Risuko

by David Kudler

  The maids gazed at me as if I were indeed a trophy from some exotic hunt.

  “Her name’s Risuko,” the lady laughed, hollowly. “Little Brother, you can untie her. I’m sure that our guest won’t bolt.”

  The smaller carrier walked over to me and undid the knotted cord around my waist. Now he favored me with what was clearly a smile.

  The courtyard walls were tall, but timbered; if I had been alone, I could have gotten to the roof, but—

  “I want to get out of here. The Imagawa are nervous. We’re leaving immediately, as soon as I have had a bit to eat. Mieko, give her something more presentable to wear than those rags, then take her to the others and feed her.”

  Food.

  The maid nodded, and then Lady Chiyome looked at me, impaling me with that cold, level stare that I had encountered in the woods. “Don’t be boring and decide to behave like a possession rather than a guest. Tonight, once we reach our destination, Mieko here will bring you to me, and we will see how fine a prize you actually are.”

  I bowed and began to back away, but her voice stopped me. “Kano Murasaki, you may not realize it, but I have done you a great favor. I have it in my power to give you a gift that you don’t even realize you desire. Make yourself worth my trouble, and you will be glad of it. Disappoint me, and you will be very, very sorry.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. To be honest, I was stunned that she had used my full, true name. No one had called me that since Father went away. I looked up into her face, but it was as empty and without answers as a blank-faced Jizo statue’s. “Kuniko, I want a bath,” she snapped. Then she turned and walked into the inn, followed by one of her maids.

  “Come, Risuko-chan,” Mieko said, “follow me.” She turned smoothly around and began to walk across the courtyard, her tall wooden sandals clopping on the stones like horse hooves, a sound made hollow by the snowfall.

  As I stumbled behind her, my body came back to me and I began to shiver—huge, uncontrollable vibrations. Tears began to roll down my face. At last.

  She led me through the coin-sized flakes of snow. Though it must have been midday, the storm made it dark, and her form seemed to fade into the falling feathers of the crystal flakes. I danced across the cold stones, my bare feet fleeing from freezing stones to freezing air and back again, leaving me hopping like a mating crane next to Mieko’s smooth stride. “We will get you changed and fed before we go,” she said.

  There was no one between me and the inn-yard entrance. I thought of bolting. But food...

  We reached a wide door that looked like the entry to a stable. Mieko opened it and beckoned me in. “Come, Risuko.”

  I entered behind her and peered into the gloom. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out five figures, all seated around a tiny fire.

  The room looked as if it were indeed intended to be a stable, but had been transformed into a sort of servant dormitory. Low, age-darkened beams crisscrossed, holding up the roof. Bedrolls lined one wall and a small, smoky fire-pit warmed the center of the space—almost.

  The five figures stood and turned toward me. I felt the urge to climb up into the low rafters, just to get away. Too late to fly away, I realized.

  I recognized the two bulkiest figures as Lady Chiyome’s carriers. They glanced at me, bowed their heads, and then turned back to the fire, stirring rice in a pot.

  The other three figures came toward me. As they stepped away from the fire, their black silhouettes softened and I could make out their features. They were older than me, but definitely children. The biggest was a boy, with a doughy, smiling face. The middle one had a smile too, but it wasn’t a friendly one at all. And the smallest one, who was just a little bigger than me, wore the most ridiculous frown on her face that I’ve ever seen.

  “Children,” said Mieko, a hand resting gently on my shoulder, “come and introduce yourselves to our newest companion, Kano Murasaki.”

  “Kano.” The middle girl’s eyes narrowed. “So, you’re the reason we’ve been waiting here,” she spat.

  I tried to step back, but Mieko’s gentle grip held me in place.

  The boy spoke as if the girl hadn’t said a thing. “I’m Aimaru. And this is Emi.” He gestured to the sad-faced girl.

  “Hello,” she said. Her voice was pleasant, but the scowl didn’t break at all.

  The boy was about to introduce the other girl, but she slapped away his hand. “I’m me,” she said. “I don’t care if you know who I am or not, but I want to know who you are, and why the lady was looking for a scrawny mouse like you.”

  “She’s not a mouse, Toumi,” said the frowning girl. “She’s too big.” I couldn’t tell if she was joking, or just hadn’t understood.

  The girl called Toumi gave a dismissive snort and walked back to the tiny fire.

  “There’s food,” said Aimaru. “Come.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Emi.

  I shuffled. I’ve never liked Mama’s nickname for me, but that was how everyone seemed to know me there. “I’m called Risuko,” I muttered, looking down.

  “A squirrel’s sort of like a mouse,” said Emi, her face still twisted in a severe pout.

  Is she simple? I wondered. Is she making fun of me? I somehow couldn’t believe that either was true.

  “Come, Risuko,” said Mieko. “We can get you some clean things to wear and then you may eat.”

  Mieko grabbed some items from one of the bundles by the fire and led me into one of the empty stalls where I couldn’t see the others. She gave a perfect, crescent-moon smile and held out her hand. “Come, give me your clothes.”

  Her polished sweetness was as impossible to disobey as Lady Chiyome’s commands. Shaking uncontrollably, I pulled off my thin, wet jacket and trousers. I held them out to her, dripping on the straw-strewn floor.

  Her smile froze on her face as she took the clothes by her fingertips. Holding them at arms’ length, she draped them over the wall of the next stall. I never saw them again.

  Then she handed me clean clothes: trousers and a jacket, both blue. On the back of the jacket was Lady Chiyome’s white disk mon.

  Mieko led me, newly branded, over to the fire, where there was a large pot of rice and a small platter with some slices of fish.

  “I must go help pack up the lady’s things,” Mieko said quietly to me. Turning to the others, she said, “We will be leaving as soon as the lady has eaten. She wishes us to speed our mission and leave Imagawa territory as soon as possible. Please make sure that you are ready to go immediately.”

  The two large men nodded simply. Aimaru bobbed his head and Emi just stared. Toumi gave a snort.

  With that, Mieko turned and glided out of the stable.

  Aimaru and Emi picked up their half-finished meals. Toumi was wedged between the two carriers and the wall. She was mashing the fish into the rice with her fingers—but her eyes were still on me, glistening in the firelight. The big one whom Lady Chiyome had called Little Brother passed me a serving of rice and fish in a wooden bowl with a pair of battered chopsticks. I sat in the straw and started to eat.

  Mother hadn’t had food for us that morning, and I’d had a long, cold walk—not to mention the promise of more walking soon—so I was starving. I began to shovel rice and thin slices of fish into my mouth with the chopsticks. They might not have been clean, but I wasn’t going to complain.

  As I gulped down the food, barely tasting it but savoring it even so, the others began to gather up their belongings in preparation to leave.

  I wasn’t concerned; I had nothing to pack. I finished the last grain of rice, rinsed the bowl out with water from a bucket, the rest of which the younger of the carriers poured onto the dying embers of the fire.

  “Does the meal meet with Lady Mouse’s approval?” sneered Toumi from the wall.

  “Don’t be mean, Toumi,” said Aimaru
. “It’s not her fault we had to wait here—”

  “For three days!” snapped Toumi. “What makes the old lady think you’re such a prize? Something special?” Her face darkened in the firelight.

  I could feel the blood pounding in my ears. My fingertips were buzzing. Food and warmth had returned feeling to my limbs and to my soul. “I don’t know! I don’t know what she wants with me! She bought me off of my mother this morning.” All of the rest of them—even the carriers, even Toumi—gaped at me. “One moment I’m climbing trees with my sister and the next moment I’m being marched off without even a chance to say goodbye to anyone!”

  “You’ve got a mother,” said Emi. “You’ve got a sister.”

  I gawped at her, her down-turned mouth looking even sadder than it had. I tried to speak but the miserable expression seemed so extreme—like my own sister’s when her straw dollies would break, or she stubbed her toes, or after Father went away—that it struck me dumb.

  Aimaru put his hand very softly on my arm. I realized I was gripping my chopsticks like a dagger. He said, in that same even voice of his, “It’s not your fault that the rest of us are orphans.”

  “Orphans?” I responded.

  Emi and Aimaru both nodded, solemnly. Aimaru said, “The lady found each of us. I grew up at a temple, I was left there with the monks when I was an infant. And Emi...”

  “I lived in the capital city's streets,” said Emi. “I only remember my mother a little.”

  Toumi snorted again.

  “Orphans?” I repeated. I could feel my eyes beginning to tear up, my throat filling. Why was I crying?

  “Well, say what you want, my family’s dead but I’m no orphan,” snarled Toumi. “I am the Tarugu family. And no one would ever have been able to sell me like trash to a rag-picker.”

  3—Flying

  I have no clear memory of what happened next, or why. I don’t think I’d ever in my life tried to hit anyone before, not even my sister. Though I must admit I had considered it from time to time.

  But something about Toumi’s sneer—her brittle anger, even more than her insult, but also something familiar—pricked me to action. She hadn’t even turned away from me when my open hand caught her cheek. We both stood there, frozen in shock. It must have lasted less than a heartbeat’s time, but it felt as if a tree might have sprouted, grown, and fallen in the moment that we stood there, staring at each other.

  The print of a red hand that matched the shape of my own began to darken against her pale skin. My palm burned.

  In the same tree-slow time, I watched her eyes narrow with rage and knew that she now wanted to kill me—actually to kill me. And I knew that she was capable of it. She began to lean forward and I knew that she was getting ready to drive her hand into me.

  Again, I have no idea how things happened next. I leaped backward and bounced against the wall. The boards had loose grooves that led straight up to the cat’s-cradle of overhanging beams. I could see that the door was now open on the other side of the stable and that, if I got up into the rafters, I could climb over Toumi’s head and escape out into the snow.

  Toumi surged after me, snarling like a wild dog.

  My arms and legs began to move without any conscious direction from me.

  Before she could reach me, Toumi’s charge was snapped short. Little Brother’s enormous hand had fastened itself to the collar of her jacket and stopped her as surely as an iron chain. He held her at arm’s length, her feet dangling. He turned his round tiger face up to me.

  Somehow, without even being aware of it, I had carried out the first part of my plan. I was in the rafters, well above Little Brother’s head, poised for escape.

  Little Brother’s face was, as always, blank and unreadable. So was his companion’s, staring up at me from just inside the door, which he was blocking. I wouldn’t have been able to get out that way after all.

  “Come down,” Little Brother said. His voice was as deep, slow earthquake rumble. “No one will be hurting anyone here today.”

  He gently placed Toumi back by the fire.

  I dropped out of the rafters onto the straw-strewn dirt floor.

  “Listen to me, both of you.” He turned to the others, sitting around the fire. “All of you, listen to me. We face dangers enough. Do not add to them. You children are here out of Lady Chiyome’s kindness, out of her greatness of heart. All of you belong to the lady. You are her guests—” He looked at me. “—but you are also her possessions. If you wish Lady Chiyome’s kindness to continue, you are to treat all of her possessions respectfully.” His calm gaze caught Toumi as her face contorted in a look of poisonous hatred, a look that was aimed at me. “If you feel the need to fight, to hit, you are to hit me. But if you hit me, expect to be hit back.”

  Toumi blinked, blinked again, and then turned away and strode out of the stable and into the snow.

  Little Brother and his fellow giant stood, unmoving, not acknowledging her exit. I walked toward the fire, sat and tried to breathe. Their eyes followed me—the stares weren’t threatening, but I felt unnerved, even so. I was ashamed to have given way to anger, to have struck another in spite of everything that my father had always taught. No harm.

  Finally, their eyes let go of me, and they went outside—no doubt to search for Toumi.

  Now I was aware that Emi and Aimaru were looking at me.

  I was still feeling as if I were about to be attacked. “What?” I grumbled at them.

  “You are a squirrel,” said Emi.

  “How did you do that?” said Aimaru, his face now looking more astonished than blissful.

  “Do what?” I asked. Suddenly I felt hungry again.

  “You climbed right up that wall like a spider,” said Aimaru.

  “Like a squirrel,” corrected Emi.

  “I’ve never seen a person climb like that,” Aimaru continued.

  “I... I don’t know,” I muttered. “I guess I’ve always been able to climb really well.”

  They both nodded, but I wasn’t sure that they believed me.

  “You know,” I said, because I just felt as if I had to say something, “my name isn’t really Risuko.”

  Aimaru raised both hands and smiled. Clearly it was all the same to him. His smile probably would have been just as Buddha-like if I’d said I was actually a kitsune, a fox-spirit who had come to steal all his food.

  Emi, however, pouted at me and asked, “What is your name, then?”

  “Oh,” I said, because, even though that was the logical question to ask after what I’d said, I hadn’t expected her to ask it. “It’s... It’s Murasaki.”

  Her sad face twisted into a confused smirk. “Isn’t that a girl from some story? Some old story?”

  “Yes,” I said, “The Tales of Genji. The name of the writer, too. It’s an old love story. It was my father’s favorite.”

  Her mouth bowed even further down, and her eyes began to moisten. “Back when my mother was alive... she used to tell me stories from it.”

  I simply nodded that I understood, and watched as first Emi and then Aimaru shuffled away from the fire toward the door, bedrolls in their hands.

  “They’ll expect us to be ready to go,” Aimaru apologetically.

  I looked around to see if there was anything for me to bring, but of course, there wasn’t anything. I was just considering hiding there in the stable, waiting for them all to go away, when I sensed a large, quiet presence behind me. I was not surprised to see Little Brother and his companion standing behind me like stone pillars.

  I tried smiling at them. The younger one smiled back. “Please, sirs, I... What do I call you?”

  “Little Brother,” they both said, in unison.

  The younger one, the one who had winked at me, now smiled fully. “It amuses the lady to call us that. All of her followers—the teachers and st
udents at the Full Moon”—Mochizuki—“know us as the Little Brothers.”

  Teachers? Mochizuki? Is there a school on the full moon? I wondered in my bewilderment.

  The larger one didn’t seem to share his companion’s amusement. “Lady Chiyome has informed us that we will be leaving immediately.”

  4—The Edge of the World

  Around me, everyone was rushing back and forth across the courtyard, loading supplies on the two pack horses, putting on extra layers of clothing.

  When I reached them, Emi smiled, a small grin, and handed me a warmer coat, and then a sleeping mat. “That’s for tonight. Put it with ours on the white horse.”

  I was so surprised at the tiny smile that it took me a moment to accept the bundle from her.

  When I had stowed my bedroll with everyone else’s and pulled the padded jacket over the thin blue one, the younger Little Brother handed each of us a lumpy coat made of straw and a pair of straw boots. “We’re going to be walking through snow,” he said, placidly. “We can’t afford to have you freeze your feet.”

  We each stepped into the boots, which gave me the unstable feeling of walking on a particularly scratchy pine branch. Then we pulled on the thick, long coats of woven straw. Emi and Aimaru started to snicker. I looked up; they looked like large, walking haystacks. Even Toumi gave a thin, embarrassed smile. That made me think of Usako, my little sister, and my heart twisted.

  The entrance to the inn yard was once again unguarded. But in those boots....

  Toumi batted at the straw hood and cloak that covered her body. “You look,” she muttered, “like a bunch of cows in their winter coats.”

  “What does she think she looks like?” whispered Emi.

  As the Little Brothers brought the beetle-black palanquin out of the stable where the horses had been kept, Lady Chiyome and Mieko stepped out of the inn. Kuniko, the maid with a face like a block of granite, followed the Little Brothers, holding what looked like a short sword attached to a pole as tall as she was. It was a weapon that I would later learn was called a glaive. I couldn’t think what Kuniko was doing with it, nor why it fit so comfortably in her grip. I assumed that it was for one of the carriers.