Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(31)

We started to walk toward the rear corner of the compound, back behind the huge hemlock tree, when Emi halted again.

“What?” I whispered.

“All at once?”

I stared at her.

“Well, I mean,” Emi sputtered, “would they all have, you know, started their... time, at the same... time?”

I shrugged at Emi, she shrugged back at me, and we continued on our way—not quite as quickly now.

When we approached the Retreat, I noticed that there was smoke curling from the covered chimney. I put my serving bowl down on the threshold and knocked.

“What?” snapped a sharp voice from inside.

“F-food,” stammered Emi.

“Leave it,” answered another voice. This was a voice that I’d always heard pitched low and kindly; Mieko’s voice didn’t sound particularly kindly now. “Leave it on the stoop.”

“Yes,” Emi and I said. She lay her bowls beside mine, and we scooted quickly back to the kitchen.

Toumi was still scrubbing at the huge rice pot, but she wasn’t smirking any more—her face looked the thin grey of spring snow and she didn’t look up at all when we came in.

“Might as well get used to it,” grumbled Kee Sun. “By this evening they’ll all be in there but yeh lot and the lady.” He wrenched the knife free from the table, only to stab it in again so hard that the metal of the blade sang with the impact. “Blah!” he muttered. “Women!”

—

Kee Sun was right. By the time that our lessons were over, three more of the women had gone to the Retreat. As we brought the food to the cabin for the mid-day meal, I could only think that it must be awfully crowded in there.

And they didn’t sound as if they were in a terribly good mood.

By the time we served that evening’s meal, only Lady Chiyome, Lieutenant Masugu, the Little Brothers and Aimaru were seated at the three-sided table. Aimaru looked exceedingly uncomfortable when we served him.

Emi seemed as if she were about to ask him something, but Chiyome-sama broke in first, her face twisted in a wicked smirk. “It is so lovely to be in the company of men, from time to time. Don’t you agree, Lieutenant?”

Masugu-san shrugged. “Certainly, my lady—a soldier learns to enjoy the companionship of his fellows. Yet I must admit that I am pleased still to enjoy the beauteous company of ladies.” He lifted his sake cup, first to Lady Chiyome, and then to Emi and me.

I found heat rising up my neck to my ears.

“Flatterer,” said Lady Chiyome, still smirking, as I backed away, trying to hide my shame at my shame.

—

The women remained in the Retreat for four more days, during which time our lessons were suspended; our teachers were all gone, and we had all the duties of Lady Chiyome’s women to attend to.

I’d never been so tired, nor so happy to go back to working in the kitchen. At least there it was always warm.

On the fourth night, as we were settling into our beds, Emi poked me. When I yelped, she shushed me. “Toumi!” she whispered.

“What? Why aren’t you already asleep?”

“Wanted to tell you something.” She looked over at Toumi, who had fallen into her bedroll and begun her high-pitched saw of a snore. “I talked to Aimaru today, when I was fetching water for the baths,” she whispered.

“Aimaru?” I mumbled. I’d hardly seen him in days.

“Shh!” she hissed. “At the well.”

“Some of us were working.”

“I was working.” It was hard to tell in the dark, but her face seemed to get darker. “He said that Masugu-san told him that women who lived close together over a long period would begin to enter their moon time together.”

I leaned up on one elbow. “Really?”

“Yes.” Emi nodded. “I guess Lord Imagawa has a whole flock of daughters. Masugu-san lived with them for a while as a kid. He learned to avoid the women’s quarters during their, you know, time, because he could count on a less than a friendly welcome.”

“Oh.”

“Good night, Murasaki.”

“Good night, Emi,” I answered, but as always, she was already asleep.

Mieko and the rest slowly returned from their seclusion over the next few days in twos and fours as if nothing had happened.

—

One night soon after, as Emi, Toumi and I stumbled out of the kitchen, we realized that it was finally snowing again. But it wasn’t the wet, hard snow we got on the coast, near home; these mountain flakes were big as a fingernail, light, and almost dry. The three of us stared up at the white sky. I tried to catch a flake on my tongue—and soon the three of us were spinning around, arms outstretched and mouths open, trying to catch the tumbling flakes on any part of our bodies. Giggling, we careened around in front of the bathhouse.

Then I slammed into Toumi. The habitual sneer pulled Toumi’s features back out of shape, and she stumbled in to take a bath. Emi laid a hand on my shoulder, and then followed her.

I remained outside in the fast-falling snow and began to cry. For just a moment I had forgotten flat-nosed Shino, and sharp-nosed Mai; I’d forgotten the isolation of this place, forgotten to mourn my shamed father, my banishment from home, the hole that Mother and Usako used to fill. I had forgotten it all in a blanket of white. But for just a fleeting moment...