by Stone, C. L.
“Not anymore,” he said. “I only stopped for a visit. I’m actually on my way out of town.”
“Where are you going next?”
“The city,” he said. “I’m being summoned.”
“Why?” I asked.
He smirked and reached around into his pack. “You really don’t get out much.” He pulled out a smooth orb of deep blue and rolled it in his hands. It was a Teorb, something I hadn’t seen since we were in school together. It was the size of a rice ball, made of translucent glass. They were made by mountain men, always at least two, as a way of long-distance communication.
Ryuu weighed the Teorb in his palm, touching the surface, and it illuminated like a firefly in response.
He held it out to me. Inside was a magnified reflection of a manuscript. Somewhere else in the world was a similar-colored orb, its twin, and it transmitted a reflection of a document nearby.
This one had notices straight from the Immortal City; they described an impending danger and said that the emperor was calling on the services of particular family lines for training and counsel. The tone was ominous and ambiguous.
I read some of the lines out loud. “These honorable families are called to send able-bodied men and women to the city for preparations.”
My eyes widened and I looked to Ryuu. “What happened?”
“When a new emperor wants to stretch his reach, he calls on family lines to replace the old guard.” Ryuu smoothed his fingertip over the Teorb, bringing the manuscript into focus at the lower corner and pointing to one of the names. “There’s my family line,” he said. “Two of my grandfathers were generals. I’ve double the worst luck.”
I hadn’t heard about a new emperor, but I also hadn’t been to the village in a couple of weeks. And news was slow to reach our part of the country.
“It should be an honor,” I said, browsing the list of names. The bird in the cage at my feet whistled low once and said something like “honor,” then repeated it.
“He’s picking up your words now,” he said, nudging the cage with a toe. The bird hissed and struck at the cage bars to warn him off. “But I’m not much of a fighter. I’m more of a ‘please don’t stab me and I won’t stab you’ type.”
“Did you not consider becoming a monk?” Becoming a monk would have provided a good, if poor, life and wouldn’t get one called to army service, although it meant celibacy, and breaking such commitments would make one an outcast.
“I thought about it, but I like money too much.” He hefted his pack on his shoulders. “I need to get to the village. I have a few things to sell and drop off at home before I catch a ship to the city. Don’t forget to feed the Taka. Just let him out once a day and he’ll catch a mouse or two on his own. If he can’t, let him eat from your plate. He’ll probably eat all the same things.”
“And starve myself more than I already do?” I asked, eyeballing the bird. “What good is he if he eats from my plate?”
“Teach him to hunt rabbit,” he said and then started away. He stopped and turned to me, holding out a hand. “Here.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect but held out my hand toward him in curiosity.
He dropped five silver taels into my palm.
“I didn’t give you the bird,” I said.
“I’ve been to places where people pay to look at beautiful faces. You’d make a fortune,” he said and turned from me, following the narrow trail down away from my home and on toward the village by the sea.
CALLED
I SPENT THE AFTERNOON tending the garden and letting the Taka catch mice. He flew all over the fields and through the trees and would swoop among the garden beds, picking up a mouse. It would squeal.
He’d then land on my shoulder with the tiny creature dangling from its beak. I shooed him off, occasionally moving him to a fence post. He’d eat his mouse and then come back to me and sing in my ear. This was a distraction more than anything.
I did my chores automatically, and by the end of the day, I hadn’t realized I was finished. I stood in the field, lost in my own thoughts. Despite my swollen lip and the news about the emperor summoning people, I tried over and over again to hear Ryuu’s voice and repeat what he had said to me.
He’d said I was beautiful. With dirt on my face and a swollen lip. I hadn’t thought much about my looks. I looked like my mother, as my father had said.
That evening, the Taka fell asleep in his cage I had placed on the table. I knelt on the floor, looking at words in a familiar book, yet I wasn’t reading. Angry with myself for being so distracted, I slammed the book shut and forced myself to look over a notebook I kept of my food storage efforts.
It was hard enough to think of ways not to starve. I kept meticulous notes about which plants yielded more harvest. There was no room for non performing plants. The land I had was small, and the climate wasn’t suitable for growing all year. This village had fishing to supplement itself. If I had a bumper crop, which was rare, I could trade for the smaller fish that came in. Sometimes I could pick up fish unable to be sold. I had a pole for trying to catch fish from the pier, but it took all day and it made me uncomfortable. I felt I was bad luck for the boats nearby.
Some of what I harvested, I managed to dry for storage for the winter. However, if a crop wasn’t bountiful, or if the winter was particularly long, it didn’t last.
The coins Ryuu had given me sat on the table. I slid them across the wood dreamily, thinking about what he’d said, his compliments, and his opinion that I should leave the village. Part of me wondered if what he’d said was true. Would men pay me just to look at my face? Or was it just flattery?
And where would I go to find such a place? I could use the extra coins.
I couldn’t exist as I had. If I couldn’t go on a boat and couldn’t farm enough to last through the winter, I’d have to sell the family house and try to find something else I could do.
The money from selling the house might last a couple of winters, but then I wouldn’t have a home. Eventually, I’d be another beggar in the street, crying for discarded rice.
A knock at the door startled me out of my bitter thoughts. I sat back on my heels, meaning to rise to answer.
Dr. Aoi came through the door, wearing a hanten, a lengthy coat, overtop his men’s kimono. With all the material, he seemed to double in size. He was a slim man with pocked cheeks and gray in the hair around his temples. He brushed the droplets from those spidery lashes and shook his hair out, splattering water to the floor. “Starting to come down.”
Had it been raining? Then I heard the pattering falling across the wood tile roof and echoing through the twin fireplaces. “I don’t have much of a list today,” I said absently, not wanting to listen to definitions and explanations of our ancient pictographic language.
Still, I reached for a paper on the table, looking at the kanji I’d scribbled down over the past week. A couple of them were from Ryuu’s orb. The characters were unfamiliar to me, but were most likely names.
I was about to say more when a small, dry cough, feminine, resonated in the bare room.
I turned, finding Dr. Aoi accompanied by the oldest woman I’d ever seen. She wore a dingy, faded house kimono and a pair of men’s shoes, too big for her feet. She held a cane in one hand. She picked at warty patch on her neck and then scratched her nose.
“Is this her?” she said in a gurgling voice, like she needed to clear her throat again.
That was when I noticed the rings on what seemed like every other finger. Gold. Some with rubies and sapphires. This was striking to me, as no one in the village had more than one or two pieces, passed down from family. Was she wealthy? If so, why were her clothes so plain?
I stood instantly out of respect, throwing questioning looks at Dr. Aoi, but the presence of the old woman stilled my tongue, and I waited.
“This is Mizuki,” he said to her and looked at me. “Mizuki, this is Mrs. Satsu.”
“When were you born?” she asked.
/> I wasn’t sure if I should look her in the face directly, as it was sometimes seen as shameless and rude. I tilted my head down in a slight bow out of tutored respect, yet watched her as best as I could from my peripheral vision. “Year of the Monkey,” I said.
“I’ve got her charts,” Dr. Aoi said, pulling out a collection of papers from a bag on his back. His eyes told me to keep quiet and to pay attention.
I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. Who was this?
The lady pressed her lips together, licking the edges as she squinted at the papers Dr. Aoi held for her. “I can’t see in this light.”
I fetched the candle on the table and brought it around to hover over her shoulder.
She grasped my wrist and moved my hand closer to the pages. Despite her age, her fingers were soft like flower petals. “Your father was a general.”
“My father was a fisherman,” I said.
“It’s in the papers,” she said sharply, and she flicked the pages with a finger. “I can read.”
Dr. Aoi shot me a look, silently telling me to be polite. I pursed my lips, waiting for someone to explain what was going on. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I had never known my father to be a general.
“Nineteen, Monkey.” She looked over the paper at my face. “Not a good year. Mischievous. And far too much water.”
I blinked. She meant my eyes.
“I believe they say the Monkey is a clever year,” said Dr. Aoi. “But she was born here, in Kuni. She has no other loyalties.”
She sniffed the air, looking at the double fireplaces and the pile of books, and then settled on the Taka. “How did you get one of those?”
Dr. Aoi looked up, finally locking on the Taka. “Mizuki?”
“I sang to it,” I said. “It showed up nearby and it was singing, so I sang back.”
“How did you know to sing?” the old woman asked.
“I just mimicked him,” I said, not wanting to get into an explanation about Ryuu. “It just happened.”
She finally looked me in the face and held the candle so close I could feel the heat at my skin. A drop of wax landed on my shoulder, and I winced, but stilled, afraid of making a nuisance of myself. She let Dr. Aoi hold her cane and pinched my cheeks, my earlobes, and my nose.
She lifted my arm and checked the muscles. “Too thin,” she said.
“She can be fattened up,” Dr. Aoi said.
She murmured something else and then gave me back the candle. “Her value is in her eyes, and the bird, if she can train him. It’s an unusual bonus in her case.” She nodded toward the cage. “Her heritage should also give her some leverage. She’s not much, but give her a couple of weeks with me, and she might just be presentable.”
I mumbled the start of a question, and then bit my tongue to hold it back. I’d been scolded once already for speaking out of turn.
Dr. Aoi turned to me, reshuffling the papers in his hands. “Word came out of the Immortal City. Our most beloved emperor died a few weeks ago, and his heir sent away half of his court, forcing them into retirement and opening up those positions they held. He is looking for fresh minds who will carry out his vision for the future of Kuni.”
I was unsure how this woman coming into my home to inspect me had anything to do with it. Then I remembered the list Ryuu had shown me. My eyes widened. “Am I on the list?”
Dr. Aoi face bloomed into a smile, with a sparkle to his eyes. “Your father was a general. As were a line of ancestors on his side of your family. You’d be expected to head to the Immortal City. It is a great opportunity. The requirements are very strict. You have to be born in Kuni, as well as your father and grandfathers on both sides of the family. And at least one of those had to have held the rank of bannerman. And anyone between the ages of fifteen to twenty and still unmarried with these qualifications must register in the city.”
My heart lifted. I qualified. Being part of the royal court meant many things, and it was strange to me that the emperor would want only those who were so young. It only benefited me. “So I should go right away,” I said.
“You can, of course. It’s a chance to improve your status and serve your country. However, it’s not a guarantee you will be selected. The registration only promises you’ll be examined. But Mrs. Satsu here is looking for—”
She snapped her fingers at him loudly, with such sharpness that it instantly silenced him. She seemed so delicate, and yet with a snap of her fingers, she brought attention to herself, and she held her head high to demand respect. I admired that.
“I don’t want to go into details out here,” she said and then tightened her lips into a line. She scratched at her nose again. “It’s your choice. Join me for training, or go to the Immortal City and be swept over by the competition.”
“Don’t scare her,” Dr. Aoi said.
“She should be scared.” The woman’s gurgling voice took on a raspy tone as she spoke louder. “It’d be such a waste of her.” She snapped her fingers at me. “So?”
“Don’t I have to go immediately and register?” I asked.
“Not directly,” he said. “But in about two weeks, registration will close.” He nodded to Mrs. Satsu. “I say go with her. You’ve got time before it closes, and you can at least learn what she has in mind. She may improve your chances of being selected.”
“I can’t speak anymore,” she said and motioned to the door. “We don’t know who’s listening.”
My heart beat wildly and I stood, without an opinion one way or another, just stunned by the suddenness. The Taka whistled a low, melancholy tone in the long silence.
I should have asked Ryuu more questions about what the list meant, and what he knew. I should have looked at the list of names more carefully. I’d wondered why he hadn’t been as interested, as it had sounded like a prime opportunity.
And who was I? A poor farmer girl who had lost her parents and had few skills. I didn’t know anything about the royal court, except what I’d learned from books, and even in that, I doubted I was up-to-date on such things. In the state I was in, I’d be an embarrassment.
“With respect,” I said slowly, picking my words carefully, “how do I know you’re here to help me?”
“You don’t. There’s going to be a great deal of competition, and it is true some may try to trick you into not registering.”
I frowned. Ryuu. He had made it sound tedious, and I hadn’t read the document enough to understand its meaning, or to see my name. He had said he was uninterested, but I wondered if he had known I was on the list and hadn’t told me in order to keep me naïve. I was competition.
She pursed her lips and gave my elbow a solid squeeze. “I can’t promise you’ll be chosen,” she whispered. “But I can say that with my training, you’ll be leagues ahead of anyone else registering right now. I know what the emperor is looking for.”
I was oddly drawn to her words, and the intrigue. I looked at her hands, delicate, and her jewels, and her manner, and I believed she knew things she wasn’t telling me. At her age, she probably knew a lot about the royal court, and could teach me.
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
“I thought you might be interested,” Dr. Aoi said. He stepped sideways, toward one of the fireplaces, and warmed his hands. “See, Mrs. Satsu? I told you she’d be a good choice.”
“I wouldn’t have thought such a girl would live in a place like this,” she said, eyeballing the small house, the books and the twin fireplaces.
“But I’ve got a good feeling about it.”
I muttered a thank-you, unsure how to take her comments.
“Meet at the docks in the morning,” she said. “Bring only what you can’t live without, and the bird.” She turned from me, heading to the door and out into the night without another word.
Dr. Aoi stayed behind and relaxed his shoulders once she was gone. “She was in the street after an announcement about the decree. She recited a poem. I understood it to mean she wanted intelligent wom
en who qualified for this registration. I thought of you.”
“I never knew my father was a general.”
“He retired when he met your mother.” He looked around my house, blinked his shimmering eyes and nodded firmly without looking at me. “I’ll look after the place while you’re gone.”
A swell of emotion filled me. He had been the only one in the village to visit me and help to abate my loneliness. When I was sick, he healed me. Even now, my heartstrings were tight at the thought of leaving him. No matter what happened, I’d never forget him.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will,” he said and walked back out into the night.
THE PATHS WE TAKE
I DIDN’T SLEEP. I THOUGHT of the new changes to the country and what they might mean for me. I thought of the bird and the old woman, and her promises.
I thought of Ryuu.
I couldn’t tell if he had fibbed or if he his disinterest in this registration had been sincere. Maybe he didn’t see a profit in it. He might end up stuck in the city, unable to roam like he wished.
Did I want to be in the city? Did I want to be granted a position and be part of the royal court?
I asked myself this again and again, as if testing myself, and my answer was always a resounding yes. A court position might mean never being hungry again, or worrying about the next winter. And who knew what I’d be able to see and do in the city?
It was a risk. I could go and not be selected, left to starve after missing the fall harvest.
Or I could be selected for a position among the court. Could I be an advisor? A minister? I tried to think of other court positions, and what might need to be filled, and what I could do.
I wondered if the emperor needed a girl who knew how to chase rabbits away from cabbages. Unlikely.
While the skies were turning pink and purple but the sun hadn’t yet risen, I got up and went to the garden. I collected some hearty carrots and radishes for the road, along with some dried nuts and fruits I’d already processed and stored. Maybe if this registration and examination didn’t take too long, I’d be back in a few weeks. I wouldn’t miss much, and the coins Ryuu had given me would be enough that I could make it through the winter on rice.
