Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(30)

After morning lessons, we helped with the mid-day meal, cleaned and refilled the baths, and helped with the evening meal. Then off to the baths, off to bed... and ready to start all over again the next morning.





17—Moon Time


The routine was almost reassuring: lessons, work, Toumi growling—all of it flowed from one day to the next like a line of ducks swimming up-river. Even the rock-carrying became routine. Occasionally, one or two figures in miko’s robes wandered in through the front gate; just as often, one or more of the women would leave after the morning meal. Yet the little community remained very much the same.

The odd sounds from the great hall were different every day, and always infuriatingly fascinating: sometimes grunts, sometimes shouting, and once what sounded like breaking wood. But we weren’t allowed to look, and so this too became part of the pattern.

One day, when the great hall was unusually silent, we were sorting dried mushrooms by color. Kee Sun was very particular about the mix of colors and flavors in all of the food that we prepared. Once we were well into the boring work, he informed us that he had to “go visit the King,” a phrase we never understood, and never wanted to. However, we knew that he would be gone some time. When he had gone, Emi’s sharp elbow bounced against my ribs.

“Ow!”

Without looking up, she elbowed me again.

“What?”

She sighed. I looked around. Toumi was pointing up to the grate near the ceiling.

Oh! I mouthed. I didn’t need to be told what to do. Springing up into the rafters from which herbs and pots hung, I tiptoed along the beam that came into the wall right below the ventilation grate. I felt exhilaration, not at doing something we weren’t supposed to do, but just to be up above the ground for the first time since we arrived at the Full Moon.

As I approached the grate, I ducked down so that I wouldn’t be seen.

A low murmur of voices echoed from the great hall. I carefully raised my head so that I could just see into the big room.

The tables were pushed back. A battered suit of armor was propped up against the men’s table. In front of it, the women were standing in a circle around Mieko, who seemed to be...

She was taking out hairpins. At least, that’s what it looked like. She held the two objects, which appeared to be short, flat chopsticks, and then inserted them back into the neat bun on the back of her head. The other women took out their own hairpins and copied her.

Perplexed, I made my way back down to the kitchen. Something about what Mieko had been showing the others looked familiar, but I couldn’t think what.

“Well?” Emi and Toumi both asked as soon as my feet hit the stone floor.

I told them what I’d seen.

“That’s boring,” said Emi, her everlasting frown deepening. Toumi and I both nodded, and had just gotten back to sorting our mushrooms when Kee Sun returned. “Isn’t this fun!” he chuckled.

We didn’t bother nodding at him, but settled back into the pattern of our day.

—

A few weeks after we arrived at the Full Moon, however, the routine suddenly broke.

One morning, we prepared breakfast as usual, but when we brought the meal in to the great hall, there were just nine kunoichi at the table along with Lady Chiyome and the men. Four of the older women were missing, as were all three initiates. When I returned, perplexed, to the kitchen with the left over food, Kee Sun scowled at me. “Did yeh spit in my good food, Bright-eyes?”

“No!” I said, staring down at the half-full bowls. Toumi sniggered as she scrubbed the rice-pot clean, preparing it for the mid-day meal.

Emi came in behind me, frowning even more deeply than usual. Her bowls were just as full as mine. “Why would they all leave without eating?” she asked.

“Leave?” Kee Sun said, scratching at his neck.

“Well,” Emi said, “Fuyudori and the other initiates weren’t at breakfast, and some of the other women were gone. Why would they have gone... doing... whatever they do, without eating?”

Kee Sun scowled at her, and back at me. Then he did something I’d never seen him do: his ears, his cheeks, his forehead and the neck below his beard turned a bright, cherry red. He swore in what I assumed was Korean, his voice higher than usual, and stabbed his knife into the table. “Should have known! Yeh lot comin’ threw me off so’s I lost count!”

Emi and I exchanged a look; even Toumi was looking as if Kee Sun had suddenly sprouted horns and a furry tail.

Seeing us all looking confused, Kee Sun cleared his throat and growled. “Well, don’t just stand there letting the food get cold!” He thrust a scarred finger toward the door. “Bring it to the Retreat, d’yeh hear? Bright-eyes, Smiley—now! Get!”

I remembered the building, of course, but I couldn’t understand what he meant—that building was always empty. “The...?”

Leaving his knife wobbling in the wood, he reached up and grabbed lids for the bowls that we were carrying. “GET!”

We took the lids, we slammed them on the bowls, and we got. As we scooted past the well, Emi suddenly slammed to a stop. “Oh!”

I turned and looked at her. “What?”

“The Retreat!” She stared back at me, eyes owl-wide. “It’s where the women go during their moon time!”

“Moon...? Oh!” We both looked back down at the bowls in our hands. “Oh.”