Risuko (2 page)

She and her men were at the bottom of the tree. I considered leaping across to one of the other pines, but there weren't any close enough and big enough to jump to. And I was worried that my hands were too cold to keep hold.

Usako scurried off on the trail toward home.
Thanks, sister,
I thought.
I'll get you for that later.
I wish that she had turned and waved. I wish that I had called out a good-bye.

If I was going to be grabbed at the bottom, I decided that I might as well come down with a flourish. I dropped from limb to limb, bark, needles, and sap flying from the branches as my hands and feet slapped at them, barely breaking my speed. Perhaps if I came down faster than they expected, I could make a run for it once I reached the ground.

My bare feet had no sooner hit the needles beneath the tree, however, than a large hand came to rest on my shoulder. The two huge servants had managed to place themselves exactly where I would land.

“What an interesting young girl you are,” the grey-haired noblewoman said.

Somehow I didn't want to interest her. The two men stepped back at the wave of her hand. She stood there, still in her elegant robes, her wooden sandals barely sinking into the mud. “Do you climb things other than trees?” she asked, her deeply lined face bent in an icy smile, her eyes lacquer-black against her white-painted skin.

I nodded, testing my balance in this uncertain conversation. “That's why my mother calls me Risuko. I'm always climbing—our house, rocks, trees....” Her eyes brightened, cold as they were, and I started to let go and brag. “There's a cliff below the castle up there.” I pointed to where Lord Imagawa's stone castle stood on the hill at the edge of the woods.

“Ah?” she said, looking pleased.

“I like to climb up the cliff.”

“Oh?” she sniffed, “but certainly a skinny little girl like you couldn't get terribly far.”

That stung. “Oh, yes, I've climbed all the way to the top of the cliff bunches of times, and up the walls too, to look in at the windows and see the beautiful clothes....”

I clamped my mouth shut and blushed. Noble as she clearly was, she could have had me flogged or beheaded for daring to do such a thing. I tensed.

But this odd old woman didn't have her enormous litter-carriers beat me with the wooden swords they carried in their belts. Instead, she truly smiled, and that terrifying smile was what let me know that my fate was sealed, that I couldn't run. “Yes,” she said. “Very interesting. Risuko.”

She motioned for the men to bring her palanquin. It was decorated, as were the coats of the men, with the lady's
mon
, her house's symbol: a plain, solid white circle.

They placed the box beside her, and she eased into it, barely seeming to move. “Come, walk beside me, Risuko. I have some more questions to ask you.” Then she snapped, “Little Brother!”

“Yes, Lady!” called the servant who stood at the front of the palanquin, the larger of the two men. He gave a quiet sort of grunt and then, in perfect unison with his partner, lifted the box and began to march forward.

“Stay with me, girl!” the old lady ordered, and I scurried to keep up. I was surprised by the strength of the two men—they hardly seemed to notice the weight that they carried—but their speed was what took my breath away. As I scrambled to keep up, the mistress began to bark at me again. “What did I hear about your father? He taught you to write?”

How did she know my father? “Yes, he was a scribe.” I wanted to add, but did not, And a samurai too.

“He can't have been much of a scribe,” she sniffed. “No apprentice, so he teaches his daughter to use a brush? What a waste. And the rags you wear?”

“He... died. Mother has struggled...,” I panted. “He was a good scribe... But there wasn't much... need for one here... What do farmers need with contracts or letters?”

We moved quickly, speeding right past the path that led back to my home.
Ah, well,
I thought,
we'll join up with the main road and come into the village the long way.

“Yes,” she said, looking pleased with herself, “I suppose Lord Imagawa would be about the only client worth having around here in this wilderness. Don't fall behind, child.”

I was beginning to sweat, in spite of the cold. The smell of approaching snow was sour in the air.

The rear servant—the one who wasn't quite as enormous as the one the lady had called Little Brother—pulled even with me. Without turning his head, the man gave a low bark. Imperceptibly, the two men slowed to a pace that I could match. Grateful, I looked over toward the servant in the rear. I wasn't sure, but I could have sworn that he winked.

I could see the bulk of Lord Imagawa's castle though the open shutters of the palanquin. Banners flew from the roof that I'd never seen there before—blue and red. The old lady followed my gaze up the hill. “Yes, depressing old pile of rock, isn't it?”

I couldn't think of any way to answer that. I wasn't sure that she expected me too answer.

“You really climbed all the way up to the windows?” She was looking at me closely. I nodded. “Yes, very interesting.” She clicked her tongue. “And today? I don't suppose you could have seen anything of interest today.”

“Lord Imagawa,” I panted. “Soldier. Pointing at... drawing.”

Now her eyes widened. “You could see that from such a distance? Could you see what the drawing looked like?”

Green squares, surrounded by smaller squares of red and blue. What looked like little pine trees sticking out of the squares. I nodded.

The lady smiled again, looking like an old mother pig when it's found a nice puddle to wallow in. Somehow the smile was even more frightening.

At that moment, we met up with the main road. I was certain that we would turn right, back toward the village, to my house, my mother, and that some explanation for this peculiar line of questions would present itself.

Instead, the palanquin turned smoothly left.

Confused, I stopped in my tracks.

“Stop!” the lady yelled. Little Brother and the winking one came to a halt. “Come along, girl!”

“But...?”

“I told you to keep up with me, child.” She wasn't even looking at me.

“But... the village is...?” I pointed back down the road I had been walking most of my life, to the bridge I could see just behind the spur of trees that led to my house.

“Silly Risuko.
Down!”
The two men lowered her to the crossroad. Now she looked at me. “You are not going back there. Your mother sold you to me this morning.” She leaned out the window and barked at the carriers,
“Go!”

I
began to back away. I was thinking—if I was thinking—that I could get underneath the bridge, in among the tangled beams where I had hidden so often before. No one had ever been able to find me there. Except, of course, my father.

Before I had managed even to stagger back to the small road leading to the bridge and to my home, a hand as big as a melon closed around my wrist. The giant called Little Brother's expression was hardly threatening, but far from friendly. With his free hand he untied the belt at his waist, which turned out to be a thick length of smooth cord. He let his polished wooden sword fall to the road. Turning back to the palanquin, he grunted. “Wrists?”

“That depends,” said the old woman. She smirked at me. “We can do this any one of a number of ways, Risuko. You may come as my guest, in which case he will simply tie the rope around your waist so that you don't... get lost. You may come as my prisoner, in which case he will bind your hands to keep you from escaping too easily. Or you may come as my possession, in which case he will hog-tie you and carry you on the bar to my palanquin here. Now. Which shall it be?” Her face seemed almost kindly despite the obvious threat, and yet I felt her eyes boring into me. “Well?”

I looked up at the two men, whose faces were stone, and glanced desperately down the path to the village. Little Brother's hand remained on my wrist, and I knew that I could not possibly have escaped his grasp. My throat was thick, but a kind of awful, resigned relief settled on me. I looked to the lady again, whose made-up face seemed hardly to have moved, and then, finally back up into the warm, boulder-like face of Little Brother. I slumped. “Guest.”

“Excellent,” said the lady, as Little Brother tied one end of the long cord around my waist, picked up his sword, and handed the other end of the leash to his fellow, who favored me with a grimace that may have been another smile. “Enough of these delays,” barked the noblewoman. “We have a delivery to make.
Go!”

Down the path to Pineshore and away from my home they went, and I stumbled along behind them, down into the valley, watching the clouds thickening the sky above us, blotting out the thin midday sun.

—

I couldn't feel my feet, and it was not because of the cold—or not only because of the cold. Mother had sold me. I would never see her or Usako again. As I stumbled beside the palanquin, my shock began to turn to cold rage, and then to fear. Who was this lady who now owned me?

An Imagawa rider galloped by us in the opposite direction, splattering slushy mud onto my already cold, already filthy legs.

My stomach rumbled against the rope bound around my waist. Between climbing and walking I was tired and even hungrier than I had been.

We walked along the main street in Pineshore some time later, I saw some boys a little older than me carrying baskets of dried fish up the road. They stopped and bowed as we walked past them, and the look in their eyes was one of pure awe. For a moment I woke to myself, and thought what a remarkable picture we made: the two enormous servants carrying the elegant lady in the box, with the ragged, skinny girl shuffling along behind them at the end of a rope like a goat.

A gang of anxious-looking soldiers paid us no notice at all.

We approached an inn near the center of town. Two young women with the emblem of a white disk on their winter robes stepped out into the street and escorted us into the courtyard.

“Lady Chiyome,” said the finer-featured of the two maids. “Welcome back. I see you have hunted well.”

“Yes,” said the lady, as Little Brother helped her out of the box, “I've managed to bag myself a squirrel.”

The maids gazed at me as if I were indeed a trophy from some exotic hunt.

“Her name's Risuko,” the lady laughed, hollowly. “Little Brother, you can untie her. I'm sure that our guest won't bolt.”

The smaller carrier walked over to me and undid the knotted cord around my waist. Now he favored me with what was clearly a smile.

The courtyard walls were tall, but timbered; if I had been alone, I could have gotten to the roof, but—

“I want to get out of here. The Imagawa are nervous. We're leaving immediately, as soon as I have had a bit to eat. Mieko, give her something more presentable to wear than those rags, then take her to the others and feed her.”

Food.

The maid nodded, and then Lady Chiyome looked at me, impaling me with that cold, level stare that I had encountered in the woods. “Don't be boring and decide to behave like a possession rather than a guest. Tonight, once we reach our destination, Mieko here will bring you to me, and we will see how fine a prize you actually are.”

I bowed and began to back away, but her voice stopped me. “Kano Murasaki, you may not realize it, but I have done you a great favor. I have it in my power to give you a gift that you don't even realize you desire. Make yourself worth my trouble, and you will be glad of it. Disappoint me, and you will be very, very sorry.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. To be honest, I was stunned that she had used my full, true name. No one had called me that since Father went away. I looked up into her face, but it was as empty and without answers as a blank-faced Jizo statue's. “Kuniko, I want a bath,” she snapped. Then she turned and walked into the inn, followed by one of her maids.

“Come, Risuko
-chan
,” Mieko said, “follow me.” She turned smoothly around and began to walk across the courtyard, her tall wooden sandals clopping on the stones like horse hooves, a sound made hollow by the snowfall.

As I stumbled behind her, my body came back to me and I began to shiver—huge, uncontrollable vibrations. Tears began to roll down my face. At last.

She led me through the coin-sized flakes of snow. Though it must have been midday, the storm made it dark, and her form seemed to fade into the falling feathers of the crystal flakes. I danced across the cold stones, my bare feet fleeing from freezing stones to freezing air and back again, leaving me hopping like a mating crane next to Mieko's smooth stride. “We will get you changed and fed before we go,” she said.

There was no one between me and the inn-yard entrance. I thought of bolting. But
food
...

We reached a wide door that looked like the entry to a stable. Mieko opened it and beckoned me in. “Come, Risuko.”

I entered behind her and peered into the gloom. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out five figures, all seated around a tiny fire.

The room looked as if it were indeed intended to be a stable, but had been transformed into a sort of servant dormitory. Low, age-darkened beams crisscrossed, holding up the roof. Bedrolls lined one wall and a small, smoky fire-pit warmed the center of the space—almost.

The five figures stood and turned toward me. I felt the urge to climb up into the low rafters, just to get away. Too late to fly away, I realized.

I recognized the two bulkiest figures as Lady Chiyome's carriers. They glanced at me, bowed their heads, and then turned back to the fire, stirring rice in a pot.

The other three figures came toward me. As they stepped away from the fire, their black silhouettes softened and I could make out their features. They were older than me, but definitely children. The biggest was a boy, with a doughy, smiling face. The middle one had a smile too, but it wasn't a friendly one at all. And the smallest one, who was just a little bigger than me, wore the most ridiculous frown on her face that I've ever seen.