Deadly Flowers

by Sarah L. Thomson

  They’d taken my sandals when they’d first tied my feet. I could manage without; I’d run barefoot over sharp gravel and bits of broken pottery before. But turning an ankle or breaking a toe on a rocky mountain slope would slow me down considerably. If I planned carefully, maybe I could find a new pair of shoes before I escaped.

  Which I must do soon. My plan had fallen apart; the bandits had not been fooled. I could curse myself later for overconfidence or stupidity or whatever had made me fail, but right now I needed freedom, and not just for myself.

  Ichiro. Saiko. Ryoichi and his mother and all of his villagers. I’d played with their lives too blithely and now they were in danger. These bandits were not likely to take kindly to our attempts to scare them out of their comfortable cave. I had to warn the others—or, if I was too late for that, defend them.

  At the moment, though, I could not even defend myself. A man was coming toward me, and my hands were only half-free.

  The firelight was behind him, and so he loomed like a bat, the sleeves of his short kimono flapping as if ready for flight. He crouched out of reach of my feet should I try to kick, and set something down on the stone floor with a clink.

  Metal rubbed on metal as he turned the shield of a dark lantern to let a sliver of light beam out of the darkness and onto my face.

  “That’s better,” said a voice I recognized. “I wanted to see you clearly—the girl who nearly sent every single one of my warriors running for the next province.”

  He said this last part loudly enough for several men nearby to hear, and there were groans and some embarrassed laughter.

  “Your little performance was quite convincing,” the bandit leader went on. “From a distance, at least. If I hadn’t decided to take a few men and get a closer look at our enemy—it was so hard to figure out just how many there were—I would never have known we were facing a terrifying troop of grandmothers and aunties waving hoes and pitchforks, taking their orders from a half-grown girl.” He leaned a little closer. “You think yourself very clever?”

  One loop of cord slipped over the mound of muscle where my right thumb joined the hand. That should make the rest easier. But it was slow work. I had to keep my shoulders still, not to let him guess what I was doing.

  “You and your friends were laughing at us?”

  They’d taken my sword, of course, and the knives that had been hidden up my sleeves. But it had been dark and there hadn’t been time to search me properly. I had other weapons, if only I could get to them.

  “You think you’ve made fools of us?”

  A sound caught my ear, softer than his voice, softer than the hiss and crackle of the fire behind him—the silky whisper of a sharp and well-oiled blade sliding slowly from its sheath.

  “And I say …”

  I braced myself, watching that dark figure for a sign that he was about to pounce. My hands were not quite free. If he moved, I’d need to use my feet. Just because my ankles were tied didn’t mean I was helpless. One quick kick to the chest with both feet together, or better yet, the jaw or the bridge of the nose …

  “You’re right!”

  He slapped the lantern open wider, so that the light fell on his face as well as my own, and his teeth flashed white under his moustache as he laughed.

  Other men were laughing, too, at his words and at the bare shock on my face.

  “We were ready to scamper across the mountains with only what we could carry. You came within a heartbeat of making men who’ve spent their lives in battle flee like frightened rabbits.”

  I was impressed by how deftly the bandit knocked aside the sandal that came flying out of the darkness at his head, without ever taking his eyes off me.

  “But I decided I didn’t want to leave without a chance to speak with you, girl.” He grinned even more widely, and in one quick motion, used the dagger in his hand to slash the cords that held my ankles together. “I could tell you were working on your hands. Got them free yet? Yes, I see you do. Let’s be comfortable and chat. I have a few things to say to you.”

  Moments later I found myself kneeling by the fire, a haunch of roasted rabbit in one hand and a cup of warm rice wine in the other.

  Relief is a weakness; it reveals that you were frightened. So I tried not to show any. But I wasn’t sure I was succeeding.

  This leader of bandits wasn’t going to take his vengeance on me or on Ryoichi’s villagers? He wasn’t angry at our deception? He wanted to … talk?

  “So the villagers hired you?” he asked cordially, squatting beside me. “I’m surprised they could afford an agent of your quality.”

  I took a hasty bite of greasy meat as an excuse to turn my face away. An agent of my quality? After my plan had failed miserably and I’d let myself be captured like the rawest recruit?

  “I won’t ask what they paid you,” the bandit went on, “but I’ll see they get their money’s worth. We’ll be on our way. To tell you the truth, I already thought we’d been in this spot long enough. Life can’t be easy for that little village with the likes of us camped up here.” I cast a sidelong glance in his direction. He looked as if he meant what he said. “After all, as your friend said when he tossed my coin back at me—one free man should do a service for another when he can.”

  There were a few grumbles from the others around the fire as his men began to realize that he was ordering them to repack what they had just started to unpack. The captain raised his voice. “And these ruffians will do as I say, unless any of them wants to challenge me for the leadership.”

  The man on my other side, a hulk as wide as a mountain with a face scarred from eyebrow to chin, snorted as he rolled a sleeping mat out across the ground. “Not likely, Commander Otani. We remember the last man who tried it.”

  “Ah, yes. Where is his head, again?”

  Otani seemed to think that was a joke. Not all of his men were smiling.

  “But before we pack up, a question or two. First, can you speak? You have a tongue in that clever head?”

  I nodded.

  He groaned. “Not quite what I was hoping for. Let’s try again. Maybe a different question—I have it! What’s your name?”

  Silence is your best ally. Silence and darkness.

  I’d been quiet all of this time partly because of surprise. I’d expected several things when I was carried, bound, into a bandit’s cave. Friendly chatter hadn’t been one of them.

  You are a shadow, a ghost. No one knows you. Secrecy is your armor.

  It wasn’t much of a name, or an identity. Just the single word. Even in the days when I’d had a family, none of us had been noble or wealthy or powerful enough to put a family name before a personal one.

  Now, of course, I had no family. No village. No one to serve and no one who served me. I did not even have the school anymore. I had nothing that was truly mine besides my scrap of a name and the pearl in my pocket.

  So I was not about to hand that name to my kidnapper, this bewildering man who seemed as likely to talk me to death as he did to cut my throat.

  “No? I don’t usually do so poorly, conversing with a lady.” Otani tipped his head to one side and studied me thoughtfully through narrowed eyes. “Did I kidnap the wrong one, perhaps? Were you just following orders, my sweet? Should I be talking to that boy on the horse? Was he the brains behind your plan?”

  “No,” I growled, and he laughed.

  “So it’s pride that loosens your tongue. I should have guessed. Well, excellent. It’s your pride that I plan to appeal to. No need to put that suspicious look on your face. I may not be an honest man, but I am an honorable one. Does anyone here say differently?”

  There was another stern look around the fire and much hasty shaking of heads.

  “Good, then. I’ll put an honorable proposal to you. Would you like to join us?”

  I stared.

  “Oh, don’t turn mute again. Which part didn’t you understand?”

  “Join you?” I asked, a little hoarse with
surprise. It wasn’t good, the way this man could keep me off balance. Never let yourself be surprised. Anticipate every move your enemy might make.

  But was this man telling me that he was not my enemy?

  I forced myself to speak more, letting my lip curl with distaste. “Join you as … what? I’m no …” No courtesan, concubine, prostitute. If that’s what he thought he’d kidnapped, he’d be sorry he’d left my hands free.

  Otani snorted. “I don’t need any more of those.” His men laughed again. “No, that’s not what I meant. As a ninja, of course. That’s what you are.”

  Not much point to denying it now. I felt my spine straightening a little. “You want to hire me?” This might be useful. Ryoichi’s villagers could not pay me much. This bandit, on the other hand—what kind of stolen treasure did his cave hold?

  “Well, not quite. Not exactly. I want you to work for me, yes. But not to complete one mission and then vanish into the night. I want you to ride with us.” He leaned forward, serious now, and I saw the leader that hid behind the jokes and the chatter, the one his men had followed into battle and then into outlawry. “Your little ruse was clever. It was more than clever. I could use that kind of thinking. You’d be a member of my band. A share of whatever we take would be yours.”

  “Whatever you steal,” I corrected.

  “You’re in the wrong profession, little one, if stealing bothers you. What do you say?”

  I shook my head. “I—no. I’m not—I work alone. I have to.”

  “Always? Forever?” He looked as if he knew me. I resented it. “Think about it, girl with no name. You’d have comrades. Someone to talk to. Someone at your back in battle. Someone to bury you when your luck runs out.” The faces of his men were somber in the shifting firelight. “In these days, that may be the most anyone can hope for.”

  Trust no friend farther than you can see her. Trust no ally for more than you’ve paid him.

  “Think about it.” Otani was back on his feet. “We’ll finish packing up and leave at dawn. You can come with us if you want. If not, you can go.” My eyes lifted to his face, and he seemed to read the question there. “My word on it, girl with no name. You are free to choose.”

  Free?

  The men around me sighed and grumbled and busied themselves gathering gear and weapons and foodstuff into packs for the second time that night. Since I had nothing to pack, I stayed beside the fire with my cup of rice wine untouched in my hands.

  I should leave. Otani had said I could do so; I should take him at his word. Ichiro and Ryoichi and their mock army were waiting for me.

  Yet I didn’t go. I took a slow sip of my drink, but no more. I needed a clear head.

  Free to choose.

  I had been thinking of freedom as something the pearl could buy for me. Now someone was simply offering it to me. As though it were mine for the taking.

  I shook my head a little, as if that would settle my thoughts into place. Then I set my cup down and rose. Otani was kneeling by a pack, sorting through its contents. He dumped a pair of sandals, a bundle of salted plums, and a small, heavy sack onto the floor of the cave. The knot that held the sack shut had been tied carelessly, and it slipped loose. Gold coins rolled and bounced around our feet.

  “I packed in a bit of a hurry,” Otani said, pausing in his collection of errant coins to look up at me. “So you’ve decided?”

  I nodded. Then I shook my head.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “I think you will actually have to open your mouth to make your answer clear.”

  “No.”

  He seemed to be waiting for more. I crouched down so I could speak to him on his level.

  “My … friends.” It was an odd word, and not the right one. Saiko and Ichiro were hardly friends. I’d known him only a few days, her barely longer. I didn’t trust them. I didn’t like them. Well, the boy, perhaps. He was hard to dislike. But he was Saiko’s brother. And when I thought of her—

  She’d worn a cooking pot on her head tonight, and abandoned her dignity as a warlord’s daughter far enough to march beside Ryoichi’s villagers. It had been her quick fingers that had sewn most of Ichiro’s make-believe armor. I might be ready to concede that she was not entirely useless.

  But liking her—that was not even a possibility.

  Still, I was on a mission with the two of them. I could not abandon it halfway.

  “There is something I must finish,” I said finally.

  “With your …” Otani paused. “Friends.”

  I looked squarely into those eyes that seemed to know too much about me. “Yes.”

  I had a sharp steel rod sewn into my sleeve, long enough to reach a man’s heart. I had a cord around my waist that could go around his throat, and the small but deadly blade inside my hairpin. And of course I had my own two hands. All of them could be lethal if he did not like to have his offer refused.

  He shrugged. “Loyalty is an admirable quality, my dear. It rarely works to interfere with it. Consider the offer open.” He went back to organizing his pack. “You can find us if you want to, I imagine, once you’re done with, well, whatever it is you’re doing.”

  They gave me back my weapons and my sandals and let me go.

  Still more than a little astonished, I paused outside the cave and waited for my eyes to adjust to the moonlight before I began to ease my way down the slope. A flash of white to one side made my heart beat quicker, and when I turned my head I saw the white fox sitting on top of a rock her own height. The minute I saw her, she jumped down and vanished behind a larger stone.

  Poets always describe moonlight as silver, but I could never see it as anything but gray. The mountains rising around me were black masses against a sky spattered with white stars. I could vaguely see the pass below me, and below it, the forest, a warm and living dark against the dry, cool dark of stone. In that darkness, I could spot wavering flashes of warm yellow light.

  I headed downhill, toward the lights. Before I reached them, they began to come slowly up the slope toward me.

  What was Ryoichi doing? Or was this Ichiro’s idea? Why didn’t the boy stay in the trees as I’d told him to? I hoped the child wasn’t starting to get his own ideas as to how a mission should be handled. That would never do.

  As I got closer, voices rose to meet me.

  “But they’re bandits. They’re armed.”

  “What are we going to do, exactly, up there at that cave?”

  “I don’t know yet.” That voice I recognized. It was Ryoichi’s.

  “Well, that’s an excellent plan,” someone grumbled.

  “We can’t simply leave her.” That was Ichiro. “If they caught her, we have to do something.”

  “We must know what’s become of her!” Saiko sounded unexpectedly fierce.

  When I realized what they were doing, I was so surprised I was robbed of speech for the second time that night.

  They were coming to rescue me.

  I had not expected anything of the sort. Neither had I expected the look of joy on Ichiro’s face as I stepped into the torchlight and he flung himself off his swaybacked horse and dashed to throw his arms around me.

  Then they were all crowding near, exclaiming and marveling, patting my back and shaking their heads and asking questions and not listening to the answers and cheering when I told them the bandits were leaving, and laughing even though no joke had been made. When you set out bravely and anxiously to fight ruthless armed bandits and discover that you don’t have to, you don’t need a joke to laugh.

  In all of the talk I did not quite manage to correct their assumption that I had escaped.

  And why should I, after all? Better to let them think no ninja could be held for long. Better to let them imagine that ropes and locks and chains were as frail as mist or as weak as cobwebs to a shadow warrior. The more people who thought that, the easier every ninja’s job was.

  Somehow, though, the sight of Ryoichi’s admiring grin made a ticklish and uncomfortable fe
eling squirm under my ribs. I wished I could tell him the truth about what had happened.

  But I couldn’t. Or I didn’t, not even when we’d gone back to the village for what was left of the night, not even when morning came. It was time to move on.

  FIFTEEN

  We couldn’t stay, though Ryoichi’s mother and many others pressed us to spend one more night, eat their food, drink their carefully hoarded rice wine. But we had no time to spare. If I was ever to finish this mission, we had to keep moving. It was the only way Ichiro and Saiko would be safe, and I would finally be free.

  Free to find Otani and his ronin again? Free to set out into the world on my own with the pearl?

  I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure. But I did know we had to leave. There was at least one ninja on our trail, and demons as well, and these villagers had been kind.

  It felt odd to think of it. Kindness was not something I had been taught to expect from an employer.

  You finished the mission. You collected your fee. You expected your client to treat you with disdain, and you made sure no one guessed that he’d hired a ninja to do work a man with honor would not stoop to.

  But Ryoichi’s villagers—they praised me, and thanked me, and piled in my hands all the copper coins they could spare, and some they probably couldn’t. One old woman even kissed me. And they’d been prepared to tackle bandits for my sake, armed with nothing more than hunters’ bows and farmers’ tools.

  It left me feeling startled, and unsettled, and even more eager to be on our way.

  The pass, now free of bandits, was not difficult to cross with Ryoichi’s guidance. But once he turned back, we found that the trail had a perverse mind of its own. It took us across a series of ravines, every downward slope slippery and rocky, every uphill stretch torturous. I didn’t let Saiko and Ichiro stop to rest, I barely let them stop to eat, and I didn’t tell them why. The fox had warned me that she could give us little protection once we were on the other side of the mountain. We’d need a shelter of some kind before nightfall.