Sisters of the Sword

by Maya Snow

  I glanced sharply at my cousin, but there was no trace of mockery on his face. He looked serious and concerned, as if he really was trying to be kind and helpful. Tatsuya seemed to have been taken in, despite Ken-ichi’s earlier taunting, but I was suspicious of my cousin. He was up to something—but what?

  I decided to keep an eye on him as I went about my duties. I carried trays and bowls to the young masters, served more tea, and hurried back and forth between the hall and the kitchens. But Kenichi carried on being friendly and attentive to Tatsuya.

  “You’re a good friend, Ken-ichi,” I heard Tatsuya say. “Coming here to this school has made me realize how little I know about the rules of society.”

  “You’ll learn,” Ken-ichi told him with an easy smile. “Just stick with me, Tatsuya, and you’ll be fine.”

  I wanted to speak out—to warn Tatsuya that it wasn’t true. But I could feel the head servant’s gaze on me and I knew I couldn’t risk getting into trouble for disturbing the students again.

  The ceremony and feasting had gone on so long that some of the lanterns had gone out. Conversation filled the room and fireflies danced above the heads of some of the students and masters as they chattered. Choji handed each servant a large ornate bamboo fan and told us to take up places among the students. We were to stir the air above their heads and keep them cool as they relaxed after the feast.

  I quickly whispered to Hana, and together we made our way to Ken-ichi’s table. I was determined that if my cousin made a move, I would be there to stop him.

  At last, Master Goku held up a hand for silence. He was still sitting in formal style on a tatami mat up on the platform. A couple of the other young masters had joined him during the feast.

  “We have gathered here as students, teachers, and friends,” Master Goku said. “We’ve seen demonstrations of great combat and skill that seem almost magical. But remember that inside each and every one of you beats the heart of a warrior. Magic is merely practice and discipline.” He smiled serenely and bowed his head. “And now—I will bid you good night.”

  I noticed Ken-ichi whispering to Tatsuya but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then, Tatsuya began to stand up.

  My heart skipped a beat. On such a formal occasion as this, rising before the Master showed a terrible lack of manners. Master Goku would be insulted—and Tatsuya would be completely shamed. I couldn’t think how to stop him, until Hana nudged me and motioned stepping down with her foot.

  Quickly realizing what she meant, I deliberately placed my foot on the back of Tatsuya’s kimono, making it impossible for him to stand up. He wobbled, and furiously whipped around to glare at Hana and me. I pressed my finger to my lips and shook my head, trying to warn him with my eyes. I hoped Choji hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.

  Then, up on the raised platform, Master Goku was on his feet. Tatsuya turned back just in time to see the Master gesture to the rest of the school, his hands spread wide, palms upward. I released Tatsuya’s kimono.

  In a heartbeat, every student and master in the hall were on their feet, including Tatsuya. He shot Ken-ichi an accusing look as he realized what had almost happened. But my cousin’s cruel smile showed no remorse.

  As Tatsuya half turned to give me an almost imperceptible bow of thanks, Ken-ichi looked sharply at me, but I avoided his gaze.

  All around us, the students parted to make a pathway for Master Goku as he swept down from the platform and made his way toward the doorway. As he drew level with me, his dark gaze slid to my face, and he regarded me for a brief moment. There was curiosity in his glance and I wondered whether he had noticed what I had done.

  Then the moment was over. Master Goku had left the room and disappeared into the night. I could breathe again.

  “Get moving, slave!” Ken-ichi snapped, glaring at me. I guessed that he knew I was the reason his trick with Tatsuya had failed. “You’re not supposed to stop fanning us until the hall is empty!”

  Normally I would have reacted angrily, but this time I knew I had scored a victory over Ken-ichi. I smiled sweetly at him and bowed low.

  Ken-ichi seethed. A moment later he was gone, roughly shouldering past me with his friends at his heels.

  Later, back in our room, we whispered about the events of the evening as we got ready for bed.

  “Ken-ichi is even worse than I thought,” Hana said, loosening her hair from her topknot and combing it with her fingers. “I’m so glad you stopped Tatsuya from shaming himself.”

  “Me, too,” I agreed. “He seems nice. And I’ve never seen anyone use a longbow with such accuracy!”

  “I’ve never seen anyone who knows as much as Master Goku does,” Hana said, shaking her head. “He knew you’d helped Tatsuya.”

  “He doesn’t miss a thing, does he?” I agreed. “We’ll have to be very careful when we’re around him. If he finds out that we’ve lied to him…that we’re not who we say we are…”

  Hana looked troubled.

  “Don’t worry,” I said firmly, as we shook out our bedding rolls and climbed into bed, arranging the thin covers, and the extra blankets that Choji had offered, around us. I was so tired that I hardly noticed they weren’t the soft, silk-covered quilts I had enjoyed at home. “We’ve convinced everyone that we’re boys. Now all we have to do is make sure that even we forget that we’re girls. Then we won’t put a foot wrong, and everything will be fine.”

  Hana seemed to accept that, and very soon she was asleep, worn out by the events of the past two days. I stayed awake longer, lying with my arms tucked beneath my head. The paper screens had a small gap between them and for a while I watched ragged clouds drift across the face of the moon.

  It had been only a day since our father and brothers had been taken from us. Our home, too. My sister and I had killed a man—a samurai! And now we were servants in a samurai training school, disguised as boys, under the watchful eye of Master Goku. We were safe, for now, and I offered up a prayer that Mother and Moriyasu would also be kept safe until we could all be together again.

  Just before I slipped into a fitful sleep, I vowed to myself that I would do everything I could to please Master Goku, so that he might teach me the skills of a samurai.

  And once I had become a warrior, my uncle would never be able to hurt my family again.

  The next morning Hana and I were up before dawn, woken by a harsh knocking on the door frame and Choji’s voice. “Come on, skinny boys!” he cried. “The kitchen chores are waiting.”

  “I hardly slept a wink,” I grumbled to Hana as we pulled on our jackets and breeches. “I ache all over from our fight with Master Goku yesterday.”

  “And from all the serving,” Hana said. “The sleeping mats are so thin. I’d give anything to have my lovely futon bed from home, covered in a pile of soft feather quilts!”

  We hurried to the kitchens, where we found that our first job of the day was to help Ko and Choji serve breakfast to the students and masters. When they had all eaten and hurried away to their lessons, Choji thrust bowls of sweet rice into our hands. “Eat,” he commanded. “And then it will be time to clean the bedchambers.”

  When we had eaten, Ko hurried to clear away the bowls and Choji ordered me to make tea for everyone. I nodded and hurried across the kitchen to hang the large pot over the bright charcoal brazier. Making tea was something I had done for my mother and father many times, and I felt a lilt of happy confidence as I took the lid off a big black teapot.

  “Here’s the tea,” Ko said helpfully, lifting a bamboo box down from a high shelf and handing it to me.

  “Thank you.” I heaped green leaves into the pot, trying to work out how many scoops I would need for everyone. There were ten servants, and Choji, and Hana and me—

  “What are you doing?” Ko grabbed my wrist. “You’re using far too much tea.” He peered into the pot for a moment and then glanced up at me in astonishment. “Only the Emperor himself could afford to use all that!”

  I froze
, panic-stricken.

  “I…I…” I swallowed hard, my mind almost a blank. Think, Kimi! “Our last master was quite wealthy,” I stuttered at last.

  “Wealthy?” Ko said, giving me a strange look. “Your last master must have been the Jito himself. Us ordinary mortals can only afford one scoop of tea.”

  I bit my lip as I realized how different life was here. One scoop, for so many people? I was beginning to understand how privileged Hana and I had been.

  Luckily no one else seemed to have noticed anything, and the rest of the meal passed without incident. Soon Hana and I were on our way to clean the students’ bedchambers, armed with brooms and dusters.

  The first room we were assigned to was Ken-ichi’s. He was still there, rifling through piles of discarded kimonos as he searched for his bokken. When he saw us, he shot us a filthy look and deliberately kicked over a half-full bowl of bean curd soup. The brown liquid seeped across the floor and began to soak into one of the bedsheets.

  “Clean that up, rice boy,” he snarled. “I want this room spotless by the time I get back. If it isn’t, I’ll complain to Master Goku. He saw you throw tea into that student’s lap last night, so he already thinks you’re clumsy. And once I tell him you spilled soup in my room, I guarantee you’ll be out of the dojo by midday.” With that, Ken-ichi snatched up his bokken and swaggered off down the hallway.

  Hana and I watched him for a moment, and then Hana shrugged and got down on her knees to mop up the mess.

  “I’ll do that,” I said. “It’s me he hates, not you.”

  “We’ll both do it,” Hana replied quietly. “He’s my cousin, too.”

  We mopped up the soup, and then attacked the rest of the room—flinging open the shutters and shaking out bedding as we had seen our own servants do at home. I struggled with a discarded kimono for a while, trying to remember how my own had been folded. Were the arms folded inward, or behind…? At last it looked right, and all the kimonos were put tidily away in a cupboard.

  “Remember how we used to play games with the maids while they were dusting?” Hana asked me as she went over the floor with a damp cloth.

  “I’m glad we did,” I said with a nod, reaching up with a leafy bamboo pole to hook fine cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have a clue what to do now.”

  Eventually we were finished.

  “I hope every room isn’t going to take us this long,” I muttered.

  The next bedchamber was so neat that at first I thought it must be a spare room. But then I saw a student sitting in seiza, head bowed and eyes closed. It was Tatsuya, and he was meditating.

  Horrified at having almost disturbed him, I began to back out, but I backed into Hana who protested and Tatsuya’s eyes flashed open. He stared at us in surprise.

  “My apologies,” I said, bowing deeply. “I didn’t realize any of the students were in their rooms.”

  “Please come in.” With a friendly smile, Tatsuya scrambled to his feet and beckoned Hana and me into his room. His brown kimono was fastened with a white sash and black breeches that stopped just below the knee. “I was hoping to see you today.”

  “You—you were?”

  “I wanted to thank you for what you did at the feast last night.” He spoke slowly, haltingly, as if he wasn’t used to using such a formal way of speaking. “If you had not stepped on the back of my kimono, I would have risen before the Master and disgraced myself.”

  “It was Ha—” I caught myself just in time. “Not me—but my brother who saved you,” I finished, stumbling a little over the word brother as I drew Hana forward. “He noticed, and nudged me. I just did what anyone would have done.”

  “Then I am indebted to you both.” Tatsuya bowed low. “If there’s anything I can do for either of you—you have only to ask.”

  We bowed and returned to our cleaning. Tatsuya picked up his longbow and began to tighten the string, his hands quick and confident. I remembered his demonstration last night, his skill and accuracy, and suddenly an idea came to me.

  “Tatsuya,” I said hesitantly. “Maybe there is something you can do for us….”

  He glanced up at me, smiling. “What?”

  “Would you…” I hesitated again, afraid that he would dismiss my request. After all, he was a student while Hana and I were just lowly servants. But Tatsuya’s smile and bright, friendly eyes gave me confidence. “My brother and I would like to train, as well as work as servants. It would be good for us to practice with a student as skilled as you are. Would you spar with us sometimes?”

  “I would be happy to,” he said, hanging his bow back up on the wall next to a jo pole. “I’m always ready for extra practice.” He glanced at Hana, and then looked back at me. “What are your names?”

  “I am Otonashi,” Hana said.

  “I’m Kagenashi,” I added.

  “Well, my new friends,” Tatsuya said. “When it comes to sparring, my father always used to say that there’s no time like the present!” He quickly snatched his jo down from its hook on the wall, sweeping it around in an elegant curve.

  He took me by surprise, slicing into an attack almost before I had time to raise the broom I was carrying. But I deflected the jo with the broom handle, twisted, and immediately Tatsuya and I were circling each other, watching to see who would make the next move. My broom handle was about the same length as Tatsuya’s jo, and I hoped it would prove as sturdy.

  His gaze still fixed on me, Tatsuya suddenly launched a sideways attack on Hana. She ducked quickly and darted behind Tatsuya, trying to catch one end of his jo with her dusting cloth, wrapping it and pulling it down. She was graceful even in the smallest of her movements.

  The three of us danced back and forth across the room, sidestepping bedding rolls. The room echoed to the sound of wooden poles clashing together.

  I soon found myself out of breath, and Tatsuya was sweating. “You’re both very good,” he acknowledged. “Next time I’ll remember to take on only one of you at a time!”

  I grinned and whipped a wide arc with my broom, catching his weapon and trapping it for a moment. Tatsuya broke free and raised the weapon to strike from above. I twisted my body, spinning myself out of reach of his jo, turning toward the open doorway—

  Where I froze.

  We were being watched—by Master Goku!

  CHAPTER TEN

  Immediately I flipped my broom up the right way. Beside me, Tatsuya slid into a perfect kata practice stance while Hana dropped to her knees and began to rub at an invisible stain on the floor.

  But we didn’t fool Master Goku for a moment. He took a step into the bedchamber and gently took hold of my broom. “Your moves show promise,” he said. “But perhaps you’ll allow me to demonstrate a more correct technique?”

  I glanced up at him from beneath my lashes and saw that his eyes sparkled good-naturedly as he twisted the length of wood and showed me a firm two-handed grip.

  “You need to keep the weapon steady,” he told the three of us. “And use it to gain control over your opponent. Tatsuya, attack me.” Tatsuya did not hesitate and moved to strike Goku from above. Goku raised the broom to protect his head from the strike and, in the same movement, twisted the long stick around Tatsuya’s. Moving his weapon in a tight downward spiral, Goku dropped to his knees and trapped Tatsuya’s jo against the floor.

  “Thank you, Sensei,” I said humbly, and bowed as Goku handed the broom back to me. “I will remember that.”

  Master Goku gazed thoughtfully at Hana and me. “I observed you both during the kenshu ceremony yesterday,” he said. “And I was pleased with what I saw. Perhaps you would both like to attend a study class in the scroll room later this morning?”

  Hana and I exchanged astounded glances.

  “We would be honored to!” I exclaimed.

  “You have earned the right to be there,” Master Goku said lightly.

  With a small bow he turned and left the room, leaving me wondering what he had mean
t. What had he seen that pleased him? Our work as servants or what happened with Tatsuya?

  But it didn’t matter why we had been chosen. It was enough to know that we had pleased Master Goku. Hana and I were going to begin our studies under a real master. Our skills would improve and grow, helping us to become strong enough to take revenge on our uncle.

  We thanked Tatsuya for sparring with us and he went to his next class, leaving us to finish our cleaning. As Hana and I quickly worked through our chores, I thought about the study class we would attend later. I was excited and grateful that we had been invited to the scroll room, but secretly my heart longed for Goku to allow us into one of his training classes, where we could run and kick and twist and leap!

  After Choji dismissed us, we hurried along a covered walkway to the scroll room and saw immediately that we were the last to arrive. The other students were already kneeling at the low tables that were grouped around the center of the room, their colored sashes a kaleidoscope of orange, green, and blue. They were copying a scroll that hung at the front of the room.

  The scroll room was light and airy, the size of ten or twelve tatami. The screens had been opened onto a garden full of lush green foliage. Master Goku was bent forward over his own table in the middle, studying a long scroll covered in flowing black kanji characters.

  He looked up as Hana and I entered. “Come and take your places,” he said with a warm smile. “There is a table at the back you may share. I have put out brushes and scrolls for you—they are well used but still serviceable, I believe.”

  As we made our way across the classroom, Master Goku turned to the other students. “Although these boys are wearing servants’ uniforms, you will treat them both with respect and humility. During training, all boys are equal. Everyone, whether student or servant, has something to learn…and something to contribute. Now, please continue your copying.”

  The other students went back to their work as Hana and I took our places. Ken-ichi was sitting at the table next to ours. I was surprised to see him looking happy and relaxed, almost his old self. But then he glanced up and caught my eye. Immediately his shoulders tensed and he scowled. I quickly looked away and moved on.