Risuko (26 page)

“
Hai
, Kee Sun
-san
,” I said, and carefully made my way out into the rapidly gathering gloom of the winter evening.

S
now began to fall again—light, tiny flakes that seemed to appear from nowhere. I struggled to keep the soup from sloshing out of the tureen and the bowls clattered and threatened to fall every time my feet slid on the slick gravel, but I managed. Soon I was at the Retreat. I knocked on the door.

A familiar whisper answered. “Yes?”

“Emi!”

She sighed. “Hello, Murasaki. Do you have our meal?”

“Yes! It's chicken soup.”

I heard several of the women inside groan with hunger.

“Open the door,” I whispered, “and I can help you serve it out.”

“Oh,” Emi said, sounding uncertain. “I think you're just supposed to leave it.”

I kept my voice low; I didn't want anyone but Emi to hear. “But I need to bring the tureen to the guesthouse to feed Aimaru and Masugu
-san
.”

“Oh.” I heard movement inside, and the door opened—just a crack. The air inside was hot and stale. I saw a dozen grumpy faces looking toward me. Emi stepped out, finishing wrapping herself in a jacket to to keep out the chill. The women began to press toward the door.

“Stop pushing, ladies. Line up!” said Mieko, and line up they did.

Emi and I knelt. I spooned out the steaming soup into a bowl, and Emi passed each in to one of waiting women inside.

“So,” I whispered, “what is it like?”

“Like?” Emi grumbled.

“The Retreat?”

She was silent for a moment. “Boring.”

“Oh.”

Then she turned toward me and her eyes sparkled. “Anything exciting happening out there?”

“Uh,” I gulped, spilling a bit of broth onto the step that was serving as our serving table, “I hit Aimaru over the head with a stick.”

Emi laughed—bright and happy, like a dog's welcoming bark. “I wish I could have seen that!”

“But—!” I spluttered. Toumi was scowling from the barely-open doorway, waiting for her meal. I filled the bowl that Emi was holding, and she passed it up to Toumi, who took it with a grunt and began slurping the soup, still watching us as she walked away. I lowered my voice again. “I thought you... liked him.”

“Shh!” Emi's face fell, not into its usual frown, but into a grimace of shock.

She handed a bowl out, then sighed. “Anyway... What were you doing with a stick?”

“It was the one we use to chase rats. I was... pretending it was a sword.”

“Oh.” Emi's eyes narrowed. “Murasaki?”

“Hmm?”

“Your sash.”

Not wanting to say the words, I lifted the red and white silk.

Now Emi's eyes got wide. “How—?”

“I think,” I whispered, looking past her into the room full of women dressed in red and white, “that I got it because I told Mieko
-san
what
kunoichi
were. That they are—”
Assassins. Killers.
“—soldiers.”

Emi nodded, passing a bowl up to one of the women. “That makes sense,” she murmured quietly. “That's why they have us doing all of the slaughtering and butchering.”

I hadn't thought of that. The teachers had said that what we had learned from Kee Sun would help us as
kunoichi
. My stomach contracted.

Emi grunted. “But what about the dancing and singing and writing and such?”

Laughter bubbled through the doorway. It appeared the Horseradish girls were teasing Toumi.

“I think,” I whispered, “that we're going to be spies too, some of us. Gathering information.”

“Oh!” Emi nodded. “That's why we dress as
miko
! So we can go anywhere and no one notices us!”

That too made sense. Shino pushed her way in front of Fuyudori and demanded another bowl. I was going to refuse, but Emi shook her head. “I'm stuck in here with her for the next few days. It's not worth aggravating her.”

Next Fuyudori came forward. “Good evening, Risuko
-chan
.” She smiled her too-sweet smile. “Do not feel too badly. You will be here with us soon enough.”

Emi, who was facing away from Fuyudori, crossed her eyes; it was all I could do not to laugh as I poured the head initiate's soup into the bowl that Emi was holding. “Yes, Fuyudori
-senpai
,” I managed to say.

“Lovely,” said Fuyudori, taking the bowl. She peered down into the soup. “Turnips?”

“Radishes,” I answered apologetically.

“Oh.” Her shoulders drooped, and she walked away, sniffing at her bowl.

I poked at Emi with the ladle, and she actually smiled. “Fine,” I whispered, spooning out her bowlful of soup.

“She's been impossible all day, wringing her hands and weeping about the lieutenant. I thought Mieko was going to strangle her.” Emi's brow furrowed. “Actually, from what you're telling me, that might have made for a much more useful lesson than playing music badly.”

I considered that for a moment. I think that Emi meant it as a joke, but somehow, it didn't seem terribly funny at the time. “Kee Sun said that he had to send Fuyudori away from the lieutenant's rooms.”

“Oh!” said Emi, her voice excited even as her face remained glum. “She was so worried about Lieutenant Masugu that she snuck out not long after you brought the rice this afternoon. Sachi actually had to hold Mieko back, or Mieko would have skinned her.”

“Huh.” I put the lid back on the tureen.

“Wait,” Emi said, lifting her bowl to her lips. “You could stay and have your meal with me.”

“All right.” She stood and stepped into the doorway. I knew her well enough by then to know that the sadness on her face was neither habitual nor feigned. “It'll be boring without you. All they want to do is complain, eat or sleep.” She started to close the door, but turned back toward me. “Say hello to the lieutenant. And, uh, to Aimaru.” Her nose and cheeks were already reddened by the cold, but now a pink flush rose up her neck.

“I will,” I answered, but she had already closed the door, slurping at her soup.

—

When I got to the guesthouse, Aimaru was far happier to see the soup tureen than he seemed to be to see me, but even so he smiled when I extended Emi's greeting to him.

“Is your head all right?” I asked. The bruise on his forehead was the deep purple of maple leaves.

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.

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.

F
or 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.