Risuko (14 page)

On the fourth night, as we were settling into our beds, Emi poked me. When I yelped, she shushed me. “Toumi!” she whispered.

“What? Why aren't you already asleep?”

“Wanted to tell you something.” She looked over at Toumi, who had fallen into her bedroll and begun her high-pitched saw of a snore. “I talked to Aimaru today, when I was fetching water for the baths,” she whispered.

“Aimaru?” I mumbled. I'd hardly seen him in days.

“Shh!” she hissed. “At the well.”

“Some of us were working.”

“I was working.” It was hard to tell in the dark, but her face seemed to get darker. “He said that Masugu
-san
told him that women who lived close together over a long period would begin to enter their moon time together.”

I leaned up on one elbow. “Really?”

“Yes.” Emi nodded. “I guess Lord Imagawa has a whole flock of daughters. Masugu
-san
lived with them for a while as a kid. He learned to avoid the women's quarters during their, you know, time, because he could count on a less than a friendly welcome.”

“Oh.”

“Good night, Murasaki.”

“Good night, Emi,” I answered, but as always, she was already asleep.

Mieko and the rest slowly returned from their seclusion over the next few days in twos and fours as if nothing had happened.

—

One night soon after, as Emi, Toumi and I stumbled out of the kitchen, we realized that it was finally snowing again. But it wasn't the wet, hard snow we got on the coast, near home; these mountain flakes were big as a fingernail, light, and almost dry. The three of us stared up at the white sky. I tried to catch a flake on my tongue—and soon the three of us were spinning around, arms outstretched and mouths open, trying to catch the tumbling flakes on any part of our bodies. Giggling, we careened around in front of the bathhouse.

Then I slammed into Toumi. The habitual sneer pulled Toumi's features back out of shape, and she stumbled in to take a bath. Emi laid a hand on my shoulder, and then followed her.

I remained outside in the fast-falling snow and began to cry. For just a moment I had forgotten flat-nosed Shino, and sharp-nosed Mai; I'd forgotten the isolation of this place, forgotten to mourn my shamed father, my banishment from home, the hole that Mother and Usako used to fill. I had forgotten it all in a blanket of white. But for just a fleeting moment...

I did not hear anyone walking—the snow was already muffling the sound of feet on the gravel—so when a heavy hand came down on my shoulder, I let out a squeak and leapt in the air.

“What's the matter, Murasaki
-san
?” asked Lieutenant Masugu.

I found myself weeping against his chest.

Masugu
-san
sighed, patting me stiffly on the back. “Murasaki
-san
,” he said, “you are here for a reason. I am sorry that you had to leave your mother and your sister and your childhood behind. Your mother wouldn't have let you go for nothing—and I don't just mean money. And Chiyome
-sama
wouldn't have paid so high a price for you without a very good reason.” He held my shoulders and looked down into my face; his own was grim. “Think of what your father would have done, what he would have wanted you to do. Lady Chiyome wants to give you a chance to redeem your family honor.”

I stood there, sniveling, not knowing what to say. With a sad smile and a pat to my shoulder, he turned and began to walk away.

I had almost reached the warmth of the bathhouse when he called back to me.

“Murasaki
-san
!” I turned back toward him in the darkening snowfall. “You haven't been to visit me, have you?”

Perplexed, I shook my head.

“I wondered,” he said. “Someone has been in my room. But it wasn't you?” When I shook my head again, he held up his hand and wished me good night.

“
I
f you come with me quietly, Risuko
-chan
,” Fuyudori said in very hushed tones, waking me from a dreamless sleep, “I can show you something worth watching.” She pulled down my covers, giving me no choice in the matter.

Yawning and shivering, I threw on a winter coat and sandals. Fuyudori placed her finger over my lips, looking down at Emi and Toumi, who were still sleeping.

It always felt as if it were the middle of the night when Fuyudori woke us. But as we made our way out of the relative warmth of our dormitory, there was not even a hint of a winter dawn in the night sky. The snow had stopped and the sky cleared. The stars blazed down on us, big as snowflakes themselves.

I followed Fuyudori out across the undisturbed snow blanketing the courtyard. Dark and moonless as the night was, even the white of the snow seemed dim and grey.

Fuyudori pulled me relentlessly toward the great hall, but before we arrived, I finally woke enough to stop, digging my heels in. “What's going on?” I asked.

The older girl blinked at me, a rare scowl of annoyance cracking her usually calm mask. “Chiyome
-sama
and Masugu
-san
are arguing—arguing about
you
,” she muttered in as low a voice as she could manage. “I thought you might want to hear—that it might be to your benefit. But if you don't want—”

“No,” I said, shaking my head stiffly. “I... I want to know.”

Her face fell back into its familiar blank smile, and I followed meekly where she led. To my surprise, we did not go to the front door, nor toward the kitchen entrance. Instead, we went to the side of the hall where there was no door, over toward the storehouse. Dry as that mountain snow was, my feet were beginning to feel chilled and damp as we slogged along.

We arrived at the northern wall of the great hall, ten paces or so from the enormous hemlock that I had been aching to climb since our arrival. The wall of the main building was blank except for some half-timbered beams and a single window just below the roofline. A flickering light on the eaves showed that the window was open.

I felt Fuyudori's breath in my ear. It tickled. Very softly, she whispered, “That's Chiyome
-sama
's private chamber. I heard them yelling at each other before they stormed up there. It was your name they were yelling.”

I could make out a low rumble from above, but no words. “We're supposed to climb up and spy at Lady Chiyome's window?” I hissed, before her hand clamped down over my mouth.

“Not
we
, Risuko
-chan
. I cannot make a climb like that. I doubt if any of the women here could. I have been told, however, that you are an excellent climber. Besides, one of us needs to stay down here to keep watch.” Her hand still on my mouth, she moved in front of me. Though her white hair glowed in the starlight, her eyes were dark as coal, and lightless, and the hard line of her chin let me know just how determined she was. “This is for your own good, Risuko
-chan
. We need to know if you are in trouble. If you are in trouble, it will reflect on me. Please.”

I considered. I did want to know what Lady Chiyome and the lieutenant were saying. And I ached to climb again, but if I was caught...

Fuyudori's eyes pleaded with me.

I nodded.

Her face relaxed. “Thank you, Risuko. You won't regret this. I will hide beneath this fir tree.”

“Hemlock,” I yawned.

She frowned up at the lowering bows as if just noticing the short, bristly needles, totally unlike the long, silver needles of a fir. “Yes.
Hemlock
. If someone is coming I will give you a signal like a wood owl's hoot.” This at least she quietly managed to imitate—more or less.

I shrugged and pressed a foot into the bark of the tree.

“No,” whispered Fuyudori, grabbing my shoulder. “Not the tree—the
hemlock
. It's too far, you won't be able to hear.”

We both looked over to the great hall's icy wall. I gulped.

“Well,” Fuyudori sighed in her kindest, cruelest voice, “perhaps it is too difficult....”

Before she finished the sentence I had stridden over to the wall and begun my ascent.

It was, perhaps, wrong of me to enjoy doing something so dangerous and so obviously likely to anger my patron. But digging my fingers into the narrow, icy half-timbered beams provided enough of a challenge that my breath began to pull. When I reached the first horizontal beam, I looked down to see Fuyudori staring up at me, her mouth and eyes perfect circles of astonishment. I allowed myself to grin as I continued on up.

The last section of the climb was extremely difficult. The only handholds were two beams that ran straight up to either side of the small window. I had to press with all of my strength against either side with my toes and thumbs, scooting up slowly. The wood was cold and I had to move carefully so as not to slip, and the plaster rubbed roughly against my cheek and stomach. It was the hardest climbing I had ever done. The muscles on the outsides of my legs and arms, my shoulders and my hips ached and began to quiver from the strain.

Just as I was sure that my strength would give out, dropping me to a certain broken bone or three, my forehead hit something.

It was the window ledge. I had made it.

Looping one set of fingers and then the other over the outer sides of the ledge—I didn't want my fingers to be visible from inside—I could at last use my fingers and the insides of my arms to hold me up, allowing the thumbs and outsides a well-earned rest.

As my heartbeat stopped racing and I caught my breath, I could hear Lieutenant Masugu's low voice rumbling from the room. “I will stake my honor on it, lady, it wasn't her.”

Lady Chiyome's voice managed to be even colder than usual. “You'll risk so much on such a little creature? One whose family honor is hardly equal to yours?”

There was silence in the room, and my heart sped right back up again as I suddenly realized that the family she was insulting was mine.

When it came, Masugu
-san
's voice was quiet but as sharp as a falcon's cry. “It wasn't Murasaki. She saved our lives.”

“Hmmm.” Unfazed, she clucked her tongue. “Well, unless you think the spirits have been playing games, then someone was in your chamber, Masugu.”

He grunted. “I think the spirits must have better things to do than to move my papers around. The Little Brothers tells me there are signs of the raiders still being in the valley.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Even so, do not let your affection for the girl blind you to what she is,” the old woman said, her voice as cold as her ledge.

Masugu muttered something that I could not hear.

My shoulders were beginning to quake with the effort of keeping myself in place, and yet I could hardly move. I needed to know what it was that they suspected me of. Looking down, I saw Fuyudori skulking at the base of the tree, her white hair like snow, gleaming in the starlight; she looked even more ghost-like than ever.

“In any case, Chiyome
-sama
,” Masugu
-san
said, “it wasn't found. It's still safely hidden away in the chimney.”

“Good,” Lady Chiyome grumbled. “Lord Takeda's plans depend upon it being delivered, Lieutenant. Don't forget that. As tedious as this service may be, my young friend, stuck among all of these young ladies, it is nonetheless essential, yes?”

“Yes, lady,” Masugu answered, though he didn't sound terribly happy.

“Now get back to your room, Masugu, and let an old woman get her sleep.”

“Yes, lady,” he said, and I heard his steady footsteps going down the stairs.

Before I was able to begin my descent, however, I heard Chiyome
-sama
speak once more. “Come in, Risuko. You'll catch your death hanging outside of windows like that.”

M
y shaking arms suddenly went still, as if instantly turned to ice. Looking down, I saw that Fuyudori had disappeared. I was trapped and alone.

“Do hurry, Risuko
-chan
,” said Lady Chiyome in that quiet voice that still managed to sound quite piercing. “I don't want to have to call Kee Sun to haul you in. He might slip and drop you, and that would be the most awful mess.”

Arms trembling, my back screaming with the effort and the cold, I pulled myself up, one elbow at a time, peeking over the sill into Chiyome
-sama
's chamber.

It was smaller than I would have expected. Most of the space was dominated by a large, black bed that amounted to a small room of its own—a tall box almost like a huge palanquin, self-contained as Chiyome
-
sama
herself, and almost enclosed, with a chair and a desk built into the entry. The space remaining was taken up by
tatami
mats, in the middle of which stood a small kneeling desk; she was seated cross-legged behind it. Before her on the desk stood a number of small, brightly colored shapes.

“Good evening, my little squirrel,” said Lady Chiyome, smirking sourly. “It is so lovely of you to join me. And by such an unusual route. Extraordinary. Not even Mieko in her prime could have undertaken such a climb unaided. I am most impressed.”

I collapsed to my knees, staring down at the
tatami
, utterly bewildered. “Thank you, Chiyome
-sama
.”

“Hmm. You were unaided, I suppose? No mechanical assistance? No one helping you?”

I thought of Fuyudori, who had urged me to climb, and then disappeared. “Nobody helping me,” I said.

She rested a finger to her nose, and then grunted. “Yes,” she said. “Most impressive.” Squaring her shoulders, she peered at me. “Tell me, Risuko, what did you hear?”

“N-nothing, lady,” I spluttered.

“Do not lie to me, girl. You were beneath the window ledge well before Masugu left.”