Chapter 3

“I understand you think only ill of my husband, but he truly is a man of his word. Tell me who your master is, and you will receive food. Cooperate further, and perhaps you may live to see your master again.”

Kiyo turned her head down. Seeing that she had no other words to say, I concluded the interrogation by saying,

“It seems that your loyalty outweighs your hunger today. Tomorrow we shall try again, when the pain of hunger begins to gnaw at you a little more strongly.”

I turned to glance back at her, studied her, and in the dim silver light that was a wash of smoke across her face, I saw the glitter in her eyes that were unmistakably tears. I watched the tears drop through the cell door as they came shut.

That night, Tanenaga visited me in my chamber. In a not-too-distant past, he had come every night. Now perhaps once a week, and only when he was bored with his sokushitsus. At first, I was slighted but I eventually came to understand that it was I who had failed him. I had failed to produce a healthy heir, so in fact, I should consider myself fortunate that he would still desire to have me as his seishitsu, and not, say, divorce me and sent off to some distant and forgettable convent as Tanenaga’s brother had done to his wife. I was still the most beautiful woman of Erimo, after all. Still, even the most beautiful of flowers withers, and when they are not loved, they wither more quickly.

When he undressed me, he did so carelessly. There was no sweet foreplay as there was before. He turned me over and thrust roughly into me and after filling me, pushed me away.

I lay still, though I felt a strong desire to clean the come oozing down the inside of my thighs. He lay beside me, panting, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“What did the kunoichi say today?” he asked.

I turned away from him and covered my naked body with a thick quilt to ward off the sharpness of the autumn night.

“Her name is Kiyo,” I replied.

“She would not say.”

Tanenaga grunted. He rose impatiently, put his kimono back on and he said,

“Give me more than a useless name,” he said.

And so, having not satisfactorily received what he had visited me for, he left, perhaps to be warmed by one of his sokushitsus.

The following morning, I visited the kitchen before seeing Kiyo to see if my husband had given him any instruction regarding the prisoner in case there was a change of heart in the night. Renshō, the kitchen head shook his head and said, “Tanenaga told me not a single scrap of food for the demon girl,” thus verifying my understanding of things as they were. Tea was still allowed, so I brought tea for the prisoner. The Gyokoru again, as this offered the most sustenance a tea can give.

Kiyo had a look of complete serenity on her face as she drank the tea, both hands wrapped around the warm cup. Her wounds had not healed much, which was to be expected given that she had not eaten anything at all.

When she finished the tea, she passed the cup back to me politely, then we sat there for a long period of silence until I broke it.

“Where are you from? Can you tell me that at least?”

“I suppose I can. I am from a village.”

In truth, it was more than fascinating to me. I had an ear for adventurous stories despite having been bred to be a lady of the court. The years of hearing tales of the lands of the north had engendered in me a sense of wonder of that place, clouded in mystery, and a wild magic, wars, and romances.

“I’ve always wanted to travel to the north,” I remarked.

“You’re not missing much,” Kiyo replied. “False samurai thugs who follow no code rule those lands now.”

She coughed a dry, rasping cough. I called Kazuo for water. When the water arrived, I dipped a ladle in it and held it to Kiyo’s lip and she drank gratefully.

“My husband’s horses come from the north, I believe. From a village called Iwate, if I recall correctly.”

“Mm-hm, we are renown for breeding excellent horses. My father…”

She shut her mouth abruptly, which caught my attention. She had just let on something that she shouldn’t have.

“Your father… your father bred horses for my husband’s stable, is that what you wanted to say?”

The flustered expression on Kiyo’s face told me that I was right.

She nodded, smirked. “…you are sharper than I had originally guessed. Yes, my father bred the war horses ridden by your husband’s samurai.”

Her playful insult caught me off-guard. No one ever spoke to me with such cheek. Admittedly, I was delighted to be subject to the tease, having no such interaction with anyone in this castle. Coolly, I retorted, “A compliment wrapped in mockery is still a compliment, so I will take it as such. Feel fortunate that I do not take your privilege of tea.”

“Incredibly fortunate,” she replied, putting the cup to her lips and sipping again.

I stifled a smile and cleared my throat. I poured her more tea, then continued pressing my interrogation, which, admittedly, were drawn more from my own personal curiosity than expediency at this point.

“As it so happens, my father was one of the samurai that rode your father’s horses. So, we are connected in that way.”

It was my turn to be flustered by her quick-witted observation. It was my turn to confess the truth. “Yes. Was. He died not too long ago in battle.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. I hope it was an honorable death.”

“Yes, it was…,” I replied, though in my heart, I could not think of it as an honorable death. I could not help but think that it was rather a needless one. Preferring not to dwell on the rotten thought, I returned to my interrogation.

“Can you ride a horse? “

“Better than any of your samurai.”

“Is that so? How thrilling,” I said, and I meant it. I could hardly picture myself straddling a horse let alone riding it with any skill. To claim to ride better than any of the most elite samurai in all of Japan, if it were true, then Kiyo must have been something special.

She cocked her head and smiled again. The smile was mischievous, like she had just won something from me. Indeed, she had. I should not have uttered such words or allowed myself to feel anything except disdain for my would-be killer. She had won a free show of emotion from me.

I cleared my throat and said flatly, “Now tell me something useful. Was it your clan that sent you on this mission, then? Was it that my husband failed to pay your father for your horses? Is that the cause of your revenge?”

At first, only silence came from Kiyo. I allowed a moment to give her the opportunity to something. When it became clear that she would not speak another word, I reluctantly rose.

“Tomorrow then,” I said. “Tomorrow, you will give me the answer to the simple question, and I will give you food. You will succumb to your wounds if you do not allow them to heal.”

By the third day, Kiyo’s smell offended my nose terribly, so I washed her. She resisted at first, fighting against me like a stray cat, but in the face of my persistence she ultimately conceded. I removed her kimono, and washed her with soap, hot water, and a sponge. The bruises on her skin had turned to a purple-yellow, and her face had begun to appear sallow. I suppose it was my motherly instincts that pained me seeing her appear so sickly. I squirmed inside with a need to provide food for her, but there was nothing I could do, beside continue my interrogation of her, and a hope that my husband would capitulate to compassion. So, I pressed forward with the interrogation, this time tactfully starting with more approachable matters.

“Tell me about your childhood,” I asked, as I gently scrubbed her cheeks with the sponge.

“Mm… It was pleasant,” she replied.

“What do you want to know?”

I paused a moment to consider what I’d like to learn about and decided that I wanted to know more about the father for whom she sought revenge.

“Tell me about your family.”

She stayed silent for a moment, and I thought perhaps that it was indeed too difficult to discuss, so I had a mind to change the topic, but before I could, she answered.

“My father, I was closest to. He raised me, raised me with the same toughness and with the same love he raised his horses. He taught me everything I know. He was strict but loving.”

I dipped the sponge into the steaming hot water, then squeezed it over her shoulders. She flinched at the feel of the water as it ran down her back, then again when I pressed the sponge against her, and sighed. Her sigh pleased me.

She laughed suddenly.

She shook her head. “I just remembered a story, that is all. A silly story.”

She considered me a moment, then, perhaps after deciding there was no harm in it, told it.

“When I was very little, I managed to steal a chicken from the neighbor’s coop. I tried hiding it in the house, deciding I should keep it as a pet. The damn thing’s clucking gave me away. My mother found me out. My father of course made me return the chicken and apologize, then gave me an awful spanking, and chided me — not for stealing a chicken, but for being caught.”

Her face was drawn into a pleasant look. Admittedly, it filled me with sense of serenity to see her happy like that. It showed to me that she was a human after all. A child once, with a life peppered with memories worth remembering. Happy memories. And it made me think of my own family. My father and mother. My siblings. The happy childhood I once had.

“…And your husband? What was he like?”

“I did not have one. To my father’s distress, I would not take any man’s hand. Well like I said, my father raised me like his horses, and so I had adapted the behavior of horses. Wild, free, inclined to run. No man could catch my interest. Women on the other hand…”

I caught her eyes momentarily and glanced away. I scrubbed more quickly, and I blushed from the image of her in the arms of another woman.

“Why do you even bother?” she asked.

“Washing me. It doesn’t make sense.”

I shrugged. “Your smell was beginning to offend me. If we are to continue our interrogation, then I prefer not to do so whilst gagging on your stench.”

“I see. Well, I suppose there are worse fates than to be turned to a flower for your sniffing pleasure.”

I glared at her. She gave me a smug look.

“Indeed, there are,” I replied, returning the smugness.

Just above her left breast there was a long laceration that, now that it was clear of crusted blood, I could see was infected and still open, so I called for Kazuo to provide a healing poultice and a suture kit, and he provided it promptly, and I cleaned her wound, applied the poultice to it, and stitched it shut.

Another such laceration stretched across the outside of her right thigh, and I treated it in the same manner, and when I was done, I washed her hair and brushed it until all the tangles were sorted and it fell as straight and easy as a silent cascade.

After having made her hair beautiful once more, after suturing her wounds and cleansing her of blood and sweat and dirt, and now that she smelled pleasantly, I could not think of any other thing I could interrogate her for. In fact, I was so gratified with having unveiled the wretched creature’s natural beauty, I could not do anything except be transfixed by it, just as one might be transfixed by a beautiful haiku composed by a most devoted Haijin.

“Does this flower please the lady?” she asked, smirking, clearly seeing my fixation.

I blinked away my unintended trance and blushed, but remembering that she was my prisoner, I clucked my teeth at her, said, “It would please me if you did not tell me cozy lies to endear yourself to me.”

Kiyo eyed me steadily. The smirk disappeared. “I do not tell cozy lies, Lady Keiko. I do not wish to endear myself you. If you cannot take me at my words, then you will do well to leave me be.”

The dismissive way in which she spoke sparked a hot temper in me. I pointed a threatening finger at her. “I’m not done with you yet,” I yelled, my voice harsher than I intended. “Tell me who your master is!”

In a quick flash, faster than I could see, and with greater power than I imagined was possible, she grabbed my wrist, and she pulled me forcibly towards her. I stopped myself tumbling forward and found myself eye to eye with her. I gasped loudly. Fear gripped my heart.

She reached slowly into my kimono and pulled out my dagger, then held the blade against my throat, and she put her lips to my ears and whispered, “I could kill you now in less time it would take for a leaf to fall from a tree.”

I opened my mouth to scream, so she cupped her other hand over my mouth. That would not have been enough to stifle my scream, but I did not scream. I could not. I was frozen stiff.