紹介About this book
戦は、始まる前と終わったあとに化ける。法螺貝だけが鳴らず、鍬形だけが外れて先に立ち、鐙だけが持ち主より軽くなる。丸ごと化けるのではない。陣中の道具の一部だけが持ち主の手を離れ、勝手に戦の真似を始める——それがこの夜の怪異の文法である。行列は名乗らない。篝火の爆ぜる音と、鳴子の板と、遠い鬨の切れ端に紛れて動く。
舞台は応仁の乱ののち、国境がひと晩で書き換わる頃の、ある陣の一夜である。百のうち三十は、山爺、火前坊、一目連、大嶽丸、目競——諸国の伝承と絵師が書き残してきた妖怪。七十は陣中の暮らし——具足、兵糧、狼煙、関所、逆茂木、母衣、幕裏の賭場——から新しく生まれた。娘は逃げない。片鍬形の兜に雑兵具足という軽装のなりで、手は出さず、作法をひとつずつ守って、百の怪異を一図ずつ見届ける。
どれほど長い夜も、明け方には手打ちになる。最後の一枚に立つのは「軍返し」——勝ち負けの決まらぬまま引き上げる軍勢の、足音だけが道を逆に戻ってくる怪である。娘が首の鈴をひと粒鳴らすと、その一音を合図に足音は薄れ、具足はただの鉄と革へ、野はただの朝へ戻ってゆく。それでも、どこかで音がひとつ消え残る。戦ごっこの名残に出会ったら、拾わず、指をささず、黙って通り過ぎること——それがこの本の、ただひとつの作法である。
A war changes shape before it begins and after it ends. Only the conch refuses to sound; only the kuwagata crest slips its socket and walks on ahead; only the stirrup grows lighter than the man in it. Nothing transforms whole. One piece of camp equipment slips its owner's hand and begins to play at war on its own — that is the grammar of this night's hauntings. The parade never announces itself. It moves hidden among the crack of the watch-fires, the clatter of the bird-clappers, and the far-off scraps of a battle cry.
The stage is a single night in an encampment, in the century of war that followed the Ōnin conflict, when a border could be redrawn between dusk and dawn. Of the hundred yōkai, thirty come from lore recorded across the provinces and drawn by generations of painters — Yamachichi, Kazenbō, Ichimokuren, Ōtakemaru and Mekurabe among them. Seventy were newly born from the life of the camp: armor and rations, signal fires and barrier gates, abatis, horo cloaks, and the dice mat behind the curtains. The girl does not run. In the light gear of a foot soldier — a common ashigaru's armor and a single kuwagata crest — she keeps her hands to herself, observes one custom at a time, and sees each of the hundred through, one plate at a time.
However long the night, it ends at dawn in a truce. The last plate belongs to Ikusagaeshi, the Army's Return — a host that withdraws with nothing settled, and whose footfalls come back down the road in reverse. When the girl sounds the single bell at her throat, the footfalls thin at that one note; the armor becomes iron and leather again, and the field becomes only morning. Even so, somewhere a sound is left over. If you meet what remains of the war game, do not pick it up, do not point at it, and pass by in silence — that is the one and only custom of this book.
見本図Sample plates
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