Akira Rises (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

T
en years passed quickly. Akira had reluctantly given up her games of warrior princess for the more practical role of being a dutiful daughter. Akira knew her mother, Lady Shy, did all she could to help the peasants and villagers and loved her mother for doing so. Her mother’s monies to run the manor household were inflated as much as she dared without getting caught. The money Lady Shy diverted from her household budget secretly bought grain for the local peasants. Matilde, Lady Shy’s trusted personal attendant, had connected Lady Shy with a friar who thought food sometimes more miraculous than prayer.

Lady Shy, sitting in thoughtful repose by her window overlooking her rose garden listened to Akira read. She smiled. It had been no easy feat to find a way to educate her young daughter. Her mind wandered a few years back. She remembered word for word her husband’s condescending attitude.

“Yes I agree Akira should be able to read and write. But I draw the line there. She may not be tutored along with her brothers,” The baron, her husband by circumstance, and not choice, stared at his wife. “A future husband would appreciate his wife had a fine hand with scripting,” he said.

Lady Shy remembered swallowing he disappointment. She smiled again. She smiled because she had found a way around his decision. Lady Shy appeared to let the matter drop, replying, “as you wish my husband. It is more important that our sons receive all the attention of the tutors.”

She remembered waiting patiently for a reasonable amount of time to pass, an amount of time that would allow her husband to forget their conversation about Akira’s education. She waited several months before saying, “Akira, my lovely bored daughter, it is time to practice your skills of being an attentive and gracious hostess.” Akira had groaned. She pressed her lips together. She had looked so rebellious. Reliving the moment, Lady Shy almost chuckled out loud. She pictured Akira’s hands on her hips, rolling her blue eyes. Lady Shy was transported back in time, remembering with clarity the conversation with her frowning daughter. “Hear me out, Akira. You have longed to be tutored as your brothers are.”

“And here I sit, able to sew a fine seam. La-De-da!”

“I have thought of a way you can appear to be practicing you hosting skills while you are actually listening in and observing their lessons.”

Akira gave her mother her full attention.

“When the tutors come, you shall see to their needs. You shall discreetly be outside the slightly opened library door, and make sure our honored and learned guests have water, tea, ample ink and make certain your brothers are equally comfortable.” Lady Akira had smiled broadly then as she did now remembering the expressions of Akira’s face as she digested the reason for practicing being a gracious hostess. “I am sure you can learn much from being a gracious hostess.”

The sound of Akira’s voice drew her mother back to the present. Akira asked again, “What is making you smile, Mother?

“I was remembering you sitting outside the library listening to debates on combat strategy. You were drinking the tea for the tutors, doing cross stitching. Instead of a flower, you cross stitched a foot soldier's combat formation.”

Akira giggled. “Well, I was not permitted ink or paper.”

Mother and daughter laughed.

~

Akira loved the freedom she was given to read to the village children. The freedom to go to the nearby village was negotiated in exchange for agreeing to learn to sew and act like a lady when expected to. Akira promised to produce at least three pieces of embroidery a week. She just did not promise to do it all by herself. Akira enlisted the help of a village girl known for her fine stitching. The girl would work on the embroidery in trade. The girl wanted to learn to read. It seemed an agreeable exchange of services. The girls were satisfied with their secret bartering. The lessons were given in private. Akira would have given the lessons for free, but the village girl had pride and needed to pay in some way for her lessons. Akira respected her fierce need to not feel indebted. Akira justified the deception as she handed the embroidery over for inspection to her mother. When she was praised she relayed the praise to the young village girl. Her conscience was almost appeased.

When Akira realized the children she read to were hungry, she packed herself large picnic lunches, and shared them with the barefooted children when they were excused from endless chores that helped their families survive their meager existence. The parents of the children were happy to allow their children a weekly reading from Lady Shy’s daughter. The children came home with chunks of dried bread, small rounds of cheese and sometimes pieces of salted meat. The time taken from the children’s' chores was worth the generous gifts Akira shared. The parents of the children often discussed whether the baron suspected how generous his daughter was, and always they agreed he had no idea his daughter shared his provisions with them.

That she was so unspoiled endeared her to the peasants and commoners. She was a credit to her mother, who was well known to secretly make up for her husband’s callous ways with intercessions arranged through the church. The local villagers wondered who her father would marry her off to. The village boys who had crushes on her competed for her smiles. She would laugh at their antics in a kindly way, always saying she was never going to marry no matter what station in life a suitor came from. “I’d rather become a shriveled up spinster than marry,” she said. Her village girlfriends looked skeptical. “Seriously, as I see it, a wife is nothing but an elevated servant.”

“But what about love, Akira?” The question came from the girl she was teaching to read.

“It’s a trap. Women get tricked into having babies, getting tied down. They do not get to travel without a man at their side. I’m surprised they let us have babies. I am sure if they could, they would do it themselves. They think us soft headed.” She pushed her stomach forward and waddled about. “Imagine a man going through birthing.”

Her friend laughed and said, “Oh it hurts, it hurts, I am dying.”

Akira laughed. Then she quit laughing. “Marriage is not for me.”

She had no idea how loved she had become. The girls were in a bit of awe of her. No fancy airs, no fancy clothes, and she offered to help with milking, washing, and drawing water from the well. Akira had been known to stand up to the young village bullies with nothing more than a stick and her tongue. Granted none wanted the baron to find out anyone dared lay a hand on her, and that fear of the baron in itself was protection, but she had already got into a fist fight pushing match with a village boy beating a dog. Akira ended up with a black eye, a new dog, and a new respect. The villagers feared for the boy. However, word came back from the manor’s servants that when Akira was questioned about her black eye, she told her father she had thrown a rock at a tree, and that the rock bounced back and hit her in the eye. The villagers never forgot how she protected the foolish boy.

The villagers also appreciated that more than once she had hooked her war bred horse, Pegasus to a plough to help till the earth.

No one wanted to see her grow up, get married and leave them. On the other hand, they did not want her to become a nun or a shriveled up old spinster. They did not want to see her free spirit dampened and subdued. She was of marriageable age, and rumors were her father would be accepting suitors soon.

There was something special about Akira, beyond her kind acts. That she was the antithesis of everything her father was, was a miracle. The villagers watched over her as if she were one of their own. She was their child. That her mother shared her daughter with them endeared Lady Shy to the villagers even more than her other acts of kindness. The sons of Lady Shy had yet to prove they would not follow in their father’s footsteps. Akira defended her brother’s reputations. She would sometimes criticize their actions, but she allowed no one else to do so. Never did Akira defend father.

It seemed as if Akira had a magic that made everyone around her feel good. Akira proudly wore the flower garlands little girls would give to her. And when Akira asked for lessons on how to make a slingshot, there were several boys that volunteered to teach her. Under the watchful eye of a village elder, Akira learned how to hit a target with amazing accuracy. She became as accurate as the best of the young boys in the village.

She cried when she killed her first rabbit. When she realized how much her companions needed the rabbit meat for their supper, Akira dried her tears. In front of her companions, she said, “Oh mother, all that we have, mother of the forest and animals we thank you for this rabbit. Oh rabbit we I thank you for your life, for your body provides sustenance.”

The smallest boy looked at the older boys. “What is sustemince?”

“Sustenance you idiot.” His older brother elbowed him as he corrected his little brother.

“It means it will fill your belly,” another boy added. Everyone chuckled when the little boy once again mispronounced his words. “Oh! I like sustamince.” He smiled a goofy smile.

Akira was about to present the rabbit to the smallest boy who hunted with her. She wanted to thank him and his older brother for teaching her to use the slingshot. Akira realized if the boys were caught by her father’s men with a poached rabbit, they would be in trouble.

“I am afraid if I send anyone of you home with this rabbit, you will be accused of poaching. I do not need the meat. So what do you think of starting a fire and roasting it and eating it here with me? I have never roasted a rabbit. You can teach me.” The boys stared at her. They grinned.

Such was Akira’s thoughtfulness for their safety. If they could fill their bellies in the woods, they would need less food at home. To thank her, the youngest boy searched for the most round and even small stones he could find, round stones, suitable for a slingshot. He presented them to Akira shyly.

“Thank you for sustemincing our bellies,” he said. He looked quite proud of himself using the new word. His older brother was about to correct his pronunciation when he caught the warning look in Akira’s eyes. Akira accepted the stone gifts with a gratitude that made the shy little boy smile and feel as if he, too, had much to offer the daughter of a baron.

CHAPTER THREE

L
ady Shy noticed the hungry look in her husband’s eyes as they lingered on her daughter when he thought no one was looking. When he was drunk, when his eyes were glazed after visits from the mages, he was not so careful to shield his unnatural appetites. Inhibitions that governed acceptable behavior seemed to slip away. The day that his hand had slipped from Akira’s waist and cupped her bottom, was the day Lady Shy knew her daughter was in more danger than ever. Startled, Akira shoved her father back, picked up her skirt and bolted from the great room.

That his wife saw the forbidden touch seemed to please the baron. The curl of his lip, the challenging glare was not lost on his wife. This time the touch had been for her eyes. She needed to be reminded that she had much to fear not only for herself but for the daughter she loved. The surge of red color creeping up his wife’s neck, up to her cheeks pleased him. It made him feel powerful. His threat had struck hard and deep, and he knew it. The feeling of power was heady.

Akira was aghast. She ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife from them butcher block table. She steadied herself against the table. Mary, the head cook was just cleaning the pin feathers off a goose, while her assistant was sloshing water about cleaning blood off the flagstone floor.

Mary looked up. “Who are you going to kill this time, Akira? Who has your embroidered pantaloons in a knot?” Mary had a way of calming the young mistress. It was not the first time Akira had exploded into the kitchen asking for a knife to stab into her brothers. But this time, it did not seem like sibling drama. Akira was pale and shaking.

Akira inhaled sharply. “He put his filthy hands on my ass!”

Mary scowled, ready to box someone’s ears. “Who dared insult my young mistress? Hand me that knife and I will carve him a new asshole!” Mary grabbed her sharpest knife.

Akira looked pained. “Would that you could … but you can’t!”

“What do you mean I can’t? There are no young bucks around here my knife can’t handle.” Mary huffed. “Now put that knife down before you cut yourself waving it around. My god girl, you are in a state! Who dared touch you? Spill it to old Mary.”

“One you cannot ever touch,” Akira said angrily. Akira paced, agitation expressed itself in every move, every nuance of her face. She put the knife down, picked it up and put it down again.

“And what manner of man or boy can’t be touched?” Mary wiped her hands on her apron and put her hands on her ample hips.

“A baron cannot be touched Mary… a bloody baron.”

Mary frowned as she suddenly comprehended the anger and indignation.

“Oh that bastard! Did he slap your ass for being cheeky? You are a tad too old for him to be doing such a thing. You’re not a child anymore.”

“No Mary, he fondled my ass. It was not a slap one could excuse! I was not being impertinent or cheeky.”

“Is he drunk? Not that drunkenness excuses the bastard.”

“When is he not in some state of drunkenness? He knew it was me… his daughter.”

“Oh my poor girl, tis no wonder you are in a dither.” Mary wrapped her arms about Akira for a brief hug. “Shall I lace his foods with salt peter?” Mary looked serious. Her scowl was fierce.

“And put yourself at risk? No, dear Mary, as tempting as that is, you would have to pour it on his food and he would notice.”

“Aye, you are right. It would require massive amounts of the stuff. Perhaps it would preserve his meat, if you know what I mean. We would not want that.”

Akira rolled her eyes then hugged the cook. “How do you always know what to say to keep me from screaming.”

The cook hugged her tighter. If she could get away with it and gather her courage she would put poison in the bloody baron’s food. She had confessed her thoughts to her husband in several rants in private. The baron was crossing more lines of decency...again. Poison was too good for him she had ranted. Her husband agreed, for he knew agreeing was the quickest way to calm his agitated mate.