by Zoe Marriott
If there was a part of me that asked why, with such an astonishing talent, I had made no attempt to save my cousin, my father, my home . . . I tried not to hear it.
After nearly five weeks had passed, Mai woke me early one morning. Since I spent almost all my nights wide awake and talking to Youta, I normally stayed in bed until nearly midday, and Mai let me. On that day, midmorning had barely arrived when shaking hands folded back my coverlet, and the screens at the window were pushed away to let in the sun.
“Nakamura-sama, the master and mistress are home. The mistress has sent a message for you to join them; she is anxious to see you.”
Mai’s face clearly demanded some expression of delight from me, so I smiled and thanked her and let her dig me from my warm bed, while inside my stomach dropped. It might be disloyal and ungrateful, but seeing my mother suddenly seemed a poor exchange for my solitary peace.
The kimono Mai helped me into was a new one; a soft, pale pink embroidered all over with red and blue chrysanthemums and tiny brown thrushes. The sleeves were long enough to brush the ground as I walked. The obi and obi-age that wrapped my waist and rib cage were crimson and pale blue, with patterns of tiny flowers, and a new red obi-jime belt was tied carefully over the top of these. My hair was coiled into a smooth knot at the base of my skull and held in place with more new things, a tortoiseshell-and-gold comb and an elaborate tortoiseshell pin that dangled tiny coral plum blossoms over my right ear.
“The honored mistress sent these things,” Mai told me, obviously giving up on me asking for myself. “She brought them back for you.”
“They are beautiful,” I said dutifully, but really I was surprised that Mother had thought of me at all on her trip. A sneaking twinge of pleasure found its way into my depression.
When Mai was finished, she helped me to my feet. I stood still a moment, gathering my balance — this had become a habit, even once the dizzy spells had passed — and then gathered my sleeves up carefully so that my hands peeked out and the long ends swept gracefully down to my feet.
“Oh, Nakamura-sama.” Mai sighed, and I looked back at her in surprise. She was smiling, her hands clasped at her waist as if she wanted to hug herself.
“Yes?”
“If I may say, Nakamura-sama, you look beautiful.”
I remembered a time when a compliment like that from such a lovely woman would have made me jump with glee. Now I just felt sorry for Mai, who cared so much about the surfaces of things. “Thank you, Mai.”
She let out a tiny giggle, raising her hand to hide her mouth.
She walked behind me as I left the room. My steps settled into their now customary slow rhythm; it was a habit I had developed during my convalescence so that I would not fall too hard if I suddenly lost my balance. I took a turn in the corridor I had never taken before: the one that led to Terayama-san’s rooms.
My breath was coming a little faster, despite my best efforts to appear calm. I don’t care if she wants to see me, I told myself. Why should I care? I’m just here because it looks right to have us all together.
Mai stepped ahead of me to push open a set of shoji screens. Light flooded out, blinding me. I bowed my head rather than trying to squint against it, and when I looked up, my mother was before me.
Her face was flushed mottled pink, as if she was too warm. She smiled, her expression one of pleased surprise.
“You look so different, Suzume,” she said. “So . . . pretty. I am very happy to see you.”
All my resentment rushed away. I wanted to fling myself forward and embrace her. With an effort, I forced myself to bow politely.
“Thank you, Mother.” I was surprised that my voice was even and calm. “You look very well. I am happy to see you, too.”
She blinked and her eyes followed the new grace of my movements. “They told me that you were ill. I wish I had known — but you were probably better off with Mai and the others nursing you. Are you better now?”
“Of course. Thank you.”
“Let Suzu-chan into the room, my dear.” Terayama-san’s voice, warm and amused, made Mother turn. As I stepped inside, I saw him sitting by the open screen at the window. The lake outside was shrouded in rising white mist, and I could see the silver gleam of frost everywhere, and the glow of leaves just tinged with autumn color.
“Your mother has missed you these weeks,” he said. His eyes met mine and he smiled — a golden smile that matched his voice. “Come and sit with us, please.”
I knelt before Terayama-san, and my mother sat opposite me. They smiled at each other, but it was different from before. The greed was missing from Terayama-san’s face. The hungry look was gone. In fact, he was not even looking at her now but at me again. He never looked at me. I flicked a glance at Mother and saw her still watching him. She did not look well. I thought she had lost weight. What has changed?
“Well, Suzu-chan, you are growing up pretty, are you not?” Terayama-san said. I kept the astonishment and unease off my face, weaving a faint blush into place and ducking my head shyly — that was what Aimi would have done.
“Forgive me for keeping your mother away from you for so long. I know it was selfish, and you must have missed her very much, but I wanted to take care of her.”
“Of course, Terayama-san,” I said, my unease growing. “I can only thank you for your kindness.”
He laughed again and reached out to pat me on the cheek. The movement was unexpected, and I held myself still through willpower alone. His big, hard fingers were gentle on my face.
“Why did I never notice before how pretty you are?”
Because you never took your eyes off my mother before, I thought. My mother looked just as taken aback as I was. She frowned for a second, then, apparently deciding to be happy about it, smiled, too.
“Shall we tell her?” she asked almost childishly, reaching out to touch his arm as he took his hand away from my cheek.
Terayama-san laughed. “Very well.”
My mother leaned forward eagerly. “Suzume, I am going to have a baby.”
I felt my face go slack with shock, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“I intend to move the household to my city house as soon as possible, before the winter storms start. That way your mother can be close to the best doctors. And there will be plenty of interesting things for a young thing like you to occupy yourself with in the city, hmm? We will have to look into that.”
I barely heard him. My gaze was darting between my mother’s stomach and her face.
“Suzume?” She was looking at me, and I could see anxiety clouding her eyes. Had her face always been this expressive? I had once thought her so icy, so difficult to understand.
“Mother . . .” Without even realizing what I did, my hand reached out across the space between us. Hers rose to meet it, and as our fingers clasped, I felt tears prick my eyes.
I knew my anger, and my black memories, and my bitterness must still be inside me, lurking, waiting, but in that moment, with our fingers linked, I didn’t feel them.
“I am going to be a sister,” I said, my voice wobbling. “I am so happy. Thank you.”
“That’s a good girl,” said Terayama-san. “Didn’t I tell you she’d be pleased?”
“Yes, Shujin-sama,” Mother said, using the most reverent term for husband. “You are always right.”
The Terayama household departed in a long line of laden carts and snorting horses that trailed around the edge of the lake like a streak of spilled ink. For the first day or so, I enjoyed being out in the air and the light, doing something different. Then the disadvantages of the situation began to wear on me.
Even though we were now in the open, with fields and forests all around us, there was nowhere to hide. I could not say I would go for a walk in the garden. I could not plead tiredness and lie in my room alone. I was with my mother and Terayama-san all day long. Every day. Being back on my guard again all the time was tiring.
And I missed You
ta. Although he was with us, somewhere at the back of the long, trailing caravan, there was no way that I could see him. Not even at night, once we made camp. I slept in a different palanquin from Mother and Terayama-san, but they had given me another servant girl, and both she and Mai were to attend me while I slept.
Worse, Youta had warned me that in a city house there would be many more servants, and so he would be unlikely to be alone in the kitchens at night. I had grown tearful at the thought of saying good-bye to him, but Youta had taken my hands in his and squeezed them.
“I will always be here,” he said. “Remember what I have taught you, and if you need me again, I am sure you will be able to make your way to me.”
Knowing that Youta was around gave me a warm sense of reassurance, and I clung to it, telling myself that when we got to the city, I would find a way to see him, as often as I could.
We traveled for three weeks to reach the shore of the inland sea. There Terayama-san found a ship that would take us to the capital city of the Moonlit Land. It was not a regular passenger ship but a huge, sleek merchant vessel called the Row Maru.
Mother and I watched through the pierced window screen of the palanquin while boxes, bales, and barrels of cargo were loaded alongside corded chests of luggage, many of them our own. Terayama-san stood near the gangplank, talking to a pair of richly dressed men who held folded cloths to their faces, possibly to guard against the strong smell that drifted from the nearby fishing boats.
Small children, bare-chested even in the chill, ran wild around the sailors and boarding passengers, earning coins for running messages, and clouts on the ear for getting in the way. The children were ragged and dirty, but they looked as if they did not mind.
One of my long sleeves brushed my nose, and I realized that I was fiddling with the sharp kanzashi pin in my hair. I slapped the offending hand back into my lap and clenched it into a fist.
“You seem restless, Suzume,” my mother said, not looking up from her embroidery.
“Nervous, perhaps. The ship is big, but the ocean is bigger still.”
I had not been impressed by my first sight of the sea. It was a sort of dull grayish strip on the horizon, like an extra bit of land. The stretch of water must be very large, or else it would not go from one side of the horizon to the other, but then the sky did the same, and I saw that every day without getting excited.
“There is nothing to worry about. We will be perfectly safe,” Mother assured me. Unspoken — but perfectly audible to me — were the words: With Shujin-sama. My attention wandered back out to the wharf, where gray-and-white gulls swooped and dived at the heads of fishermen unloading their catch. The fish were living silver, cascading down out of the nets, and as they tried to steal the treasure, the birds made piercing, mournful cries that I found strangely beautiful.
One gull, perhaps full from an early breakfast, declined to join its fellows and perched on a coil of rope nearby. Its cold yellow eyes looked at me as if to assess whether I was food. Somehow it reminded me of Terayama-san, and I looked away. The cries of the other gulls now sounded less mournful and more menacing.
Suddenly there was a cry. Not human but animal, high and ringing. Mother and I both jumped. I leaned forward, pushing the pierced screen out from the window, and saw another bird plummet from the sky. It was moving too quickly for me to see it clearly.
Before I could make out more than a color — a dark slate blue — it plunged directly into the flock of gulls, and to my astonishment, the gulls, some of them nearly twice its size, scattered with harsh cries.
The slate-blue bird soared up, unmolested, with one of the smaller gulls dangling from its claws. The fishermen dropped their nets and whooped and clapped at the sight.
“What is it? What is that noise?” Mother asked, clearly fighting the urge to gape out the window herself.
I blinked, trying to make sense of something so strange and wondrous. “I . . . I don’t know. It’s a bird of prey — it attacked the gulls that were diving at the poor fishermen. It killed one. How could it kill a bird so much bigger than itself?”
The triumphant scream came again, and, turning, I saw the bird hover for a moment, its dark, pointed wings spreading to reveal white underparts barred with black. Then it dropped the body of the dead gull onto the deck, almost at the fishermen’s feet, and swooped away.
“It was as if it knew what it was doing. How is that possible?” I said, after telling Mother what I had seen.
“Ah. I knew I recognized the sound.” She had picked up her embroidery again.
“Do you mean that funny scream it made? It sounded like an owl. Only louder.”
“When I was younger, many noblemen hunted with hawks and falcons. My cousin raised one from an egg. It was his pride and joy. But those birds went out of fashion; it was said the Moon Princess wouldn’t have any animals at court. I haven’t seen a tame falcon for years.”
“A tame falcon? Like a pet? Do you think that is what it is?”
“I don’t know,” she said, rather impatiently. “You said it attacked the birds who were harassing the fishermen.”
The bird was circling now, its body just a dark shape against the clouds. It kept disappearing and reappearing as it passed between the intricate web of rigging and sails on the Row Maru. Then, more quickly than I could blink, it darted down and vanished. Where had it gone? Onto the ship?
“Come away from the window,” Mother said. “It is ill bred to be hanging out like that. You are not a child anymore, Suzume.”
I obeyed reluctantly, my thoughts staying with the flicker of bluish wings. Was its owner aboard the Row Maru? I hoped so. If he was, I might get the chance to see the unusual creature again.
Shortly afterward, Terayama-san returned to the carriage to tell us it was time to board. There was an air of tension about him — a tension that came not from anger but, I thought, from excitement. When he took Mother’s arm to help her step up onto the gangplank, she winced, as though his fingers squeezed too tight.
One of the household men walked beside me, ready to catch me if I looked likely to tip off either edge of the narrow boarding plank.
“It is an incredible coincidence that they’re taking this ship, too.” Terayama-san was speaking to my mother up ahead, his voice low and quick. “I am told they come from a country on the continent, and that their ruler has already been a guest at the Moon Prince’s palace. There is to be a trade agreement — they have incredible amounts of gold but want timber and livestock from us. If I can make their acquaintance before anyone else at court, it will be a tremendous opportunity, not just in terms of money but also influence.”
So that was why he was excited. Was this really a coincidence? Or were the foreigners the true reason we were taking the Row Maru instead of a proper passenger ship? I had read in one of Father’s books that a man cannot be faulted for ambition — and Father had always said that his friend had enough for both of them.
I wobbled a little as one of my sandals caught in a rough place on the gangplank, and grabbed at the servant to keep my balance. Suddenly that coppery foam below seemed far too close. I teetered for a moment, then drew in a breath of relief as I steadied.
Only then did I notice that the household man was not looking at me. In fact, although I was clutching his shoulder hard enough to bruise, he hadn’t lifted a hand to help me.
His attention was riveted above me — over the heads of my mother and Terayama-san, who had both frozen, too. As the shortest of the group, I had the worst view of the men they were all staring at.
I could see them only from the shoulders upward as they walked slowly past the boarding area, but that was interesting enough. Their skin was dark. Not dirty dark, or tanned dark, but the deep brown color of a piece of fine cherrywood. Their faces were shaped differently, too, with prominent cheek- and jawbones and full lips.
Their hair was long and black, like everyone’s I knew, but it was fluffy — no — fuzzy, like lambswool, and gat
hered into sort of ropes that fell down from knots or braids at the back of their heads. Golden ornaments, bells, charms, and beads clinked and tinkled in those ropes of hair as they moved.
But the most interesting thing about the men — to me, anyway — was their scars. Each man had a pattern of scars on his face. On the closest, I could just make out dots and whirls and long, straight lines that scored foreheads and cheeks and glowed dark blue against warm brown skin.
These must be Terayama-san’s rich foreigners; and they really were foreign, the strangest people I had ever seen. The men did not glance down at us. A sign of masterly self-control, since they must have felt our astonished stares.
Only one of them broke rank and turned his head. He was the youngest and the smallest. I could only just see him over Mother’s shoulder. The marks on his cheeks were like storm clouds.
His eyes flickered over us all with what seemed like impersonal interest, but when his gaze met mine, his expression changed. I could not have named any one emotion that crossed his strange, beautiful face. A sort of recognition, perhaps? I felt I ought to respond, but did not know how. Then a tiny smile twitched at one corner of his mouth, and I was unable to contain the answering smile that crossed my lips.
One of the other men looked back and said something in a language I did not understand. The boy, for he was no more than a boy, turned his head abruptly and hurried after the rest.
I drew in a deep, slow breath. That was . . . odd.
The moment the men were out of sight, Terayama-san began talking to Mother again, his voice lower now. He glanced back at me, eyes calculating, as if he, too, had noticed the strange look that passed between me and the foreign boy but did not know what to make of it.
The household man came back to himself with a start and, realizing that I was hanging on to him for dear life, looked mortified. He caught my arm and led me the rest of the way onto the ship with such tenderness and such deep protestations of regret for his inattention that I was worried he might cry. I turned my sweetest and most forgiving smile on him, while inside I wished him far, far away. I wanted to think about what I had seen. I wanted to remember those odd men, and the boy’s knowing smile.