Chapter Text
Her bracelets tinkle
Her anklets clink
She sways at her clattering loom
She hurries to have a new
Obi ready when he comes
- Anonymous, Manyōshū
"This final exchange will settle things once and for all, Matoi!"
"All words and no action! You've grown soft, Kiryuin!"
In the fiftieth year of the Edo period, that is around 1652 A.D. by the Western calendar, Matoi Ryuko – the only scion of Matoi Isshin, whose father had distinguished himself in the Battle of Sekigahara – issued challenge to the heir of the Kiryuin line, Kiryuin Satsuki, the duel to be conducted in the training halls of the Kiryuin’s family estate just west of the capital.
Sweat running into her eyes, her limbs aching, Matoi Ryuko adjusted her stance as across the dojo her opponent readied herself for another attack. The duel had already endured three, four times as long as either of them might have expected, but movement by movement, strike by strike, Kiryuin Satsuki’s superior training was beginning to cede her the advantage. It was with good reason that the Kiryuin family had gained a fearsome reputation with the sword, one that had cost many a challenger their top-knot, if not something more substantial beneath it… But still, the Matoi’s had a reputation of their own to uphold, and Ryuko had spent the past year immersed in her father’s copy of the writings of Musashi, hoping that this would yield her an edge, or at least some element of unpredictability.
The early autumn winds buffeted the training hall, causing the panels to rattle in their frames, and as Ryuko glanced to the side, momentarily distracted, the young woman opposite her seized the moment to attack. Satsuki charged forward, her sword moving in a flowing, unpredictable arc, cutting off Ryuko’s escape to both left and right. Blade clashed with blade repeatedly as Ryuko tried to stand her ground, hoping that the one-handed grip she had adopted in dutiful obeisance to Musashi would afford her more fluidity in her defense and ripostes. Satsuki pressed the attack, however, using every bit of extra reach and power that her height gave to her advantage, delivering blow after crushing blow from above and from the sides, intending to wear down Ryuko’s defenses until an opening became apparent.
That extra reach, however, worked against her in this instance: as Ryuko retreated, hoping to gain more space to counterattack, Satsuki led slightly too forwards, away from her center where she could best control her balance and the blade. A slight turn of Ryuko’s sword to the side deflected Satsuki’s thrust, becoming leverage that opened her for a frontal attack. Ryuko needed no second opportunity – she launched at the older girl, hoping her advantage in speed would prove her opponent’s undoing. Satsuki staggered backwards, her blade repeatedly blocked from its wonted position. Her stance narrowed, losing her bedrock of stability: she staggered, a stumble or even a fall was a certainty at this point…
The stagger was a feint. As Ryuko drove at her, sensing victory, Satsuki dropped further to the side, rotating rapidly and then rising again, sword horizontal, to deliver a telling blow to Ryuko’s head. She put all she had into the speed of the turn, the ferocity of the strike, and it was now Ryuko who was forced to drop and spin, the blade whistling fractionally above the most stubborn tuft of her deep black hair. Satsuki continued to follow through, readying herself for the next attack, but suddenly found herself yanked to the side, her momentum combined with an unexpected force throwing her hopelessly off-balance. As Ryuko had ducked and twisted, and Satsuki had passed over her, she had grabbed Satsuki’s long, black hair, doubling it twice over in her balled fist and pulling hard. Ryuko came in under Satsuki’s guard, beneath both outstretched arms, and swung fiercely at her waist, turning the blade at the very last moment so that the flat alone made contact with her abdomen.
There was a crack of splitting wood like a tree receiving a lightning strike: Satsuki was lifted into the air, sailing a full six feet backwards before crashing onto her back on the mats and driving up a cloud of dust. The motes danced mischievously in the golden sunlight as the hall became still. Ryuko looked down at her wooden bokuto – the blade was broken almost fully through, half-way up its length.
“Satsuki?”
The other girl slapped her free hand a few times against the tatami, to indicate she remained among the living. Her black hair spread out around her head like a fan.
“I’ll grant you that one,” Satsuki replied, coughing slightly. Her training armor had taken the worst of the impact, but that final strike had still knocked the wind out of her. Ryuko had improved measurably since their last bout.
Ryuko roared with laughter.
“Victory!!” She waggled the broken sword above her in a distinctly un-martial fashion.
“I do not recall the tenets of Niten Ichi-ryu saying anything about pulling your opponent’s hair, a technique lacking any measure of decorum for a warrior of standing.”
Ryuko pouted at her fallen adversary.
“Lady Sour Grapes just because you lost. Besides Musashi-sama would say…”
Satsuki groaned inwardly. Since Ryuko had found a copy of Go Rin no Sho, she had used Musashi’s unorthodox style as justification for almost any affront to acceptable conduct or common decency. She raised her left arm in the air, and Ryuko wandered over to her.
“Niten Douraku,” Satsuki countered, enunciating the master swordsman’s Buddhist name with precision to emphasize her knowledge, “lived out his twilight years in ascetic seclusion in a cave, where he neither washed nor shaved. Which is where, I believe, the attraction lies for you.”
Her outstretched arm was taken, but rather than help Satsuki to her feet, Ryuko gripped it firmly and then dropped herself down onto Satsuki’s chest, pinning her upper arms beneath her knees. She waggled her eyebrows ominously.
“Now that I’ve vanquished their greatest samurai, I will claim my prize from the fair princess of the Kiryuin line! When I’m done, they won’t be able to make a miko out of you!” She cackled in what she hoped was a menacing way, but her attempt at intimidation bore more relation to the caricatures of rakugo than it did to any documented tyrant. Nonetheless, Satsuki struggled beneath her. Normally to upend Ryuko, and pin her to the mat in her stead, would not have been a challenge, but Satsuki was still short of breath, and Ryuko was as immovable as the ancient stones in the Zen garden in the grounds of the dojo.
“Ryuko, if Hououmaru should catch us like this…” But Satsuki was reluctantly cognizant that rational arguments were rarely as effective against the other girl as force of arms.
“Fair maiden," Ryuko opened her eyes wide with intent, "I have bought the silence of your servants. None shall disturb us.”
She began to lean down towards her prize, and Satsuki felt her heart thump against her armor, harder than it had done in the midst of battle.
“With what? Lemons?”
But Ryuko remained silent, the distance between them diminishing second by second, as inexorable as the rising tide. There was the smell of sweat, of the barley fields that Ryuko had crossed as she walked to the estate, and on top of that the subtle tang of citrus that always made Satsuki light-headed. They were close enough now that Satsuki could feel the premonition of the kiss on her lips, and she had to close her eyes as color spread across her cheeks. Swallowing hard, she breathed out and lay still.
Ryuko tutted disapprovingly and sat back on her haunches.
“You know,” she said pointedly, “it’s a lot less fun if you don’t wriggle at least a little bit.”
When Satsuki had been six, almost seven years old, during the summer after her father’s untimely death, she had been set to work in her rooms by her tutors. The relative pleasures of calligraphy and watercolors had passed, and she was now trapped in the doubly, triply accursed throes of ikebana - flower arrangement - apparently a fitting pastime for a young woman of rank. Kneeling at her desk she surveyed the creative output of the past hour: a slim, elegantly minimal vase into which she had placed two dead twigs. Fuyu - "Winter" - she'd titled it, hoping that her intransigent insistence of its merits would be sufficient to convince her aged tutor of its worth.
A bare stick remained unused, along with some strange seed-carrying pod that rattled when shaken like a child's toy and whose name she had already forgotten, and Satsuki was in the midst of considering their possible uses when she heard the shriek of splintering wood from the grounds outside the wing. The sound was loud, but short-lived, immediately followed by the crash of objects unknown hitting the ground, and she wondered whether a joist in one of the outhouses had cracked, the roof partially collapsed into the storeroom beneath.
She slid open the panels, expecting at any moment to hear the commotion of the household staff, running to investigate and save anything of value. Across the veranda, the ornamental garden and a broad expanse of lawn, was the treasured peach tree that her ancestors had planted. It was still rocking slightly, leaves spiraling leisurely down, but on the ground beside it was a great bough, laden with fruit, its splintered end matching the gaping wound on the trunk. And rising from amidst the tangle of branches and bruised peaches was a child, a boy as far as Satsuki could see, his rough yukata packed overflowing with stolen fruit. He appeared little more than a street urchin, tufted black hair as unruly as its owner, arms and legs dotted with grazes and scabs from this and earlier misadventures. For a moment the two stared at each other, as the orphaned leaves continued to fall around him; a gentle breeze ruffled his hair almost imperceptibly, and then he span on his heels and made off at speed towards the high wall that surrounded the grounds.
Without a thought for her safety or the duties of her position, Satsuki snatched up her bokuto from where it rested in the corner of her room, and charged after the intruder. He was halfway up the wall by the time she caught up with him, but though he was out of her reach her sword was, relative to her height, as long as the odachi that the cavalry carried and it was easy to beat him about the legs and torso with it as he climbed. Under her merciless rain of blows his handhold gave way, and he toppled off the wall, landing on his side near her in an explosion of ripe fruit. Satsuki raised the sword above her head, preparing to administer a further beating, but the vagrant child leapt to his feet, knocking her to one side, and the pursuit began once again.
Thus it was that when the household finally responded to the shouts coming from the grounds, they discovered Satsuki, sword in hand, prowling the perimeter of the ornamental lake. There, in the center, waist-deep in water, was the interloper - belligerently chewing his way through his cache of half-crushed peaches. Around him, the koi moved in curious circles: black, white, red, blue, like oil paints mixed in with the water. Satsuki's mother, Lady Ragyo, appeared to find some amusement in the scene, murmuring something to herself in a foreign language that the others present found unintelligible, but Matoi Isshin, who'd been in council with her during this energetic diversion, was less amused, and Satsuki saw the blood rush to his face.
"Matoi Ryuko!!" he roared, striding into the lake completely heedless of the water and the damage he might do to his fine silk clothing. Isshin scooped up the boy, or girl as circumstances now revealed her to be, with one arm and carried her bodily back to the garden, unmoved by her shouts and the blows she was attempting to mete out to him. He bowed awkwardly to Ragyo and also to Satsuki, the struggling child trapped under one arm, and then marched towards the guest's quarters, the girl's cries of "Idiot!!" becoming less distinct in the distance.
And that inauspicious occasion was the first time that Kiryuin Satsuki and Matoi Ryuko met, or at least the first time that either could remember.
Ryuko ran the comb through Satuski’s hair, slowly teasing out the knots that were the frequent offspring of their training. It was a task that more properly should have been left to one of Satsuki’s innumerable attendants, or even to Ryuko’s sole maidservant, Mankanshoku Mako; but Mako, though well-meaning, had a tendency to distraction and had once previously sent Satsuki out to attend to the representatives of the bakufu with a tortoiseshell comb still lodged in her hair. So Ryuko had taken this duty on herself, and besides, it allowed her to play the obsessive little game that she’d created for herself:
Multiples of three knots: she loves me.
More than five knots: we’ll always be together.
More than ten knots: we’ll become lovers.
Nine knots. Once again there were nine knots. Ryuko began to suspect that Satsuki’s hair had something against her. She regretted now that she’d not stolen a kiss when she’d had the chance; her slight delay to gloat had allowed Satsuki to compose herself, and Ryuko had suddenly found herself being rolled onto the tatami and put into some complicated hold that had left her arms numb. Still, she’d been permitted the reward of an embrace for her triumph in the duel, comedic in its chastity while the two of them remained in their armor. But better yet, she’d been allowed to kiss Satsuki on the neck, along the vein that ran from chin to collarbone, on pain of certain death that she not leave any mark that might draw Hououmaru’s or Lady Ragyo’s attention. The peasant boys of the village would have mocked her for accepting something so trifling as payment, but the way that Satsuki’s eyes closed and her breath quickened as Ryuko ran her tongue over the skin, feeling the blood pumping beneath, made her ache. She wouldn’t have traded it for a night of passion – no, not even a full month of love-making – with anyone else in the world.
In the years following the incident with the peach tree, Satsuki saw more of Ryuko. The Matoi clan had been renowned vassals of the Kiryuins for many generations: Ryuko’s grandfather had led a company of the Kiryuin cavalry during the Battle of Sekigahara where they had fought at the side of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and he had made a name for himself both through his tactical awareness and skill in hand-to-hand combat. It was even said that with the twin swords that Isshin now carried he had struck an arrow from the air that otherwise would have found its mark in the heart of Satsuki’s grandmother, who’d imprudently insisted on riding out with her contingent. The victory of the Tokugawa forces had cemented the Kiryuins’ position of power near the capital, though many suspected that they would have maneuvered themselves into a position of advantage even if Toyotomi had been triumphant, such was their reach and skill in politics as well as martial affairs. But the aftermath of relative peace had not proved as kind to the Matoi family however; their stock-in-trade was the conduct of warfare and with no one to subjugate their wealth and resources began to dwindle.
Matters had finally come to a head. Isshin had taken a young wife – beautiful, it was true, but frail – in the hopes that she would bear him a son who would marry into a more affluent family. But she gave birth to only a single daughter, Ryuko, before she died, shortly before the death of Satsuki’s own father. So Isshin had sold up the family estates, settled his debts, and moved his family and remaining retinue to a more modest estate near Honnou village, within walking distance of the Kiryuin household where he hoped his council and experience, at least, might prove of some value. And there Ryuko was to be tutored and occasionally to attend to Satsuki, in the hopes that she might learn to comport herself at court, and at least give the impression of a young woman of breeding at some indeterminate time in the future.
“And how is Isshin-sama?” Satsuki adjusted the blue silk of her sash, checking its symmetry against the white and gold of her kimono.
Ryuko sighed as she finished the fit of her own clothing. Her father was becoming more and more withdrawn.
“His joints and back are troubling him… And he spends all his time at mother’s shrine.”
She omitted to mention that he was increasingly clumsy, his one good eye causing him to bump into objects around their villa. Only the previous week he’d put his hand through the paper screens to Ryuko’s room while trying to open the door.
“And those miscreant retainers of his?”
Ryuko turned wolfishly to her friend, teeth showing in a wicked grin.
“Oooh… Shall I tell Kinasgase-san that you were asking after him?”
Satsuki looked utterly horrified, and glanced around the room for her sword.
“You will do no such thing!”
Still, unlike Mikisugi, who was as garrulous as a flock of chattering birds, Kinagase at least had the courtesy to remain silent in the main. Just as well, all things considered, given the clumsy pronouncements that he tended to issue when he did speak.
“By the heavens, can you imagine it,” Satsuki continued, “‘Let me tell you two useful pieces of information. One: I love you. Two: You will be my wife.’”
It wasn’t a bad impression, another example of the strange talents that Satsuki concealed, and Ryuko snorted with laughter.
“Stop! Stop! You’re terrible.”
Satsuki relaxed and smiled. Imitating people was a secret delight, and it irked her that it was a skill she could only enjoy in the company of her closest friends.
“I apologize, Ryuko. The two of them are worth fifty men apiece on the battlefield…” Satsuki’s thought trailed off, as she tried to balance honesty with some positive assertion. “and Kinagase-san’s loyalty to your father is commendable, but his brushwork… and that poetry of his…”
Ryuko crossed her arms, resting them, and then her head, against Satsuki’s shoulders.
“My poetry’s terrible too, and you like me.”
The assertion provoked only the subtlest of smiles; Satsuki’s mind was far distant.
The affair of the peach tree was never quite forgotten, even as Satsuki turned fifteen. Sometimes, when Ryuko infuriated her, as was all too frequently the case, she would demand restitution: that all the stolen fruit be replaced. And sometimes even Lady Ragyo would join the discussion, nonchalantly asking, “Has Ryuko-sama replaced the missing fruit yet, Satsuki?” At times like that Isshin would just scowl at his daughter, even as she tried to deflect the question.
Late spring, and as the temperature soared, uncommonly early that year, life on the estate slowed to a standstill. At noon the smooth black rocks in the Zen garden were so hot that they might been fresh pulled from the core of the earth, and even at the deepest point of night the stillness of the air was suffocating, no cooler than standing in a forge the day before battle, surrounded by hot rivers of molten metal.
In the shade of her chambers, Satsuki lay on her mattress, clothed only in the lightest yukata she had been able to find. It was tempting to make her way to the estate’s baths, but her mother had retired there with her latest aide, a young, bespectacled woman of the Hououmaru family, and left strict instructions that they not be disturbed. Amplified through the floorboards she could hear the footsteps of the few servants who were resilient, or dedicated, enough to continue going about their chores in the heat. The slow, perfectly controlled steps of Soroi as he worked in the main rooms. The resonant thumps as Gamagoori marched through the kitchens. And, in a different register of near-silence, the unexpected shuffling of someone attempting to mask their presence as they came up the corridor adjacent to her chambers. Satsuki glanced quickly to the far side of the room where her late father’s sword, Bakuzan, lay out of reach on its stand, and placed her hand quietly on the hilt of the dagger she always kept by her bed. The paper panels were suffused with light from the noonday sun, almost painful to look at, and it was only a moment before a shadow became apparent, moving across them with care. The unseen visitor stopped, crouched, then turned and moved stealthily back along the corridor. As the shadow disappeared there was the slightest sound, someone talking to themselves, or giggling mischievously, but it was too far away to distinguish the one from the other with any certainty.
Satsuki lay poised for a while longer, but there was no further sound. Then she rose quickly, crossed the room and crisply slid the panel open. The corridor was empty, as expected, but by her door was a little tribute: a fine black lacquered tray, packed to overflowing with spring flowers – sakura, ume, momo – and at its center, a large and perfectly ripe peach.
It felt like a little victory: a peace offering from the vagabond girl, an acknowledgment of the Kiryuins’ inherent superiority. Not that Satsuki disliked Ryuko, in truth, but the younger girl was too informal in her friendship, too obstinate in her anger, and perhaps a little too close in ability, at least with the sword, to Satsuki herself not to be put in her place. With a glance to and fro along the corridor to verify she was unobserved, Satuski withdrew to her room with the tray and sat cross-legged to examine its contents.
Ryuko had outdone herself, and Satsuki was momentarily impressed. To find a fruit this large and ripe so early in the season could not have been easy. It was almost flattery. She ran her hand over the surface, enjoying the texture beneath her fingertips. But there was a slight defect, almost infuriating in its subtlety: she raised the fruit up, close to her eye, and her brow furrowed for a moment. Almost imperceptibly fine: a line on the surface of the peach. She pushed gently, not wishing to bruise the tender flesh and a piece shifted slightly, revealing in turn another segment that could be moved. So - it was a puzzle of sorts.
Satsuki sat back and held the fruit up in her right hand, long digits supporting it on fingertips. She could just eat her way to the center, but to do so would perhaps be to defeat the very purpose of the message. She’d heard the folk tales of the local peasantry, of puzzle boxes that opened infernal gateways when solved, but Satsuki was already a fervent rationalist and had long decided that such stories were simply a convenient method for the nobility to discourage troublesome curiosity. Besides, the thought of Ryuko as an onmyoji, a sorceress, was clearly risible; she had trouble remembering the simplest passages of literature, let alone complex incantations.
Piece by fragrant piece, the puzzle revealed itself. The bladework was quite exquisite: the cuts straight and without error, the corners precise. A blade of exceptional quality must have been used. The final few pieces came away, leaving only the pit and causing a moment of confusion. Was there truly nothing inside? It wouldn’t be beyond Ryuko to pull such a meticulous prank; perhaps even now she was laughing at the effort that Satsuki had expended in anticipation of a reward at the center. She probably thought Momotaro was going to jump out at her, the stuck-up idiot. Satsuki bristled for a moment at the thought, but continued to examine the peach pit. It too had been cut into; a final push separated the two halves and a fragment of paper fluttered onto the tatami by her bare leg.
Working carefully with her nails so as not to damage the message, Satsuki unfolded it to reveal a few lines of shakily stroked characters:
When the summer comes
I'll pluck you like a ripe peach
A blush on your cheeks
Despite the choking temperature, Satsuki felt the blood surge to her face. She dropped the message which, seemingly eager for escape, rushed on invisible currents towards the doors for a moment before she caught it again.
A love note. No one had ever sent her such a thing; or perhaps more accurately, none had ever reached her safely. Ryuko, and the author surely was Ryuko from the rough script to the receptacle it had come in, had taken great pains that it not be intercepted by Lady Ragyo, or Hououmaru, or any one of the many others that might have waylaid it. Satsuki felt momentarily light-headed – wafting the paper beneath her nose, she was certain she sensed the subtlest overtone of citrus. She closed her eyes, and for a moment felt strangely at peace, as though someone was cupping her heart in safe, careful hands.
It was a matter for later regret, but in the end she burnt the note, reducing it to ash in a little earthenware bowl, terrified that its contents would be discovered by Hououmaru or her mother. And then she attempted to burn the ashes themselves; convinced that they might yield up their secrets under some form of divination, she poured lamp oil over them and set them alight. The resulting conflagration almost set her room ablaze, but she finally reduced the missive to a fine ash that was later scattered over the gravel pathways that crisscrossed the estate as she walked through the gardens.
So the peach tree was no longer mentioned in any form of public discussion. Guests were sometimes surprised that a flush of color would come to Satsuki’s cheeks if she saw Ryuko eating a peach; but they assumed it was embarrassment at the younger girl’s lack of manners, and the way she allowed the juice to run down her chin as she chewed, a grin on her face.
Thus began Matoi Ryuko’s strange courtship of Kiryuin Satsuki.
“Satsuki-sama.” The voice was deferent and formal, but nonetheless the speaker had appeared outside the door undetected by either Satsuki or Ryuko.
“Ragyo-sama desires your presence at an audience in the central chambers,” she continued. “Ryuko-sama is also to attend – her father has already arrived.”
Satsuki could feel the question that Ryuko was about to ask, but she placed a finger to her lips.
“Thank you, Hououmaru. Tell my mother that we will attend her momentarily.”
“As you wish, Satsuki-sama.”
They waited silently, expectant for the gentle creaking of the boards in the corridor, and the judder of the door to the grounds opening.
“Has your mother…?” Ryuko was the first to speak.
“Spoken further about a betrothal?” Satsuki shook her head. “No, it’s not been mentioned for some months now. Not after we last argued about it.” In fact the disappearance of this topic of conversation had become a perpetual source of disquiet for Satsuki – it was rare for her mother to relent until she had what she wanted.
Ryuko was more content, however, that marriage appeared unlikely in the near future. She knew that as eldest, indeed as only child, in the Kiryuin household, marriage was a certainty for Satsuki at some point, but she entertained a number of romantic notions of how she might best circumvent that particular irritation. Best of all was the adventurous fantasy that she would become Satsuki’s personal bodyguard and assassin, carrying out secret missions for her and protecting her from harm when her husband was absent, ideally from as close quarters as possible; indeed if that protection need extend into the bedroom itself, that was all to the good. She’d gone as far as to demand that she be trained in the shinobi arts as a kunoichi, and that, more than anything else she’d done of late, had incensed her father. Combat by stealth was not the Matoi way, it was claimed: better to charge full-tilt into the mouths of the cannons than to wage warfare from the shadows.
But while the romance of a life of intrigue and adventure in Satsuki’s service was appealing, Ryuko was not so foolish as to submit to the dream entirely. The little voice of common sense, that she so often tried to suppress, would whisper quietly to her that reality would, in the end, be different to that, though hopefully not unendurable. Satsuki would eventually marry, ideally someone equally rich and of high estate, and she would have children: a daughter for the Kiryuin name and a son for her husband’s sake. And then – and Ryuko understood that this was a dark thought, even if it was rooted in affection – and then Satsuki’s husband would meet his end, either peacefully in his bed, or nobly on the battlefield; in any case a death beyond reproach which would yield no risk for Satsuki herself. And afterwards she would remain a widow, eliciting admiration at court for her commitment to her late husband’s memory, while she and Ryuko raised her children together. It was true that this would require Ryuko to become Satsuki’s lady-in-waiting, but such a position was not frowned upon in the upper tiers of society, and she had some hope that Isshin would accede to the idea, particularly if he felt that she would never amount to much as a wife.
So, it was with these thoughts in mind that Ryuko followed Satsuki through the corridors of the villa, a few steps behind as protocol dictated, as they made their way to where the audience was to be held. For anyone else Ryuko would have bristled at the subservient position, but walking behind Satsuki had pleasures of its own, most particularly when she was arrayed in her finest. The way the silk moved over her legs, making them almost visible as she walked; it was forever tempting just to reach out and run a hand over the back of her thigh.
Satsuki stopped up short, so crisply that Ryuko almost ran into the back of her. Someone else was in the corridor, and the gradual bend of the waist as Satsuki began to bow telegraphed a warning. Heart thumping, Ryuko followed suit, hands clasped at her waist, leaning forward into saikeirei and beyond – to be any more respectful would have required fully kneeling and touching her forehead to the floor.
“Mother,” she heard Satsuki almost whisper.
“Satsuki, our beloved daughter.” The figure in white stopped before them both. Behind her, Ryuko could just see Hououmaru bringing up the rear. “And Ryuko-sama. How delightful that we see you again.”
Lady Ragyo stepped past Satsuki and stood in front of Ryuko, who felt the blood roar in her ears. Trapped in the bow, she could only see the lower half of Ragyo’s kimono, but the material was brilliant, blinding white, even in the muted sunlight of the afternoon.
“Let us see you properly, Ryuko-sama,” Ragyo placed a slim, pale finger under Ryuko’s chin, applying gentle pressure until she straightened up.
Ryuko dared a glance upwards, and saw once again Lady Ragyo’s face: heart-stoppingly beautiful and heart-wrenchingly terrifying. It was the face the ancients must have seen in the avalanche – all perfect whiteness before it fell upon them and crushed the breath from their lungs, the vengeance of the ice giants. And around it, the blindingly white hair, so white that as the light caught it, you could see rainbows dancing. The old women that worked the kitchens had sworn to Ryuko that Lady Ragyo’s hair had once been as black as her daughter’s, but that on the night of her husband’s – of Soichiro’s – death, the color had left it – spirited away along with his soul. And Ryuko had heard the other rumors too: that she’d killed him with sorcery, the same fate that had snuffed out the breath of Kiryuin men back a thousand generations, and that those in power, or those in want of power, always came to the women of the Kiryuin family for divination or contact with the otherworld.
“We are informed that you will likely surpass even your father with the sword,” The eyes were wide, unblinking, the deep brown of antique wood in a funeral bier. A single, slender finger touched Ryuko’s chest through the opening in her kimono.
“Take care that you do not pierce our daughter’s heart, Ryuko-sama.” The corners of Ragyo’s mouth were… It was impossible to tell whether it was a smile or a snarl, and Ryuko felt the hair at the back of her neck stand to attention as her blood became a frozen river.
Does she know?
“I take great care of it, Ragyo-sama,” was all Ryuko managed to stammer, but Ragyo turned away, past Satsuki and started down the corridor again.
“We are certain that you do. Come.” There was lightness in the voice, as though the two of them were sharing a joke, but Ragyo did not look back and Hououmaru only followed along as the two of them headed for the audience chamber.
Inside, Satsuki and Ryuko were separated – the older girl to take up her wonted position at her mother’s side, a foot or so respectably behind her, while Ryuko had to sit next to Isshin. He glared at her, as usual, but seemed satisfied enough with the condition in which she had presented herself.
Ragyo raised a hand, no more than an inch or so, but nonetheless the room became still.
“Our dear friends,” her voice echoed in the room as though she were moving from guest to guest. Ryuko suddenly felt her breath by her ear, and shivered. “It delights us greatly to see you all here today, a day on which we have such auspicious news to convey.”
There was a momentary susurration of surprise, but Ryuko saw nothing but confusion and no little concern on Satsuki’s face. Surely a marriage hadn’t been arranged without her knowledge?
Ragyo placed a hand upon her stomach with a small smile of satisfaction.
“We have been blessed, and are with child once again.”
This time the noise was almost a roar.
“How?” Ryuko mouthed the word and looked across sharply at Satsuki who just shook her head, a small but decisive motion.
Kuroido, the odious lecher that was Lady Ragyo’s head steward, moved forward and bowed deeply, touching his head to the mats.
“Ragyo-sama – I speak for all assembled here when I say how happy this news makes us.”
“As always, Kuroido, your happiness is my first concern,” she replied with a crystalline laugh.
“My lady.” He bowed deeper still, pressing his forehead to the ground.
Ryuko looked on in confusion. Doesn’t he realize that she’s just laughing at him?
Inhaling deeply, Ragyo closed her eyes and placed both hands on her belly.
"We shall name our daughter Kiryuin Harime no Nui."
Satsuki's steward, Soroi, bowed respectfully, but without any of the excesses shown by Kuroido.
"And if the child is a boy, Ragyo-sama?"
Her eyes opened wide with amusement, and again Ryuko saw the slight, unfathomable curl of her lips.
"We are assured it will be a girl."
A low murmur rippled through the room, but the elder, wiser guests were all nodding sagely. Of course it would be a girl; the Kiryuin lineage was maintained through a legacy of mothers and daughters, and the rare sons born into the line invariably died young and unlamented.
Far from where Ryuko sat, near the main entrance where a few privileged residents of Honnou village had been allowed to attend, there was a momentary commotion: sleeves pulled, voices raised in anger or entreaty. Then a young man, perhaps three years older than Ryuko at most, placed a small lacquered box on the floor and prostrated himself in front of Lady Ragyo and the assembled nobility.
"Ragyo-sama! As a representative of the people of Honnou, I beg you receive this small gift from us in honor of this occasion, and in grateful thanks for your careful stewardship of our lands."
For a moment, Ryuko saw Ragyo's eyebrows rise, as though this was something truly unexpected, but then she regained her mask of absolute composure, and gestured for the young man to approach.
The box was slim, black, and the chips on the polished surface hinted at age and an eventful history. Embossed in flaking gold leaf on the top surface was a crest: a five-lobed persimmon flower. Try as Ryuko might, she was unable to link the design to any family she knew of, either from the lands around Honnou or even further afield.
The young man lifted the lid carefully, setting it down with a care appropriate to its apparent antiquity. Inside, on a bed of radiant, red silk, was a slim dagger, black-handled within a black scabbard.
"If I may, Ragyo-sama..." the young man began, lifting it and drawing it slightly to reveal the blade.
There was an explosion that blew out the lamps at the head of the room, and shook the floor and panels like a transient earthquake. Ryuko could see the guests and nobles start to rise, but it was too late: the young man was sprawled on his back, his right arm twisted to breaking point, held seemingly effortlessly by Ragyo's left hand. She had half stood, had just moved forward and up half a step, but she had him pinned to the mats so firmly that he roared with pain. The dagger was still in his hand, but the blade was broken off at the hilt, pieces scattered on the floor around him. And she was still smiling, the strange, impenetrable half-smile Ryuko had seen before.
"Calm yourselves. We are unharmed." Ragyo continued to stare at the man, like a cat with its paw placed firmly on the body of a struggling rodent, until finally the guards came forward and seized him.
"Tell me, young man. Who are you, that come into our house wishing harm to our person in the presence of our friends?"
He struggled against his captors, and two, even three soldiers seemed less able to restrain him than Ragyo's lightly placed wrist.
"I am Shingen of Honnou village. My sister Furi came to the estate to work in your employ. We have not heard from her in over a year, just like other girls from the village! Murderess!"
The answer seemed to delight Ragyo, who began to laugh in the cold, crystalline way that put Ryuko in mind of daggers of ice suspended perilously above her in a mountain cave.
"Oh, but you are mistaken, dear Shingen-san," she ran a hand through the perfect, glacial hair, and rainbows danced in the darkness. "We remember Furi-san, do we not, Hououmaru?"
Hououmaru nodded, seemingly unperturbed by the apparent threat to her mistress.
"A charming girl: well-mannered. A credit to her family, as we are sure you are also. But incautious with her heart, we think," and with that she glanced briefly, but with intensity, at Ryuko. "She gave it away too easily - such a tragedy. But come, Hououmaru. We must make amends and have this young man for dinner this evening."
Later, and the room was empty; Ryuko alone remained, still sat carefully in seiza as her father had taught her. Lady Ragyo had left with Hououmaru for whatever dinner or diversions they were planning; Satsuki had been similarly summoned away to attend her mother. Isshin was gone, along with Mikisugi and Kinagase, checking the grounds for further assassins. In her lap was a single fragment of the dagger, fractured cleanly into a triangle of black. Ragyo had brushed the worries of Kuroido and the others present aside; the blade had been of poor quality, she claimed, purely by a combination of chance and skill she had struck it on the flat and it had shattered. Ryuko turned the piece over in her hand: she knew a little of metalworking and metallurgy, as much as her father had deemed it important she know in order that she could tell a good blade from a poor one, and the metal seemed far from suspect. The wavering line of the hamon was beautiful, like rough seas on the coast, and the nioi, the crystalline particles embedded in the blade, danced like fireflies. And beneath that shifting starfield were inclusions of red, like fine veins through the metal: something she had never seen before.
No one else had seen. No else was fast enough, or had been paying sufficient attention. Satsuki would have noticed, but she had been behind her mother, her line of sight blocked. And Isshin-the-younger would also have noticed perhaps, but now with his eye, and his age, it had gone unseen by him too. Ragyo hadn't blocked the blade; Ryuko had seen Shingen draw and attack in one smooth motion, a precise strike by someone who had rehearsed this moment over and over again, repeated until his mind need only say "move" and his body would execute its task. She'd seen the blade strike Ragyo at the solar plexus, an undoubtedly fatal blow, but when it had touched the white silk of her kimono it hadn't slipped through like a hot coal dropped into snow, but for a moment she was sure she'd seen it deform and then shatter, as surely as if he'd struck it against a rocky cliff-edge.
She turned the triangle of metal in her fingers: now only a beautiful memory of a weapon.
The next day when Ryuko called at the estate, Hououmaru informed her that Satsuki had been taken ill and would not be receiving visitors, and though she waited at the gates for several hours, in the end she was forced to return home without seeing her friend, and without the opportunity to discuss the events of the previous day.
Spring, earlier that same year: the strange twilight time between Ryuko's seventeenth and Satsuki's eighteenth birthdays, the unnatural interval where for a few months they were the same age, the unnatural interval wherein Ryuko would do all in her power to usurp the natural order of seniority.
Backed into the corner of the storage space in which she had cloistered herself, Satsuki stifled a laugh. From outside, somewhere in the periphery of the building, she could hear Ryuko's shouts of "Kiryuin! Kiryuin Satsuki!! Show yourself!"
Her mother was absent, gone with Hououmaru to the capital, ostensibly to see the newly-sprung blossoms but more likely to perform auguries for the Shogun and consult on matters of the occult. Isshin was gone too, travelling as her bodyguard and companion, and to see to affairs of his own, so it had been none too surprising when Ryuko appeared in the early afternoon, a jug of rice wine in her hand, half of which she’d consumed on the walk over.
Sake held little attraction for Satsuki, who preferred the stillness and refinement of tea ceremony, but she had a weakness for challenges, especially when the strengths of the Kiryuins versus the Matoi family were called into question. Thus it had not been difficult for Ryuko to convince her to participate in various challenges of coordination and dexterity – though not of knowledge and reasoning, unsurprisingly – where drinking was the accepted forfeit for failure. And Satsuki’s uncontrolled laughter at one of Ryuko’s failed attempts had led to the current game of hide-and-seek – a response to the threat of actual physical harm, or at least a tarnished reputation, were Ryuko to get her hands on her.
Out in the corridor, Ryuko was moving slowly and supposedly stealthily, but her intent was obvious from her whispered chant of “Kiryuin… Kiryuin Satsukiiiiii…” and her prey was forced to jam her knuckles into her mouth in order to suppress another attack of the giggles. Shown in silhouette, Satsuki could see Ryuko move past the concealed door to her hiding space; as she did so an idea formed, a rebellious seed of a concept, but to put that plan in motion Satsuki would need to escape into the gardens and the forest beyond. She held her breath as Ryuko moved further down the corridor – only a few steps more and she could fling open the door and make a break for the outside.
The footsteps stopped, and then inevitably started to move back towards the concealed room. Had she made a noise? Surely not… Then had Ryuko remembered the secret storage spaces that were hidden throughout the estate? Had the two of them ever hidden here when they had been younger? The answer was moot now – she was clearly standing directly by the hidden door. Satsuki braced herself, trying to find purchase on the wooden floor with her bare feet, gripping with her toes as best she could.
“Found you!”
Ryuko flung open the door and lunged forward but Satsuki was already moving, diving forward under the outstretched arms and allowing herself to slide on the polished wood floor of the corridor, before she rose and started to run for the gardens. Behind her was only tumult as Ryuko fell into the cupboard, bedding and tools collapsing onto her.
And then the blinding transition from the soft light of the villa’s passages to the bright sunlight of the grounds. Satsuki was running at speed now, feeling the grass between her toes, still damp from the morning dew; now she could laugh, and in laughing she felt a great surge of energy. She dared a glance back, and saw Ryuko, disorientated, emerging onto the veranda.
“Dammit, Kiryuin!”
Delight at the ridiculousness of the situation just made Satsuki accelerate, pressing onwards towards the path into the woods, but once in the shadows, under the cover of the trees she slowed a little, heeding the little voice that had been nagging at her.
Don’t go too fast. You wouldn’t want that she never catches you.
The contrast of the white of her kimono ought to have been visible between the dark trunks, and Satsuki could hear Ryuko’s steps on the path behind, in concert with occasional cacophony as she ricocheted off and through the bushes. The torches of the little shrine were clear enough ahead of her now, and she sped up again – her objective would soon be obvious. Seen from the villa, the ascents of the hills, the almost-mountains, to the west of the estate were imposing and beautiful, but from within the forest itself, where the rock surfaces were doubly black with shadows, they still made Satsuki’s hair stand on end, just as they had done when she was a small child. Still, there was no time for fear if Ryuko was not to catch her before she reached her destination, so she grabbed a torch, pushed aside the false wall at the rear of the shrine and slipped through the hidden portal into the mountain interior.
The first few hundred steps down were beautifully cut and finished, a testament to the skill of the stonemason, but as Satsuki descended further into the suffocating blackness the steps became rougher, harder to negotiate safely, and the final tens were little more than the natural structures of the rock, shaped by the gods alone while the world was still young. She found the dead end, as she expected, and placing the torch in an iron stand waited for Ryuko, whose arrival was foretold by a litany of curses as she descended the steps.
“Damn, Satsuki. You could have said that the ceiling lowered here!” That particular outburst was presaged by a noise like someone striking a hammer against the rock, and Satsuki struggled to suppress a laugh.
“You won’t be laughing in a minute, milady,” Ryuko finally appeared at the base of the stairs, short of breath and disheveled from her tussles with the forest and the rocks of the passage, and still swaying slightly from the effects of the rice wine. Satsuki backed further up against the wall, but it was impossible not to smile at Ryuko’s attempts to appear threatening. She strode forward, hoping to intimidate, but the effect was undermined as she misjudged the remaining steps in the flickering light; her foot met empty air instead of firm bedrock and she fell forwards, landing flat on her face.
In time, though far too long for Ryuko’s liking, Satsuki’s laughter reverberated way to nothing, echoes escaping back up the passageway to the surface. She pulled Ryuko up, checking that no permanent damage had been done: no missing teeth at least.
“How is your nose?” There was a little dab of blood beneath one nostril.
“Kiss it better?” Ryuko did her best to look endearingly hopeful, but Satsuki just shook her head slightly, in an almost infinitesimal negation.
She backed up against the wall, pulling Ryuko forward by the hand.
“What can you see?”
Ryuko squinted – as far as she could tell there was just Satsuki and behind her the roughly textured rocky surface of the cave wall.
“You?” It was all she wanted to see at that moment.
“Behind me, you idiot.” It was a reproach, but an affectionate one at least, and Satsuki smiled, sharing the mischievous glance.
“Behind you?” Ryuko began to grin too, the pain in her nose forgotten. “You mean that sweet Kiryuin…”
Satsuki sighed. “The wall, Ryuko. Look properly at the wall.”
Her head was swimming from the rice wine, and that and the blow she’d received were making it hard to focus, so she ran her fingers over the rock instead, feeling lines and whorls, depressions and protuberances. Feeling… order. It was almost impossible to see in the torchlight, but the surface of the wall hadn’t been textured by age or nature, it was instead the clear product of intent. And just by where Satsuki stood was a fine line running vertically from floor to ceiling.
“It’s… a door?”
“You should feel honored. No one outside the family has seen this for hundreds of years.”
“If that’s a proposition to become part of your family – I graciously accept.”
Ryuko bowed for a moment, then stepped back and adopted an exaggerated pose of proclamation.
“Vaguely threatening and opaque pronouncements!!”
She pulled herself up to her full height and placed her hands as though resting them on a staff or the hilt of sheathed sword.
“Whaddya think? Reckon I could be a Kiryuin?”
Satsuki began to laugh again, but the light, warm laugh of affection this time.
“You could have some Kiryuin in you, indeed.”
“I’d certainly like some Kiryuin in me, like maybe one or two…”
“I need some help with the door, Ryuko.” Satsuki quickly cut off the sentence before it gave her cause to blush. “Do you still have the rice wine with you? And that little knife you’re always carrying?”
She disappeared amongst the rocks for a moment, and then reappeared with three small bowls: one in wood, one bright orange metal – copper, it seemed – and one roughly carved from stone. The wooden one was filled with water from a rivulet that had forced its way through a fissure in the rocks, the metal one with a small portion of the rice wine – no more than a mouthful – while the last, the stone bowl, received a few drops of blood from Satsuki’s palm, the result of a small, precise cut with Ryuko’s knife. Then Satsuki set the three bowls down in front of the door in a perfect triangle, and gestured for Ryuko to help her.
“Why the bowls?” Ryuko inquired as between them they pushed the door open. It was massive stone, more than a foot thick, but it swung easily as though perfectly balanced on its pivot. “Are they wards so that we can go in?”
“They’re to prevent anything from coming out.” Satsuki took the torch from the stand and disappeared through the doorway. “If you believe that sort of thing, of course.”
With better light the passageway might have seemed spacious, impressive even, but illuminated only by the torch it was claustrophobic, oppressive, the weight and the threat of the rock above ever apparent – only the little bubble of luminance keeping it in suspension. Satsuki pressed on, leaving Ryuko in the dwindling light behind her.
“I thought you didn’t believe any of that superstitious stuff! To stop what coming out? Hey, Satsuki!”
Satsuki could sense space ahead of her, and quickened her step.
“All superstitions are grounded in at least some reality…” Satsuki called back down the passage, then smiled wryly. “How do you expect to win my hand, if you can’t even protect me from the most trivial of otherworldly threats?”
That, or the prospect of being trapped in the impenetrable dark, was sufficient to bring Ryuko to her side.
“You know I’d protect you from…”
She stopped up short beside Satsuki, sensing the openness around them, and was surprised when Satsuki took her hand again. The sound alone, the change in reverberation, was sufficient to indicate they’d entered some sort of chamber: the immediate, instant impression being that of cavernous enormity. Ryuko allowed herself to be led forward, trusting Satsuki’s knowledge, or intuition, without question for a change. And when they stopped, Satsuki raised the torch and said but a single word.
“Look.”
There was ancient wood, and pitted metal, a mechanism of intricate complexity and immense size. Beams and spindles, and threads upon threads extending back into the darkness. It stirred memories in Ryuko that were so old that they seemed to belong to another lifetime, of sitting beside her mother as she worked her hand loom with frail, fragile fingers, even that little effort almost too much for her.
“Behold! The source of our power! The Seimei Loom!”
Perhaps it was the wine, but for a moment Satsuki could not resist conforming to her family’s custom for grandiose proclamations. But behind her Ryuko knelt, and touched her fingers to the cold stone.
“Is this… blood here?”
The flickering light was insufficient to allow certainty, but intermixed with the dark brown of antique stains were bright red splashes of something more recent.
“Our family history relates that in more primitive times blood sacrifices were made to the loom to ensure its good favor.” Release flooded into Satsuki as she was finally able to share the secrets she’d teased out after months studying the fraying parchments of the Kiryuin archives.
“Legends tell that if an appropriate contract is made with the loom, it will make anything you desire, anything at…”
The speech was cut off as she swallowed and tensed, rigid as an iron pillar. She’d felt Ryuko’s fingertips brush her Achilles tendons, and then move delicately up the backs of her calves. When the caress reached the backs of her knees, her legs almost gave way, her one unforgiveable physical weakness that only Ryuko seemed able to exploit. Then the fingertips, and it was perhaps only the index finger of each hand, began to move up her thighs, tracing the curve of the muscles, and she realized that they were also lifting the back of her kimono. So she gently took Ryuko’s hands, pulled her upright and drew her arms around her waist instead, hoping she wouldn’t find her way to worse mischief.
Ryuko placed her chin on Satsuki’s right shoulder, as well as she could, given the inch or so in height that separated the two of them.
“If it can make anything, could it make us a marriage bed?”
She grinned, but squeezed Satsuki’s waist gently.
“Matoi… this is something of significance I’m sharing with you. Please try to be more serious.”
Perhaps it came out too disapproving, too parental, or too much like something Isshin would say, but Satsuki felt her friend pull back from her and then rest her forehead on her shoulder, the subtle gesture that she’d come to realize meant that Ryuko was struggling to say something from deep within her.
“Do you think it could make you love me?”
Satsuki closed her eyes. There it was again – the signal proof that she still had less skill with words than she did with weapons. She turned slowly – careful not to dislodge Ryuko’s hands, with all that would mean – and lifted her face up again.
It would be so easy to move a little forward. So easy to close the distance between them and let their lips touch. Her eyes were closed, but Satsuki was sure that she could feel Ryuko’s heart hammering in her ribcage, propagated from one to the other in the embrace – certain, that was, until she realized that it was the beating of her own heart that she could feel.
“Ryuko, I…”
There must have been other pathways in the darkness, perhaps little more than tortuous cracks running to the surface, because she felt a draft and heard the loom chatter briefly behind her. But it was chilling enough that she stopped herself, and only reached up and instead placed a fleeting kiss on Ryuko’s forehead, as if she were kissing her to sleep.
“The wine is making you maudlin, you idiot.”
She split the torch in two, and wrapped Ryuko’s unresisting fingers around half of it.
“Go. Go on back to the surface. I’ll shut this monster away safely.”
Ryuko didn’t move, but held her position, head bowed: a statue of disconsolation.
“You’re sending me back home.”
With a snort of mock exasperation, Satsuki turned her around bodily and pushed her towards the passage back to the mysterious doorway.
“No, I’m sending you back to my chambers. Now do as your elders and betters instruct.”
She gave her a forceful shove then, as though they were both children still to reach even their tenth year, and Ryuko finally disappeared into the passage, the torchlight bobbing like kitsunebi in the distance.
“Have a care for the low ceiling!” Satsuki called, but the chain of expletives that echoed back to her confirmed that the warning had come too late.
Splinters of wood had fallen from the torch when she’d split it, and Satsuki meticulously gathered each one, storing it carefully inside the folds of her clothes before sweeping the torch backwards and forwards for any remaining pieces. Then, when she had convinced herself at least twice over that no sign of their visit could be found, she returned to the door, dragging it closed and ensuring the seal was complete. Then the three bowls: removed, and washed in the underground stream until no trace of their former contents remained. She dried them, taking care that not a single droplet would reveal their use – and it was unfortunate, if inevitable, that her sleeves had to be pressed into duty for this menial task – and then she set them back where she had found them, and finally she began the long climb up to the hidden entrance and the shrine.
As she reached the upper stages of the man-made steps, and the creeping daylight turned the blacks to greys and eventually to subtle shades of greens and browns, she felt an unexpected pang of nerves and excitement. What if Ryuko wasn’t waiting for her at the entrance, what if she had already returned to the house? And what if she were to return to her chambers and find Ryuko already under the quilt, her clothes folded neatly in the corner of the room, bare shoulders showing above the pattern of the fabric? There was plenty of spare bedding, of course, and the quilt was large – she could sleep on top of it in her clothes, if need be. Or…
In the end the fear, or anticipation, was unwarranted. Satsuki exited the shrine, carefully restoring the false wall behind her, only to find a pair of familiar legs protruding from a nearby bush, their position demarked by anguished moaning. She pulled Ryuko into a sitting position, noting with distaste the unfocused gaze and gagging at the terrible smell.
“S’ry.” It was a half mumbled apology of sorts. “G’t b’red… Dr’nk rest the w’ne.”
A second, empty, jug lay by her, its stopper rolling forlornly in the dirt.
Oh, Ryuko. Not an entire jug on your own. The admonishment was about to cross her lips when Satsuki felt Ryuko’s stomach tense, and she had scarcely enough time to turn her to the side before she was spectacularly sick again.
“S’ry S’tsuki… L’v you… Y’r my b’st fr’nd.”
So when the wave of nausea had passed, Satsuki picked up Ryuko across her shoulders, as she’d seen the soldiers bear their fallen comrades, and carried her back to the house and her bed chamber. There she stripped Ryuko of her soiled clothing – but only as far as her underclothes, for decency’s sake – and wrapped her in her best quilt and allowed her to sleep. Satsuki had sat next to her, making sure she had fresh water and an empty bowl if need be, and had dozed lightly and dreamt of the chattering of the loom. And the next day, when Ryuko was sufficiently restored as to be able to drink a little miso and eat some plain rice, Satsuki mocked her mercilessly that she’d spent the night in her bed and had no recollection of the pleasures they’d enjoyed together.
On the second day of Satsuki’s illness Ryuko was again turned away at the gate to the Kiryuin estate, and on the third day also, but on the fourth day she was greeted not by Hououmaru, but by Soroi, who led her up the pathway to the villa through the red-leaved arbors.
“Satsuki-sama is very weak,” and Ryuko was surprised at how diminished his own steps seemed to be, in stark contrast with the vigor that normally marked his passage in defiance of his age. “But your presence will lift her spirits, I think.”
Her maids had moved her bed to a room overlooking the ornamental lake, and she was at least sitting when Ryuko entered, but Satsuki’s skin was ashen, and the long black hair, that normally had a vitality all its own, was greasy and lifeless. Ryuko shuddered for a moment: her friend resembled nothing so much as her mother in the days leading up to her death.
“It seems I am at your mercy, Ryuko-sama.” Her lips smiled, but the eyes were tired and haunted, black rings beneath them blacker still upon the white skin.
“I don’t take advantage of helpless waifs,” Ryuko did her best to smile in return, but the gesture felt hollow and equally forced. “And besides, I’d probably snap you in half, state you’re in now.”
She sat down on the quilt beside Satsuki, resting against one of the dark, aged wood posts that framed the room, and then Ryuko let the older girl lean back against her, carefully placing an arm around her waist.
“I brought you some fruit,” she offered, pulling a nashi pear from inside her clothes and rubbing it clean on the fine silk of the quilt.
“I thought it would have been peaches…” Satsuki’s voice was quiet, but there was a tiny undercurrent of disappointment.
“Satsuki the farmer speaks,” Ryuko chided, “but they’re not in season and besides, they don’t keep that well. Did you think my feelings were so transitory?”
“‘Transitory’. It’s not like you to use such language; do I really appear so unwell?”
Satsuki felt around the bed for a knife to prepare the fruit, causing Ryuko to roll her eyes.
“You could just bite into it, y’know. Like the common peasantry have managed to do for hundreds of years.”
Satsuki shot her a stormy glance at the comment, as though she’d been instructed to eat from the pig trough, and for a moment Ryuko saw her usual demeanor, defiant beneath the appearance of frailty. For an instant, at least, she was reassured.
“Invalids can be so demanding. C’mon, give.”
There was only token resistance as Ryuko reclaimed the pear and, taking her little knife from inside her obi, she began to cut it into bite-sized segments.
“Sure you don’t want me to chew it for you? We could move it mouth-to-mouth, like the birds do.”
“That will not be necessary.”
There was bite in the voice, and a little color in the cheeks, and Ryuko relaxed further. Whatever the strange affliction was, it seemed to be countered by simple food and some good company. She stole a glance at the remains of Satsuki’s morning meal: rice, and some raw tuna that seemed free of spoil, of exceptional quality in fact. Was it possible, even conceivable, that someone was poisoning her? Gamagoori seemed to run the kitchens with a rod of iron, but there was always the possibility that something had escaped even his attention. Better to be safe; better to be certain.
So when the maids appeared later with a midday meal, Ryuko sent them away, though the scents set her own mouth watering. Instead she drew fresh water from the well herself, surprising the gardeners who had been raking the freshly fallen leaves, and she split the little package of lunch that Mako had made for her – the slightly overdone rice and the mysterious parcels with their authentically organic tubes and gristle – between the two of them.
“I’ll have Mako make a double portion tomorrow.” Ryuko combed out Satsuki’s hair as she rested against her, working with the simple wooden comb that she carried for herself, but there were no knots today, the hair unwilling to offer up any predictions for the future.
“You look like you haven’t slept since I last saw you.” Satsuki seemed strong enough now to respond to some curiosity. “What is it? Pain? Sickness?”
Satsuki waited until Ryuko was between strokes of the comb and then shook her head.
“I sleep, but I have no rest. During the day my strength returns, but I wake each morning weaker than the day before.”
“And your mother has nothing to say?” For all her customary bravado, Ryuko had a dread of Lady Ragyo, but it was also true that she knew of no one with better knowledge of herbs and the mysterious workings of the body.
Satsuki took the comb from Ryuko’s hand and set it down beside them, then took her hand with its calloused fingers and drew Ryuko’s arm around her waist again.
“She is preoccupied with her own condition.”
She shifted against Ryuko, trying to find a more comfortable position.
“We should never have unsealed the loom, Ryuko.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I have terrible dreams now. I am in the cavern beneath the mountain and the loom is working; no matter what I say or demand, it keeps weaving. And eventually I see what is inside the mechanism: it is weaving me. And sometimes it’s weaving you.”
The thought of it made her hair stand on end, but Ryuko just pulled Satsuki a little closer.
“You should sleep. I’ll keep watch while you rest.”
Satsuki’s eyes were fluttering closed and her voice was drowsy.
“Stay, Ryuko. Stay tonight. Mother will not let you sleep here, but there are rooms across the lake where you will be able to watch over me. Stay, and stop the spirits from taking me while I sleep.”
Satsuki slept deeply, nestled against her friend, until the light began to fade. And when she awoke she was further restored, more like her usual self, and they talked for a while and ate the food that Soroi had brought from Mako, having made the journey to and from the Matoi estate in a fraction of the time it took Ryuko to make the same.
Ryuko rolled herself in the blanket and looked out at Satsuki’s room beyond the lake. A little earlier she’d observed a palanquin arrive at the central wing, accompanied by a company of horsemen, and after a number of ceremonies it had disgorged both Hououmaru and Lady Ragyo. The latter’s belly had swelled noticeably since the announcement of her pregnancy, and this Ryuko found strange, but there was no one for her to ask whether this was an unusual turn of events or not. It seemed shorter than the customary duration for cats, for example, as she thought of the queen and the kittens she’d nursed in the barn on their estate, but maybe it was different for noble ladies – they probably had less time for such things. And she allowed herself the little luxury of imagining Satsuki pregnant, her belly tight as a drum, and placing her hand on it to feel the baby kick. “And what will you call her?” “Why, Ryuko, of course.” She might have been deceiving herself, but it was a harmless enough deceit, and it cheered her a little after the worries of the day.
The lights had just been dimmed in Satsuki’s quarters, the maids bowing at the entrance as they left, and Ryuko moved to afford herself a better view of the room and the approaches to it. She was missing a sword, but she at least had the little knife with her, and she’d broken the handle off an unidentifiable gardening tool which she would press into use as a staff if the need arose. In the cold night air, mist rose up off the surface of the lake, turning in spirals like exotic dancers. The light from the moon was blinding white, even though it was only half full, and the vista became white with it, white building up layer upon layer, like snow on the mountainside.
Ryuko blinked. The white was the white of the dawn clouds, the sun rising over the horizon. Here and there in the blue sky, the pinpoints of the brightest stars were still visible. Her heart sank – she’d promised Satsuki, and sworn to herself, that she would stay awake until the dawn, and only sleep when it was clear any danger had passed. Cursing herself for her lack of stamina, she raced round the lake, desperate to determine whether Satsuki’s condition had improved.
Her wish was to be confounded, however. She found Satsuki half out of the bed, the quilt and mattress in disarray as though she’d slept fitfully. And just as she had claimed, her skin was white, almost translucent, now – all the good of the previous day undone.
“Soroi! SOROI!!” Ryuko screamed the name, with a volume that even she found surprising.
The two of them did what they could to warm and restore Satsuki with tea and fresh food, but even Mako’s mysterious korokke seemed to have lost their efficacy, and by the end of the day she was little better than she had been when Ryuko had first seen her the previous morning.
Evening came again, and Soroi dimmed the lamps and drew the panels closed. Satsuki was tucked carefully into bed, sleeping soundly and normally as far as Ryuko could tell. But out on the veranda, Soroi took her aside for a moment and to her surprise bowed deeply to her, deeper than even the peasants did when Lady Ragyo passed.
“Ryuko-sama – please look after Satsuki-sama.”
The weight of responsibility made her shudder for a moment, the unfamiliar feeling of someone else placing their trust in her, when the only person who had ever trusted her previously was Satsuki.
“Yeah… yeah… I got it.” She tried to quell her own fears with a little swagger. “That’s what the Matoi clan does – bail out these dumb Kiryuins when they get themselves in trouble.”
The little room across the lake was to be her hiding place again for the night, and she settled herself against the wall, sufficiently far back that from the outside an observer would have seen only mottled shadows. She had her knife, and the staff, and a pair of usable, if unremarkable, swords that Soroi had brought her from the estate’s armory. Fearing that a full stomach would make her drowsy, she hadn’t eaten since lunch and had kept only a simple jug of water beside her; hopefully the pangs of hunger would prick her to wakefulness at least to the same extent that her growling stomach made her testy and short-tempered. As the light faded, and the mist rose off the lake once again she turned the little knife in her hands, testing the keenness of the tip against her leg.
Searing pain jolted her awake. She’d dozed, and in doing so had slumped forward, driving the knife a not inconsiderable distance into her thigh. She cursed herself again, but looking out of the room saw the mist still on the lake, the sky still black, the moon and stars perfectly visible. There was motion in Satsuki’s quarters across the lake, shadows shifting against the light, but as she grasped the swords and prepared for an attack, she saw the panels open and Lady Ragyo emerge, supported by Hououmaru. She was heavily pregnant now, unable to move with any speed, and it seemed that the birth of Satsuki’s sister was surely imminent. Hououmaru continued to support her as they traversed the gravel pathways, and together they moved slowly towards the central wing where her own rooms lay.
When it was clear there was no chance of observation, Ryuko sprinted round the lake, swords in hand and burst into Satsuki’s room. Again the bed was disarrayed, Satsuki slumped across the floor like a broken marionette, her nightclothes part open. But there on her shoulder, livid red against sickly white, was an oozing bite mark: not showing the prominent fangs of the dog, nor the single puncture of an insect sting, but a full bite from clearly human teeth. Blood continued to seep from it, running down her breast and side but there was pitifully little of it, as though she’d almost been drained to the last.
Her slumber was too deep to be broken, so Ryuko moved her back to the bed and sat beside her, hand on her sword ready to draw and strike. And as the first rays of dawn sunlight touched the paper panels, and fell across the bed, she saw the wound evaporate, the blood disappear, the skin return to sickly normality even as the estate began to stir around her and the noises of the early morning chores became apparent.
When Soroi appeared a few hours later with energizing, bitter tea and another portion of Mako’s home-made delicacies, Ryuko quietly informed him that he should feed Satsuki as well as he could, while she returned home to fetch items she would require for the coming night. And for his part he chose not to question her grim countenance; it was a look of resigned determination that he had seen only once before, when his father had ridden out to battle alongside Satsuki’s grandmother, an expedition from which only his armor and swords had returned.