Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(36)
20—Smelly Work
When I arrived back at our cabin, Fuyudori was standing just inside of the door looking pinched and pale in the dim light of the entryway. “What took you so long?”
“I could ask you the same thing. Where did you disappear to?” I snapped, much to my own surprise.
She seemed as shocked as I was at my outburst. “I... Lieutenant Masugu came out and walked right toward where I was standing. I gave the signal, but then I had to hide behind the Retreat. When I came back, you were gone. I assumed that, since he had already left, you must have climbed back down, but you’ve been gone so long, I was beginning to be worried.”
I looked up into her face and realized suddenly that she was lying to me. Not in a large way, but for some reason she wasn’t telling me the entire truth. I decided to return the favor. “I reached the top, but it was quiet. I listened to see if anything was going on, but when I didn’t hear anything, I went up to the roof and climbed down from there. It’s not easy climbing down a slick wall in the middle of winter, you know.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded and said, “Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t fall. Sleep well, Risuko-chan.”
—
The next morning, Toumi looked quite pleased with herself, watching Fuyudori, Lady Chiyome and Masugu-san, and making nasty comments to me about finally getting my payback. She had clearly told on me—whether about talking with the lieutenant or sneaking out at night, I couldn’t be certain. I waited for punishment to fall.
No one mentioned anything.
Through the days that followed I found myself looking over my shoulder, sure that someone was going to take me to task for my activities that night, though Lady Chiyome certainly hadn’t seemed terribly upset.
It became clear that I wasn’t going to get in any trouble. And it was entertaining watching Toumi’s frustration grow.
A few nights later, as the other girls lay in their bedrolls, huddling against the cold and snoring, I woke Emi and told her about everything that had happened—everything but the bit about our fathers. She blinked at me, scowling. Then she broke into a rare grin. “Serves Fuyudori right, making you do her dirty work for her,” she whispered. “And I bet that’s why Toumi’s been sniffing around like a dog waiting for a rice cake to fall.”
I nodded. “But no one seems to be itching to punish me.”
“That must be awful for poor Toumi,” tittered Emi, before rolling over and going back to sleep. I finally managed to follow her not long after, but didn’t sleep soundly.
Toumi remained in a foul mood for days.
Somehow, though I was amused, I wasn’t relieved.
—
One afternoon, as we shuffled into Kee Sun’s kitchen to take up our evening duties, we were presented with a new challenge. Once again, each of us had a knife, laid with ritual precision across the bottom of a cutting board. Where we had always had piles of vegetables or butchered meats, however, each of us was presented with a trio of slaughtered chickens.
Emi made a face, and Toumi grumbled, but I knew how to start at least—this much mother had taught us, on days when we were fortunate enough to catch a bird, or one of Irochi-san’s hens was no good for eggs any more: I began plucking the feathers from the flesh.
“There yeh go, girlies!” laughed Kee Sun. “Bright-eyes’s got the idea! Can’t eat feathers, now can yeh?”
We stripped our carcasses—Toumi never stopped grumbling, nor did her expression lose any of its edge. Emi, however, was so engrossed in the unpleasant, difficult job that her usual scowl faded. Her face seemed as blank and neutral as a Jizo-bosatsu’s statue.
Once we had each stripped the carcasses of their feathers—the mess now filled baskets at our feet—Kee Sun called out happily, “Well, it’s about time, girlies! Now you’re going to learn the proper use of a blade.”
With glee, he proceeded to instruct us in the technique for gutting, cleaning, skinning, and butchering a chicken.
I won’t pretend that Emi and I didn’t throw up.
Toumi did too. Twice.
So it was that we—orphaned samurai girls not yet in our first womanhood—began to become master butchers. Over the next days, after our lessons in music, dance or calligraphy, we learned with great effort to reduce the bounteous meat, poultry and fish that graced Lady Chiyome’s dining table to edible portions. Chickens first, then ducks and geese; trout and boney carp; pigs, which were much heavier, obviously, and required us to work together; I took great care to keep an eye out for Toumi’s blade on those occasions.
It was smelly, disgusting work, but soon enough the odors became as familiar as the scent of pine I so associate with my childhood home.
—
The amount of food that we prepared—that we and Chiyome-sama’s other servants consumed—was overwhelming. We ate three full meals a day, with some sort of meat served at least once a day, and often twice. Frequently, we were able to serve fresh vegetables as well—huge daikon radishes or soy beans that Kee Sun had carefully packed up in the storerooms by the Bull Pen, or that were brought up the muddy, icy road to the Full Moon by exceedingly respectful farmers.
I had peered in the windows at Lord Imagawa’s castle often enough to know that, except for the occasional banquet, even they didn’t eat anywhere nearly as richly as Lady Chiyome and her household—even Lord Imagawa himself and the fancy ladies mostly ate rice and occasionally some bits of fish and poultry. It looked like much nicer rice and much finer flesh than what we were used to down in the village, and I know they’d occasionally buy one of old Naru’s pigs to slaughter, but I doubt they were eating meat anywhere nearly as often as the inhabitants of Lady Chiyome’s compound.