Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(51)

Mieko, wiping the blood from her knife, the two dead Imagawa soldiers dead on the tatami before her.

Father dancing, just like Mieko, the steps and moves that my body knew as if it had taken them before. With a blade in his hands, however, Father moved with a predator’s speed rather than Mieko’s dreamlike grace, and it seemed as if the dance was whole. Its hidden purpose was clear. It was a killing dance.

“A kunoichi is a very special kind of woman indeed,” Father growled as he moved; the voice was not his but Lady Chiyome’s.

I wept in the dream, and I have no doubt that I was weeping in my bed, but Father danced on, and the smell of blood filled my nostrils, sharp and metallic as the smell of the falling snow.





28—Broken Dishes


The next morning I woke with the scent of blood still fresh in my nose. It made me want to throw up.

As I sat up, trying to calm my stomach, I noticed that Emi was gone, her bedding too. I scrambled over to Toumi, who was still sound asleep, her thumb lodged in her mouth.

“Where’s Emi?” I growled. “What have you done with her?”

Toumi coughed and pushed back at me, but I didn’t let go. “Wha?”

“Where is Emi?” I found my fingers knotted in her shirt.

She blinked blankly.

“Emi. What did you do?”

“Do?” She pushed back at me again, but I held tight. “Do? Retreat. Went to the damn Retreat.”

I tumbled backward. “The... Retreat?”

Toumi wiped the heel of her hand across her face. “Moon time. Her ’n’ Mai. Middle of the damn night. Cleared her bedding and off t’the damn Retreat.”

“The Retreat?” I sat back on my heels.

She pushed back at me once more, harder this time, and I let go. “Retreat. Retreat. Yes! Now, let’s go.”

—

I was anxious that Toumi would take advantage of Emi’s absence to torture me even more than she normally did. I needn’t have worried. She was just as surly as ever—if not more so—but since there were only two of us and just as much work to be done, she seemed mostly intent on getting the baths ready so that we could get to the kitchens.

We began piling the previous night’s snow into the tubs. I felt as if I could indeed smell blood in the metallic snow-scent.

As we worked—filling the tubs, lighting the fires—I could hear Toumi grumbling about bean curd, but even so, she seemed in a hurry to eat some of the previous night’s leftover rice—and, if Kee Sun wasn’t watching, some of the chicken that he would never let her have.

I couldn’t imagine eating chicken—or any flesh—ever again.

And of course, Kee Sun was watching. He always was. “Get that out of yehr beak, yeh!” he snapped when Toumi tried to sneak a piece of the meat that he was warming on a skewer over the fire. He slapped the back of her head with his fingers and she opened her mouth in surprise, sending the stolen bit of chicken flying into the flames. “Bean curd is what yeh need, and yeh know it. Chicken’s too hot for yehr liver. That there is for Bright-eyes here.”

Toumi glared at me. I suppose it might have affected me more if I had slept somewhat better and if I hadn’t already been certain that she hated me.

As we prepared the morning meal, it was Kee Sun’s eyes I felt on me, not Toumi’s. As we waiting for that morning’s rice to finish, he said, “Yeh’re both awful quiet without yehr smiley friend. What yeh eat, Bright-eyes, that’s got yeh looking like yeh swallowed yehr tongue?”

“Nothing, Kee Sun-san,” I answered. “I had... a bad dream.”

“Oh?” He peered at me, eyes dark.

I would have loved to talk to him—to someone—about the nightmare that had haunted me, but I did not feel ready somehow. I merely nodded.

“Hmm. And yeh, Falcon-girlie? Yeh been sneaking kimchee?”

“Like I’d want that stuff.” Toumi’s face twisted in disgust. Then she turned away and muttered, “Like I’d get away with it.”

“Oh, I have no doubt yehr capable, Falcon-girlie. That’s why I’m watchin’ yeh so close, see?” Kee Sun chuckled, though I couldn’t tell what the joke might be. “You have bad dreams too?”

“No,” said Toumi through tight lips. “Stomach ache.”

“Ay!” groaned Kee Sun and slapped his palm against his forehead. “Just do me and Bright-eyes here a favor, will yeh, and wait till after the evening meal?”

“Wait?” asked Toumi. “Wait for what?”

But Kee Sun just waved a hand at us both dismissively and banged the gong to let all of the Full Moon’s inhabitants know that the morning meal was ready to be served.

—

As everyone filed in to the hall, I could see that many of the women were already absent; clearly, they had gone to join Mai and Emi in the Retreat.

I felt twin tremors of curiosity and concern about my friend wash through me as Toumi and I served out the meal.

Fuyudori was sitting silently, which was a relief, since her flirtations with the Lieutenant had begun to annoy everyone. Thankfully, Masugu himself wasn’t present. Perhaps he was taking his horse out for a morning ride, as he had said he would. The Little Brothers and Aimaru were gone as well—most likely engaged in morning meditation and exercise, as they often were.