Glossary. Aniki -- older brother, but not necessarily a blood relation. Imouto -- younger sister, but in this story at least, not necessarily a blood relation either; mainly refers to one's junior in the Sorceress's Guild, and is just what they say instead of "petite soeur," because they don't know French. "About five kin" -- You can probably google "japanese system weights measures" yourselves, but it does no harm to say that one kin is about 601 grams, or roughly 1.3 pounds. So, a fair amount of rice. The Japanese system of commerce at the time seems to have been rather different from anything we know. The Eastern and Western Markets existed in Heian Kyo more or less as I've described them -- though I've done a certain amount of unjustified guessing with regard to the Western Market -- but there was also apparently no actual merchant class at the time, and pretty much all buying and selling was controlled by the government, also known as the Fujiwara family. So I don't really know who the marketeers were. Research continues. But there was no free enterprise system as we understand it. Then again, they don't appear to have had a Sorceress's Guild either, or indeed any really solid guild-like excrescences until early in the Kamakura period.
If you like, simply suppose that as I was crossing a bridge of dreams, I ran across this complete fantod of a world, which you can believe in exactly as much as it pleases you to believe in it at any given moment. That's sort of the approach I'm taking. And since it's sort of what the Heian courtiers believed about the world they lived in, it's oddly appropriate.
Enough blithering. Forward.
III. The Markets Of the Left And Right
Sachiko dreamt of a fox. The fox was peering out of a hole, just ahead of her. She had been going through the brush, looking for edible plants, and was suddenly confronted with this furry, peak-eared, sharp-nosed, laughing-tongued, gleaming-eyed face. It looked at her expectantly, as if waiting for her to speak.
"How do you do," she said.
"As well as I may," said the fox. "What are you up to?"
"I am searching for food."
"Ah, yes," said the fox. "Naturally. But we all need food, and you are a stranger here. Will you take the food that was meant to feed those who live in these parts?"
"If I am not to die in these parts, I am," Sachiko answered.
"Only so much as you need then. Try there, down the bank. In the long grasses, you may find onion-weed and meat-foil."
Sachiko went down the bank on all fours. Mist hung over everything, and the grasses were thick. She remembered this ridge, except that the air had a morning crispness, and the sun was at the west. Something odd about that.
The fox's voice stayed with her. "To your left. Ah, here is dill a-plenty. Shiso and miso, shiitake and rice-flower. Jasmine and tearoot, hahhh..."
Sachiko stopped. She had come upon a hole. It was only a little hole, but it was so dark she was almost sure it would swallow her whole if she attempted it. She was aware, somewhere, that she was dreaming, and the hole looked like it might lead to another dream, a less peaceful and misty one altogether.
"The Lady sleeps down there," said the voice of the fox.
"The Lady?"
"The Sun that Shines Underground. The Lady of Mud and Mountain, with Nine Tails Shining..." the fox sounded reverent.
Sachiko put a hand on the edge of the hole. Away down in the deeps a little light flared, and an eye half-opened and peered redly up at Sachiko.
"Beware how you wake the Lady," said the voice of the fox, a voice suddenly made of gnawed twigs and dead leaves. "Beware."
Sachiko awoke.
--
Yumi was awake already, watching her.
"Well. Good morning," Sachiko said.
Yumi smiled shyly. "Good morning," she said.
"Bath time," Sachiko said.
They rose.
Yumi just sat there, scratching her head at first. Sachiko went to the cabinet. She was thinking about the dream she'd just had -- the details were fading, but she held hard to the general gist of it. She was very much alive to the implications of having such a dream, such a vivid and disturbing dream, when she had just met the girl she meant to make her imouto, and while she was sleeping with that very girl folded in her robes. In fact, however, there were a number of different ways such a dream could be interpreted, and looking at her filthy yet appealing charge in the morning light, it was very difficult to see her as a danger, especially remembering the remarkably soft smile she had smiled upon Sachiko's waking... Well... Smiles didn't prove anything, any more than dreams did. There was a lot to do, today. For the moment, watchfulness was all.
She got out a simple grey shift. "This isn't elaborate, but you'll wear it after you've bathed. I'll carry it for the time being. All right?"
"Yes, Mistress. What about these?" She indicated the rags she was wearing.
"You'll have no further use for those. We'll put them on a midden after the bath. Then I'll have to get you some proper clothes." She closed the cabinet.
"Mistress...I..."
"Yumi, if there's something on your mind, please speak."
"You...you shouldn't spend too much money on me, Mistress. I'm not worthy..."
From by the cabinet, Sachiko stared at the girl on her pallet, a reversal of their positions last night after the lice announcement. Then she went and knelt by her.
"Do you think you're unworthy to serve me, Yumi?"
From Yumi's face, this question might have been torture.
"Worthiness is an interesting idea," Sachiko went on. "We should talk about it more, when we have time. When I first came to the Guild, the only daughter of a wealthy, powerful man, I had the opposite problem you have. I thought I was worthy of anything and everything, and certainly worthy of far more and better than anyone in the Guild seemed willing to bestow on me. I was soon disabused of this. My teacher assured me that I was worthy of decent treatment, the same as anyone else in the Guild, but that they had no time to pamper and coddle me. 'In your world,' she said, 'it's all a matter of who your parents are. Here it's who you are, what you've done, what you can do. And you haven't done anything yet.'"
Yumi had started staring down at her grimy fingers, but was now looking at Sachiko in astonishment. "She spoke to you that way? Mistress," she added hastily.
"Yes, she did. I deserved it. And you're making the same mistake I made, but in the opposite direction." Sachiko took those soft, grimy little fingers in one of her white hands. "You are entering the Sorceresses' Guild as my famula, and my prospective student. You are worthy of anything and everything the other young students are worthy of. And anyone who says otherwise will have me to reckon with. Including you. Do you understand?"
"I...just...look at me..." Looking away again, in shame.
"Yes. You're a mess. So let's go and do something about that." She stood, and hauled Yumi to her feet as she went. "If you're dirty, what else is there to do but clean yourself as best you can?"
--
Sei sat on a low stone wall near the great Western Market. Maeko sat near her. To the south of them, there was a dilapidated street, partially inhabited, partially a long, ill-kept series of large lock-boxes disguised as shuttered shops. To the north lay an open field, broken here and there by herds of cattle and by uneven, weed-choked, incomplete lines of stone, the ghosts of old streets and alleys. To the northwest a group of old houses had burned three nights ago and were still smoldering, and the stink of it flavored the air. This was the City of the Right, which had over time become no city, or the ghost of a city, or perhaps the dark brother of the City of the Left. Between the world of the wastes to the north and the unfriendly street on the south was the market, a world unto itself. You could buy many of the same things here that you could buy in the better-appointed Eastern Market on the other side of the city, but you could also buy goods and services you wouldn't necessarily want anyone to know you'd bought. So you had to be cautious, as did the people who sold them to you. It was quieter than the Eastern Market; it was not a place for loud noises, or sudden moves.
Sei and Maeko watched as the tamer marketeers set up stalls, unrolled mats, laid goods out on display.
Sei tore a hunk of bread off the loaf she was holding and handed it to Maeko.
"Have you forgiven me yet?" Sei wondered.
"As if my forgiveness was worth one grain of rice to you," Maeko sniffed. Still, she accepted the bread and began chewing on it. "Hmmm. Tough. Sour."
"Maybe it's an acquired taste." Sei didn't look at Maeko. She slouched there on the wall, her hands on her knees, her elbows sticking out to either side. She looked a bit like a praying mantis with a sense of humor. She continued to examine the proceedings of the marketeers with constant interest and just the hint of a laugh in her face.
"Why are you out here anyway?" Maeko wondered.
"Hoping I see someone I know."
"Who?"
Sei said nothing.
"Why?" Maeko asked.
"To ask a question I'm hoping to ask... Oi! Oooiii! Toshi!" she called.
She had directed this toward a group of men a little way off. It looked as if some kind of meeting had just broken up over there, and the men were still standing around in twos and threes. A slender small ratlike man -- much smaller than Sei, not much bigger than Maeko -- looked up from a conversation he was having, and went right back to it without so much as a nod.
"That's the man?" Maeko asked.
"Yes."
"Doesn't seem eager to talk to you."
"He'll come over as soon as he's done... Won't your parents be wondering where you are?"
Maeko grimaced, and stood. "You're really eager to hold on to me. Will I see you soon, Sei?"
"Questioning's almost upon us, pert-buns. I'll be busy, and then I'll be out of town for a little."
"But you are still coming to my wedding?" Maeko wasn't looking at Sei. And she was scuffing a toe in the dirt.
Sei turned her head at last to look at Maeko, and Maeko, catching the movement, looked up. Sei looked her in the eye calmly. "I can't think why you'd want me there, but I did promise you. Be well, Maeko." She meant this, but sounding as if she meant it wasn't easy. I care for you. As much as I can.
There was a silence, which involved more toe-scuffing and absence of eye contact. Then Maeko said, "I'll be thinking of you, Sei."
And then she dashed off, towards her home.
Sei watched her go, a little sadly. She hadn't been attached to Maeko -- she was careful about attachments, these days -- but she had allowed herself to become just that little bit fond of her. It wouldn't be a wrench, letting her go, but a slight pang, no question...
Oh, well. The future lies this way.
Toshi came up to her, with a suspicious look on his narrow face. "Hello, strange woman."
"Hello yourself, Tosh. I've a favor to ask of you."
His eyes shifted a bit, but in the end he looked down, with a sigh. "You saved my life, strange woman. I will do as you ask."
"This isn't a dangerous one. And I'll pay you for your time."
Toshi beamed. "Anything you ask!" he said emphatically.
Sei answered this lightning change of attitude with her crookedest grin. "I and my friends had a violent meeting last night, Toshi. With ruffians. Wise guys. Thieves, masterless men. Possibly friends of yours."
Toshi shrugged. "Anything is possible."
"There was a conversation among swords. One of them was wounded. The other two carried him off. I'll describe them for you." She did so.
Toshi nodded when she was done. "This one who jumped back, with the headband and the pretty robes -- sounds interesting."
"Yes, doesn't he? Not the sort you'd ordinarily meet in a situation like that. The robes, and his shyness when it came to swordsmanship, lead me to suspect that he may have come from --" she lowered her voice -- "the northernmost ward."
Toshi definitely looked interested now. "Very unusual. Strange woman brings strange news."
"I'm like that, or so I'm told," Sei said. "Here's walk-around money, with an advance." She offered him a smallish necklace of coins.
Toshi grunted with displeasure at the sight of them.
Sei sighed. "You can exchange them for rice at the usual rate and in the usual place, Toshi, you know that," she said impatiently. "Really, you Japanese need to get over your aversion to coined money."
"You gaijin need to get over your aversion to good honest rice," Toshi said resentfully.
"Rice is decent fare," Sei said grudgingly, "though I prefer potatoes, but even I have never used potatoes as money. Rice doesn't keep indefinitely, and it'd be devilish wonky, hauling this much rice with me everywhere I went."
Toshi gave the coins another look. "How much rice is that?"
"About five kin."
His lips moved a little. "Good enough," he said. He accepted the necklace.
"I want you to discover what you can about these men. And I don't want them to rumble they're being traced at all. I want you to be the merest shadow. Less even than a shadow."
Toshi nodded, and smiled. "You've come to the right Toshi for that," he said. "I'm just about invisible." Then he looked a bit morose. "Though there was one person who spotted me, once."
Sei nodded. "I know that, Toshi. But don't worry. I promised you I wouldn't tell, remember?..."
--
Yumi was naked, wet, embarrassed, confused, and in love.
She was finding life no less difficult than she'd found it yesterday, but much more complicated.
The naked and wet part was easy enough to understand; she'd removed her clothing and hot water had been poured over her. This, in turn, led to embarrassment. The confusion lay in the fact that she couldn't feel just one way about anything that was happening to her; she couldn't be only embarrassed or only happy, only wretched or only joyful: she was naked, wet, filthy, and vulnerable, in front of many strangers, and in front of the object of her love:
Sachiko-sama.
Why this great lady wanted Yumi around, Yumi still didn't know. Here was another source of confusion: she wanted to know why, and in fact she wanted to know everything about her Mistress, the Dark Lady, the most beautiful, powerful, clever, mysterious woman in the world. She could not rest until she knew everything, until she had cloaked herself in Sachiko-sama, or Sachiko-sama in herself, until she had become one with Sachiko-sama, or with all of the world that Sachiko-sama touched or cared for. On the other hand, she thought she might never know why, that the divine glory that was Sachiko-sama might not be for one such as she to understand, and the wisest course might simply be to enjoy her proximity with Sachiko-sama while it lasted, for it couldn't last long.
Sachiko-sama was also naked and wet -- though her wetness was just from the air in the bathhouse, as she had not doused herself yet -- and this had added in great measure to Yumi's confusion and distraction. Having Sachiko-sama's naked form in her vision -- long, long black hair; deep blue eyes; pale, creamy skin -- filled her with vertigo, with a strong feeling that there was something she should do, and the strong feeling that if she figured out what that something was, and did it, she would be destroyed.
It was easier now that Sachiko-sama was behind Yumi, and Yumi couldn't see her. Sachiko-sama was scrubbing Yumi's back. This had confused and upset Yumi at first -- Sachiko-sama's beautiful slender white hands and long fingers were surely made for the noblest of deeds -- to call forth fire against her enemies, and to heal her friends with their good, bright magic, as Yumi had seen: not to scrub Yumi's ordinary back. But when Yumi had hinted at this, Sachiko-sama had said she was being silly again. "You can't very well scrub your own back. And I'm certainly not going to let anyone else do it. Oh, Rei-san or Yoshino-chan, perhaps, but they're not here."
"Not Satou-sama?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Yumi." Sharp.
"Sorry, Mistress." Downcast.
"And don't be sorry either." Brisk, cheerful.
There was another thing. The unanimous opinion of everyone Yumi spoke to, including other tramps, was that Yumi was stupid and worthless. So now she was in the presence of this rarefied being, the one person she'd met who really made her feel stupid and worthless, and Sachiko-sama didn't seem to think of her that way at all. Just told her not to be silly when she raised the subject.
Sachiko-sama was complicated, but she seemed to like Yumi. Heaven might know why, but Yumi didn't.
But it seemed as if Yumi could never open her mouth without saying something that sounded foolish to herself, at least. So she had tried to spend this morning in a quiet, mortified, bashful state...
...which Sachiko-sama would not let her stay in. Sachiko-sama demanded a response, always.
Yumi just went on scrubbing all the parts of herself she could reach, and tried not to think about Sachiko-sama's hands scrubbing her back, and how nice they felt. She looked about her as she scrubbed, at the other people scrubbing themselves, and soaking in the two large, squarish stone tubs. The floor of the bath house was of earth. On this chilly morning in early spring, the bath house was warm, heated as it was by two large iron cauldrons near the far eastern wall in which bathwater steamed. High above the cauldrons was the gabled roof, with the morning sun peeking between short wooden pillars, catching and making brilliant the moisture in the air, and throwing dark shadows behind the bathers, and behind the partitions and alcoves which had been placed here and there for modesty's sake.
It was truly early spring, in Yumi's heart. All had been winter before this, and winter had been wearying and terrifying, an endless quest for warm places, which were often begrudged her by their warm and well-fed owners, and nights when she was sure she wouldn't see the morning, trudging along in search of a friendly fire, her rag-wrapped feet kicking now and then at the corpse of a bird, frozen in mid-flight. In this moist, life-giving warmth, it was like an ill dream. Now the weather was warmer and she'd found this unexpected joy, and almost felt like a child again, as she was washed by kind hands...
...and as she was thinking this, the picture before her, of people bathing and sun and the pillars -- especially the pillars, one of them had a knot, and big splinters coming off it so that just looking at it made her hand twitch -- was all so familiar to her that it seemed to her for a moment that she was in the bathhouse near where she'd grown up, in the spring before the long winter. She knew suddenly the truth of the old springtime...
The truth was there in her head. And it was unbearable. And then it was gone again, and she was scrubbing harder, her hands instinctively knowing that they had to distract her from what had just happened.
"Is something wrong?" said Sachiko-sama's unwontedly gentle, dreamy voice, from very near the nape of Yumi's neck. Yumi jumped a little, and scrubbed herself even harder with the loofah. "No! Nothing, Mistress." She hunted around for something else to say, fast. "I'm sorry I'm so filthy --"
"Nonsense, Yumi." Sachiko-sama sounded a bit more alert. "Look around you. Some of these people have been away from a bath for months. Do you see that old man? I'm sure his skin isn't really that color. And he's not the worst I've ever seen. You've nothing to be ashamed of."
"Mmm," Yumi mmmed, not convinced.
Sachiko-sama chuckled warmly. "Starting on your hair now, Yumi."
Her hair was a horrible, tangled mess, Yumi knew. Sachiko-sama slowly and carefully unsnarled it. She was doing her best not to hurt Yumi. The occasional whimper escaped between her clamped lips, but Yumi regarded this as a test. She had to show Sachiko-sama she could be stern if she needed to. Sachiko-sama was strong. Yumi could never be that strong, but she wanted to be as strong as she could.
And she never budged.
And gradually it ceased to be an ordeal and became, as the back-scrubbing had been, pleasant and unnerving all at once. Sachiko-sama's fingers ran through Yumi's hair. They stopped, and Sachiko rinsed, and the sheer pleasure of feeling all that muck just fall away filled Yumi with a tingling warmth. Yumi turned her face up for the last of it, closing her eyes, perhaps reveling a bit. When she opened them, there was Sachiko-sama's face above her, upside down, smiling, almost laughing. And then Sachiko-sama began to soap her hair for the second time. The suds were thicker now, and her hair squeaked a little under them. Yumi felt as if she were floating.
"The lice," Yumi said, without realizing she was speaking.
"I'm feeling them now," Sachiko-sama said. "They were trying to hide from me before." There was that smile in her voice. Yumi could feel Sachiko's hands, and lice squirming under the hands, in the soap.
Sachiko-sama sang:
The many hells surely
wait
For such vermin as yourselves -
Or at least, the cold earth.
And... against the coldness of the last line, the warmth in Yumi's body surged again. There was also the strong impression that she could feel everything around her -- the bare wood stool she sat on, the packed dirt under her feet, banks and tendrils of steam in the moist air, and Sachiko-sama behind her -- especially Sachiko-sama. They were two warmths, almost lost in the greater warmth of the bathhouse, they shone with warmth, Sachiko with her own and Yumi with the warmth Sachiko had poured into her, and Yumi's limbs felt wonderfully loose and easy... The lice had stopped squirming. "The lice, Mistress?..."
"They're dead. Their little bodies tumble off you even now."
And Sachiko-sama rinsed Yumi's hair again.
At the end of it all, at a touch on her shoulder from Sachiko-sama, Yumi turned on the stool to face her, and Sachiko-sama put a hand on each of Yumi's shoulders. "You are clean. Is it agreeable to you?"
"Yes, Mistress," Yumi said.
"Please wait here. My bath won't take as long, but I do need one. But I have to get more water from the concierge."
And Sachiko wrapped herself in her towel again and walked toward the surly man who was tending the fires under the cauldrons.
Yumi stood, and walked around a little. The strange feeling she'd had earlier had passed completely, and all she was left with was a sense of niggling familiarity, a sense that she'd seen this place before. But really, it was just an enormous room, and she supposed that one bathhouse must be very like another, and she had seldom been allowed inside any of them, at least as far back as...
...as she could...
(An eye observed her, to her unknowledge. A careful, clever eye which took in her slenderness, her wetness, her sun-browned limbs and head against the paleness of the rest of her, her awkward grace, her newly-born quality, and this eye much liked what it saw. The owner of the eye winked it at no-one, and moved.)
None of the alcoves was very large, it seemed to Yumi, and yet this one, here, looked interesting, as if an altar had been set up in it at one time: an old cracked table, a dulled vase with a shiny violet inside showing at the lip, and a place that looked as if an image had hung there --
A dark shadow enveloped her. There was a man between her and the sunshiny pillars at the eastern end. A tall man with an earring and a broad, shiny-toothed grin. He looked like a river-demon. "Funny, that this alcove interests you," he said, taking her elbow. "It has a most curious history! This place in dark times was once a shrine to foreign gods -- demons in all sooth -- and I am a demon, from a long line of river demons worshipped here. This is my family altar..."
This silly man was no demon. Yumi knew demons. But he was strong. As she was urged along toward the altar, as she and the river-demon were both eclipsed by the darker shadow of the bamboo partition, Yumi tried to pull her elbow free. The man's grip tightened.
--
The concierge, Yukito-san, was in a grumpy mood. "You don't usually ask for more water, Ogasawara-san."
"Well, no. But today I have a companion."
"I saw. Has she paid her temple fee?"
"No. She is my servant, and I've only just engaged her. She has no money."
"So when will she pay her fee?"
"I will pay it for her, as soon as you tell me what amount the temple will charge her, and as soon as I can get my clothing and valuables back from you. For right now, may I just have the water? I've bathed her, you see, and there is no water left. My own bath is still to do. You would oblige me extremely, Yukito-san."
Yukito-san stared at her a moment longer, his arms still folded over his belly. Then he rose, and held his hand out for her bucket.
When he had filled it, he said, "No charge, this time. But see Keita-'nii-san before she bathes here again, please."
"I certainly will. I am grateful for your generosity, Yukito-san."
Sachiko accepted her water with a small bow, and walked back --
-- and Yumi was not where she'd left her. Her towel lay folded on the stool where she'd left it.
Sachiko set the water down by it, cursing herself for a fool. Take my eye off her for five seconds -- She looked around --
Ah, there was the alcove there, with the old altar in it, and she could hear familiar sounds of distress coming from it. She rounded the corner as quickly as she could.
There was a man. A big man. A big man filthy with mud as if he'd been wading up to the neck in a river. One of his arms was covered with blue and pink tattoos. He wore earrings. His thing was flopping around as he tried to get Yumi up against the altar. Yumi was struggling, yelping, "Wait! Hey, wait! Please, stop! No --" And he was laughing, grabbing her arms, laughing again when they slipped out of his grip, getting another grip, he was touching Yumi, and his thing was --
"Let her go," Sachiko said.
He turned to look at her. "Bite me --" he drawled, and stopped. He seemed to recognize her.
"Let her go. Right away. Or I will bite you."
"Now, wait a minute," he said. "If she comes here -- I mean, everyone knows it's mixed bathing, here --"
He had maintained his grip on one of Yumi's shoulders, but somehow Yumi slipped out of it, and as soon as she had, he slipped, as though he'd stepped on a piece of rotten fruit, and was flying headlong.
Yumi squeaked, and fitted herself into the corner.
I have to talk her out of her obsession with corners, Sachiko thought absently. But her eyes, and most of her attention, were on her prey. He looked a rough, dangerous sort of man, but he was currently lying prone and trembling, staring at Sachiko. She stared back, considering the rich variety of options open to her. "Bite me," did he say? Should I give him something to bite on? Hard enough to break his teeth, perhaps?...
Yumi is here. Yumi is watching.
Sachiko took a deep breath, and spoke slowly, with carefully contrived mildness. "For the future: if a sorceress tells you to do something 'right away,' it is excellent policy to comply."
"I didn't --" he said, and stopped. He was grimacing and clutching his thing. There was a light smear of blood on one hand. He seemed to have landed badly.
"Is there anything you wish to say?" she asked him.
He was looking at her with his mouth open.
She raised an eyebrow.
He cried out and began to scratch himself down there.
"If you don't want anything worse than an itch," she said, "then take yourself off. And if you interfere with a sorceress again it'll be the worse for you."
He was gone.
Where there had been no-one a few moments ago, some bathers -- a rather attractive young woman, a woman of matriarchal years and weight with some grey in her hair, a skinny young man -- were all staring, at Sachiko, and at the towelless Yumi. The young man's jaw was hanging free. Sachiko fought back the deep red rage she was feeling, and gave them a calm, gentle look. They turned back to what they were doing, almost with one motion.
And she turned at last to Yumi. "Are you all right?" she asked anxiously.
Before the question was all the way out of her mouth, however, Yumi had flung herself forward and wrapped herself around her. She was wet, cold, and trembling in Sachiko's arms.
Sachiko might have said that a properly respectful servant did not embrace her mistress, certainly not without permission, but Yumi was trembling too badly for her to say anything of the kind, and anyway, there was something... nice... about the feeling. She felt an urge to fling the girl away -- she was never this close, this intimate with anybody -- but there was a more powerful urge she hadn't recognized until now, which, looking back on her actions, she supposed must have been with her since she had first looked into a pair of large, teary, frightened eyes last night: the deep, dark, primal urge to... to hold this girl, and protect her, and, now and then... comb her hair and tell her how cute she was. The urge was much more noticeable now that the girl was clean and therefore more obviously cute.
And so, she relaxed, and held Yumi closer. The girl's utter vulnerability touched her -- a girl who had until recently lacked any protection whatever. How was she possible?
Yumi's trembling had calmed considerably by the time Sachiko had fully accepted this new fact: she had found much, much more than a famula. "Better, now?" Sachiko said.
Yumi reluctantly put herself away from Sachiko, or at least at arm's length. She was blushing. "I am sorry, Mistress -- I shouldn't --" she was stopped by one Sachiko hand on her cheek, and by a soft Sachiko kiss on her forehead.
"Please don't apologize," Sachiko said. "It was stupid of me to leave you alone. What happened was my fault. It is mixed bathing, you see, as that worm said. I have the reputation of being a sorceress, so I'm pretty much immune to such attacks, and I didn't stop to think that my reputation might not protect you if I left you alone. That shouldn't happen again as long as we stay together."
"All right," Yumi said, looking a little dazed. "But...should I not have..."
Sachiko looked at Yumi, a bit puzzled, then thought: She's worried about hugging me without permission. She drew Yumi into her embrace of her own accord, this time. "You will learn how to behave properly around me, and not to hug me without warning, and to observe other important points of etiquette -- in public," Sachiko said into one pink ear. "I will be patient with you. When we are in private, however, I wouldn't have you any other way than as you are. All right?"
"Yes, Mistress," Yumi said. They broke the hug, and there was that gaze again: adoration. Sachiko basked in it for a moment, and wondered what on earth to do about it.
"Good. Now, would you do something for me?"
"Anything, Mistress!"
"Please wash my back?"
Yumi smiled happily. "Yes, Mistress!"
--
Tsujimoto no Fujito, while an intelligent man, and skilled by now in certain aspects of underworld life, was not very good at following people.
Fortunately, it was a busy day in the Great Eastern Market, and he'd managed to pick up his quarry very early, just as they were leaving the Mountain Lily Inn to go to the temple baths. There were enough people, and therefore enough noise, movement, distraction generally, that he could stay fairly close to them without much chance of their noticing.
His one worry, since this market was often frequented by palace servants, was the possibility of being recognised by someone who knew him from his previous existence. In situations like this he would take Ichiki-san's advice: "Wear drab clothes, don't powder your face, and that sissy little lacquered hat of yours is just about the worst thing imaginable; it's like wrapping a banner around your head reading FUGITIVE NOBLEMAN HERE." This was difficult advice for Tsujimoto no Fujito to follow; he didn't feel like himself when he wasn't properly dressed and coiffed. But Ichiki-san had made him see, with much wheedling and coaxing, that his habitual raiment was now an aid to identification and, even with the imperial guards and the city constabulary in the sorry state they were in, a danger not only to himself but to his compatriots.
He was tired. He was normally asleep around this time, but he'd found it advisable to keep clear of Shinji-kun for the moment. Shinji-kun had always looked up to Ichiki-san as an elder brother, and now Ichiki-san lay mortally wounded, and it was, after all, after a fashion, as who should say... Tsuji's fault. Rather. Shinji-kun had made no open accusation, but since the rumpus several hours earlier, he had taken to looking at Tsujimoto with an unnerving light in his eyes, such that Tsujimoto thought it might be the gravest folly to sleep in Shinji-kun's presence.
And after all, if he was to have any hope of gaining his prize, he needed intelligence. He had thought of attempting a desperate ingress to the Ogasawara's rooms while she was out, but was held back by Ichiki and Shinji's former warnings about sorceresses, and the fact that at least two of the sorceresses with whom the Ogasawara cohabited had not yet stirred and, should he chance to disturb them...
No. With his lieutenants effectively out of the game, he needed someone else to take his risks for him.
He wouldn't have recognised the beggar-girl if she hadn't been clinging to the Ogasawara sorceress's arm when they came out of the temple bath. The girl was unwontedly clean and had turned out to be surprisingly comely, if a bit scrawny, under all that filth. It astonished him, after hearing that scream in the night, that she was alive at all, but what had startled and upset him more than anything was that his lucky urchin, his filthy little thief, was on such good terms with the woman he had set her on to rob only hours before. She stayed close to the Ogasawara at all times, often looking up at her worshipfully -- and the Ogasawara, for her part, though calm of visage -- stern, at times -- seemed solicitous and protective of the little thief to a startling degree. This was not the behavior of a person who was about to call a constable. To Tsujimoto no Fujito, this was both good news and bad rolled into one unpredictable package.
Indeed, as their peregrinations through the noise and confusion of the Eastern Market continued, it became clear that the Ogasawara was outfitting the girl, buying her clothes and shoes and ladies' necessaries of various description. Had she engaged the girl as a servant?... It didn't quite feel that way. Tsujimoto was no expert in these matters, but it seemed more... They were currently choosing robes and tunics in a partially enclosed stall, dull grey wood on the outside, vibrant passionate color within... He found a side of the stall that was close to another stall, and relatively quiet, and a crack between two boards to peer through. Just a snatch of overheard conversation might tell him much.
His little between-the-wood slice happened to include his little thief and no-one else. She was wearing robes far too grand for her, and seemed to find the floor wildly interesting.
"Mistress, this fits well enough."
"It does. It is only... I am irked, Yumi." That was the Ogasawara, no doubt. A well-modulated, cultured voice. "The best greens are not available to you because that is the official colour of the sixth rank of the palace hierarchy. This green and this violet together do make a pretty enough show. I was just hoping to do better for you, that's all. Have you any other greens, friend?"
Tsujimoto couldn't see the shopkeeper, but heard him grumble a bit. Some hanging robes wavered and jounced as if someone had gone behind them.
Tsujimoto's lucky thief hung her head and blushed. She seemed to have a surprisingly delicate complexion for a beggar. "Mistress -- plain grey would be good enough for me. Less expensive too. You shouldn't..." She seemed unable to finish the thought.
And then the Ogasawara was right in front of her. Her eyes were flashing in an agreeable way. Tsujimoto thought briefly what a pity it was that such a magnificent creature -- and with such a pedigree! -- should abandon society, tie back her hair, and open herself to such defilement as the sorceresses did.
"Yumi, what did I tell you?..."
"That I shouldn't hate myself so much for being mere filth, Mistress."
"Those were not the words I used, Yumi."
"No, Mistress. I'm as good as anybody in the Guild, Mistress."
"Much better, Yumi."
So the Ogasawara was teaching his thief strange and irreligious ideas. Most curious. Tsujimoto saw that he would have to move fast if he wanted to reassert his dominion over the girl.
"You must learn to value yourself properly, Yumi," the sorceress went on. "I won't have an imouto who doesn't have a proper sense of her own station."
The girl ducked her head as if she'd been slapped.
The Ogasawara shook her head very slightly. "Come, Yumi. This is no way to be. Look! Take these off..." She began undressing the girl, who went completely pink and let out a strange squeal a bit like a baby dragon, but did not resist. "You'll try on this puce one instead, while we're waiting for the onee-san to come back. With perhaps the moss green, with the autumnal motif..."
"Mistress -- please --"
"Don't squirm so, Yumi. What is the matter?"
"I... I itch, Mistress."
Those astonishing blue eyes regarded the beggar girl. "Was it the bath?"
"I think so, Mistress." The beggar girl was looking at the floor.
The Ogasawara regarded the beggar girl for another moment, and then wrapped her arms around her, pulling her near. The beggar girl made another squeaking sound, but did not resist.
The Ogasawara said:
Little fox with no fleas,
With all filth
banished:
Be at peace with your skin.
Was that supposed to be a poem? Tsuji thought, incredulous. She's rubbish.
"Better?" said the Ogasawara.
"Yes," said the beggar girl. She was still blushing, but seemed considerably more relaxed. She just stood in her mistress's embrace, looking very comfortable, and looking up at her. "You'll use your magic even just to make an itch go away?"
"If I can give an itch to a river demon, I can take one away from my little fox," the Ogasawara said. Fondly.
"You didn't give him a poem, Mistress."
"He didn't merit one."
They just stood like that a moment longer, and then the Ogasawara released the girl, gently, perhaps a bit awkwardly. Then she continued to undress her. Soon the pink-cheeked beggar girl was quite unclothed, but the Ogasawara was in the way, and Tsujimoto couldn't quite see -- there was something odd about her, aside from the scrawniness, something --
"Excuse me."
Tsujimoto looked up quickly. There was the shopkeeper, hands on his hips -- oh, er, on her hips -- giving him a dispassionate look.
Caught. In truth, Tsujimoto was an old hand at peeping at women while they dressed, since well before he had perforce joined the underworld. But the scrawny little tramp in there was not really to his taste, and he hadn't thought of what he was doing in those terms at all. "I, er, um," he said intelligently, his hands fondling one another in what he hoped was an apologetic fashion.
The woman struck him quite hard over the right ear, and he went down.
He writhed and scrabbled a bit in the dust, clutching his head. She'd cupped her hand, and his ear felt as if a whole room had been shoved suddenly inside it, an enormous space between him and the world of his right side, with breakers coming up to its terrace, and a demented bird singing a single high note in the eaves.
He heard through the waves and the sick-sweet tone the woman saying, "If you're here when I come back, I'll have a board with some nails in it." And then he heard her retreating footsteps.
Tsujimoto stood, with some effort. Time to go. Damned women. Women were supposed to be gentle, submissive, self-effacing. They weren't supposed to steal your thief from you, they weren't supposed to use swords on your henchmen. They certainly weren't supposed to hit you unfairly like that. Still, it probably was for the best. If she hadn't dismissed him as a nasty little voyeur, she might have thought it necessary to draw the Ogasawara's attention to him, and that might well have been fatal. He got back out into the main thoroughfare and managed, in spite of the noise, and the people dashing to and fro and stepping on his feet, and the vibrating gong in his middle ear, to orient himself as to the compass points. He headed west, through the throng.
Things had become desperate. If the object was to be surrounded at all times by sorceresses, and he couldn't even handle unarmed combat with an irate clothier, then he definitely needed some help. But his usual help was out of commission -- well, one-half out of commission. But Shinji-kun would likely be unwilling to accept his leadership while his aniki lay wounded, perhaps dying.
I'm an aniki too, he thought to himself, as he hustled along Seventh Street toward Red Bird Avenue. Yes. The great willows that lined the avenue waved and rustled in the spring wind. He would turn right when he reached them, and go north, and he knew the door to knock upon. He had hoped to avoid this necessity, but the situation was desperate. It was time to call in some favors.
--
The sorceress Mizuno Youko looked critically at her imouto's new famula. The girl had curtsied properly and now stood submissive, awaiting approval. Her shoulder-length hair, light brown and shiny, was pulled back into a barrette, and she wore a white tunic going to mid-thigh, and a violet robe. Her shoes were of black lacquered wood, quite new, and her dainty toenails were painted a seashell pink. She appeared to have been dressed and shod and coiffed at considerably greater expense than famulae usually were. But, unusual as that was, it was really up to Sachiko how she dressed her famula and Youko had nothing to say about it. Officially.
She sneaked a quick glance at Sachiko. Rather than looking at Youko, sternly awaiting her judgment (and hopefully approval) as she usually did, she was looking at Yumi, with a fond little smile and dreaming eyes.
Oh, dear.
Youko quizzed the girl as to her duties.
"It is my duty to serve my Mistress, standing at her side, supporting her silently," Yumi said. "It is my duty to fetch things my Mistress asks for, and to serve her tea when she requires it. Mistress says she will teach me how to make tea tonight. When my Mistress is abroad, it is my duty to keep her camp against intruders, using whatever magics or weapons she has entrusted to me, or my bare fists if she has entrusted me nothing. Mistress adds that she would be unlikely to leave me alone without a weapon anyway, but says that isn't official doctrine." Yumi stumbled a bit over "official doctrine." "When my Mistress is in town, it is my duty to keep her door against strangers, and tell them Mistress is not at home, if she does not wish to be home to them. This would be a lie, but I would tell it if Mistress asked me to. Mistress adds, though this isn't official doctrine either, that it is Mistress's duty to take care of me, and teach me skills that will be useful to me and others, and take me into her lap now and then, and comb my hair, and tell me stories --"
"That's fine, Yumi," Sachiko said, smiling, apparently unembarrassed.
"Yes, Mistress," Yumi said, and went silent again.
The girl had been well-catechized in her duties. Somewhat over-catechized, perhaps.
"Well, congratulations, Sachiko," Youko said at last, as she turned to her writing-table.
"Mmm?" Sachiko said. She was still looking at Yumi, who was now looking at her. The look that they were sharing was not a mistress-famula look.
Oh, dear. "Congratulations on your find," Youko went on. "You have capitalized on it quickly. It looks as if you'll be joining us on the Questioning after all, barring any unforeseen complications."
"Will you like to go on a Questioning, Yumi?" Sachiko asked gently.
"Yes, Mistress. What's a Questioning?" Yumi said adorably.
"I'll tell you all about it later," Sachiko said, beaming.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Mizuno Youko sighed. "Yumi, do you like my garden?"
Yumi looked out at the lush interior garden. "It's beautiful, Mizuno-sama."
"I should like a private word or two with your mistress. Would you mind going out into the garden for a few minutes?"
"...Leave Mistress?" The girl seemed flummoxed, mystified, as if she were being asked to take wing, or live underwater with the fish.
"Only for a few minutes," Youko said with a patient smile. "You'll be right out there and your mistress will be able to see you. In case she has difficulty breathing."
Still, the girl was confused. She looked at Sachiko. Sachiko smiled happily. "I want you to look at the garden, Yumi. I love the garden. It is the only garden of its kind in all Nihon. Later perhaps I can come and look at it with you, and you can tell me all about what you've seen."
Yumi nodded and smiled. "Very well, Mistress." She turned back to Youko. "I will go, Mizuno-sama." She looked again at Sachiko, seemed about to do something, to start some movement; but, seeming to think better of it, made a simple bow, turned, and went out the open panel into the garden.
"Quite a find, Sachiko," Youko said again, giving her imouto a very sharp look.
"Isn't she?" said Sachiko. She looked happier than Youko had ever seen her, the strumpet. She seemed unable to take her eyes off the girl who was now walking slowly through the garden, taking care not to touch anything, but showing great interest in everything. "This morning, I bathed her, and took her shopping for clothes. This afternoon, I taught her basic deportment. Then I brought her to you. She learns very quickly, and from no apparent motivation other than to please me. She makes a mistake now and then, but one gentle reminder -- often no more than a look or a sigh -- and she'll correct it herself. I have not had to be harsh with her once, which is just as well, because I couldn't bear it."
"You are infatuated with your servant, Sachiko," Youko said bluntly.
Sachiko glared at Youko. "Infatuated? Nonsense! I am merely very fond of the ground on which she walks."
"Sachikoooo! Old bean bun! That was almost a joke!" said Sei, coming out from behind a screen.
--
"Please do not call me an old bean bun," said Sachiko sadly. "And good afternoon, Sei-san. And, damn you for an infernal pest, what are you doing here?"
"Never you mind," Sei-san said ominously. "I'm just looking after everyone's best interest, as I am wont to do. What do you think, Youko?" Sei-san and Youko-sama were facing off. They looked almost adversarial, but Sachiko knew they were old friends.
"I think you were right to discuss the matter with me, Sei. Sachiko, Sei worries that you may be being hoodwinked by this girl."
"Oh, I think Sei is wrong about that," Sachiko said, in a gently chiding tone.
Sei-san shook her head. "Love, you see," she said to Youko-sama. "Simple child of nature that she is, she's never felt it before, and it's making a complete fool of her." She faced Sachiko grimly. "Talking turkey here now, young pestilence. Really. Seriously. What do you know about this girl?"
"Not much," Sachiko said. "She says she has no family name, or rather, when I pressed her on that, that she couldn't remember it. She's been living on the streets, and Sei-san will tell you, Youko-sama, how filthy she was when she turned up last night. Bathed and properly dressed, she's like a different person. Teaching her deportment, I seemed not to be teaching her so much as reminding her of things she'd known once, but forgotten. Everything about her suggests that she has been gently reared. Her hands are soft, which tells of a childhood spent among the gentry, or one of the greater merchant or serving families at least. And a filthy horrid disgusting man attempted to rape her at the baths, and she seemed utterly defenseless, and upset, and astonished that this was happening to her -- and yet, how has she lived on the street as long as she seems to have done, without having been thoroughly raped already?"
Sei-san, for once, was bemused instead of bemuser -- Sachiko felt a quick little snake of triumph coiling in her belly. But Sei-san recovered quickly. "So...you do see that there is something uncanny about her?"
"There are many things uncanny about her, Sei-san," Sachiko said, in a tone of mindless wonder, gazing out at her treasure, who appeared to be attempting conversation with a cat. The cat, white with one black paw and with the corner of its right ear missing, seemed to be agreeable to her overtures, and started rubbing itself against her leg as she stroked its head.
"And yet...you don't think she's deceiving you?"
Sachiko looked around, with the faintly annoyed air of one importuned out of a pleasant trance. "Mmm? No. No, Sei-san, I don't think she has been deceiving me. I don't know just what is going on. I do intend to find out."
"You let her sleep in your room last night," Youko-sama said sternly.
"Yes. And she will sleep in my room tonight, too, and every other night."
"Even though you are meant to be safeguarding a certain important object?"
Sachiko sighed, and opened her pouch. "I thought you would bring this up, and so I brought it with me." She withdrew from the pouch a thing that changed the white of her hand to gold. "Here it is. If you don't trust me, or Yumi, you may by all means lodge it with someone else, and I will bear you no ill-will whatever."
"Sachiko, please put it back. I chose you to bear it for many reasons -- not the least of which is that it looks best, with you. I mean for you to present it to her this year, you know."
Sachiko put it back. "I do know. I know that who it is lodged with is an important decision. You did me an honor, placing it with me, and entrusted me with a grave responsibility. I knew that at the time, and I took that responsibility seriously."
Youko-sama looked sad. "And yet you took such a risk? After Sei warned you?"
"A calculated risk, perhaps. I had spent more time with her than Sei-san had, and felt fairly certain I could trust her. It was important to me at any rate not to visibly distrust her, though I took care to place a ward around the cabinet before I slept. And I did that, not because I thought there was danger to it, but because more than my own needs and wishes were at stake there. I awoke this morning, and Yumi still lay beside me. I checked the ward, and it had not been tampered with. Is it acceptable?"
Youko-sama turned slightly away. "I suppose it has to be, Sachiko. I will confess that you took all needful precautions. If the girl is what she seems to be."
Sachiko's gaze on her old teacher did not waver. "She is mysterious, yes. But I don't think she involves deception. Even if she does involve a deception, I don't think that she involves danger. If there is danger, I take full responsibility."
"But, Sachiko --" Youko-sama began.
"If I may?" Sachiko interrupted -- a remarkable departure from etiquette, for her. "What I will not do, under any circumstances, is turn my back on her."
Sei-san and Youko-sama both seemed at a loss for words.
Sachiko sighed. "I will grant you, intellectually, the possibility that she is not the person she seems to be. But for myself, I choose to believe in that person. Until she proves herself to be otherwise."
"And if she does?" Youko-sama asked.
"Then it will break my heart."
Youko-sama sighed. Sei-san seemed strangely upset, almost in tears.
"Talk to her for a few minutes," Sachiko said gently. "Try any trick or trap you can think of. See if you don't come to the same conclusion I did: not that she is hiding things, but that things are being hidden from her."
"Do you think she's been glamoured?" Youko-sama asked thoughtfully.
"I don't know. If she has been, I can find no trace of it. But you make it clear that you know what my level of expertise is, and what my qualifications are to make any such declaration, Mizuno-sama."
"I will see if Fujiwara-dono is available for a brief chat," said Youko-sama.
"I should hardly like to trouble Fujiwara-dono," Sachiko said.
"I would not, ordinarily," said Youko-sama, "and she may think me foolish for disturbing her over a trifle. But she is to lead the Questioning this year, and perhaps she would rather be bothered briefly now than seriously inconvenienced later."
Sachiko inclined her head. Youko-sama went out.
"You really are in love with her," Sei-san said.
--
Sachiko looked at Sei-san in wonder, and then out at Yumi in greater wonder still. Shimazu Yoshino-chan had joined her out there at some point, and the two of them were taking turns petting the cat and talking to one another. There was a lot of smiling and hands-over-mouths going on. "I hardly know what I feel yet, Sei-san. You are the expert on love --"
"When the wind is northerly and the wild geese have flown," Sei-san said. She stood beside Sachiko, looking out at the budding friendship in the garden.
"All I know is that I have met someone very important to me. More important than my family."
"But do you really buy the sweet-little-miss-needs-protecting schtick?" Sei-san was looking down a skeptical, Dionysian nose now at a calm, Apollonian Sachiko. "If she's really been living on the street for an extended period, she'd have to be very good at protecting herself, or at least putting herself beyond the reach of things she'd need protecting from."
"Yes," Sachiko said. "Like a minnow in a clear pool. You have an excellent point, Sei-san. But I counter that with her tears, last night, when she said she couldn't sleep with me because she had lice. Her grief, shame, humiliation, were very real. Those were not the tears of a street urchin who had never known a better life. But questions on just what sort of life she has led yield nothing substantive. And I'm almost positive she isn't holding back information. She simply doesn't remember."
"Did someone really try to rape her at the baths?"
"Yes," Sachiko said with some brusqueness. That was an unpleasant memory and she had no wish to dwell on it.
"What did you do to him?" Sei-san was looking at her very closely, in a way Sachiko didn't much like.
"I just gave him an itch."
"I thought you'd have flayed him alive."
"I couldn't very well do that with Yumi watching."
"Oh. I see. Hmmm. And she did sleep with you?"
"Of course she did, with a little coaxing. Lice are nothing. They're all dead now anyway."
"You wouldn't have thought so a few years ago."
"A few years ago I hadn't gone on three Questionings, been to the wars once in Koryo, reached Dragon-level sorcery, or lived with Satou Sei-san for an extended period."
"I've never had lice in my life, girl."
"No. I mean that a person who has had to live with you could not regard lice as any great trial."
"So I'm a pestilence, am I?"
Sachiko looked Sei-san fully in the eyes for the first time that day. "Do you want to know what I really think?"
"Sure."
"Then I think that God created you to test the faithful."
Sei-san's smile went away. Then it came back. Then it went away again, all a-sudden, and came back slowly, like the sun from behind a cloud. "You know, I'm not sure, but I think I've just been complimented again."
"You have."
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