The girls tugged at my arms to keep me moving. I was too bemused by my conversation with Surei to offer them any resistance. We climbed the steps, and I stopped, pulled free of their hold, and looked around.

The stairs led to a covered walkway raised to about waist-height running along three of the four sides of a large garden. I walked to the railing to get a better look.

My mouth opened and closed as I struggled to come to terms with my first sight of Surei’s “little saké house.” It wasn’t little—it was magnificent. My initial impression of the grandeur carry

of the Spring Palace had wildly underestimated the actual extent and splendor of the establishment.

Through the light drizzle, I glimpsed a large pond with three islands connected by bridges at the southern end of the garden. The three large buildings took up the northern side of an open square with the south end missing. Smaller buildings lined the walkway on both sides. Surei’s “little saké house” was actually a shinden-zukuri, a nobleman’s estate, repurposed as an exclusive drinking establishment.

In fact, the name, “Spring Palace,” was a reference to the fictional estate of the most popular character in romance literature, Prince Genji. He built a beautiful palace for his wives, and Surei had duplicated the layout for her establishment.

I had not been invited to many houses of the high nobility, but I would have been surprised if there were more than a couple dozen estates in Kyoto that equaled Surei’s establishment.

Like most shinden-zukuri, each of the three main buildings rested on a raised platform and comprised a single open room with the ceiling supported by wooden pillars arranged in a rectangular grid. There were no fixed walls or interior partitions. Removable panels around the outside provided protection from the elements. Mobile standing curtains and portable screens allowed the interior to be divided up at need.

Seeing my astonishment, one of the girls whispered, “He looks like a carp with its mouth open, trying to catch a dragonfly.”

They dissolved into fits of giggling. I closed my mouth with a snap and glared at them. That set off another round of laughter.

I peered into the nearest structure. The girls let me gawk but gently chivvied me along. The weather was too cold to call for removal of most of the wall panels, but I could see through the open doorway.

A dancer was accompanied by two women playing the flute and biwa, a four-stringed lute. I was surprised to see the women dressed in multi-layered robes and wore their hair in floor-length ponytails. These weren’t the clothes of women performing at a saké house. Their costumes would have been right at home among the ladies-in-waiting serving at the imperial court.

One of their clients, a very drunk man dressed in the colors of the fifth rank, attempted to mimic the graceful performance of the dancer. He was being cheered on by several of the other patrons. Other men were engaged in a game of dice.

Over in the corner, a crowd watched as a cricket fight began. I headed over to get a better look, but the girls took hold and gently steered me past the building.

“That is the Winter Hall,” one of the girls informed me, keeping a tight grip on my arm. “It is for clients of the senior upper fifth rank and below. The higher ranking gentlemen use the Summer Hall.” She indicated the center building.

We passed the Summer Hall. Sheltered from the east wind, the building had a few panels removed, allowing me a better view of the activities inside.

A woman dressed every bit as elegantly as the musicians in the Winter Hall played the 13 string koto. Her fingers seemed to fly over the strings as she skillfully performed “The Wide Barrow,” a traditional tune originally composed in China.

In contrast to the rowdy activities in the Winter Hall, the clientele here seemed to be playing go or talking quietly over drinks or a shared meal.

The serving girls in both locations were dressed in the same manner as the entertainers. They wore beautiful silk robes painted with a delicate hyacinth pattern over scarlet hakama. Flitting from patron to patron, they offered refreshments and chatted in low, murmuring voices.

Even the lowest ranking of the clients sported elegant brocade jackets over expensive silk robes. The Spring Palace was unlike any saké house I’d ever seen, but then, I’d never been in a saké house with this many noble customers.

The girls led me north past The Summer Hall. We passed through a gate in a head-high wall dividing the estate in two. On the other side of the wall was a maze of small outbuildings and storerooms.

We arrived at a small building mostly taken up with a large tub filled with hot water. They motioned for me to undress. When I pulled my robes off, the girls gasped at the sight of the scratches and bruises covering my body. They poured pitchers of water over me as I washed the mud off and soaped myself down.

Once I was clean, I stepped into the tub, being careful of my wounds.

A large black tomcat trotted through the door, gazing curiously at all the activity. He nosed around the tub then jumped up on the edge of the bath to watch the girl clean my head wounds. He reached out one paw as if to crawl onto my shoulder.

The girl scolded him, “Lord Mao, shoo! We’re busy.”

The cat yawned, then languidly jumped down, moved a short distance away, and began cleaning himself.

“Lord Mao?” I asked.

“Yes. We also have a calico named Lady Song. Mao is the Chinese word for cat. So he is ‘Lord Cat.’ Isn’t that clever?” she replied.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, very erudite.”

The other girl started gathering my clothes.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I yelled.

Startled, the girl dropped the clothes on the floor. “Mistress Hyacinth told me, ‘Burn his clothes.’ I am just doing as she told me.”

“Don’t you dare!” I said. I rose from the tub in protest. “They’re the only clothes I have and you’re not going to—”

There was a scratching sound from the floor. Looking down, I saw Lord Mao had decided my clothes would make a wonderful cat box, and, having finished his business, was busy burying everything.

I sagged back into the tub in defeat. “Go ahead, take them out and burn them. Even the cat thinks they’re no better than rags, anyway.”

The girl gingerly picked up the pile and removed my belongings from my robes. When I saw her holding the poems Surei and I exchanged, I was going to tell her to burn those, too, but she left before I could say anything.

I was hurt, angry, and confused. It might have been foolish, but I had nurtured the hope that if I found Surei again, it would be like I had never left. That somehow, things would right themselves again. Clearly, she felt differently. I laughed at myself. Why shouldn’t she? She was rich and successful. What would she want with an impoverished bushi?

“Go away. I can take care of this myself,” I snarled at the other girl.

Frightened, she ran out of the building.

I tried to calm myself and think logically about the situation. Surei’s feelings had changed in my absence. Maybe that was to be expected. After all, it had been years. I had no idea what she’d been doing for all that time.

Perhaps I was reading too much into her note. On the other hand, we’ve barely had a chance to talk. She did make an effort to find me. Let’s see what she has to say.

The long soak in the hot water helped calm me down and soothe my pains. I began to feel a bit ashamed.

It wasn’t very nice of you to snap at those poor girls. It’s not like they had any say in the matter. They were just doing what Surei told them.

I was out of the bath before it occurred to me I had nothing to wear. Unless I wanted to stroll through the rain completely naked, I needed new clothes.

“Hey, can I get some clothes here?” I yelled.

The same two girls appeared, carrying a fundoshi and a simple white under-robe.

“What about the rest of my clothes? Am I supposed to wander around half-dressed?”

“The Mistress told us she would be selecting your clothes personally,” one of the girls replied in a high, quavering voice.

What have I gotten myself into?

When Surei and I were children, there were entire mornings wasted while Surei and Akiko fussed with their dolls’ outfits. It was typical of Surei that she found no contradiction in wanting to play “dress-up” with her dolls in the morning and then go out in the hills and practice with a tachi and yumi in the afternoon.

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After I’d gotten into my borrowed robes, the two girls led me to a small storage building and left. Piles of fabric, some reaching as high as my shoulder, lined the walls of the storeroom. There was a fortune in silk and expensive brocades here. The only large open space was in front of a free-standing cabinet up against the wall.

On top of the cabinet was a bowl containing jewelry. I picked up a piece and examined it, turning it over in my hands. It was a beautifully crafted model of a hyacinth. The flower was lacquered a deep red and attached to a clip. The workmanship was superb.

The door slid open. I spun around, dropping the pin into my robe.

Surei entered, closely followed by two older women. At first, I thought I was seeing double, but then I realized they were identical twins. Their robes were indistinguishable except for the embroidered ume, or plum blossoms. One had white flowers and the other pink.

“I would like you to meet two very important people here at the saké house,” Surei said. “White Ume and Pink Ume. They are going to help me put together some appropriate outfits for you.”

Using her folded fan, Surei directed the women to clear a space in the center of the room. “Yoshi, come here and hold out your arms. We need to measure you.”

When I was in position, Surei sauntered around me as if inspecting inferior merchandise. Taking note of my various bruises, scratches, and contusions, she commented, “What have you been doing?”

Her movements were hypnotic. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She didn’t walk so much as glide from place to place. As she spoke, she used her hands and arms for emphasis, each gesture smooth, controlled, and graceful. When she was younger, Surei had been attractive but much less controlled, more coltish. Now, the impact of her presence was nearly overwhelming.

I watched her, longing to touch her face, to take her into my arms. Instead, I stood there with my arms outstretched, and the Ume twins scurried around taking measurements. They clucked their tongues and made various other odd noises as they considered the results.

The women held a variety of materials up against me, layering one on top of the other, going through dozens of fabric and color combinations, commenting on the stylishness and suitability of each one. The old ladies spoke like members of the Imperial Court. I wondered what they were doing in a saké house.

Finally, Surei said, “Let’s go with a dark gray hakama and lighter gray inner robe, with a pale red outer robe and a brown and crimson brocade hunting jacket. Those colors suit him. Also, they’ll hide dirt.”

It was unbelievable. I hadn’t seen Surei for years, and apparently, her only interest in me was to ensure I was well-dressed.

I was getting tired of holding my arms out. “I don’t understand why clothes are so important. It’s not like you’re presenting me to the Emperor.”

Surei shushed me as if I were a child. “No, you’re not being presented to the Emperor. You are going to meet a lady of the upper fourth rank, a very important person. I don’t want you looking like a ruffian.” She paused. “When you see her, I expect you to act appropriately.”

I’d had enough. “Are we really here to play dress-up? Tell me what’s going on or I walk out of here, half-dressed or not.”

Surei pressed her lips together. “Ladies, come back after dinner and pick up the fabrics.”

In perfect unison, the Ume twins bowed and said, “Yes, mistress.”

Was that an accident? Or do they move and talk together on purpose?

I sat down on the floor, picked up a nearby saké bowl and drank it sullenly. Surei sat down facing me. She gazed at me for a time, tapping her fan into her palm. I watched the fan. That was the first thing I had seen her do that reminded me of the girl I had known. Tapping fans usually preceded an outburst.

Finally, she spoke, her voice calm and controlled, “Yoshi, I don’t understand why you’re making this so difficult. All I’m trying to do is make sure you’re properly attired for a meeting with a high-ranking lady. You’re getting a nice, new outfit in the process. You certainly needed one. What’s the problem?”

Suddenly angry, I dashed the bowl against the wall, smashing it to pieces. I answered her with some heat. “After ten years—”

“Eleven years.”

“What?”

“It’s been eleven years. You left on the fourteenth day of the—”

“Eleven years, then.” I took a deep breath. “After eleven years we are finally reunited, and instead of talking about us, all you do is prattle on about meeting some noblewoman. Who’s this woman, and what’s so important about this meeting?”

Surei walked over and picked up the broken bowl. She looked at me in disapproval. “Yoshi! That is not like you.”

“Surei, you have no idea what is ‘like me’ anymore,” I said.

She studied me for a moment, then put the pieces of the bowl on a tray. Eyes on the tray, she said, “The lady is my cousin Akiko.”

“Akiko? You mean that skinny little kid who always followed us around and threatened to tattle on us if we wouldn’t let her play with us? That cousin Akiko?”

Surei returned to sit in front of me, her chin raised, her voice firm. “Yes, that Akiko. She was the only member of my family who would talk to me after my father’s disgrace. Also, the one person in whose house I have always been welcome. My cousin Akiko, who now finds herself in a difficult situation through no fault of her own. Akiko, who we are going to help.”

I felt a brief flash of satisfaction. She and Akiko were still communicating. I had been right, Akiko could have told me where to find Surei.

I couldn’t help wondering aloud, “How did Akiko marry so well after they convicted her uncle of treason?”

“Akiko was an especially beautiful girl. She was acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her time. My aunt distanced herself enough from my father that Akiko made a good marriage to a wealthy older nobleman as a second wife. After all, she wasn’t a blood relation of my father. However, her husband died three years ago, and now Akiko is in need of some assistance.”

Resolutely, she snapped the fan closed. “Tomorrow morning we’ll be visiting her. I want you to be properly dressed, and I would hope you would be on your best behavior. Not just for this meeting, but also for your task.”

We sat there in silence. Inside I was seething. When we were young I let her talk me into almost anything. I couldn’t harden my heart to her pleading eyes and I loved to see her smile. But, there was no plea here. She did not speak as if to a friend, but like a lady to her underling. It had been ten—eleven years since I last saw her, and since we reunited, she hadn’t once asked how I had been or indicated the slightest emotion at seeing me. Now, I felt no desire to please her at all.

I kept a tight rein on my anger. This conversation was not going at all the way I had hoped, but I really didn’t want it to end in a fight. I tried to steer the conversation to more pleasant topics. Compliments were always a good way to improve a woman’s mood.

Without looking at her, I said, “You know, I always thought you were prettier than Akiko.” Surei’s face was too thin, her cheekbones too high and her eyes too round for conventional tastes. But these features gave her an exotic beauty I preferred.

Surei froze, then gave me a long, flat stare. She answered, her words clipped, her tone even, “Yoshi, you’re wasting your time trying to flatter me. I’m not a blushing maiden anymore. I’ve heard every tale a man spins a pretty girl to get her into bed, and I know just how insincere their words are. Let’s keep our attention on the task at hand. Do the job in front of you and we’ll both get what we want.”

My pent-up anger and frustration came boiling out. I jumped to my feet. “You say you’re no longer a young girl to be moved by honeyed words? Well, I’m no longer a smitten youngster you can lead around by batting your eyelashes at me.”

I paced away from her, too angry to stay still. I turned back to her. "You’re not getting me involved in another one of your wild schemes. I’m not interested in helping you. There are other things I need to do in Kyoto, and I can settle my affairs with Stone on my own.”

I walked back to her and continued in a lower voice. “But I do wonder what happened to the Surei I used to know, the girl with whom I fell in love. Idiot that I was, I actually thought you cared for me. I wonder what crimes I committed in a former life to be subjected to this kind of betrayal. What evil karma have I inherited from my previous existences that I am forced to suffer like this?”

For the first time, Surei’s facade of control and indifference vanished. She rose haughtily. In a low, intense tone, she hissed, “You wonder what happened to the girl you used to know? She was abandoned and left to starve. Without the love and support of her father and lover, she died alone on the streets of Kyoto. What you see is what I had to become to survive.” Her eyes bored into me. “Did you even think of me when you were gone?”

“I, that is—”

She cut me off. “What did you think would happen to me when you didn’t come back?”

I tried to explain. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t abandon you—I just couldn’t return to the capital. I had to let everyone think I was dead. If I returned, I would have been arrested and executed as a deserter.”

Briefly, I recalled a battlefield strewn with the corpses of my father, my brothers, the men of my clan—I thrust the image away.

Surei stepped back. She stared at me, her eyes wide. “You didn’t actually desert—”

“Of course I didn’t! But when all those seasoned bushi died in the ambush, would anyone believe that an unseasoned youth such as I could escape?”

I tried to make her understand. “The need for revenge consumed me. I had sworn to find the man who betrayed my clan—at least, I tried to.”

Surei seemed to collapse in on herself. She closed her eyes in exhaustion and turned away. When she finally turned back to me, they were red. She suddenly seemed older. Closing her eyes again, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Even if you couldn’t come back in person, there was no way to send me a note to let me know you were all right? You couldn’t tell me what happened, where you were? You couldn’t send for me?”

“When I had the opportunity, I tried to contact you, but they said you were dead.”

She shook her head and looked at me. “How many years had passed before you tried to get me a message?”

“Well, three years, but I—”

Surei shook as she shouted, “I waited for you. I needed your help. And it took you three years to even think about me?”

Her anger and bitterness shocked me. I struggled to find words, but what could I say? I desperately wanted to make her understand, but I didn’t know how.

With a visible effort, she regained her composure. When she next spoke, she was her usual cool and aloof self. “This is pointless. Let’s not dredge up the past. Because of our shared history and my gratitude for your father’s kindness and generosity in taking me in after my father’s death, I’m willing to take a chance on you. If we avoid personal entanglements, we can head off all manner of unpleasantness.”

Gracefully, she walked towards the door.

At this point, I realized there was no hope for the two of us. I had been a fool to think we could resume where we had left off. Disappointment twisted in my gut. I needed a job, and Surei’s offer was fair, but staying around her would only be a bitter reminder of what I had thrown away. I couldn’t bear being around her. Besides, I still had my own task to pursue.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

She ignored me.

At the entrance to the room, she turned around. Rooting through a pile next to the door, she pulled out a bundle and threw it to me. “I don’t want you to get cold, so you can borrow these tonight. Tomorrow morning, we’ll do a final fitting for your new clothes and then go see Akiko.”

“You know, Surei, when I got that note, I didn’t come here to be an employee. I thought you wanted a friend.”

She looked back at me. “I don’t have friends. Friends fail you when you need them. Now, I only have customers and employees, and you aren’t wealthy enough to be a customer.”

She left the room.