Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(10)

Kuniko led me from the dark dining room where we were all sleeping in to the cramped chamber where the lady was waiting.

She was seated on a cushion, her robes draped elegantly around her. The two Little Brothers stood behind either shoulder, massive and silent, and Mieko stood in the shadows to one side. In front of her was a low table, on which stood several objects, including sheets of fine rice paper, a bowl with the smoothest, blackest ink I’d ever seen, a box with six different colors of ink sticks, each in its own compartment, and a fine, sleek, red-handled brush.

Kuniko tapped me on the shoulder. I knelt and bowed.

“Come, Risuko,” said Lady Chiyome, indicating with a small, pale hand that I should sit on the other side of the table from her.

I shuffled across the floor on my knees, feeling the rough tatami catching on the cloth of my new pants. In the end, I reached the table, still kneeling, still looking down.

“What have you done with your hair, child?”

I winced, still focusing on the mat and the table legs. “There was... an accident in the kitchen.”

Lady Chiyome gave a husky sigh. “I suppose when I pluck urchins from treetops in the morning, it’s too much to expect them to be ladies in the evening.”

One of the Little Brothers gave a grunt that might have been a chuckle.

“Look up, child.” The lady was either scowling at me, or smirking. She wiggled a thin finger at the writing implements before her.

The bowl that held the ink was eggshell thin, glazed a rich, deep blue that seemed to soak in the flickering light of the small fire and the candles that lit the room. A worn black ink stone lay beside it.

“I would like to see how well your father taught you, Risuko.” She cocked her head to one side, like someone who was trying to look sly. “Write something.”

Still barely lifting my head, I reached out and took a sheet of the rice paper. It was so thin I could barely feel it between my fingers. As I placed it before me, I imagined I could almost see the grain of the table through the paper.

“What should I write?” I asked.

“Whatever you like,” she answered, dismissively waving her hand.

I chewed on the inside of my bottom lip for a second. I couldn’t think of a thing. Then I remembered sitting next to Father, copying one of his poems, trying to match his flowing brushstrokes.

I reached out to pick up the brush, but my fingers were shaking. “The ink is really good.”

Her nostrils flared. “Of course.” She clearly thought it was the stupidest thing she had heard me say.

I took a deep breath, trying to gain time and steady my hand. I tried to visualize the words flowing from our father’s brush, the three lines of Otō-san’s favorite poem. Without even realizing that I had done it, I picked up the brush, wetted it in the ink, and let the tip flow black over the ice-white paper.

Soldiers falling fast

Battle of white and scarlet

Blossoms on the ground

Again, Lady Chiyome smirked, looking down at my calligraphy. This time, however, the smirk was definitely not disgust, but what I was beginning to recognize as the lady’s sour amusement.

“Very nice,” she said, eyebrows arched.

It was. Father would have been proud. It wasn’t as good as his, but the lines flowed cleanly, evenly and easily.

“It’s one of my father’s poems.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know.”

I was about to ask how she could possibly know that, but she held up a small, thin finger. Her face was still on the surface, but looked as if it were twisting underneath. “Poetry is very nice, but anyone can learn a bag full of haiku before breakfast. Show me something longer. Show me some prose.”

I took a deep breath, and I immediately thought of that passage that Otō-san used to have us practice night after night. Again, I took out a clean sheet and picked up the brush. This time, I was calmer. With my left hand, I held back the cuff of my right sleeve.

“Keep your tongue in your mouth, child,” tisked Lady Chiyome.

I sucked my tongue in. I hadn’t even noticed that I was sticking it out. I could feel my fingers begin to shake again.

I took another deep breath, carefully wetted the brush once more, and began to write.

In the reign of a certain emperor there was a certain lady of the lower ranks whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The great, amibtious ladies gazed on her resentfully. Because of this...

My concentration was broken by an odd sound—a wheezing, rolling, rasping sound. Alarmed, I looked up.

Lady Chiyome looked furious—her white-painted face was darkening and twisted. Then she let out the sound again, fuller and deeper, and I realized that she was laughing. Tears began to stream from her eyes and she was weeping, screaming, howling with laughter.

I knelt there, ink drying on my brush, afraid to move. I had no idea why she was laughing, and was afraid that anything I might do could turn her frightening good humor to anger.

She reached a hand out to Mieko, and from the look on the maid’s face I realized that she was as shocked as I was. Mieko’s perfect black eyebrows were arched so high they looked as if they might snap.

Lady Chiyome took a silk handkerchief from Mieko’s sleeve, and began to wipe her eyes. I noticed that even the two bodyguards seemed astonished.

“Well, Mieko,” the lady said to her maid, “there you are. I look up at the top of the most forsaken pine tree in forsaken Serenity Province, and I find the last great enthusiast of The Tales of Genji.” She gave another rumbling laugh, and Mieko smiled, at least in sympathy if not in understanding. The old woman turned her streaked face to me again. “So, my little romance novelist. Your father did indeed teach you well.” She blew her nose loudly.