.
  
  Behind them Osatsuki and Midori stood still, watching the festivities. Osatsuki admired the brilliant red of the buildings, the cool green of the majestic forested mountain range, the tiny bustle of men around her. Her own words were inadequate, she knew, but she wondered about her former husband, killed by her friends. He would have known how to express the proper words for the feelings in her breasts. Silently she said a prayer for his soul. Midori watched her elder sister, wondering how she could ever aspire to such elegant carriage.
  
  They drifted eventually through the crowd to the large express-bark-roofed New Hall. Before them in the distance rose a green-covered cliff, bisected by a ribbon of white. From the distant waterfall came the susurrus that had accompanied them from the moment they had arrived. Framed against the blue of the sky and the green of the mountains, the waterfall was the purest white, immobile in the world. They rested and ate a simple lunch in one of the pilgrim rest houses. The dancing ended, and the crowds thinned. They tossed some copper coins into the offertory box before the shrine, and each lit a candle. Busy officials of the shrine in full formal robes moved in and out of the precincts maintaining proper order.
  
  "What now?" asked Rosamund.
  
  Her curiosity had been partially satisfied by her friends while they walked about, but there was still an air of expectancy about the shrine, and she felt there was more to come.
  
  "The main festival is towards evening," explained Goemon. "The Fire Festival starts then. There will be a parade of torches and of tabards representing the shrine and the All under Heaven. We must find a good place, overlooking the stairs."
  
  "Goemon, shouldn't we see the falls first?" Okiku asked.
  
  Rosamund's eyes grew rounder with excitement. "Oh yes—we must!"
  
  Jiro laughed. "I too am interested. It is, after all, the main attraction, and I have heard so much about them. But I think that we had better look for lodgings as well, judging by last night's problems."
  
  They followed the stone-flagged path down through the forest of giant cryptomeria. The giant cedars towered above their heads, receding into the cool dimness of the forest. They clambered down slippery moist rocks, the sound of the falls rising to thunder in their ears. Above the sound they could faintly hear the calls of a conch trumpet as some pilgrim group performed its rituals. The air became spiced with the smell of water, and droplets beaded their hair and clothes.
  
  At last they stood before the falls themselves. A ribbon of water fell almost slowly down the vertical cliff face. At the base it feathered into a rush of water pounding the rocks endlessly. Awestruck, they faced the wall and the pools below it, unable to say a word. Like them, other pilgrims emerged into the clearing and stood in wonder. Later they bowed and clapped their hands in obeisance at the marvel they beheld.
  
  There were several groups of yamabushi mixed among the pilgrims about the base of the falls. Rosamund and her friends wandered closer to the thundering water, a silvery sheet that fell forever. Beside them other pilgrims crept closer in awe. The sound and continuous movement were hypnotic, and Rosamund felt infinitesimally closer to understanding the people she lived with and the land she was in now.
  
  A man dressed in loincloth and headband was wading through the pool in the direction of the falls. A priest on the bank, unheard in the roar, was gesticulating to him to turn back. A group of travel-worn yamabushi on the bank thumped their iron-ringed staves on the rocks in cadence. One of them blew his conch horn again. In another corner a wandering priest was selling charms, near him a monkey trainer displayed his monkey who aped the movements of the dengaku dance. They wandered through the crowds, admiring the falls from various vantage points. At last they stopped in a small teahouse and ate rice cakes filled with bean jam and drank large cups of tea. Satsuki admired the contrast of the plain ironware teacup against the red covering of the bench. Midori gamely tried to follow suit, doubting internally the while what was so wonderful about these commonplace items.
  
  "We've still got the problem of where to stay the night," Jiro cautioned.
  
  Goemon smiled at them all mischievously. "Are you ready for a long walk? We'll be back in time for the festival."
  
  "Where to?" asked Rosamund suspiciously.
  
  "Some years ago, when I was playing the part of a wandering doctor, I came to Nachi. High up the mountain, behind the falls, is a small village where I stayed the night. The headman there owes me a favor, as I cured his family of illness. I am sure few people know of the village, and there will be room for us to stay. Let us go and see."
  
  Several pairs of hard eyes noted their passing as they set off up the mountain.
  
  A narrow trail led through the lush forest. Ferns and akebia creepers grew everywhere. Inedible wild strawberries dotted the green with red. Okiku showed Rosamund and Satsuki how to catch dragonflies gently by their wings. The tenacious insects would then cling for a while to the women's heads. At one point they stuck one, all unnoticed, on Goemon's topknot and giggled as he led them on wearing his peculiar crest.
  
  There were more shrines along the path, though pilgrims were fewer. They worked their way above the massive waterfall and crossed several of the streams that fed it, some of them forming falls of their own. The air grew cooler. After a two-hour walk they came to a large clearing in the forest. To one side was a low cliff over which fell a miniature version of the great Nachi waterfall. At the other end sat a small shrine. Its latticework entrance was closed, but the way between the plain wooden torii and the bellpull at the gate was decorated with multicolored banners.
  
  They stopped to drink, heading towards the waterfall pool. Jiro stopped them with a movement of his hand. Under the crashing waterfall sat a naked figure. His face was creased into a terrifying grimace, his fingers were gripped into a magic power mudra.
  
  "Why, that's Master Daisangyoja!" said Satsuki in surprise.
  
  Daisangyoja's hands began to move in strange gestures as he prepared a spell of great power to use against them. Midori looked on in panic. She knew the power of her former master and his vindictiveness.
  
  "Come away!" the chestnut-haired girl cried in anguish. "Let us get away from here, Elder Sister, before he manages to complete the spell."
  
  Jiro and Goemon looked at one another. It was clear that Diasangyoja was up to some mischief. Somehow he had survived and arrived at Nachi. Jiro loosened the sword in his scabbard. He would have to finish the business once and for all. Behind him he heard a scream, and Okiku pulled at his arm. He turned to follow her gaze. Midori, fleeing in panic, had reached the line of the forest. Out of the trees leaped a crowd of yamabushi bearing weapons. The yamabushi moved purposefully towards them. Staves were ready, short swords drawn, ritual axes sharp.
  
  Jiro motioned to Goemon, and the small group ran into the depths of the forest. They would have a better chance there than in the open, where their small numbers would soon be overwhelmed.