Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(68)

I knew that she was trying to taunt me, to get me to make a mistake, but I couldn’t help the flood of anger that came up from my belly; I could feel the world turning red again as it had that afternoon with Aimaru. Now, however, I had no weapon, and I knew that Fuyudori would not hesitate to grab me and—“My father was a brave man!”

“Oh, yes,” Fuyudori taunted. “The very model of a samurai. Or so everyone thought.”

“He was!” I cried. My fingers clenched, one hand closing on the letter case, the other on the deeply creviced bark before me; I could smell the earthy scent of the tree mixing with the bitter scent of the snow, which was falling thickly now.

She merely laughed. “Please. Ordered to attack a party containing Lord Imagawa and Lord Takeda’s nephews and nieces and he was too weak! And rather than pay the honorable price by taking his own life like Toumi-chan and Emi-chan’s fathers, he left in disgrace to be scribe, a common scribe!”

Father, sitting there beside the fire, transcribing a marriage contract. There is honor too, he sighed, in humble service. “No! He... He had his own children! If he had died it would have killed us!”

Fuyudori chuckled. She was moving slowly around the trunk now, trying to close the distance stealthily. “Emi-chan and Toumi seem to have managed.”

I moved slowly away from the approaching sound of her voice. “They lived on the streets of the capital!” I was shaking—fear, cold, anger, and fatigue were all taking their toll. “And my sister had just been born!”

“How awful for you.”

“He couldn’t sentence us to death any more than he could those other children!” I could see Otō-san making that choice: putting our lives and those of the Takeda children above even our family honor.

“’Those other children,’” mimicked Fuyudori, sing-song. Then she gasped in delight. “You mean... you don’t know?”

“Know?” I peered behind me; the Retreat was perhaps thirty strides away. I thought of breaking for it—climbing the chimney perhaps, or the timbers at the corner—

“They didn’t tell you!” Fuyudori laughed again—a full, delighted laugh this time, though it sounded just as terrible and as terrifying as before. “Well, of course the old witch always loves to play her games. And he wouldn’t say a thing, now, would he?” Her laughter echoed in the snow-muffled quiet.

“What?” I began to step away from the tree. If I could get a good distance before she discovered... “Who wouldn’t say a thing?”

She laughed again—cackled really, and the sound raised the hair on my arms. “Masugu, of course!”

I stopped creeping, just a bit more than an arm’s distance from the tree and, in spite of myself, stepped closer, as if hearing better would make what she was saying more sensible. “Ma—? Masugu?”

Fuyudori cackled on. “Takeda Masugu!” My hands clenched on the tree’s bark again. “Son of Takeda Nobutatsu, half-brother of that monster Takeda Shingen—!”

She launched herself around the tree, the wok held in both hands above her head, ready to deliver The Key of Heaven—

But I was already out of reach, scrambling up onto the lowest of the hemlock’s branches. Relief flowed through my limbs as she stared up at me, eyes and mouth wide. Then she screeched in frustration and slammed the tree with the wok—there were stains on it; Not Kee Sun’s blood, please don’t let that be Kee Sun’s blood, I prayed. The metal pan did indeed ring out quite musically.

Nonetheless, I was beyond her grasp, and could wait until some of the others woke and could corner Fuyudori and lock her away—

With an explosive snort, she tossed the wok out into the snow that had begun to collect beyond the cover of the hemlock. Glaring up at me, she clutched at the uneven bark and began to climb.

Fuyudori was no squirrel, but she was very strong—always the first to finish with the stone-carrying exercise—and she pulled her way slowly and furiously up toward my perch among the lowest branches.

My stomach felt as if I had swallowed a large, frozen rock. I gawped at her in shock until she had climbed almost half way up the base of the trunk.

And then I bolted—straight up. From limb to limb I scuttled, higher and higher, so that the trunk was swaying in the wind and the limbs were barely thick enough to hold my weight.

At last, I reached a place where there was no further to go. The trunk itself was thinner than my wrist, and the branches merely twigs. The whole treetop danced as I tried to put as much distance as I could between myself and the madwoman below.

“Do you know,” she shouted up from below, “you really are a fantastic climber. It will take me a while to get where you are. But I will get there. You might as well save me the trouble and come down.”

“No!” I screamed.

Fuyudori laughed—the same condescending, tinkling laugh that she’d humiliated the three of us with our first day at the Full Moon. “Suit yourself. I’ll be there soon enough. Don’t freeze; it would be awful to have to pry the letter case from your icy fingers.”

I clutched the metal case to me and whimpered, trying to think of what to do—where to go. “HELP!” I shouted, but my cry was met only with silence, and with Fuyudori’s laughter.

“Do you honestly think anyone is going to help you, Risuko-chan? They’re all unconscious, or maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ve killed them. That old witch and her idiot bodyguards and her imbecile cook. Masugu, the fool, and Mieko, who thinks that she’s so special, and all of the rest. Even your little friends. Perhaps I’ll light the buildings on fire once I’ve finished with you, and then no one will escape. Yes, that would be fitting: me, a woman, destroying Lord Takeda’s little army of women, of sneaks and killers, as if I were burning out a wasps’ nest. Yes. I think perhaps that I shall.” Her face appeared among the foliage below, grinning, mad, feral.