Sisters of the Sword

by Maya Snow

  “My father disappeared,” Tatsuya told us as we went through an archway and down a series of shallow steps. “One night he told my mother that he was going for a walk. ‘At midnight?’ she asked him. ‘But why?’ My father didn’t answer. He just took his short sword and an old leather helmet that hung on the wall above the door, and walked out of the house. That was the last my mother saw of him.”

  “Did he have an accident?” I asked as we crossed a low wooden bridge over a lily pond. Moonlight made the water gleam like silver.

  Tatsuya shook his head. “There was never any sign of an accident,” he said. “Many moon phases passed, and there was no word from my father. No body was ever found. My mother thought for a long time that he had been set on by robbers, but there’s only one road in and out of our tiny village and there was never any sign of a struggle. Nobody heard anything. Nobody saw anything. It was just as if my father had never existed.”

  “What do you think happened?” Hana asked.

  “I saw what happened,” Tatsuya said quietly, pausing at the crest of the bridge and looking up at the stars. “I heard him leave, so I kneeled at the doorway and watched him walk along the pathway toward the old Shinto shrine at the edge of the village. I was curious, so I crept out of the house and followed him. He went to the shrine, kneeled for a while in silence, and soon…soon another man came. This man was dressed entirely in black, even his face and hands were covered.”

  We stepped off the wooden bridge and onto a shadowy pathway that led through the gardens.

  Tatsuya went on, “I thought he was going to hurt my father, and I was about to shout a warning. But then the man and my father bowed to each other, very formally. The man in black said, ‘It is time for you to tread the path toward your destiny, brother,’ and my father nodded. Then I accidentally stepped on a dry twig, snapping it in two and both men looked toward the place where I had been hiding…and then the strangest thing happened. Something moved behind me, very fast. A hand touched my neck, pressed once, very lightly.” Tatsuya reached up briefly to touch the spot, as if he could still feel the hand on his neck even now.

  “The next thing I knew,” he said, “I was waking up in the dawn light, and my mother was scooping me up into her arms. She was weeping because she thought she’d lost me, when actually, it was my father she had lost.”

  We had reached the moss garden, where smooth stones and boulders covered with velvety green moss were just visible in the moonlight. The garden was peaceful, the stones carefully grouped so as to harmonize the human spirit with nature. To our left was a sandy courtyard, and beyond that I could just make out the main gate of the dojo, half hidden by a sweeping maple tree.

  “Did you ever see your father again?” Hana asked.

  Tatsuya shook his head. “Never,” he said. “But I don’t think he’s dead, because every year on the anniversary of the day he disappeared, a bag of coins appears on my mother’s pillow during the night. She leaves a candle burning, and sometimes she tries to stay awake to see who enters our house so stealthily—but she never catches them.”

  “Do you think it’s your father?” I asked, fascinated by the story.

  “It could be,” Tatsuya said. “Or it could be the man in black who took him away. Who knows?”

  He would have said something else, but just then the peace of the night was torn apart by the pounding of horses’ hooves. I could hear them approaching fast, at a gallop, and thundering along the road outside the dojo, coming to a sudden halt at the main gate.

  “Open up!” yelled a harsh voice, and we heard the sound of hammering on the tall wooden gate. “Open up in the name of the Jito!”

  Hana grabbed my hand. As we watched, a lantern flared and two guards raced out of a tiny wooden building just inside the gate. One of them was hurriedly buckling on his steel and leather helmet. The other opened the small door set into the gate. There was a low, muttered conversation, and the guard with the helmet raced across the courtyard and disappeared through the wooden archway.

  He returned in moments with Master Goku, who had obviously heard the commotion and had met the guard on the way.

  “Something’s happening,” Tatsuya said quietly. “Let’s get a bit closer. We might be able to hear what they’re saying.”

  I nodded. “We should stay hidden, though.”

  We crept nearer, keeping to the shadows of the high wall. I hoped we were camouflaged by the rocks and branches that surrounded us.

  More lanterns were lit and Master Goku ordered the gates to be swung open. Immediately a dozen or more mounted samurai streamed into the main courtyard, their hooves churning up the carefully raked sand. My heart began to pound as I recognized the captain with the red silk sash tied around his arm.

  These were Uncle’s men, the same ones Hana and I had seen terrorizing the village just days ago.

  The captain leaped down from his horse and marched across the courtyard to Master Goku. They bowed briefly to each other.

  “How can I help you at this late hour?” Master Goku asked, his face tranquil as usual.

  “We seek fugitives from the Jito’s compound,” the captain replied. His voice was harsh and guttural. “Four slaves were convicted of stealing—a woman and her children, including a young boy of six years old. They were imprisoned to await their punishment but escaped and are now on the run.”

  He was talking about us—and Mother and Moriyasu! Hana’s hand tightened on my arm and instinctively we drew back into deeper shadow. Tatsuya was crouching behind a rock, his body so still that he seemed to be at one with his surroundings.

  “The Jito must have been surprised to hear that women and children had managed to escape from his highly trained soldiers,” Master Goku said in a mild voice. “Particularly slaves, who generally have no training in the use of weapons.”

  The captain looked angry. “Those slaves murdered one of my men,” he snapped. “They are dangerous criminals who must be captured at once!”

  “And you think these dangerous criminals have come here?”

  “It is possible,” the captain acknowledged.

  “All things are possible,” Master Goku said, folding his hands inside his wide sleeves. “But we have seen no wanderers of the sort you describe. No woman has come to my gate, with or without her children.”

  The captain nodded curtly. “Then they must still be roaming the countryside,” he said. “I ask for six of your best students to help with the search.”

  “Of course,” Master Goku said. “The Jito knows that my students are his to command.” He paused, and then asked, “Has Lord Steward Yoshijiro returned from his trip across the province?”

  But the captain didn’t hear the question, or pretended not to. He spun around quickly and snapped an order to two of his men, who immediately dismounted.

  “Please allow my samurai to help you select the strongest students,” the captain said.

  Master Goku looked as though he was going to say something else, but instead he bowed his head and turned away to pick up a lantern. As he did so, something caught his attention and he stared out across the courtyard toward our hiding place—

  His gaze met mine, and held.

  I caught my breath and forced myself to remain motionless. Blood hammered in my ears and I was close to panic. He saw me; he knew! Would he say something to the captain?

  Please, I begged the Master silently. Please don’t tell….

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I blinked and then the moment passed. Master Goku picked up the lantern without speaking to the captain. He made his way across the courtyard in the direction of the students’ quarters, the two samurai falling into step behind him.

  Time seemed to move very slowly every second Uncle’s samurai were on the school grounds. One word from Goku, and my sister and I were caught.

  The captain rapped out orders to his men. Six students came hurrying into the courtyard, fully dressed in kimonos, breeches, and breastplates. Most of them were a
lert, although one rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Master Goku did not return, and within moments the samurai were turning their horses and galloping out of the gates with the students hurrying after them.

  The guards shot the enormous iron bolts back across the gates and doused the lanterns, leaving the courtyard in darkness.

  Hana turned to stare at me, her face as pale as the moon. Uncle is so close to finding us…, her gaze seemed to say. She was about to speak out loud when I shook my head slightly and turned to Tatsuya. He left the cover of the rocks where he’d been crouching and came closer to us.

  I knew he sensed our fear, but he didn’t say a word. He simply nodded, as if he understood in some way, and then the three of us made our way back through the gardens to our quarters.

  Instinctively I knew that Hana and I had made a true friend. One who would never betray us.

  The samurai didn’t return, but the knowledge that they were still looking for us hung over Hana and me like a waiting sword. I wondered whether Goku would summon us or send guards to seize us. But when nothing happened, I began to think that perhaps the Master hadn’t seen me after all.

  “I’m sure he saw you,” Hana said quietly, when I voiced my anxieties to her as we got dressed the next morning. “But for his own reasons, Goku has chosen not to say anything.”

  “We should have a plan,” I said as I twisted my hair up into a topknot. “If there is ever a raid on the school and we’re not together, then we should each try to escape, separately, and make our way to a meeting point. We’ll wait there for a day and a night…and if the other doesn’t come, then the sister that remains must go to the town alone and find Mother.”

  Hana nodded. “Where should we meet?” she asked.

  I thought about that for a moment. “The hill where we stood when we first saw the dojo,” I said at last. With this plan in place, we went about our duties, praying that beyond the walls of Master Goku’s school, Mother and Moriyasu would continue to evade Uncle and his men.

  The moon grew smaller each day and Hana and I were awake every day before dawn, using our duties to exercise and hone our bodies. We washed and chopped vegetables for lunch, attended weapons training with Mister Choji, and practiced meditation.

  Occasionally Goku would invite us to a class with the students, and these were the most intense. Under Goku’s careful guidance, we trained without weapons, learning basic postures and control over our opponents through precise body positioning. Our muscles grew stronger while our minds became ever more tightly focused.

  In the evenings, Hana and I spent time with Tatsuya, who never breathed a word of what he had seen in the courtyard that night. Often we sparred together, exchanging our days’ lessons. Sometimes we went to the rock garden to help him practice the cha no yoriai and occasionally we would simply sit and talk. Tatsuya told us stories about the world he had come from, and more and more I wished that we could tell him the truth about us.

  Tatsuya had a gift as a storyteller, making the most ordinary tales come to life with his vivid descriptions. Once he told us about a plague of frogs that had come to live in the ditches around the paddy fields. They kept everyone in the village awake all night with their croaking.

  “I tell you, those frogs could sing,” Tatsuya said with a grin. “Someone should have boxed them up, taken them to Heiankyo, and put them on the stage. They’d have kept the Imperial Court amused for many nights!”

  Then Tatsuya did an impression of what he thought the frogs might sound like, singing a song to the emperor and his ladies, and performed a little dance.

  For the first time since we came to the dojo, Hana laughed. She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled until her eyes watered.

  I could have hugged Tatsuya then, for making my sister forget her sadness, just for a while.

  One morning, after we had hidden at the dojo for several days, I woke just as the crimson light of early sunrise began to fill our room. I knew that on our seasonal calendar at home, this day was the first of the period of Keichitsu, which means “insects emerging from their holes.” I wondered what the day would bring.

  Hana was already up. Dressed in her loose blue breeches and jacket, she had put on a pair of tabi split-toe socks and was practicing sliding her feet across the floor. This, Tatsuya had told us, was suriashi, a skill he was learning from one of the young masters. A warrior could use this movement to cover any distance without actually lifting a foot off the floor. In this way, the warrior would remain always rooted to the ground.

  I propped my hands behind my head and watched Hana for a while, marveling at her simple, graceful, gliding movements. Her balance was perfect, her feet in constant contact with the ground.

  Suddenly she caught sight of me watching her. “Oh!” she said, her cheeks dimpling in a smile. “You’re awake! Come on, get out of bed and practice with me.”

  Grinning, I scrambled out of bed and began to tug my clothes on.

  In the red glow of dawn, Hana finished her suriashi practice and came to help me comb my long hair. “Your memories of that terrible night at home are fading, aren’t they?” she asked suddenly.

  “How do you know?” I asked in surprise.

  “Because, each night, you twist and turn in your sleep a little less, and it has been three nights since you’ve cried out,” she said, sliding the steel comb through my hair.

  I turned to face her and saw that her eyes were full of concern.

  “Don’t worry about me, Hana,” I said. “I’m strong.”

  “And what keeps you going is the thought that one day we’ll have our revenge on Uncle,” she said softly.

  “That,” I admitted, “and the hope that we’ll be reunited with Mother and Moriyasu.” I hesitated as an idea came to me. It was something that had been hovering at the edges of my mind for several days. But now, with Hana, the idea suddenly became something clear and strong. “I think we should try to find them,” I said, taking the comb from her. “Choji sometimes goes to the town on a pack horse to collect supplies. We could go with him, take a look around, see if we can find out anything about where they may be hiding.”

  Outside in the hallway, footsteps came hurrying toward our room. Hana and I exchanged a horrified glance. Someone was coming, and my hair was still down! If they came in, whoever it was would be sure to see that I was a girl. Fingers fumbling in panic, I began to twist my hair up into a boy’s topknot. Hana hastily grabbed a long steel pin and reached up to fasten the knot.

  We were just in time. The next moment there was a rapid knock and Choji slid the door open.

  “Quickly, skinny boys” he barked. “I need everyone in the kitchens this minute! We’ve just had word that an important visitor is expected here for breakfast and cha—and there are a hundred things to do between now and then!”

  With that, he raced on down the hallway, rapping his knuckles on every door he passed. Hana and I hastily folded up our sleeping blankets and followed him, our hearts racing.

  “What important visitor?” Hana asked in a whisper.

  I shook my head, trying to quell my feelings of dread. The first day of Keichitsu, a voice whispered in my mind. The coming of insects…“I don’t know,” I whispered back to Hana. “Perhaps Uncle has sent someone to the dojo?”

  In the kitchens, Ko was already at work, standing at the big wooden table. Piles of vegetables were heaped in front of him and a row of kitchen knives glittered in the early-morning light. Another servant was kneeling in front of the brazier, blowing on the smoldering charcoal to make it flare into life.

  Choji handed Hana and me two large buckets. “You’re to wash down every stone pathway on the dojo grounds, and make sure not a speck of sand or dust is on the walkways,” he told us.

  “Who is coming?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  But Choji hurried away, too busy to answer.

  When he’d gone, Ko stopped chopping vegetables and leaned across the table toward us. “I heard the new Jito is coming,” h
e whispered.

  “The new Jito?” I repeated faintly.

  Ko nodded and pointed to the other servant who was still on his knees trying to coax life into the fire. “Sato was out in the main courtyard when the messenger came,” he explained. “He heard them talking…Lord Steward Yoshijiro is dead! And now Master Goku must swear allegiance to the new Jito, Lord Hidehira!” He shook his head. “Ken-ichi will be completely intolerable once he finds out about his father’s new position.”

  Just then, Choji came bustling back into the kitchen. Ko ducked his head down and returned to his chopping.

  I simply stood there, stunned. Lord Hidehira…even hearing Uncle’s name made me feel sick. Beside me, Hana had turned the color of a white lotus flower. All the serenity drained from her face, and I knew that the safety and comfort built up over the past days had been swept away the moment Ko uttered Uncle’s name.

  I reached out and lightly touched her fingertips with my own. Her gaze locked onto mine, the intensity of her emotions plain to see.

  “Come on, skinny boys,” Choji said, abruptly breaking into the moment. “Fill the buckets and get started. We don’t have time to stand around gaping like idiots!”

  As I hurried across the kitchen to slop water into the buckets, my mind burst with questions. Ko had said that Uncle Hidehira was coming here so that Master Goku could swear allegiance. But was there some other reason? Had he somehow guessed that this was where we were hiding?

  Clutching the handles of both buckets, I hustled Hana out of the kitchens.

  “Uncle’s coming here,” she whispered, as we made our way toward the first of the stone-paved pathways. “What if he recognizes us…? Oh, Kimi…!”

  Across the gardens I could see that the wooden walkways were crowded with students standing in quiet groups. Some of them whispered together, and it was clear that the whole school had heard that an important visitor was expected.

  “We must keep calm,” I told Hana as we cut through the rock garden. “There’s no reason for Uncle to look for us here. Don’t forget, his samurai have already been here and found nothing.”