Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(16)

As she disappeared into the shadows, Emi took her place. “I can’t decide if she is really nice, or kind of scary.”

“Both,” I sighed, and Emi nodded. We both turned away from the dark and warmed ourselves in the fire’s light.

As the night closed in around us, we huddled closer together.

—

It rained as we climbed out of Worth Province, and I spent the next days with a rough blanket wrapped over my head to keep dry. At inns and villages, the people treated our party with great respect. I thought back to the way that the people in our village used to tease Lord Imagawa’s soldiers. Clearly, in Lord Takeda’s domain, his servants were treated with more deference—and fear.

As the days passed, my own awe began to lessen, and I began to talk with Lieutenant Masugu as we rode. We discussed the countryside, we discussed some of the books and poems Otō-san had made me try to read. I sang some of my mother’s favorite songs. He told me stories about his cousins, and sailing boats, and chasing his father’s horse when he was a boy. Often we would simply ride in a damp, thoughtful silence.

One misty morning after we had just begun riding, as we were still on the outskirts of the village we had stayed in, and the weather had trapped the smell of wet smoke close to the ground, curiosity overcame my awe. “Masugu-san?”

He grunted in response.

“What is this... Full Moon?” I felt sure that we could not actually be traveling to the moon—though it felt as if we had been climbing enough mountains to lead us to the heavens. “The school?”

“You don’t know?”

“No.” I was sorry now to have said anything.

“Oh” He was silent for a bit. I could hear him scratch his chin. “Yes. Chiyome-sama’s school for miko. That’s where you’re going.” He cleared his throat. “I am so sorry. I assumed you knew.”

I shook my head.

“Ah!” Masugu said, and cleared his throat again. “Yes. We are taking you to the school at the Full Moon. It is the great mission of Lady Chiyome’s life since her husband died. There you will be trained to be a shrine attendant...and you will learn a few other skills, as well.”

I absorbed this. “But why did she have to wander over half the country, through all the fighting and robbers and such, just to find girls to be miko? Aren’t there enough unmarried girls near her home?”

“I guess not,” Masugu mumbled.

A miko?

The Full Moon... Of course: Chiyome-sama’s symbol, which I bore like everyone else in her party.

I was silent for some time, but my mind was racing, reliving the conversations I’d had with Lady Chiyome and her servants. Had it been my imagination that I had been purchased away from my family for some purpose much more important than merely to be attendant at some local shrine? All this—sneaking about, taking me away from my home, marching across battle zones and snowy desolation—was so that I (and Emi and Toumi) could be trained to wear red and white robes, to learn sing and dance at weddings and festivals, and to serve tea and rice wine to the old forest gods?

That night I asked Emi and Aimaru about it. They were surprised, not by the news but by my reaction—like the lieutenant, they had assumed that I already knew.

A miko? It seemed... odd. But if that was what she had purchased me for, well, it wasn’t the worst thing I could have been forced to do.





9—Worth


Up and up we rode, around a beautiful lake, and toward the mountain peaks.

A warbler sang from one of the trees and I whistled back. It was a funny time of year for the bird to be here.

“You do bird sounds?” Masugu asked.

I nodded.

“Can you do a loon?” We’d heard one that morning on the lake.

I grinned. That was one of my favorites. I raised my fingers to my hands and gave the loon’s long, sad call.

“Well done!” Masugu laughed. “And how about... a nightingale?”

I turned around to look at him for a moment.

He laughed again. “Fine, fine, I was kidding.” He stared down at me. “How about an owl. Can you hoot three times like an owl?”

“You’re kidding again, right? That one’s easy.” To prove my point, I raised my hands to my mouth again and gave three long hoots: one as a wood owl, one as a snowy owl and one as a Scops owl.

He whistled—not a bird sound for him, just a single note to let me know he was impressed. “Well, Murasaki-san, if you ever decide to give up being a—um—shrine maiden, you’ve got a future in the Takeda scouts.” When I gawked him he said, “Well, that’s one of the ways the scouts communicate. There’s a whole bunch of codes. The loon call means All clear. But the three owl hoots mean Danger—there’s about to be an attack!”

“Really?”

“Well,” he said, “think about it. We’re usually fighting in daylight. How often do you hear an owl hooting like that during the day?”

I nodded. It made sense to use that as a warning signal.

“Mind,” chuckled Masugu, “I don’t know what it would mean if the call were given by three different owls.”

We both laughed and rode on into the mountains, the rest of the party trailing behind us.

As we climbed the winding, narrow road up toward the pass, the air grew steadily colder, and the bare-limbed trees grew sparser and shorter. I didn’t notice, however. With Masugu’s bulk blocking the chill wind, and the stallion warming me, I was chattering on about how scary I had thought he was when I first saw him ride into the inn yard. “Of course,” I said, “samurai are always sort of scary. That’s why I’m glad my father stopped being one, because I wouldn’t have wanted him to be scary.”