Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(32)

I did not hear anyone walking—the snow was already muffling the sound of feet on the gravel—so when a heavy hand came down on my shoulder, I let out a squeak and leapt in the air.

“What’s the matter, Murasaki-san?” asked Lieutenant Masugu.

I found myself weeping against his chest.

Masugu-san sighed, patting me stiffly on the back. “Murasaki-san,” he said, “you are here for a reason. I am sorry that you had to leave your mother and your sister and your childhood behind. Your mother wouldn’t have let you go for nothing—and I don’t just mean money. And Chiyome-sama wouldn’t have paid so high a price for you without a very good reason.” He held my shoulders and looked down into my face; his own was grim. “Think of what your father would have done, what he would have wanted you to do. Lady Chiyome wants to give you a chance to redeem your family honor.”

I stood there, sniveling, not knowing what to say. With a sad smile and a pat to my shoulder, he turned and began to walk away.

I had almost reached the warmth of the bathhouse when he called back to me.

“Murasaki-san!” I turned back toward him in the darkening snowfall. “You haven’t been to visit me, have you?”

Perplexed, I shook my head.

“I wondered,” he said. “Someone has been in my room. But it wasn’t you?” When I shook my head again, he held up his hand and wished me good night.





18—A Fly


“If you come with me quietly, Risuko-chan,” Fuyudori said in very hushed tones, waking me from a dreamless sleep, “I can show you something worth watching.” She pulled down my covers, giving me no choice in the matter.

Yawning and shivering, I threw on a winter coat and sandals. Fuyudori placed her finger over my lips, looking down at Emi and Toumi, who were still sleeping.

It always felt as if it were the middle of the night when Fuyudori woke us. But as we made our way out of the relative warmth of our dormitory, there was not even a hint of a winter dawn in the night sky. The snow had stopped and the sky cleared. The stars blazed down on us, big as snowflakes themselves.

I followed Fuyudori out across the undisturbed snow blanketing the courtyard. Dark and moonless as the night was, even the white of the snow seemed dim and grey.

Fuyudori pulled me relentlessly toward the great hall, but before we arrived, I finally woke enough to stop, digging my heels in. “What’s going on?” I asked.

The older girl blinked at me, a rare scowl of annoyance cracking her usually calm mask. “Chiyome-sama and Masugu-san are arguing—arguing about you,” she muttered in as low a voice as she could manage. “I thought you might want to hear—that it might be to your benefit. But if you don’t want—”

“No,” I said, shaking my head stiffly. “I... I want to know.”

Her face fell back into its familiar blank smile, and I followed meekly where she led. To my surprise, we did not go to the front door, nor toward the kitchen entrance. Instead, we went to the side of the hall where there was no door, over toward the storehouse. Dry as that mountain snow was, my feet were beginning to feel chilled and damp as we slogged along.

We arrived at the northern wall of the great hall, ten paces or so from the enormous hemlock that I had been aching to climb since our arrival. The wall of the main building was blank except for some half-timbered beams and a single window just below the roofline. A flickering light on the eaves showed that the window was open.

I felt Fuyudori’s breath in my ear. It tickled. Very softly, she whispered, “That’s Chiyome-sama’s private chamber. I heard them yelling at each other before they stormed up there. It was your name they were yelling.”

I could make out a low rumble from above, but no words. “We’re supposed to climb up and spy at Lady Chiyome’s window?” I hissed, before her hand clamped down over my mouth.

“Not we, Risuko-chan. I cannot make a climb like that. I doubt if any of the women here could. I have been told, however, that you are an excellent climber. Besides, one of us needs to stay down here to keep watch.” Her hand still on my mouth, she moved in front of me. Though her white hair glowed in the starlight, her eyes were dark as coal, and lightless, and the hard line of her chin let me know just how determined she was. “This is for your own good, Risuko-chan. We need to know if you are in trouble. If you are in trouble, it will reflect on me. Please.”

I considered. I did want to know what Lady Chiyome and the lieutenant were saying. And I ached to climb again, but if I was caught...

Fuyudori’s eyes pleaded with me.

I nodded.

Her face relaxed. “Thank you, Risuko. You won’t regret this. I will hide beneath this fir tree.”

“Hemlock,” I yawned.

She frowned up at the lowering bows as if just noticing the short, bristly needles, totally unlike the long, silver needles of a fir. “Yes. Hemlock. If someone is coming I will give you a signal like a wood owl’s hoot.” This at least she quietly managed to imitate—more or less.

I shrugged and pressed a foot into the bark of the tree.

“No,” whispered Fuyudori, grabbing my shoulder. “Not the tree—the hemlock. It’s too far, you won’t be able to hear.”

We both looked over to the great hall’s icy wall. I gulped.

“Well,” Fuyudori sighed in her kindest, cruelest voice, “perhaps it is too difficult....”