Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(71)

We all squinted down at the paper.

“It looks like...” Aimaru said, biting his lip.

It made me think of sitting in Lady Chiyome’s rooms, the night that I’d climbed up the outside wall. Looking down at...

Emi gave a grunt. “It’s a map.”

Yes, it was a map. Of course! As soon as Emi said that, I realized that it looked a lot like the map I’d seen Lord Imagawa and his general looking at the morning that I met Lady Chiyome. “But what of?”

“The provinces around the capital,” came a sharp voice from my shoulder.

I spun around, clutching the map to my chest.

Toumi was standing, her face lumpy as if from lack of sleep. “A battle map, I think.”

“I...” I started to talk, but couldn’t think what to say.

“We found it,” said Emi. “In the snow. I showed it to Murasaki because we didn’t know what it was.”

Toumi just shrugged.

I stood, as did Aimaru and Emi behind me. I clutched the paper to my chest. “I...”

Toumi’s dark eyes did not rise to mine. “Kee Sun has the others cleaning the kitchens, which they hate. I’m supposed to help you. But it looks like you’re done.”

“Yes.” I held my breath.

“You’re an initiate.” She was squinting at my now-stained sash.

“Oh.” My stomach felt cold again, in spite of the warmth. “Yes.”

“Huh.”

“I...” I leaned forward so that she had to look into my eyes. “It’s because I found out what kunoichi are. We think that’s the test.”

“Huh.” She scowled at me as I stood straight again. “What kunoichi are?”

Over my shoulder, Emi whispered, “Assassins. Spies. Bodyguards.”

Toumi’s eyes widened. Even now, I am not certain whether it was because of what we had just revealed to her, or that we had told her at all—that we had showed her that trust. “Assassins?” She spoke the word with something like reverence.

“And spies,” I sighed. No harm.... “And bodyguards.”

Toumi’s face fell into a relaxed smirk. “I’d like to see you as a bodyguard. Mouse.”

I felt the heat rise in my face, but I answered her in kind: “I’d like to see you as a spy!”

She snorted.

Emi hummed almost happily. “That would leave me to be the assassin.”

“I think that’s the Matsudaira crest,” said Aimaru. We all blinked. “On the map.”

I lowered the paper from my chest. The ginger-leaf seal lay in the corner where the blue squares were congregated. Once again, the stones on the map in Chiyome-sama’s room came to mind. “Yes. I think that the blue... are the Matsudaira. And I’m sure the red are the Takeda.” Then I waved at the white squares ranged along the end of what had looked like a long thumb, but which I now saw clearly as Lake Biwa, near the capital. Father always said the lake was beautiful in the springtime. “And these must be Oda-sama’s troops.”

Toumi gulped. Even she could see it. “So Matsudaira-sama wants the Takeda—us—to help him... attack Lord Oda?”

Lord Oda. Who had dishonored our fathers. I almost told them then. I almost asked if they knew....

“But I thought the Matsudaira and the Oda were on the same side.” Emi rested her chin on my shoulder, peering at the map. Battle of white and scarlet...

“So are the Takeda,” Aimaru pointed out.

We all stared at the map again.

“If... Matsudaira-sama is trying to get Takeda-sama to attack Oda-sama... Perhaps Takeda-sama is doing the honorable thing and warning Oda-sama?”

“Maybe,” grunted Toumi.

Emi gave a snort of frustration that made the rice paper flutter in my fingers. “Then why’s Masugu-san staying here all winter, instead of riding as fast as he can to the capital?”

“I don’t know,” I said. In fact, it didn’t make any sense.

Toumi wrinkled her sharp nose. “Maybe we’re better off not knowing. Lords. Knowing their business is bad news.”

Aimaru murmured, “The monks always said, ‘Knowledge without understanding is like soup without seasoning.’”

“Though I could have done without the seasoning in this evening’s soup,” grunted Emi.

We all agreed with that.

“Let’s give this back to Masugu,” said Emi. I rolled up the map, and we all trooped out the door—including, to my surprise, Toumi, who shuffled along sullenly.

“Don’t want you two hogging all the credit,” she said

—

Imagine a nation at war with itself.

Not so very hard to do in a time when ambition, greed, and fear gallop like unreined horses from heart to heart, from home to home, from town to town. The great lords play their games of conquest as if moving stones around in a huge game of Go, but instead of a lined board, they play upon the land itself, and instead of pebbles, they position, capture, and sacrifice living men.

And women. And children.

Mute, we gave the map to Mieko, who was watching Masugu sleep. Serpent-girlie. She promised that she would keep it safe and return it to him.

None of us spoke as we stumbled blearily into our dormitory. We had nothing left to say.