by T. Cook
And if the letter was dangerous to her, surely it was to me as well.
44
Carrying a few seditious lines on leaves of rice paper was enough evidence by itself to convict me of treason. I had lately shown myself indifferent enough to death, but of torture—I was more afraid than I had ever been. And so I supposed the risk I then bore in carrying a Princess’ anonymous communication entitled me to break the seal and peruse its contents.
This was what I had wanted, after all. This was the access to information I had risked my life to gain. I must for once discover where of the subtle currents of power were carrying me—where the same currents had lead Shin. I did love the Princess, but I couldn’t live only to serve her. Putting questions of loyalty aside, I needed information to preserve my life and perhaps the lives of those who meant more to me than my own.
* * *
I wandered far from the palace, through a market, and far along a string of narrow streets before I dared think of breaking the seal and reading the letter’s contents. Once broken, I thought I could melt the simple seal again with the help of a little flame, but I had to find a lamp first. I cast my gaze around me. In such a dim quarter of the city, lamps ought to abound.
A tiny teahouse to my left would have a kitchen. If unattended, I might sneak inside and light a twig on the fire. I ducked into the alley behind the house, held my breath and slowly broke the seal, then stared at the salutation.
It began: Dearest Shin.
45
I read and reread the page, trembling between my fingers.
Dearest Shin,
Please forgive the risk I take in sending this communication to you now. Do not imagine it is a renewed plea of the kind I have sent before. You are dear to me as ever, but I have accepted the truth: for you, matters of the heart must always yield to matters of State. It is to this principal concern I wish to speak to you.
Your all-important doe has put herself into extraordinary danger which might have resulted in her death had I not intervened. Do not be alarmed—the danger is now past, but I feel to express my limitations to you in the lengths I might reach for her protection. I know I promised you and your brothers to keep her safe against the day you will deploy her against our enemy, but I can no longer guarantee it. Whatever has caused your delay, please make haste, or I do not know whether she will survive.
Yours ever,
Sachiko
46
Leaning against the teahouse wall for support, I read the letter yet again to the percussion of my pounding pulse.
The Princess had written to my Shin, and she had written him of me. I stared through my mind’s eye as the scattered intelligence assembled in my mind, but I could not interpret a reasonable story.
It was unremarkable that even a princess should had fallen in love with Shin. But what higher purpose was Shin devoted to above the love of a princess? And how did this purpose relate to me? What was this matter of state that so concerned him? And not him alone, but others? She had called them his brothers.
What did she mean? Shin intended to use me against an enemy? What enemy?
Shin’s motives were more complex than he had ever implied. Then the truth opened to me with searing clarity. Strange to realize, it had laid naked before my eyes for many, many months.
Shin had implied this complexity, but I had been unable or unwilling to confront the implications with my eyes open. Shin had told me directly: someday I will ask you for some terrible thing I have no right to expect you to honor.
What was this thing? And did it relate to some seditious purpose?
A child rushed by me with a current of air that jostled the letter and brought me back to where I stood in space and time. I snatched up the letter and ripped it into pieces, then tossed them into a filthy canal to one side of the street.
The image of those corpses piled on top of each other in a garden grave flashed into my mind. I had killed them, I did not know how, but now I knew I was the weapon the letter had spoken of. Shin would use me against his enemy. This was the thing I had been waiting, all but begging, for him to ask of me.
A tool…an instrument of assassination. This was Shin’s intention for me. This was what I represented in his sight. From beginning to end, and for who knew how long.
No wonder he feared me. No wonder he had withdrawn the way he had, and yet had begged my patience. All those promises. All that hope! Had been to keep me compliant. And he’d managed simply enough, full knowing how I loved him.
* * *
In the end, I returned to the imperial palace, but I had not given up the idea of flight. As matters stood, however, the Princess would guess what I had done, and alert Shin, who would pursue me.
When I ran—if I did run—I would not risk pursuit. Yes, at one time I would have fled, only guessing what I was running from and to where I was going. But I had gained more patience with fear since then. I could bear this tension. I could hold it lightly.
Perhaps I would intercept more letters to Shin. I would affect loyalty to the Princess, carry more correspondence, and use that intelligence to cobble together a plan of escape. Shin had not come, and the Princess’ communication having failed, he might yet delay.
I had a little window of time, and in that space, I mourned the loss of a love I had never really possessed. How had I let myself believe it possible? I searched every memory of our interaction in the garden, at my loom, every tender word Shin had ever spoken to me. In these words, I confirmed my doubt. He had repeatedly promised to be with me, but Shin had never confessed the words: I love you.
Yet, through all of his apparent deception, he had insisted upon one truth. He had warned me against fully trusting him. He had at least alluded to harmful motives. I had not heard his warnings, so self-deceived had I been.
* * *
It was well I had not run. The exposure from my detention had weakened me, and with my anxious mind, I succumbed, as I never had to illness. I could not weave, but lay abed with a fever for days.
A low-ranking maid brought me broth, but otherwise awareness of time and my surroundings failed. Over days, I gradually regained strength and could think again and plan.
Throughout my feverish stupor I puzzled over my plight. And one thing confused me beyond understanding. Why had Shin worked so hard to persuade me of my own dignity? My value? Was such earnestness really necessary if I were only a weapon to him? And why and how could he use me against his target? I had never killed at will. Could I be so disarming? And how could he be sure, even if I could do such a thing, that I would be willing?
I didn’t puzzle long on this point, however. I was wretched with myself for it, but I still felt vulnerable to him. Even undeceived as I was. But he was not sure. He had never affected to command me to do anything. Everything he had ever asked me had always been framed as a request. Would that change when I saw him next?
I could not be Shin’s assassin. I retained that much sense of my own self, however degrading the life of abuse I had led. I would not become the tool of any plotted revolution no matter how cruel the Ruling House. I would not be a mindless instrument.
At night, I gazed at the sky and let the moon’s glow reflect its glory against my face, and I tried—how I tried! —to believe it was a part of me.
47
Shogatsu came and went within the palace with revelry befitting royalty. I shared in none of it. Another week, and the rain season began. Finally, a kimono seamstress came, wrapped up my fabric in heavy rice paper, enclosed it within an ornate lacquer box for protection, and carried it away to finish it into a princess’s kimono.
My illness had so far excused me from the Princess and any of her invitations, but soon, I would have to face her. She would have instructions, perhaps another letter for me to deliver, but which, of course, I would intercept. I healed, and prepared myself for our mutual deception.
I watched the rain and calculated my timing. The annual date of the cherry blossom festival follow
ed the progress of the blossoms, not the calendar. The weather would decide. If it remained cool for long enough, I might have another six weeks, perhaps as much as two months before Shin would come.
But all of my cues and calculations were wrong.
* * *
The Princess would entrust me with no communication. She fell ill to a seasonal affliction herself, and for two weeks more I saw nothing of her. When at last I received word of her, it was written in her own hand, inviting me to come with her on a mineral bath retreat to aid her recovery.
I prepared my very few belongings for a short mountain journey.
On my next encounter with the Princess, she was stepping into a red lacquered palanquin chair, withdrawn and subdued, but not without a hint of color in her cheeks and a bright smile for me.
“I will call you no more Fuyuko, but Orihime-sama,” she said when I bowed low in greeting.
“Your Highness has seen the silk?”
“Yes. And it is even as you so boldly proclaimed, the loveliest kimono I have ever owned. Indeed, I have never seen anything half so lovely! It cheered me so much to see it. I believe it is the reason for my improved health. I couldn’t have made even this short journey otherwise.”
For her sake, I wished for this to be true. “You will be in better health yet for the sake of a good mineral bath.”
“I expect I shall—and you with me. You have never seen an imperial bathhouse, and this will be my treat to you. Are you ready?”
I answered her yes, but I could never have been ready for what awaited me at that bathing retreat.
* * *
Sturdy menservants bore us straight us the mountain side, the chilly morning breeze lifting our silken curtains and a strong sulfuric odor wafted through, announcing the proximity of the onsen baths.
I sat in the sedan, pensive, reflecting upon the new name the Princess had given me. I remembered the legend.
Orihime was a mythical weaver said to have woven the clothing of the Gods. The association with Orihime ought to have been flattering to me, but it came a little too close to my heart. To me, even in her thwarted love affair, Orihime was enviable. After all, her lover was constant. I had believed Shin faithful and had found him worse than false. He would use me for a purpose so repugnant I could scarcely bear the thought of it.
Distracted, I had taken only vague notice of the Princess’s affected cheerfulness toward me. Surely the silk had pleased her, but her lack of reserve seemed to belie the weight of recently past events. If I had thought more of this, I might have been better prepared.
48
The inn was small, with both natural and man-made interior baths. A good house, but more rustic than a Princess would be used to, I thought. Even so, she didn’t hesitate to make herself comfortable upon our arrival, and indicated for me to join her at the kotatsu.
“Does the Princess bathe here often?” I said, sinking into seiza.
“I have been here once or twice, I suppose. There are several more lavish houses closer to the city,” she averted her eyes, “but this one is so secluded. For our purposes, it is very convenient.”
I wondered what she meant by convenient. The term was almost always coded language. Convenient meant useful for a particular purpose as much as it meant simple or easy. I couldn’t bring myself to probe for her meaning but had the impression that whatever she meant, the convenience was hers, and not mine.
We rested briefly from the journey within rooms, took tea, and then padded outside in cotton bathing robes to a washing area. A rope pulley released a shower of mineral water to wash with before entering a shared bathing pool. I had never seen this kind of innovation before, and gasped in surprise and delight when the Princess demonstrated it, drenching herself in the process.
We washed first, followed by the Princess’s small entourage. All would follow her into pool and bathe as one party.
The Princess waded into the foamy soup slowly, her bare skin as flawless as though dusted all over with powder. She turned around and around in the pool’s rising vapor, exulting in the exotic mixture of warm and cool air currents.
“I confess, I didn’t really wish to come today,” she said, while she settled into a shallow natural seat at the edge of the pool.
I sank in the water. “Indeed?”
“So it is to be a woman—even a Princess, you understand.”
I didn’t understand.
“We are but well-treated servants. Yes, even the highest-ranking women must serve.”
“Perhaps we are more powerful than you think,” I whispered.
She turned on me a strange expression. “Perhaps you are, but even the powerful must put their country before themselves if history is to give a good account of them.” This saying seemed to me a warning. She turned her eyes to the place where the spring spilled over a pile of moss-covered rocks and into the pool. “Loneliness is its own kind of freedom. I understand your wishing it.” As she said this, I let my eyes drop, ashamed of the selfishness with which she charged me.
The Princess smiled sadly, and then drew her gaze to a focus on me. “Why do you sink so low in the water, Orihime? Are you too shy to expose your neck?”
I shut my eyes against her probing examination. I had suffered so many beatings across my neck and back. What ought to have been the most seductive area of my physical anatomy meant only shame to me.
“You are lovely, Orihime.” She added, almost as an afterthought, though I knew better than to believe it, “Your husband will be very happy.”
My head snapped up and I stared—yes, stared directly at the Princess in wordless challenge. She looked away first, eyes gleaming with emotion. But she knew, and I knew. In that moment, we both acknowledged her betrayal.
I swallowed over a stiffened throat and adjusted to the realization that my time had already run out. With few words, the Princess had changed everything. And every inch of my material being rejected it.
Now Shin would come. After all my watching and waiting, he would make his claim. He had known and foretold everything with the accuracy and foreknowledge of a prophet.
How would I face him? What would I say? “How long will it be before it happens?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
The Princess refused to meet my eyes. “It has happened already.”
* * *
Human lives were bartered and exchanged over tea all the time—more important lives than mine. I knew this. The Princess herself was an object of stratagem. And yet I resisted fatalism. I resisted objectification. All my life, I had survived upon a strength I hadn’t fully understood. And my deadliest strength had emerged unbidden and protected me instinctively, frightening as that may be. I didn’t need to understand it for it to manifest.
Knowing this, why should I be afraid of Shin? He had intended to harness me for his own purposes, but he had always warned me of his having intentions I shouldn’t trust. I doubted he could force my part in the revolution, and he probably had no intention to try. Else why had he spoken of asking ‘something dreadful’? I knew his terror of me. Why should I fear him?
I could say no. He might well expect it. I could stop Shin. I could stop an army.
Once born, this idea seemed to vaporize and expand until it filled my whole body. As soon as it distilled upon a surface, that I could examine it more closely, a new thought followed: maybe I could stop an army, but why should I?
The Whitegrain Ruling House had done nothing for me; had given me no protection, no name, no privileges. If any had discovered my fraud in impersonating nobility, the reigning authority would have locked me away, or more probably, tortured and killed me. Would I defend this tyrant only to spite Shin’s revolution? I didn’t know.
Our party would return to the Eastern Capital the following evening, and then, I supposed they would send me to Western Capital. Perhaps Shin would be there. I no longer thought of running. I wanted to confront him.
By evening, trunks were packed and stowed and the par
ty was preparing to depart, but for some reason, the Princess decided to delay and sent only a messenger ahead to the palace.
“I would do well with another night of spring mountain air at least,” she decided.
Perhaps she read my thoughts on my face, because she cautioned me, “I know you are angry with me, but I cannot begin to care about that now. When you have a powerful gift, it is your duty to use it in service of others. If someone like you will not do so, who will?”
49
“I think we should have one last bath,” the Princess prescribed, early in the morning as the sun had begun to rise over the mountain peak. “But I am afraid you must go out ahead of me. I have some matters to attend to first,” she said, averting her eyes as she had begun to do with me so often.
I had learned to watch for such subtle signs of duplicity. They were always significant, and no less so in that instance. By now we were both following a script in our life-sized theater.
And yet, all the while I waited within the outer pool, the water lapping my navel where I sat next to the falling spring water, I still believed the Princess was coming to join me.
But when I first saw his silhouette backlit by the morning sun, I involuntarily rose from the water. I couldn’t help it. But then I stopped and shrank back. This man was a stranger.
He spoke, “You’re suddenly shy? You were about to greet me.”
I sank deeper into the water. “I was mistaken. I have been waiting for the Princess.”