Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(63)

He grinned as he touched his hand to it. “Oh, yes. It doesn’t hurt.” He winced. “Much.”

My stomach sank as I passed him his bowl. “I’m so, so sorry, Aimaru!”

He chuckled. “Don’t be. That was really amazing, the way you did that. Where did you learn?”

“I...” I was about to deny having ever learned anything about anything, but I realized what a pointless effort that would have been. “When I was little, I would watch while my father practiced with his katana. And sometime I would follow him, with a stick instead of a sword. I guess I actually learned something.”

“I guess so!” He rubbed his neck and laughed. He sat and began to slurp his soup, but looked up. “If you see Emi...”

“I will offer your greetings,” I said, and noticed with interest that his neck pinkened in very much the same manner as Emi’s had.

Turning toward the sliding door to the bedroom, I felt myself hesitate. The room where I had argued with Mieko and Lady Chiyome, where I had watched Masugu himself nearly die—the idea of going back in there terrified me.

The chaos in the room, courtesy of what Lady Chiyome had called the kitsune, the fox spirit, made me shiver with apprehension, wondering if perhaps a malevolent demon was in fact among us. Nonsense, I told myself, sliding open the door just a bit with my left hand and then opening it the rest of the way with my right—just as Mother always taught us to do. I entered and knelt, the tureen in my hands.

Masugu-san lay on his bed, his eyes just barely open. The sleeping robe that he wore was damp with his sweat, and the room was stale with the scent of his perspiration, as well as the barely perceptible odors of vomit, of the burnt mugwort, and of the pickled ginger that I had spilled, just on the spot where I was kneeling.

“Mu-saki,” he rasped through chapped lips. At least this time he knew that I was me and not Mieko. His hand, which was on top of the blanket, motioned feebly: come.

I shuffled over on my knees. His face was pale, but not as grey as it had been the day before. “Would you like some soup?”

He made a face—it was just like the face Usako used to make when Okā-san tried to feed her okayu. She was the only baby I ever knew who didn’t like rice porridge.

“It’s good for you,” I said, ladling out a bowl—just as Mother used to say to my sister.

“Ginger,” he said, turning up his nose, and I couldn’t blame him. That day, he’d probably had more ginger shoved down his throat—and up his nose—than he’d eaten in the entire year.

I held the bowl up to his lips. “Kee Sun says that it helps sharpen the senses and fight off the effect of the poppy. Just a sip.”

He took a sip, but still made a face, and I couldn’t help it: I laughed. “No being fussy! Are you a samurai or aren’t you?”

He gave me a weary look of disgust, but took another slurp from the bowl that I continued to hold before him. He swallowed, grunted, and lay back. “Bitter.”

I sniffed at the soup. Under the delicious smells of the ginger and garlic, the bitter tang that I’d noticed before was still there. “I thought so too. Kee Sun thinks he may have let the stock simmer too hot or too long or something.”

He grunted again. Taking a faltering, deep breath, he raised his drooping eyes to mine. “Mu-saki.”

“Yes, Masugu-san?”

“Chimney.”

“Chimney?” I remembered in a flash crouching on the wall above the Retreat’s chimney the night before in the driving snow, listening... “Oh. Oh, Masugu-san. I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear—”

“No.” He shook his head with some effort. “No.” He raised a finger and pointed at me. “Chimney.”

I sighed. “Yes. I... I climbed the wall. I heard a noise and I thought perhaps someone was trying to sneak into the Full Moon, so I climbed up above the Retreat and I overheard you and Mieko-san fighting.”

He actually managed to flash a bit of a smile. “Not fight...” He chuckled, a dry, dead-leaf chuckle, and pointed at me. “Sq’rrel.”

I knew that he was teasing me because I’d been climbing again, but I couldn’t help but feel mortified.

“Mu-saki...”

“Yes, Masugu-san?”

“Go... chimney.” His burst of energy was fading; he fell back against his bedroll, and his eyes began to close.

“Yes. I went up by the chimney.” I really wished he wouldn’t keep bringing that up.

“No. Chimney. Go.”

“You...?” I peered at him. He was struggling to stay awake; I wondered if he were beginning to suffer from one of the poppy-induced delusions again. “You want me to go back to the chimney of the Retreat?” Perhaps he wanted me to listen to what the women were saying? If Emi was right, I didn’t think that anything that they might be talking about would be of interest—especially to a man.

Even so, he gave a tiny, relieved smile and nodded. “Go. Chimney... Roof.” His chest and face softened as if he were melting into the bed. “Snowbird... Fox...”

Kitsune. That sent a shiver through me. Perhaps the lieutenant was possessed?

“Scroll,” he said—or at least that’s what it sounded like. “Go....”

At that moment, there was a crash from the front room; shocked, I turned to see Aimaru slumped against the wall. His soup bowl was shattered on the tatami below his limp hand, bits of mushroom and tofu and porcelain all dripping into the mat.