by Zoe Marriott
“Then I will have to make another choice. I cannot know yet what I will do. I will survive it, Akira, no matter what. I have chosen my own way, and I will see it through. Do not worry about me.”
Brave words. Even I did not believe them, really.
Akira fussed over me more than normal as we readied ourselves for the party. She sent her maid away and dressed my hair herself. She brought some of her own pins for my hair, long ones with dangling beads of abalone and freshwater pearl.
“These pins are very sharp,” she commented casually. “If you were to stab someone with them, it would hurt a great deal.”
I nodded, making the beads clank together. I wanted to tell her that I would not need the pins, that I could look after myself, but I was afraid of what might come out instead. I had used up my store of bracing speeches. Instead I took a sip of the tea that Akira had brought for me and gagged.
“What is this?”
“Just tea. Why?” Akira said, still busy with the pins.
I peered into the cup. The tea looked normal, but it was intensely bitter and had a faint spicy smell that was familiar. Then I realized where I had smelled it before and gagged again, pushing the cup away so hard that part of its contents slopped onto the lacquered tray.
“That is sangre tea!”
“Yue —”
“Why are you trying to make me drink this?”
“Calm down.” Her hands left my hair and came to rest on my shoulders. “You said yourself that you cannot know what you will do. This is just a precaution.”
I shook my head, wanting to refuse, to reject the tea utterly. “It is dangerous, this stuff!” I knew it was. None knew better than I.
“Not taken like this. It is heavily diluted, and you are not pregnant. I know it tastes bad, but it will not harm you. The worst that can happen is your monthly bleeding will be a little heavier. Yoshi-san and her girls use it often. You know I would not put you in danger.”
I took a deep breath. I knew Yuki had taken sangre without any real ill effects; it was the amount I had given my mother that had been fatal to her. And Akira was right. It would be stupid to take risks.
I picked up the now lukewarm tea and drank it down in one gulp, coughing and sputtering as the bitterness hit my throat.
“Good girl,” Akira said, and went back to arranging my hair.
Eventually we were both ready, and we left home, not speaking much in the carriage. This was the event we had both been working toward almost since I had first come to live with Akira, but it brought about no feeling of excitement. I just wanted to get it — whatever it was — over with.
From the moment we arrived at Lord Yorimoto’s home, I could see the truth of what Akira had said. Ostensibly it was to be an evening celebrating music, dance, and the other traditional arts, but the boisterous voices and brittle laughter nearly drowned out the sweet tune that a pair of gijo were playing on biwa — four-stringed lutes — near the entrance. Many men and women were gathered around them, but no one seemed to be making an effort to listen.
In another area of the large room — which had been created by pushing back or partially pushing back all the dividing walls on the lower floor of the house — more gijo performed. Two of them danced with fans, while a third provided music on a shamisen. I could not hear enough of her playing to know if she was good. The girls were beautiful dancers, but their movements were much more openly sexual than the dances I had seen at Yoshi-san’s teahouse. The girls wore heavy white makeup and had red lips, something I had never seen before either, and instead of keeping their eyes fixed on the distance, they cast laughing, flirtatious looks at those watching them, many of whom made lewd gestures in return.
Akira hissed quietly. “This will degenerate into an orgy before the night is through. Yue, I do not think —”
“Ohime-sama!” A hearty voice broke into Akira’s words. A tall, solidly built man approached us, smiling. Akira moved, and I found myself half hidden behind her as the man continued, “Your beauty graces my humble home. I am glad that your long period of mourning is, at last, at an end.”
“I am Kano-san now, Yorimoto-san,” Akira said, smiling. It did not touch her eyes. “It is no longer necessary to address me as princess.”
“You will be a princess in my eyes as long as you live,” he said. Though the words were flattering on the surface, to my ears they seemed like a threat. It had been a while since I had thought about the danger of the old princess’s hatred for Akira, but he made me remember it now. He went on, “However, I will be obedient to your wishes, of course, Kano-san.”
There was a high-pitched trill of female laughter behind me, and when I glanced back, I saw that one of the dancing gijo now sat in the lap of a man who had been watching her dance. She struggled a little, playfully threatening to bat him over the head with one of her fans, before he released her and she stood up again. I suddenly realized that the man was Lord Takashi, and I whipped back around before he saw me staring.
My movement caught Yorimoto-san’s attention. “Ah, who is this? Can it be your famed sister? I am told that she might outshine even your legendary beauty.”
Akira beckoned me forward, and I thought that no one but me could have detected the reluctance in the lines of her shoulders and back.
“This is Kano Yue. She is making her first appearance in society. Since you have the prince’s ear, I have told her that she must meet you.”
I bowed to Yorimoto-san, and he to me. He was handsome, as Akira had said, and his smile held a great deal of confidence and humor. Then I looked into his eyes and saw not the frank appraisal that I had become used to, but a kind of calculating coldness that reminded me abruptly and unhappily of Terayama-san. As we both straightened, he moved a little closer to me, and his breath — not bad smelling, but warm and unpleasantly intimate — washed over my face.
“The stories do not do you justice,” he murmured, more for effect, I thought, than because he was really impressed by me. “Kano-san, you have presented me with a jewel.”
“Actually,” Akira said, moving to separate us, “I hope to present Tsuki no Ouji-sama with a jewel.”
“Oh?” He quirked an eyebrow, not looking away from me. “The Shadow Ball? No one ever faulted you for lack of ambition, Kano-san. It was a pleasure to meet you, Yue-san. If we have the opportunity to speak later — in private, perhaps — then we must speak of the Shadow Ball.”
We bowed to each other again, and he moved away, smiling and talking to his other guests.
Akira swore viciously under her breath.
“It was no good, was it?” I said.
“No. He was telling us — not very subtly — that he will not even talk about invitations unless I let you go off alone with him. Most likely he will give you some time to think about it and approach you again later.”
“What if I go with him but make sure to stay in this room? Within your sight? Do you think that would be enough for his pride?”
“Possibly, if you flatter him,” she said unwillingly. “You must not let him take you outside, though, Yue. He will not want to be seen doing anything too outrageous here in public, because the gossip would get back to his wife. If he can get you really alone — that would be bad.”
Akira moved deeper into the room to an alcove behind an ivory and mother-of-pearl screen. Another heavily made-up gijo was serving tea there, and a small group had gathered around her. We took a place among them. I was grateful to be allowed to kneel in silence while Akira chatted to everyone pleasantly.
“How do you feel?” she asked, turning back to me.
“Nervous,” I whispered, and then, wanting to change the subject, “Curious, too. Why do the gijo wear such strange cosmetics?”
“It is a new fashion among them,” Akira explained. “The city guard demanded that when inhabitants of the Perfumed District leave it to attend parties such as these, they wear clothes or makeup that make them easily distinguishable from the inhabitants of the other
districts. The gijo decided that instead of wearing a small badge or some other discreet thing, they would take their example from the oiran and flaunt their profession. Hence the makeup. It has become popular. Some patrons even ask for it when they visit the gijo in their teahouses. It makes them look different, and the customers find it exciting.”
“More illusions,” I muttered.
“I find it amusing that the guards have not realized how easily a girl who wished to blend in could simply wash her face.”
A little while later Yorimoto-san appeared in the alcove.
“Yue-san, I wonder if you would like to take a turn around the room with me? I am intrigued by what your sister tells me of your ambitions and would like to discuss them with you further.”
I cast a look at Akira, whose expression was carefully blank. She nodded to let me know that she would keep her eye on me, and I turned back to Yorimoto-san, giving him one of Kano Yue’s rare smiles.
“Thank you. I would be honored.”
I stood, aware that dozens of pairs of eyes flew to me with the movement. Yorimoto-san seemed aware of it, too. He drew me away from the crowded center of the room to walk next to the wall, and I found that screens and flower arrangements had been cunningly placed to shield the room’s outskirts. I felt suddenly isolated, and though a few moments before, the noise had been wearing on me, I now found the relative quiet just as oppressive.
Calm down, I told myself. There is no point in panicking before anything even happens.
“I assume,” Yorimoto-san began, “that your object in wishing to attend the Shadow Ball is to win Tsuki no Ouji-sama’s favor?”
“Yes, Yorimoto-san,” I said quietly, keeping my face downturned. I watched the tips of my zri peek out from under my kimono and then vanish, peek and then vanish, as I walked.
“You want me to help you achieve this goal?”
“If it pleases you.”
He made a restless movement. “Why do you think I should help you?”
“I do not think that you should, Yorimoto-san. I merely hope that you will.”
Yorimoto-san laughed, a sound of surprise. “I begin to see the resemblance between you and your sister. You both duel with your words — but where her tongue pierces, yours turns the blade aside without cutting, does it not?”
I did not reply. I already had the feeling that I had stumbled somewhere and was frantically trying to work out where it was. I kept myself calm by regulating my steps so that a perfectly even distance remained between us and his longer strides did not force me to skip to catch up.
“A woman who does not chatter,” he said after a moment. “I believe there is a saying that such a woman has a price beyond rubies.”
“It is commonly held that a virtuous woman has a price beyond rubies,” I said. “But, of course, that would depend entirely on your taste in women.”
“How unexpected. Mysterious, serious Kano Yue has a sense of humor. I wonder how many men know that?”
He came to a halt, forcing me to stop, too, and face him. My eyes were still downcast, but I peered carefully at our surroundings. He had positioned us behind a tall arrangement of spiky black branches, which had hundreds of tiny bluish-purple flowers fastened to them with threads. The arrangement was large enough to conceal us from any but the most determined of searchers. I spared the verbena flowers a wry look. The significance of their traditional meaning was not lost on me. Verbena meant cooperation.
Yorimoto-san placed his hand on the screen door next to me — which I assumed led to the gardens — and leaned forward. “How many men have known you, beautiful girl?”
“None,” I said flatly.
My brusqueness obviously took him by surprise. “None?”
“No. And I intend to keep it that way. I wish to be the Shadow Bride, Yorimoto-san, and my virginity is a precious offering on the altar of that hope. I will not surrender it to anyone other than Tsuki no Ouji-sama.”
He stared at me in openmouthed shock. I watched him from beneath my lashes, fearing I had been too bold, too blunt. Then he nodded. “I salute your honesty and good sense.”
I had just begun to sigh with relief when he added, “Now that I understand you a little better, perhaps you would like to step into the garden with me and discuss these matters more privately?”
He smoothly slid back the screen on which his hand rested, letting in a gush of night-scented air that felt icy on my cheeks, making me aware of how overheated I had become in the stale atmosphere of the room. I would have breathed the fresh air in gratefully, had I not been gripped with irritation and defiance. I had not known what I would do before; now I did. I had no intention of going anywhere with this man.
“No,” I said. “I am, of course, delighted to have been asked, but I do not believe that leaving this room with you would be at all helpful to my goal.”
He clicked his tongue mockingly. “Perhaps your sister has not explained the rules of this game thoroughly?”
“My sister plays by her own rules. So do I.”
I intensified the beauty of my weaving, heightening the soft glow of my skin, deepening the rose color of my lips, the dark luster of my eyes. I lifted the terrible beauty of that face and looked him full in the eyes for the first time.
“I will be Shadow Bride, Yorimoto-san. If you help me on that path, I will remember, and be grateful. But if you do not help me, I will also remember. My memory is very, very long.”
Before I could press my point further, there was a commotion behind me in the room. I looked over my shoulder and gasped aloud.
It was Otieno.
Otieno was standing near the two gijo at the entrance. His father was with him, too, along with all the rest of the group from Athazie that I knew. There were also several men I had never seen before, including one wearing a gold circlet around his forehead. He was the tallest of all the men there, and his hair was mostly white and startlingly pale against his skin. It was hard to make out clearly at this distance, but I thought that his face was much more heavily tattooed than any of the others. Was this the man Otieno’s father had called their ruler?
“Ah, the Athazies,” Yorimoto-san said, interrupting my thoughts. “Their timing is exquisite.”
His arm clamped around my waist from behind. My breath left me in a surprised huff, and I stumbled back into him as he took a step out of the open screen door. Before I could struggle, we were on the veranda and he was slapping the screen shut behind us.
His arms were like iron bars: one still at my waist, the other across my chest, pressing into my breasts painfully. I was pinioned against his front and could not move. His breath was hot and wet against my neck, and I was horribly conscious of his body pressing into mine. I let out a sound of disgust, digging my nails into the arms that held me, scratching as hard as I could through layers of fabric.
“Let go,” I hissed, trying to sound angry instead of frightened.
“After all the trouble I have been to? I think not.”
It was completely dark outside, with not even a lantern lit. The light from the room beyond was nothing more than a dim orange glow that hindered my night vision. It was like being blind.
“If I were you,” he said, sounding calmly amused, “I would be careful not to make too much noise.”
I stamped down — but missed his foot.
He chuckled. “In anticipation of meeting you tonight, I did a little research, and I happen to know that you spend an uncommon amount of time with a certain young foreigner. Now if you kept fussing, and your friend were to come out and catch a glimpse of us, what do you think he would see? You, tenderly held in my arms, in this deserted spot. That kind of situation would make any young man react somewhat impetuously. I suspect that you have been cultivating his acquaintance in order to take advantage of the Athazie’s remarkable cache of gold — and I applaud your pragmatism, my dear — but I feel I should point out that the boy is going home in a few days, taking his gold with him. While I will still be
here, and still, I assure you, your most devoted admirer. I do not ask anything of you that would . . . devalue the gift you wish to offer my prince. Not at all. A mere token. How could there be any harm in that? No one could possibly have any objection.”
His arms tightened. I could not fill my lungs to answer him. I could not even scream. All I could do was dig my nails deeper into his flesh and silently struggle.
“I object.”
The screen slid back, and Otieno appeared as a silhouette in the gap. His face was lit for a moment — hard and furious — then the screen banged shut behind him, and his expression was hidden again. But I felt a tingling thrill that made all the small hairs on my body stand up, and I knew that he was using his power somehow.
“I object very much,” he continued. “I think you are probably venomous. Most snakes are.”
Behind me, Yorimoto-san seemed frozen. He had not drawn breath since Otieno began to speak. Not since I had felt that surge of power.
“What makes you even worse than a snake, though, is that you have disgusting, slimy fingers. At the moment, you are touching Yue with them, which, believe me, is a mistake. You are going to take them off her, and they are never going to touch her again. If they do, I will come and find you, and snap each and every one of them right off your hands. Do you understand? Nod if you do.”
I felt Yorimoto-san’s jerky nod.
“Good. Now go.”
The tingly, powerful feeling disappeared, and Yorimoto-san released me so suddenly that I lost my balance again. Otieno caught me. His arms came around me, and I clung to him, so relieved that I only distantly heard Yorimoto-san crashing off the veranda into the darkness, cursing as he stumbled around. The noises faded and disappeared completely as he rounded the corner of the house.
“Are you all right?” Otieno asked, his voice a growl.
“Yes. He did not hurt me.”
I felt him relax. “Thank God. He will never dare to look at you again.”
In an instant, all my relief at being dragged from Yorimoto-san’s arms evaporated. Akira had told me I dared not offend Yorimoto-san if I wanted the invitation. Offend him? Otieno had eviscerated him. The man had fled into his own garden as if demons from the dark of the Moon were after him. He would not forget this. He would not forgive me.