by Stone, C. L.
It surprised me as he moved along that my skin tone was actually much paler than I’d known it. My skin was soft, too. It was strange to be looking at it and thinking about Mrs. Satsu, or even the attendant of the bathhouse. Before I had felt like a pig among swans, and now I was at least resembling a bird.
When he was finished, he draped a towel around my torso and guided me toward the bath.
The bathwater was still warm to the touch, but I adjusted quickly and sank in.
I’d never felt anything so luxurious. I’d swum in the sea, but this was different. I could sit comfortably with the water up to my shoulders. Sota made a pillow out of a towel and told me to simply relax and allow the pink water to soak into my skin.
“I need to go take care of Ryuu and Shim and show them what to do,” he said quietly. “I’ll be back later.” He bowed his head to me and left.
I thought I would sleep, but I remained awake in a sort of half-dozing state, staring at the paper walls.
I still felt Sota’s hands washing my body. I blushed now, having forced myself not to think about it before. He had been gentle, and so focused, it was easy to forget what he was doing to me.
In the deepest parts of my heart, I desired that. I came to realize that if I didn’t earn my place within the court, this could disappear.
I had to do something. Could I go back to my peasant life after this? Could I starve in the winter and not be bitter about what others had?
In a way, it was torture to think this could all disappear in a couple of weeks.
This brought me to make a new resolution: I was now determined to earn a place so I could belong. Shima had nearly scolded me for hiding away, and I now agreed with him. How little I had known of anything of this world. And now, knowing of it, I wanted to take part, and to make up for all the time I’d lost.
Was it wrong to want Sota scrubbing my body and drawing warm baths for me? Or for food to be brought to me? It was a luxury I’d never before experienced and would never forget.
I heard a voice and thought at first it was Ryuu or Sota next door, but the voice was strange to me, and coming from the opposite room.
“That’s not enough.” The voice was deep, a man’s. “If you want her eliminated, you’ll have to give me a higher percentage.”
My eyes opened wide. I wasn’t moving at all, so the water was still, and I was silent. I didn’t dare say anything, but my heart was thundering in my chest.
A softer voice spoke, feminine and so light I couldn’t hear it.
The masculine voice spoke, low as well, and I only caught a few words. “...what you’re asking will kill her.”
There was more, but I couldn’t hear it.
I stared at the ceiling, afraid to move. I clenched my hands into fists and then released them to feel the tiles of the bath’s seat below me. My fingers traced the grooves between tiles absently as I considered what I’d heard. Kill. Eliminated.
It could have been a thousand things they were talking about, but I couldn’t imagine they were talking about anything other than eliminating the competition within the selection.
And then I heard his voice again. “If you asked my opinion, if you’re going this far, may as well get them all. Why take the risk of allowing any to register?”
I sank lower into the water, as if I could smother my feelings of horror.
The water lapped at my movement and splashed against the tile on the other side.
The voices next door turned into more whispers and then ceased.
It didn’t matter to me who they were talking about and why. It brought to mind the desperation I felt in wanting to secure a position, and how that desperation might be shared with others.
And some would kill for it.
I didn’t know what to do. Time passed, and my heart was beating so quickly, as if counting down the seconds. I listened for more, and yet wished not to hear anything.
I shouldn’t have heard this.
Sota returned, and I was still in the bath. He told me to step out and waited nearby with a large towel to wrap myself in.
I stared at him, thinking to tell him about what I had heard, and then I wondered if I should.
I couldn’t hide from this and pretend I didn’t know. But that didn’t mean that I needed to involve Sota. Honor demanded I report what had sounded like a conspiracy to commit a crime, but telling Sota put him in the middle.
However, I didn’t know who to tell. Did I dare bring this to Ryuu? Shima? Or Mrs. Satsu?
I didn’t think I could. I had a sinking feeling I shouldn’t, that I needed to think this through, but we might be losing time. The people next door could commit a crime at any moment.
“Sota,” I said, “do you know the woman who owns this bathhouse?”
“I know her well enough,” he said. “Why?”
I went to him and let him drape me in the towel. I whispered to him as softly as I could. “Can you find out who was using the bath next door just now?”
He raised a rust-colored eyebrow. “I can...”
Again, I hesitated, but my guilt weighed heavily at the thought of keeping silent. What sort of duty could I perform for the emperor if I allowed his subjects to behave so dishonorably?
“Please do,” I whispered. “I can explain later.”
Sota’s face stiffened, and he backed away from me. “I’ll do it now,” he said. “Just dry yourself. I’ll be back.” He left the room.
I did so, using the towel he’d given me to vigorously dry my hair first and then wiped my limbs and torso and around every curve.
I had never felt so soft, and so clean in my life. Whatever Sota had put in the bath had me smelling of berries and sugar. My mouth watered just breathing it in. However, the satisfaction of being clean and soft and smelling of berries did little to calm my shaking nerves at what I had to do.
When Sota returned, he came to me to remove the towel and started to put lotion on my arms and legs. “I have the names,” he said quietly.
“Good.” I could say nothing more. I didn’t know if they were still next door, and I had already risked a lot having Sota asking questions.
There were more supplies on the trays, but Sota skipped them and dressed me in a new blue cotton kimono and sandals.
As he readied me, I thought of what I should do and repeated in my head what had been said so I could relay it word for word.
Sota had been right. The bath and his care allowed me to have my mind free and to choose my actions without distractions. Now it was my turn to do what I needed to do.
LETTER
I FELL SILENT ON THE walk back to Mrs. Satsu’s.
“Don’t look that way, Mizuki,” Ryuu said once we stepped inside the entryway of the house. He and Shima both wore similar-colored blue kimono.
It was a little odd to see Shima in proper clothing. He kept picking at the material around the neck. When Ryuu spoke, he stopped fidgeting and looked at me, a dark eyebrow arched.
“What happened?”
Sota stepped up beside me, putting a finger to his lips to indicate silence. “She just stubbed her toe walking in. She’s fine.”
Ryuu’s lips twitched, like he was ready to argue that it hadn’t happened, but then he clamped his lips shut. “Oh. Well, be more careful, then.”
“Shima, Ryuu,” Sota said, “in the bookshelves, there’s a book on recent royal history, and another one on accounting.”
“Do they have specific titles?” Ryuu asked.
“Just go find them,” he said. He waved them off. “I’ll take her upstairs and see if there’s any damage.”
I wanted to smile and encourage them to go, but my heart simply wasn’t in it to do anything but remain stone-faced.
I didn’t want to keep any of them in the dark, but I also didn’t want them to be involved in what needed to be done. If I was wrong, I didn’t want to make enemies for everyone.
“I’d like to inspect the books available anyway,” Ryuu said. His blue ki
mono was a little short on his tall body. His legs were bare and had a tinge of red after being scrubbed clean.
Shima frowned. “I should go check on the oxen.”
“Not tonight,” Ryuu said. “I’ll go with you in the morning.”
Ryuu and Shima headed away. Sota guided me to the tatami room. He rolled the door closed and lined the doorway with the white crystals.
When we were alone, he turned to me with his arms crossed, standing near the door. “What happened?”
“I overheard a conversation next door,” I said. I repeated the words, wanting to make suggestions as to the meaning, but stopped myself and let him draw his own conclusion. Accusations were delicate in a culture built around honor. A wrong allegation could mean my own reputation tarnished.
He frowned and then nodded. “I’ll have to leave for a few moments,” he said and then paused. “I...shouldn’t leave you alone, but I’ll be right back.”
He returned shortly with a piece of paper, an ink stick and ink stone, water in a small jar and a brush.
He and I knelt together on the tatami floor. He ground the thin black ink stick into the crevice of the stone, creating a fine powder. With the jar, he dribbled in a bit of water onto the stone and used the brush to mix them, creating a dark ink.
He presented me with the brush and placed the paper on the mat. “I need you to write.”
“Write what?”
“Whatever happened. Exactly.”
I hesitated. I read rather frequently, but it had been ages since I had actually written anything. I rolled the brush between two fingers, urging my muscles to remember the movement of writing.
With his help, I constructed a letter to the royal guard about what I’d heard and where it had happened. I signed my name below it.
When he picked up the letter and read it, he frowned. “You were right to say something.”
“I just don’t want anyone hurt,” I said.
“It is our obligation.”
He took up the brush and he wrote his own note, explaining how he had talked to the woman who owned the shop and providing the names he had heard from her after I’d asked him to check it out.
He refused to show me the names. “An investigation may take time, and I don’t want you distracted with worry. I’ll keep you safe.”
“What will happen with this?”
“The less you know right now, the better,” he said.
“Will...I mean...the guard...the court. Will...” It was difficult to bring myself to ask, but I had read about such things in the many books Dr. Aoi used to bring to me. “What might happen to...them?”
The creases in Sota’s face hardened, but then he relaxed, becoming placid. In a chilling voice, he spoke low for only me to hear. “If they are lucky, they may be executed.”
“Lucky?”
He nodded. “I recall a time a royal court minister tried to poison an heir to the throne, and they had his limbs cut off and kept him alive in the center of town as an example to anyone else who dared to try. Some things are worse than death.” He carefully folded the sheet of paper. “But we must take this seriously. Anything less wouldn’t be honorable. Thank you for trusting me to tell me.”
I had no one else to tell. However, I realized now that if I didn’t tell anyone, someone would die, and if I did, someone still died. Why would anyone risk such a thing for a registration like this? I had been starving in a tiny village, facing a long winter, and I was now reconsidering my choice in making an attempt to register. At least in the village, I’d never had to look over my shoulder, or listen closely, hoping I wasn’t a target.
Maybe he was right; maybe I shouldn’t know the names. I just wanted to be sure the right thing was done. My mind was fraught with what we had learned, not just about the special registration, but also at the bath and know that someone might die, one way or another.
Sota tucked the letter into his kimono and then looked at me silently. Slowly, he reached out and cupped my chin in is palm until I was looking into his blue eyes. The strangeness of the color temporarily distracted me from my miserable thoughts.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said. “It is my job to ensure you survive this.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer to go back?” I asked. “Who am I but a fisherman’s daughter, an orphan? I stand no chance anyway. If others want to fight to the death for a few taels a year, should I even take such a risk?”
He pressed his lips tight together and shook his head slowly. “You will register, Mizuki. You must. This letter shows me you should. You’re exactly what the emperor needs at this very trying time. If you don’t, you let people such as this register instead, people who may not have said a word, or worse, who succeed in sabotaging others for their own benefit. You’d leave the country much worse off than it is.”
“There will always be the dishonorable in the court system,” I said. “It’s in every history lesson.”
“And in every lesson, there are better people trying to fix it,” he said. He released my chin and sat back on his heels. “From what Shima and Ryuu have said, you’ve hidden from the world long enough. It is time for Mizuki to rise and meet her fate.”
I didn’t have an answer to this. Instead, I let Sota help me rise. He kept the letter in his kimono and escorted me from the room.
I considered his words carefully. The emperor had turned the entirety of the country on its head, releasing all of the previous members of the royal court. I wondered if he had made enemies doing so and decided that he must have.
Sota said he was looking for moral, honorable people, but I had no idea of the emperor’s intentions.
But how did Sota seem to know?
COME BACK FOR ME
SOTA AND I RETURNED to the room at the end of the hall on the left. The window was open, as was the Taka’s cage.
“He flew out on his own,” Ryuu said.
“Will he be back?” I asked.
“Of course. He won’t leave you now. I keep telling you.” He was rolling out a futon in the corner.
Shima was in the other corner with another futon, examining the pillow that came with it. He felt the material between his fingertips. “I’m not used to sleeping inside,” he said. “I usually sleep in the barn near the oxen so I can keep an eye on them.”
“You’ve a love affair with those oxen,” Ryuu said. “Besides, what will happen when Mizuki wins over the judges for this registration and gets her own palace? We can’t keep the oxen in the palace with us.”
“There are royal stables behind the wall,” Sota said absently and then motioned using his fingers to the beds they had placed apart, and the two other futons still in the storage closet. “I need you all to move the futons into the middle.”
“What?” Ryuu asked. “Sleep together?”
Sota nodded and then lowered his voice. “Shima, Ryuu, I may need one of you to keep awake tonight. Let Mizuki sleep, but listen for any trouble. If I’m not back tonight, don’t fall asleep.”
Ryuu opened his mouth as if to ask questions but quickly fell silent with one look at my face.
I imagined I looked panicked. I wasn’t as good as Sota at hiding my feelings. I tried my best but I didn’t know how to stop the tenseness around my mouth and eyes. There was nothing I could tell them. I had bound my own fate with Sota’s with this one action, but that didn’t mean Ryuu and Shima needed to be in the middle.
Ryuu and Shima said nothing and shoved the futons close to each other until all four were pressed together edge to edge in the middle.
Sota hesitated at the door. “If I’m not back tonight...,” he said but then fell silent, glancing at the thin paper walls.
Shima frowned and rose. “You know, Ryuu, you should stay up for a bit. Let me go with Sota.”
I shook my head at first, but then, with Sota looking so serious, and considering what was going on, I stopped. “Maybe none of us should be left alone.”
Looks were exchanged between all of u
s.
“Maybe we’ll check on those oxen after all,” Sota whispered.
This seemed to please Shima. I became hopeful that despite our difficult start, this might be the beginning of us learning we could indeed trust and depend on each other.
Sota said he’d return when he could, and he and Shima left us, sliding the paper door closed, their footsteps silent as they walked away.
I remained out of the way as Ryuu continued to put what was needed on the futons. I stood just inside the door, staring into the small space, our packs in the corner, full of what little any of us had. On the table next to the bird cage were a couple of books. I went to then to distract myself. I checked the pages, the titles, but while I read the words, their meanings slipped from my mind.
Ryuu came up behind me. He carried a pillow and showed it to me. “Do you use one or two? I’m a two-pillow man myself. Also, are you a kicker?”
I got the feeling he was distracting me from whatever depth of depressed mood I was in. I pressed my lips together. I’d never shared a bed. On the trip to the city, while we’d slept near each other, it had felt a bit more necessary. This seemed intimate. “Are you asking me for my pillow?”
“I think we can find more,” Ryuu said.
I waved him off. Pillow or not, I was exhausted. Leaving my kimono on, I went to the futon and sat, pushing away the blanket to settle in.
I rested on my back on one of the futons in the middle. Ryuu picked the one next to mine. I stared at the ceiling, going over what I had written.
Should I have signed my name? Should I have let Sota sign his? Letting Shima go with him might get him involved, but I trusted Sota to choose to tell him the details or not. As it was, I couldn’t say a word to Ryuu without the risk of being overheard.
There was a small thud and scratching at the open window. Before I could sit up, Ryuu had gotten up and gone over.
The Taka sat on the sill, looking in. Ryuu presented his arm, and without hesitation the bird stood on it and allowed Ryuu to put him into the cage.
“I should probably do that, shouldn’t I?” I asked.
