Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(64)

I gasped, and so did the lieutenant. “Poison!” he hissed.

I turned. His eyes now were wide. Masugu grabbed my hand. “Soup... poison...”

Now my eyes were wide. “Oh! Oh, no! Masugu-san, I would never—!”

“No,” he groaned. “No. Kitsune. Kitsune.”

I nodded. I understood him, even if what he was saying made no sense. “The fox spirit poisoned the soup?”

He nodded.

My heart racing, I looked at Aimaru, who was still as death on the floor, and then at Masugu, who was weak; could two sips of poisoned broth finish the fox spirit’s assassination attempt? “I’ll get Kee Sun,” I cried. “He’ll help!” I hoped desperately that the cook had in fact waited for me to return before he ate; he could save Aimaru and the lieutenant....

I stood, and the bowl that I was holding spilled to the tatami but I paid it no mind. I was thinking that I had just served every one of the women in the Retreat from the same tureen. I remembered Emi closing the door, sipping at her bowl... I began to stumble out.

“Mu-saki!” Masugu’s groan stopped me. I turned. He was clenching his hands, as if trying to keep himself awake. “Chimney. Roof. Go!”

“Go... to the chimney?” I answered, incredulous.

“Yesss,” he wheezed, and collapsed onto his back in a deep, dead faint.





33—Smoke and Stone


For the second time that day I was running across the courtyard toward the great hall. This time, however, I was not stumbling after Lady Chiyome.

To whom, I realized, Kee Sun had fed the same soup.

Could Kee Sun be the kitsune?

I stopped, mid-sprint, panting in the dark, winter evening. No, I thought. He’s crazy, but if he’d wanted to poison us, the Full Moon’s cook could have done it any time. And, as Lady Chiyome had said about Mieko-san, he’d have done it without making a mess of it.

I ran the rest of the way to the kitchen; I had no hope that the cook wouldn’t already have served Chiyome-sama and the Little Brothers. When I burst into the outside door to the kitchen, he was just where I expected him to be: sitting at the work table, with two lidded bowls of soup laid—one for him, and one for me.

“Poison!” I gasped.

He blinked at me, then down at the bowls. He swept the lid from one of the bowls, sniffed, and then snarled in Korean and spat on the floor. “Bitter. You said it was bitter, Bright-eyes.” With a look of panic on his face, he sprinted into the dining hall; Chiyome and the Little Brothers where slumped over the head table, their soup spilled on the ground. Lifting our mistress’s head, he used his thumbs to open her eyes. “Chiyome! Chiyome, can yeh hear me?”

She let out a kind of snort and said something unrepeatable.

Kee Sun gave a bark of relieved laughter. Placing her head gently back on the table, he checked the others quickly—they too seemed to respond. Then Kee Sun ran back into the kitchen, sweeping past me and stumbling over to where the herbs were hung. “Bitter,” he muttered, looking along the rafters for the herb that had been used to poison the soup. “Bitter. Bitter.”

The poppies were still there—but they would have smelled sweet. He pointed up at an empty space on the beam. “Whew!”

“What?” I asked.

“Why’d anyone use that to poison folk?”

“What?”

He turned as if just remembering that I was there, shaking his head to clear it. “Ah. Corydalis.”

“Corydalis?” The root from which Mother used to make tea before her moon time. The root out of which he’d been making Emi’s tea. “Is that... dangerous?”

“Well...” Kee Sun rubbed his hand through his mop of grey hair. “It’ll make’em all sleepy and boneless, and I suppose it’ll give folk an awful headache, if she’s used all of it. The men-folk especially!” He started to grin, but suddenly his relief disappeared. “Bright-eyes, tell me—how much did yeh feed Masugu?”

“T-two sips! I swear!”

He sighed, “Well, that’s all right. Shouldn’t oughta harm him, though he’s in no fit state...” Turning away from me, he started to grab herbs—what was left of the ginger after all of the day’s tonic-and soup-making, mugwort, black tea, green tea, and a box of precious ginseng.

I, however, was thinking about what Masugu had been trying to tell me before the corydalis put him back to sleep. Chimney... “Kee Sun! Do you need my help for a few minutes?”

“What?” he grumbled, dumping the stimulating, yang herbs onto the cutting table. “Well, I could use some help feedin’ this t’everyone, but no, I can get this prepared quick enough. Yeh need to go t’the privy?”

“The...? No! No, Masugu-san wanted me to go up to the chimney of the Retreat—I don’t know why, but he made me promise as he was passing out.”

“Huh,” grunted Kee Sun, chopping madly away. The kitchen filled once again with the sharp smell of ginger and the earthy tang of ginseng. “Maybe whatever it is she’s been lookin’ for’s hidden up there. Smart place for a man to hide a thing.”

“Oh.” I thought back—Masugu asking me if I’d visited his rooms, the night of the first snow; Lady Chiyome telling him the fox spirit had been looking for something...