Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(6)

Finally, their eyes let go of me, and they went outside—no doubt to search for Toumi.

Now I was aware that Emi and Aimaru were looking at me.

I was still feeling as if I were about to be attacked. “What?” I grumbled at them.

“You are a squirrel,” said Emi.

“How did you do that?” said Aimaru, his face now looking more astonished than blissful.

“Do what?” I asked. Suddenly I felt hungry again.

“You climbed right up that wall like a spider,” said Aimaru.

“Like a squirrel,” corrected Emi.

“I’ve never seen a person climb like that,” Aimaru continued.

“I... I don’t know,” I muttered. “I guess I’ve always been able to climb really well.”

They both nodded, but I wasn’t sure that they believed me.

“You know,” I said, because I just felt as if I had to say something, “my name isn’t really Risuko.”

Aimaru raised both hands and smiled. Clearly it was all the same to him. His smile probably would have been just as Buddha-like if I’d said I was actually a kitsune, a fox-spirit who had come to steal all his food.

Emi, however, pouted at me and asked, “What is your name, then?”

“Oh,” I said, because, even though that was the logical question to ask after what I’d said, I hadn’t expected her to ask it. “It’s... It’s Murasaki.”

Her sad face twisted into a confused smirk. “Isn’t that a girl from some story? Some old story?”

“Yes,” I said, “The Tales of Genji. The name of the writer, too. It’s an old love story. It was my father’s favorite.”

Her mouth bowed even further down, and her eyes began to moisten. “Back when my mother was alive... she used to tell me stories from it.”

I simply nodded that I understood, and watched as first Emi and then Aimaru shuffled away from the fire toward the door, bedrolls in their hands.

“They’ll expect us to be ready to go,” Aimaru apologetically.

I looked around to see if there was anything for me to bring, but of course, there wasn’t anything. I was just considering hiding there in the stable, waiting for them all to go away, when I sensed a large, quiet presence behind me. I was not surprised to see Little Brother and his companion standing behind me like stone pillars.

I tried smiling at them. The younger one smiled back. “Please, sirs, I... What do I call you?”

“Little Brother,” they both said, in unison.

The younger one, the one who had winked at me, now smiled fully. “It amuses the lady to call us that. All of her followers—the teachers and students at the Full Moon”—Mochizuki—“know us as the Little Brothers.”

Teachers? Mochizuki? Is there a school on the full moon? I wondered in my bewilderment.

The larger one didn’t seem to share his companion’s amusement. “Lady Chiyome has informed us that we will be leaving immediately.”





4—The Edge of the World


Around me, everyone was rushing back and forth across the courtyard, loading supplies on the two pack horses, putting on extra layers of clothing.

When I reached them, Emi smiled, a small grin, and handed me a warmer coat, and then a sleeping mat. “That’s for tonight. Put it with ours on the white horse.”

I was so surprised at the tiny smile that it took me a moment to accept the bundle from her.

When I had stowed my bedroll with everyone else’s and pulled the padded jacket over the thin blue one, the younger Little Brother handed each of us a lumpy coat made of straw and a pair of straw boots. “We’re going to be walking through snow,” he said, placidly. “We can’t afford to have you freeze your feet.”

We each stepped into the boots, which gave me the unstable feeling of walking on a particularly scratchy pine branch. Then we pulled on the thick, long coats of woven straw. Emi and Aimaru started to snicker. I looked up; they looked like large, walking haystacks. Even Toumi gave a thin, embarrassed smile. That made me think of Usako, my little sister, and my heart twisted.

The entrance to the inn yard was once again unguarded. But in those boots....

Toumi batted at the straw hood and cloak that covered her body. “You look,” she muttered, “like a bunch of cows in their winter coats.”

“What does she think she looks like?” whispered Emi.

As the Little Brothers brought the beetle-black palanquin out of the stable where the horses had been kept, Lady Chiyome and Mieko stepped out of the inn. Kuniko, the maid with a face like a block of granite, followed the Little Brothers, holding what looked like a short sword attached to a pole as tall as she was. It was a weapon that I would later learn was called a glaive. I couldn’t think what Kuniko was doing with it, nor why it fit so comfortably in her grip. I assumed that it was for one of the carriers.

The old noblewoman was dressed just as she had been earlier that day, in her dark, layered winter kimono. I had expected the maids to be in their elegant silk robes, but they too were dressed warmly in subdued blue winter robes bearing the plain, white circle. The Little Brothers set the palanquin immediately in front of Lady Chiyome, and once again she knelt into the box with that subtle movement that seemed to be no movement at all.