“Is that all?” Isao said. “I knew all of that already.”
“Patience is a virtue, youngling,” The Fox said, and took another sip of his tea. “And there is more, which you would have found out if you had bothered to wait for half a minute more.”
The Prince of the Hamasaki’s ears turned faintly red, and he bowed in apology. The Clever One nodded in acceptance and continued, “Now, what almost no one knows is that Hara Giri faithfully raised Prince Hansuke in secret, teaching him the ways of the warrior. In time, when he came of age, he set out to wander the world, doing his best to protect and help the seven realms that were his by birthright. So it was that he made quite a name for himself—though he had several different names, depending on what region of the realms he was in. The one used most often, and which you would recognize, would be Hanzo.”
Isao’s eyes went wide, “Wait, are you talking about Takahara Hanzo-sama? Hanzo the wanderer?”
“None other.” Akashi Keiji said, and his eyes gleamed in amusement.
Isao ran a hand through his hair. “I… oh, that makes so much sense! Everyone assumed he must have been an illegitimate child of the Miyamoto clan, because of his blue eyes—but he got them because he was a member of the Miyatatsu!”
“Precisely.” The Fox replied, and sipped his tea.
“Pardon me, Akashi Keiji-sama,” Aika said politely, “But if this is true, why did no one back then guess at Hansuke-ouji-sama was the missing prince and the son of the late Emperor?”
“You must understand, child, that this was a long time ago, and for thirty-five years the seven realms were dissolved completely into chaos and war.” The Clever One said. “It was indeed a dark time, and everyone was caught up too highly in their own concerns to spare a thought for the possibility of an heir everyone thought was long dead.”
Then his mouth curled into a sharp grin, and he added, “Besides, as I’ve always said, your race is remarkably blind and thick-headed for one modeled after the Heavenly Emperor-sama himself.” He shrugged. “And of course, there’s the fact that if the Heavenly Emperor-sama decided it was not time. And if the Heavenly Emperor-sama decides that no one will notice, well,” he grinned, a decidedly other gleam in his eyes, “No one does.”
Isao nodded, seeing the sense in that, but his wife turned a puzzled gaze at him. “Who exactly was Takahara Hanzo, and why do you know so much of him, my husband?”
“Well, you know how, about five years back, I helped Tatsuya-kun get his title back?”
Aika nodded, and Isao said, “Takahara Hanzo is a legendary hero to the people of Karigane. The stories go that after many adventures, he eventually married the only daughter of the head of the Takahara clan and settled down in peace.”
“Indeed.” Akashi Keiji said. “And he had a son of his own—Takahara Aoi, named so because he carried on the blue eyes of the Miyatatsu clan. And so three hundred years passed, until no-one remembered where the blue eyes came from or the father of their legendary Hanzo. Until, that is, 17 years ago, when the younger son of the current Takahara Daimyo had a daughter born time him, who not only had the blue eyes of the Miyatatsu, but bore the dragon’s mark.”
“If that’s true,” Isao asked, gesturing towards the girl, “If Hanako-hime-dono is truly the daughter of a noble Karigane clan, why was she considered a princess of Akiyama?”
“Ah, well…’ Akashi Keiji glanced over aat Hanako, and she nodded once in assent, her expression hooded. “That’s an interesting story. You see, when Hanako-chan was an infant, she grew very ill indeed, so her father brought her to the only physician who had a hope of curing her disease—Princess Fujioka Katsumi of Akiyama. And when the Princess saw the Dragon’s Mark, she knew exactly what Hanako-chan truly was. So Fujioka Katsumi said she would not heal Hanako, unless Hanako was sundered unter her as payment.”
Hanako folded her hands in her lap and looked at them intently, and her shoulders were stiff and set like stone.
“Hanako-chan’s father accepted, for it was the only way his daughter would live, and so Hanako-chan was taken and lost to mortal memory. But we the Celestial Spirits did not forget.” The Fox said, and his grin widened.
“And now we come to today.” Isao said. “Why are you here, where is my baby brother, and do you have any idea what plans Princess Katsumi and Shogun Dum—Shogun Nishimura Tsuneo are here?”
“Patience, youngling.” The Fox said, and sipped. “The answers to your questions are many and varied and connected and muddled. First, why am I, specifically, here?” He tapped one long finger on the rim of the cup thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose it has to do with the fact that I was getting poured of the horrendous, backstabbing political maneuvering within my once proud, chosen clan. So, I volunteered to be Hanako-hime’s personal bodyguard. Second, why is the little Empress here? That is a tad more complicated. You see, Princess Katsumi has a very, very nasty plan for her, regarding a gift that belongs to Hanako-hime and Hanako-hime alone, and it is a plan that we cannot let come to pass. Shichiro-san discovered this plan and helped his wife escape the clutches of Princess Katsumi, but sadly… he paid a high price.”
Isao heart thudded in his chest, and he felt dread slip across his face and turn his expression hard as stone. “What happened to Shichiro?”
Akashi Keiji sighed deeply, setting down his tea cup at last. “He was greviously wounded in the fight with Princess Katsumi. My honored celestial mother told me Katsumi took him by surprise. Momoe Chiyo-sama, my mother, healed Shichiro of his wounds, but his sight is lost to him.”
“I see.” Isao felt his tongue and lips form the words, but there was nothing behind them. His chest felt hollow and cold and dry. He felt the careful touch of Aika’s fingers against the sleeve of his kimono, but he didn’t move. Isao wondered idly if he was even breathing. “Where is Shichiro now?”
“My husband…” his sister-in-law said, and her voice was sad and lonely, “Has decided he is of no more use to me, and would only endanger me, so he set off wandering.”
Isao stared at her, and her blue eyes were full of his own pain. Again, I was too late. I didn’t even know of any of this! Why is it always like this? Shichiro always pays for everything, and he shoulders his pain alone. I wish…
His musings, however, were interrupted when the his tiny scrap of a sister-in-law bowed before him again, but the lines of her body were filled with determination. “Isao-nii-sama, I do not wish to be presumptuous, but I must beg another boon from you.”
“Speak,” Isao said, and he felt as if the mist clogging his mind was beginning to clear up, and he could focus on this dreary, miserable moment again.
“I beg your sanctuary until my child is born, and then, when the time comes, your help. For as soon as I can, I intend to search for my husband, and…” Hanako’s mouth felt strange, and her heart swelled up like a fruit ripening under the sky of summer. “And bring him home, to us.”
“Little sister,” Her brother-in-law said, and his voice had once again regained the life it had lost when he heard the news of Shichiro. “It would be my great honor indeed to assist you in this endeavor.”
And as she heard those words, Hanako felt something—like a new leaf first opening and unfurling to touch the gentle rays of the springtime sun—spring to life in her heart, and she took it and fed it and named it hope.
*****
Hanako sat in the room that her brother-in-law had given to her, her hands folded in her lap. It was a very beautiful and comfortable room (as only befitting a princess and sister-in-law of the Shogun’s heir), but it was rather strange for Hanako to dwell in a room that did not have the forms of dragons embroidered or embossed or carved or painted onto every available surface.
During her travels, she had slept in caves or beneath the sheltering arms of trees, and she had not noticed what was now apparent. In this lovely, comfortable room that her honored brother-in-law had prepared to suit her every need, the absence of her husband stood out like a naked, dead tree amongs
t the trees in the cherry blossom season.
Apparently, in the past months since Hanako had thrown her rice bowl at the ronin on her engawa, his presence and very self had slipped and entwined itself into the walls of her quarters in the pagoda she left behind—until the very concept of home meant Shichiro. And this pretty, cozy room in the royal palace in Ginshi where he was not could never measure up. No matter how wonderful it was, without him, it was… lacking.
If only Shichiro were here… she thought, and pressed a hand to the slight bulge of her belly. If Shichiro was here, she thought with sudden determination, he would not want me to be sitting here listlessly! He would want me to be happy, and… and enjoying this world outside.
So she carefully climbed to her feet and made her way to the shoji door, sliding it open with the intent to make her way to the nearest garden, only to realize her path was blocked.
A small boy was sitting right in front of her door, happily playing with a little wooden horse as if he was without a care in the world. He looked up at the sound of the door opening and grinned at her, his achingly familiar eyes shining brightly. He has Shichiro’s eyes. Hanako thought numbly, and felt a strange ache in her heart.
“Hello!” He blurted out cheerfully, stuffed his wooden horse into the front of his yukata, and scrambled to his feet, executing a bow, before speaking as carefully as he could. “ ‘M P’ince Hamasaki Daisuke, son of Prince Hamasaki Isao. ‘Tis m’honor to meet you!” Then he straightened up and said, “You’re Unca Ronin’s wife, yes?”
“Ah… yes.” Hanako said, blinking in surprise. She bowed back, saying, “I am Princess Nishimura Hanako of the Dragons, Prince Daisuke, and I am greatly honored to meet you.”
The little prince nodded, and proceeded to look Hanako up and down. Then he smiled and said, “You’re awful pretty! I see whys Unca Ronin mawwied you!”
“Oh!” Hanako said, and quickly went for her fan to hide the blush in her cheeks. “I thank you, ‘tis very kind of you to say so.”
The boy snatched her free hand, looking up at her quizzically. “Why’d it be kind? It’s true!”
The princess felt a strange warmth in her heart again at the feel of the little hand within her own, and she smiled gently behind the safety of her fan. “Nevertheless, little prince, I thank you.”
“Welcome, d’en!” He said cheerfully. “C’mon, wanna see papa’s hohr’ses?”
“Of course, if a brave strong prince such as yourself would lead me to them,” Hanako said, and the little boy puffed up like a quail ruffling its feathers.
“Yeah, dun wowry, pwincess. I’ll p‘tect you!”
And the Princess Hanako allowed herself to be escorted away, safely in the care of the prince of the realm, and she felt a little corner of the odd ache in her heart ease.
“P’incess Hanako-tan?” the boy said after a moment. “Ares you gonna have a baby?”
Hanako blinked in surprise and looked down at her nephew. “Yes. Did your father or mother tell you that?”
“Nuh-uh,” Daisuke shook his head. “I guessed! Likes papa tawght me too!”
Hanako smiled brightly, and wondered if her own child would be like this boy when they were grown. Perhaps she’d even have a little boy, just like her nephew, who would be very like his father in time. Yes, that was a very pleasant thought indeed. “How clever of you, Prince Daisuke! How did you guess?”
“Cause you’re fat, juss’ like mama got when she said she gonna have a baby!” He said, reaching out and patting her belly. Hanako had blinked in surprise. She had known she had gained some weight, but she hadn’t realized how noticeable it was. And apparently it was a symptom of being pregnant. She blinked again—that was why Princess Aika was so strangely round in the belly but thin in the face! It all made sense now.
A stir of excitement beged in her—Princess Aika was apparently also going to give birth, and that meant Aika would have a chance to properly learn how to care for her own newborn.
She glanced down to see Daisuke biting his lip, his small brow carefully scrunched in thought. “What is it, Prince Daisuke?”
“Are baby cuz-ins like baby brovvers?” He asked seriously, his dark eyes staring up at her in deep thought.
Hanako tilted her head to one side. “I cannot say, little prince. I confess I have neither.”
The little boy nodded thoughtfully. “I thinks they be.” His face suddenly screwed up in determination. “Yeah, I thinks baby cuz-ins are likes baby brovvers, so when Uncle Ronin’s baby comes I’ll p’tect him too!”
Hanako’s heart warmed and swelled like the first stirring of spring in the mountains, and she squeezed his hand gently. “Thank you, brave prince. I’m certain my child will be very safe in your care.”
*****
Two weeks later, Hanako was called to stand by her noble sister-in-law, the Princess Aika, as she labored to bring the second offspring of Prince Isao into the world.
“You should come and watch,” The Princess had explained, “For I assume you have never seen a birth before, being cooped up in that tower as you were, and it’s important that you know what will happen to you when your own time comes.”
Hanako learned that birth took a very long time indeed and was excruciatingly painful. She watched in awe (and a tad bit of horror, though she kept that to herself) as Aika went through her travail, and Hanako wished with all her heart that when her own labour came, she would be blessed to be even half as strong as the princess had been.
And after eleven hours, in the early hours of the evening, as the sun sank towards the sea and the river was colored with orange and gold, Princess Aika brought another princess into the world. Hanako was the first to hold her (one of the midwives giving her careful instructions on the proper way to do so), as the midwives and handmaidens attended to the exhausted and weary princess.
She was tiny and delicate and pink as the cherry blossoms in spring, and her eyes were wide and blue and her hair was wispy and dark, and as she held her, Hanako knew she had never seen anything quite as beautiful and wonderful and strange as the diminutive princess in her arms.
“All are babies as beautiful as this?” She whispered in awe. Aika heard her, and smiled, her lips tinged with a strange mixture of joy and exhaustion.
“No. I daresay when your own child comes, you will think they are far more beautiful than my daughter.”
Hanako eyed the slowly swelling bump on her stomach, clutching the tiny, wonderful life closer to her breast, and thought. Whatever child lay within her own self, they were surely a mixture of her… and Shichiro. She smiled at the thought—a little piece of her and her honored husband, blended together into its own, pure life—and she decided Aika was right.
“I think I shall.” She whispered, and Aika looked at her in a sympathetic mingling of sorrow and joy. But for once, Hanako did not catch the look, for she was holding the new life close and marveling in its warmth—and imagining holding another child in her arms, one that was a little of Hanako and a little of Shichiro, and so very, very beautiful.
However, she was startled out of her musings when a large commotion was heard outside, and she thought she could hear the Prince yelling something about how ‘it’s been quiet for a whole five minutes and no one’s told me anything and what kind of useless servants are you if you don’t tell your prince important matters--!” and Aika smiled happily at the sound of her husband’s voice.
“Please, Hanako-chan, take my daughter out and present her to her father for me—it will be a while yet before I am fit for presentation to my lord husband.”
Hanako was slightly mystified by this—wasn’t the birth over, after all?—but did as he was told, and stepped through the sliding doors to meet a panicking Isao, striding back at forth like an anxious horse at the start of a race.
“Prince Isao-sama, allow me to present your daughter to you.” Hanako intoned softly, and she saw the way the prince stiffened.
“A daughter?” he said softly, and then held out
his arms. Hanako felt her stomach clench in nerves at the thought she might drop her precious burden, but the transfer was pulled off successfully and the little child was soon cradled safely in the grasp of her father.
Isao’s face softened in a way that Hanako had not observed on him before, and she tried her best not to stare in wonder at the change. Parenthood, she decided, was truly a wonderful and mysterious thing.
“My lord, what is your will as to her name? My lady is doubtlessly waiting for your decision.”
There was a silence, as Isao looked deeply at the face of his child, before smile. “Yuriko. Her name shall be Yuriko of the Hamasaki clan.”
Hanako smiled. “It is a lovely name, Isao-sama.”
Isao nodded absently, and a soft smile spread slowly across his face. “It’s been a long time since I held a girl-child, not since Manami was small, and Mother was alive. A long, long time indeed. I… I wish Mother was here to see this.”
“From what my honored husband has said of your Mother,” Hanako said tentatively, wondering if she was treading where she ought not, “I think she would be very proud of you.”
He nodded. “I hope so. With any luck, Yuriko-chan will be very much like her when she is grown.”
Memories of a small, slender lady, draped in the many layers of royalty and her face powdered and painted delicately, with a gentle smile and gentler hands, and eyes that shone with kindness danced across the back of Isao’s mind.
I think my little sister-in-law is right, Mother. If… if you were here, you’d be very proud indeed.
*****
The sun shone brightly in the garden as Hanako made her way into it absently, in search of her guardian. She had much on her mind, in the wake of the tiny princess’ birth. Her honorable brother-in-law’s comments on his mother had her wondering about the lady, and about her own birth parents.
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