Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(70)

Emi stood there, swaying, along with Aimaru—who was holding his head—and Toumi, the Horseradish girls, Sachi—all of the women. Even Masugu was there; there was no question however, that Mieko was the one who was holding him up. However unsteadily, he was at least standing, wrapped in several robes.

I must have gasped because suddenly all of their gazes flashed up at me. I wanted to hide; I felt as if my failure, my cowardice, my shame were all too obvious to all of them, and my tears and sobbing redoubled.

Chiyome-sama shuffled over to the base of the tree and squinted up. “Well,” she wheezed, “I thought I knew what I was getting when I bought you. Serves me right.”

Then she knelt unsteadily and bowed. Deeply. Touching her grey, wild hair to the earth.

Astonished, I gaped at the others. Perhaps the corydalis had affected the lady’s mind?

They all seemed as surprised as I was, but one by one—or, in the case of Mieko and Masugu, two by two—they followed her example.

The last two standing were Toumi and Emi. Toumi grunted and started to sneer, but looked over at the sheet covering Fuyudori’s body and then up at me. She gave me a curt nod, and then she too knelt. It was not as deep a bow as the rest had given, but it was—aside from Lady Chiyome’s—the one that most overwhelmed me.

Emi smiled. Emi smiled. She mouthed the words We heard and Thank you.

And then she too bowed before me at the foot of the hemlock tree as the snow settled softly to the ground.





Epilogue—On the Ground


All of the inhabitants of the Full Moon shuffled to their rest, the corydalis still thickening the blood in their veins.

We turned our backs on the covered body of Fuyudori. Several of us made our way back to the great hall. Some to the dormitories.

Nobody went to the Retreat.

I couldn’t stand to go anywhere where there were others. The chill of what had happened made me shiver even more than the biting cold of the winter night. I couldn’t think of sleeping—of dreaming.

I shuffled and shivered my way toward the bathhouse, which had always been a warm, cheerful place for me, in spite of the hard work that Emi, Toumi and I did there. And it was untainted by any memory of Fuyudori the kitsune. Fuyudori the kunoichi. Fuyudori the would-be assassin.

When I slipped out of the snow, which was beginning to fall hard, and into the little building, I reveled in the warmth before noticing that there were two people already there: Emi and Aimaru.

Her face was grim, but then it always was. His face was ashen, making the bruise that peeked out from under his hairline look almost black in the candlelight. Yet he was smiling. “We thought you might come here.”

I stared at them blankly.

“The tubs need to be cleaned,” said Emi, as if this were the most sensible statement in the world. Which, in some ways, it was.

Together, the three of us began to drain the tubs in preparation for cleaning and refilling them.

Once we were scrubbing at the walls of the two wooden tubs—Emi and Aimaru in the cool tub, me in the hot—I began to stop shivering.

By the time we began filling the tubs again with buckets full of snow, I was actually sweating.

We laid the firewood for the next morning and sat back against the walls of the bathhouse, pleasantly exhausted.

I peered over at them. They seemed to be careful not to look at me—nor at each other. “How much did you hear?” I asked.

“Not much,” said Aimaru with a shrug.

Emi cocked her head. “Enough. We heard her talk about you giving her some kind of letter.” She gave a quick gasp. “So she was the one! That’s what she was trying to find in Masugu’s room!”

“And in the stable,” Aimaru added, nodding.

“Yes.” I wiped a drop of sweat out of my eye. “Only she had no idea what the poppy juice was going to do to Masugu, and then tonight she thought the corydalis root was dried poppy.”

Emi actually laughed. “Good thing for us!”

“Yes.”

“So...” Aimaru shifted uncertainly. “What was this letter she was looking for?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. I’d been trying not to think about the thing. “Oh! I’ve still...!” I pulled the now-flattened roll of rice paper out from between my jacket and my undershirt, where I had shoved it when I was on top of the Retreat. We all stared at it.

“We should—” began Aimaru.

“—return it to the lieutenant,” finished Emi.

We all continued to stare at the paper.

“It doesn’t look like a letter,” I said.

They both nodded.

“Maybe,” Emi began slowly, “we should check. To be sure that it’s the same one.”

Now we all nodded, even though I knew—and was sure that they knew—that it couldn’t possibly be any other piece of paper than the one I’d pulled from the letter case.

I leaned forward and unfolded the paper on the floor. Emi took one end and held it down, and I held the other. It wasn’t big.

“It isn’t a letter,” said Aimaru.

No, it wasn’t. It was a drawing. Some squiggles in black, and then squares in different colors—blue, red, and white. The paper had been stained by moisture, but the ink did not seem to have run. The blue and red squares all had what looked like arrows pointing from them toward the white squares. In the bottom corner a crest was stamped in red: a three wild ginger leaves, like shovels. It made me think....