He snorted and stood, turning on her. “What a foolish thing to say! Of course, you’re beautiful! And I think you know it! What do you want from me?”
“I apologize. Please, come sit down. It is wrong of me to flirt with you. You are clearly an honorable man.”
“And you are a married woman.”
“So you fear my husband? If he were to catch us, or discover us somehow?”
“I fear no man.”
“Please, come and sit. I promise to behave.”
He sat beside her again, their shoulders a few fingers’ breadths apart. The space between them filled with enough warmth to rival the fire.
“Yes, I have a husband,” she said, “but it has been so long since I have seen him, and even longer since I truly enjoyed the touch of a man. I am sorry to make you uncomfortable.”
Ken’ishi nodded his acceptance.
For a while they sat and watched the fire. He pulled out his flute and began to play the old mournful songs.
Her eyes glowed in the firelight as she listened, motionless, multitudes of soft emotions dancing on her face.
When he finished, her eyes glistened, deep and warm. “Ken’ishi, I have but one request before I leave you to your honor.”
“What is it?”
“A kiss.”
Part of him wanted to draw back, and part of him wanted to lunge for her, take her kiss, and the rest of her, too. The result was a motionless stalemate.
Her voice grew soft and husky. “Please do me this favor. Just one kiss. It has been so long.”
After a long moment, he said, “Very well.”
Then he leaned forward, took her petal-soft face, and kissed her.
Her warm, soft lips leaned into his, pressing with restrained desperation. She tasted of tea and rice, pine forest and bamboo grove, orchards and wildflowers. He pulled himself away, lest he lose control and devour her.
When their lips parted, she drew away from him, pulled her knees up to her chest, and wrapped herself tighter in his blanket. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Sleep now,” he said. “Perhaps tomorrow we’ll reach our destination.” With his heart hammering in his chest and his loins aching with heat, he lay back on the bed of grass, and waited for his breath to slow.
* * *
The morning dawned cold and overcast with the threat of rain. Ken’ishi awoke with Midori curled up close to him, and he found that her body must have warmed him during the night, in spite of his will to resist. The scent of her hair was a breath of song in his nostrils.
Her demeanor before they set out was one of sheepish reserve, quiet as she arranged her thick, glossy flow of hair. He could not help but notice the soft, fair slope of her neck, her delicate ear, the elegant tilt of her cheek, lips parted by a tender, pink tongue.
This was no peasant woman or low-ranked samurai’s wife. She must be nothing less than an empress in disguise.
They traveled on, but the way grew thicker and thicker. The river banks were choked with brush, all but impossible to pass. A chill mist settled over the lush greenery, numbing his feet and hands to his very bones. Having grown up in the frosty north, he was accustomed to such cold, but Midori was not. She sat astride the horse, shivering, even wrapped in Ken’ishi’s blanket.
Soon, the only clear path was to walk the riverbed. The rocky stretches of river had given way to smooth, pebbled sand, wider and slower than above.
Just as Ken’ishi was about to lead the horse into the water, she called to him, “Stop! It is too cold for you to walk in this icy river. Why not ride before me? We shall travel easier and you will stay dry.”
He thought about this for a moment and could not help but agree. Within moments of walking in this water, his feet would be numb, which would make going even more difficult and treacherous. “Very well.”
The stallion protested until Ken’ishi promised him a bagful of grain when they arrived in the next town.
Midori laughed. “I have never met anyone who can speak to animals. Are a shugenja? Or a holy man?”
“No, I just have a peculiar upbringing.”
She leaned around him, waiting for him to elaborate. When he did not, she said playfully, “Ooh, so mysterious!”
“Then that makes two of us.”
She laughed again. “I suppose so. We are two enigmas in the forest of mystery.”
Soft breasts and a warm cheek snuggled up to his back, the hard ridge of the saddle seat the only barrier between their bodies, and he found his heartbeat picking up speed. He could not deny that her allure was powerful, but he had sworn to protect her. Bedding her would make that task far more difficult, even if he ignored the fact that she belonged to another.
“How did he lose his ear?” she asked, pointing to the fresh scar where one of Thunder’s ears should be.
“A barbarian sword. Fortunately the wound healed well, and he has a powerful spirit.”
“What barbarians do you speak of?”
He twisted over his shoulder. “Where were you in the eleventh month? Kyushu was invaded! We almost fell! If not for the typhoon...” His throat caught at the thought of the storm.
She shrugged. “My village is very small. We get few visitors.”
He frowned. How could she not know about the Mongol invasion and the loss of its fleet? “But the storm.”
“There was no storm in my village.”
“You said you were from Hizen.”
“I said I came from Hizen.”
“Bah! I cannot talk to you.”
Along with Ken’ishi’s mood, the sky grew heavier and heavier, turning the forest tapestry of lush green into dark shadows of itself.
They managed only a couple of hours of riding before the first drops of rain began to fall. Ken’ishi’s mood soured at the prospect of being both cold and wet, but then Midori pointed into the dense wall of trees stretching up the mountainside, toward the shadows under a great camphor tree. “A house!”
The shadows suggested angles and walls that meant human construction. Ken’ishi dismounted and led the stallion up the riverbank onto the slope, which was becoming more treacherous with each drop of rain.
The rain had not yet filtered to the forest floor. The thick carpet of leaves and pine needles muffled their footfalls as they approached what appeared to be a woodcutter’s shack fallen into ruin. One corner of the thatched roof had collapsed, and the walls were worm-eaten and weathered. Nevertheless, it might serve to keep the rain off their heads.
“Halloo in the house!” he called, but there was no answer. He tied the horse to one of the roof supports, and investigated the interior. The air smelled of animal dung, rot, and dust. Dust coated everything from the bare wooden floor to the pocked wooden walls, hung in the air at the disturbance of his footsteps. There was however a central pit for a fire.
Midori followed him inside, her face glowing with wonder, as if this place were a palace and not a rank hovel. “Oh, it’s lovely!” She clasped her hands to her chest.
He looked at her askance, wondering if she might be mad.
“Look! Here is a bit of ribbon, and the remains of some fine zori. Doubtless he made them for her. Any wife would have been proud to wear these on her feet. In this house, there was love.”
The artifacts were covered in dust and the grime of years, but there was evidence of a life here once, lives together.
“And look at this!” From a crevice in the wall, she withdrew the tattered remnants of a cloth and straw doll. “There was a child here!” The joy on her face shifted, twisted, eyes squeezing shut. She sank to her knees, head bowed, and there she sat, stroking the moldy straw and ragged cloth. “A child,” she whispered. Droplets of tears fell into the dust before her knees.
He left her there and went searching the house and environs for firewood before the rain soaked everything. He returned with his arms full of branches and found her sweeping dust from the floor in great billowing clouds that jerked a sneeze out of him. She smiled
at him as he entered, her eyes as bright and clear as if she had not just been weeping.
The susurration of the rain spread over the forest canopy, and the drops began to fall to the forest floor. The whisper of rain rose to a steady hiss in the chill dimness, but the fire formed a bastion of flickering warmth. They huddled together, warming themselves in silence. The rain sluiced into the corner of the room from the collapsed roof. Numerous other leaks dripped water onto spots, including the firepit, where the droplets struck patterns into the embers and hissed with steam.
“You have a strange way of looking at things,” he said, after a long time. “When we came in here, I saw nothing but a ruined hovel, a place to keep off the rain. But you saw something completely different. As if you were looking through a mirror into another time.”
“Does that bother you?”
“It reminds me of things my old teacher used to say, about how a man’s entire world can be twisted by perception. How his thoughts can be locked into patterns he cannot escape from.”
“Perhaps we are all a bit mad.”
“Even though he taught me this, among many things, it is difficult not to forget in the rush and trial of life in this world. I saw abandoned trash. You saw evidence of love.”
“Do you think me foolish?”
“Such emotions have no place in warrior’s heart. He must be prepared to kill or die in any given moment. I have sworn to protect you. I would die to do it. And yet...” Thoughts of everything he had lost, even having lived only twenty summers, drove a spike of pain into his heart. His parents to assassins’ blades. Nearly his humanity to the machinations of the fox-maiden, Haru. His foster parents to fear and distrust. His faithful canine friend, Akao, to a demon’s fury. His heart to Kazuko. And poor Little Frog, and Kiose, whose love had blinded her to the fact his heart would always belong to another, no matter how he might wish it otherwise.
She leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder.
He let her.
Her shivers of cold traveled into him through her cheek.
She began to hum a quiet song, a soft, sweet melody he did not recognize.
He let her.
His heart began to pound again. The lust for her rose in him like a demon. Thoughts of her supple flesh under his touch, under his loins, her strange, brilliant eyes looking up into his with equal measures of desire...
Then he glanced at her, and found her face tilted toward his, lips parted, eyes glimmering with yearning for his kiss.
He felt his face drawn toward hers, a relentless pull. Their lips brushed, and fire bloomed in his belly, shot sparks into his groin. She thrust her lips hungrily into his. He took her by the shoulders and pressed her away.
Her eyes were swirling pools, glimmering with desire and confusion. “Kiss me, just once more,” she said.
And he did. With a power that brought the taste of blood into his mouth, he kissed her, devouring her, and her body melted to his, quiet sighs of burgeoning desire seeping from her.
Until he pushed her away.
He stood up, startling her.
“What is it?” she said.
“We cannot,” he said, but the words caught in his throat like barbs. “Honor demands it. I am sorry.”
He went outside and sat huddled under the eave against the side of the house, listening to the hidden rhythms of the rain over leaves and loam, letting the rain pass within a few finger-breadths of him, hoping the coolness of it could quench the fires already burning within.
* * *
The dimness of rain-soaked day faded seamlessly into night. Ken’ishi remained outside, wrapped in his blanket, clinging to the cold as a bulwark against the hot yearning. He sensed her small movements inside, huddled by the fire, sometimes snoring softly, sometimes weeping. His thoughts meandered between the lands of waking and dreams in a twisted morass of wishes and wants, anger and guilt. Love turned men into women, weakened resolve, distracted from the warrior’s way, yet burned like a fire unquenchable, a searing ember embedded in his flesh.
The rain diminished overnight until by morning it had ceased.
He awoke to the sound of Midori within the hut and the smell of fresh-cooked rice and searing meat.
He sat up at the smell of meat and went within.
She smiled up at him, but her eyes were distant and clouded. “Don’t be so sullen. I had some rabbit left in my pouch. Let us have breakfast and move on.”
The rabbit tasted fresher than something she might have had in her pouch for two days, but it was fresh-roasted over the fire, and his stomach roared for it.
They ate in silence, mounted the horse in silence, and traveled in silence, for a while. That Midori did not press herself so tightly against him today came both as a relief and a disappointment. Perhaps it was the kami who told him that something about this woman was unreachable to him, in spite of her advances, that there was too much unknown hiding behind beautiful smiles.
Higher on the slope, up under the canopy, the underbrush thinned, and the going was easier. He felt certain they would cross a path or a road soon. They crossed into a grove of bamboo that drove out all other trees. Their path wound between the hard, segmented stalks.
The sound of quick hoof beats, interspersed with the stallion’s, echoed through the grove. Two deer leaped into view, bouncing, running, dodging among the bamboo stalks, coming toward them.
Midori gasped with wonder.
The deer raced past them, ears and tails high.
Ken’ishi did not need the kami to warn him of danger. Deer never ran toward men unless running away from something even more dangerous.
A heartbeat later, heavier footfalls tore deep into the carpet of bamboo leaves, and a deep cavernous huffing came. The boar exploded through the underbrush in pursuit of the intruders. When its red, beady eyes caught sight of the horse and riders, it squealed in rage and veered toward them. With shocking speed, it was upon them.
The stallion reared, thrashing his hooves. Midori tumbled over the horse’s rump onto the ground. Ken’ishi heard the heavy thump as Thunder’s front hoof struck the boar’s head. It squealed in greater rage and pain, but its skull was armor enough. Slaver-coated yellow tusks flashed as it lunged and tore into the horse’s left side. The horse screamed.
Ken’ishi whipped out Silver Crane, but the boar was on the left side of the horse. His bow was tied to the saddle, its string safely coiled in a watertight box against the rain.
The horse stumbled. Ken’ishi leaped free, but landed hard on his back, almost losing his grip on Silver Crane. As the stallion went down, he snapped at the boar and tore a chunk of thick bristly hide from the beast’s neck.
The screams of the animal adversaries merged into a cacophony of battle, great slabs of bristled muscle tensed and straining. The boar dove into the horse’s belly, heedless of lethally thrashing hooves, and ripped.
The stallion stiffened and flopped onto his side.
Ken’ishi rolled to his feet and cried, “Here, beast! Taste my steel!”
Its feral eyes fixed upon him for a moment.
Then Midori began to recover from her fall, scrambling away.
It turned toward her and charged.
“No!” Ken’ishi roared and charged.
With incredible fleetness, Midori leaped into flight.
Its thrusting snout hooked her robes, ripping, halting her in mid-step.
Ken’ishi extended Silver Crane into a stretching lunge, piercing the boar’s haunch. It squealed and spun toward him, almost jerking the sword out of his hand, its snout swathed in scraps of Midori’s robe, scarlet-rimmed eyes glowing like flecks of pure hate. With a roar, it charged him. Ken’ishi had only a sliver of heartbeat to bring the point of his sword to bear. The tremendous weight impaled itself on the sword point halfway to the guard, and drove Ken’ishi skidding backwards on his feet for three full paces, before its momentum was arrested, its strength draining away with the blood bursting from its nose. For a long moment,
man and boar stood eye-to-eye, motionless. The boar’s shudder traveled up the blade into Ken’ishi’s hands.
At the taste of blood, Silver Crane came alive, and power surged up his arms, like bellowed coals flaring with heat.
He dragged out the sword, raised it high, stepped to the side, and struck.
The boar’s head tumbled loose with a fountain of gore. Its body fell to the side, legs running, tearing up the leaves as if still in pursuit.
The battle fury surged through Ken’ishi’s blood, heating it with the anvil strikes of his heart. He slung the blood from his blade.
Unbridled sobbing found its way into his ears. He ran to where Midori lay.
The lower half of her robes were savagely shredded. He expected to see her bare legs gashed to the bone by the boar’s tusks, but only a smear of filthy slaver marred her fair thigh.
“Are you all right?” he said.
She flew up from the forest floor and flung her arms around him, sobbing and kissing his neck and cheek.
He returned her embrace, his heart thundering with heat. He thrust the point of Silver Crane into the moist earth, and took her in both arms.
Their lips crashed together, melding, parting, tongues darting, embracing.
Fire roared through him again, exploding gooseflesh all over his body, turning his manhood into a throbbing spear. A yearning heat burst from her, and she molded to him like steaming water.
The ragged folds of her robe parted at his tugging, and her questing hands found their way to his flesh.
There was no thought, only aching passion, as he pressed her down onto the bamboo leaves, and drove into her.
The scent of her musk mixed with the stench of blood in his nostrils.
Their bodies melted together in an exquisite rhythm that brought them both to ecstasy within moments. She cried out, clutching him with arms and legs, shuddering, convulsing as he spent himself in her.
“Yes,” she said.
The waves of pleasure subsided, and he rolled to the side, breath slowing.
She rolled onto him, and kissed him again. “Thank you,” she said.
He gazed with wonder upon her exquisite beauty, touched her face.
The Ronin and the Green Maiden Page 2