The smoke around me was so thick I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I couldn’t breathe. Every time I tried, I broke out in a fit of coughing. I was choking to death. The heat of the flames was so severe I could already feel blisters forming on my skin. I tried to scream, but I had no air to voice my agony.
I sat up in bed, shaking all over and panting as if I had just finished a grueling weapons drill. I grabbed the jug I’d left next to the bed the night before and almost took a long pull before I remembered I’d decided to quit drinking saké.
So much for the saké giving me a good night’s sleep. That was the worst one yet.
The dream had been so vivid I was flushed, and my skin was tingling like I had spent too long in the summer sun. I was covered in sweat. Even though the sky was just getting light in the east, I didn’t want to risk going back to sleep, so I got up and went outside to clear my head.
There was a lot of noise coming over the wall from the Spring Palace or at least a lot of noise for just before dawn. Curious, I went over to see what was happening.
A couple dozen men were gathered on the practice field. Professor, his arm still in a sling, was addressing the group. I moved closer so I could hear what he was saying.
“… we’ll test you to determine your skill level with your weapons, then we’ll assign you to a squad. Each squad will work together, train together, and man their assigned defensive position together.”
He saw me standing at the back of the group and signaled me to come forward. “This is Yoshi. He will be covering squad operations and tactics later. Now, my men,” he gestured to four of Surei’s yojimbo standing off to one side, “will test your skills.” The four moved in and starting handing out practice weapons to the group.
I looked at Professor with one eyebrow cocked. He must have sensed my confusion, because he told me, “The squad training was Hyacinth-sama’s idea. When I reminded her I hadn’t undergone any training other than individual weapon handling, she decided you could handle it. You’ve participated in more than a few organized military operations. She assured me you would be happy to oversee the squad leader training.”
I wasn’t happy Surei was volunteering me without bothering to talk to me, but it didn’t surprise me. Besides, there wasn’t any help for it—someone had to do it, and she knew I wouldn’t refuse.
It would have been nice to be asked first, though.
Professor and I wandered among the group as they demonstrated their skills. They were a diverse lot. There were some older men, some who looked too young to be shaving, and three or four who resembled the ruffians who had attacked the girls a few days previously. I indicated one such scruffy individual. “Are you sure having someone like that defending the Spring Palace is a good idea?”
Professor looked uncomfortable. “I wasn’t sure about them, but Hyacinth-sama reminded me we need every man we can get. Besides, Mouse vouches for them.”
Mouse’s word was good enough for me. If he recommended them, they were reliable. They probably also had some “extra” skills we could use. “He wouldn’t suggest anyone who might cause trouble,” I assured Professor.
As we watched the men practice, Professor asked, “Has Dimples been behaving oddly recently?”
I said, drily, “How would I tell?”
“She asked me if I thought her hair was ugly. Since when did anyone think I was an expert on women’s hair? Yesterday, she asked me if I thought she was pretty.” He shook his head. “Maybe it’s just that she’s ready to become a woman.”
I told Professor about Dimples’ comment after he saved her from the thugs at the market.
He paled. “She knows I would lose my job if I touched an underage girl. What is she thinking?” He ran his hand through his hair. “Her mother would castrate me if she even suspected I had an interest in Dimples.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t think most people would take it seriously. After all, Dimples thinks I am an imperial prince working as a yojimbo. Just don’t let her lure you into a bathhouse.”
Professor sighed.
We stopped by one of the men who seemed to be having trouble getting around, although his skill with the tachi was impressive. “Aren’t some of these men a little old?”
Professor singled out the man we were watching as well as two other of the older men. “I thought these men, being more seasoned, could act as squad leaders. They are probably steadier than the younger men.” He smiled. “I hadn’t intended to start this soon, but since you are here anyway, would you work with some of the men this morning?”
Might as well get on with it. The longer I wait, the longer it will take. It’s not like I have anything else to do this morning.
Professor picked out five men, the three he had pointed out before and two others, and brought them over. “I want you to evaluate these men for possible leadership positions,” he said.
I considered the men for a few moments, trying to get a feel for them. Finally, I began. “Have any of you ever led a group of…?”
*****
I worked with them until almost noon. When I got back to the house, Yoshi-kun and Aoi-chan were quiet. Despite the fact their companions were out playing, they just sat in the house moping, uninterested in their normal activities. I decided I needed to cheer them up, so I offered to tell them a story. They perked up a little at the suggestion, and I began a story about Akiko, Surei, and me when we were children.
During the telling, I had trouble keeping my voice steady. Not only that, the children wept as I talked about their mother. Kicking myself for not realizing how the story would affect them, I brought the tale to an abrupt end.
As we sat there in silence, I marveled at my insensitivity. I thought about talking to Dimples to see if she had any ideas about cheering the children up, but then I had an inspiration. I stood up, held my finger to my lips, and motioned for the children to follow me. “Don’t make any noise,” I cautioned them in a soft voice. “We don’t want anyone to hear us.”
Their faces afire with curiosity, the two children crept along behind me as we snuck out of the house and stole outside to the wall of the Spring Palace. There, just as I remembered it, stood a tree whose branches hung over the wall and provided a excellent perch from which to observe the saké house without being seen. I turned to the children. “Surei-obasan and your mama and I used to like to go places where we weren’t supposed to. We often got in trouble for it. Now, we can get up in this tree, but if someone catches us, we’ll be in a lot of trouble. What do you think we should do, go back to the house or climb the tree?”
“Climb the tree!”
“We want to get in the tree!”
I put on a serious expression. “All right, but we have to be careful, because if anyone sees us…” I shook my head.
We looked at the tree. It was quite tall, with a fork in the trunk higher than my head. “How can we get up there?” I asked the children. “Can you think of any way?” No answer.
I acted as if struck by an idea. “You know, Surei-obasan has a lot of construction going on right now…”
Yoshi-kun piped up, “Maybe if we got some of the rope, we could use that to climb up to the fork.” He ran around the side of the fence and came back with a thick piece of rope. “How is this?”
I tied knots in the rope to make it easier for the children to climb, then gave it to Yoshi-kun and boosted him up into the tree. He tied the rope to a branch. Aoi-chan and I joined him up in the tree.
We had an excellent view of the Spring Palace from our perch, but we were in clear sight of anyone who might look in our direction. “Someone might see us up here,” I cautioned. “We need to do something about that. Do you have any ideas?”
“If we get a little higher, we will be up among the leaves where no one will see us,” Aoi-chan said excitedly.
“That might work,” I said thoughtfully. “Wait here.”
I climbed down and went over to the pile of wood and lumber the workers were using to improve the defenses. I rummaged through it until I found what I wanted. Carrying several pieces of scrap wood and some more rope, I returned to the tree.
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“All right, the first thing we need to do is to make a ladder up to the higher branches. We will fasten these boards to the trunk to make it easy to climb.” I looked up to our goal. “That spot looks uncomfortable. Let’s make a floor to sit on.” I looked at them, and said, my voice very serious, “We have to be quiet as we work, so no one will see us.”
They assured me they would be as silent as mice.
For much of the afternoon, we carefully and quietly worked up in the tree. The first thing we did was to fasten short pieces of wood to the trunk to act as rungs to the high branches. Next, we laid several planks over the branches to form a floor. We tied them securely to the tree so they wouldn’t move when the children shifted position. This was needed since they seemed incapable of sitting still for more than a few moments at a time. I showed them the proper knots and methods of lashing the wood together so it would remain tightly bound even after being exposed to weather and the sun. These were the techniques we used when erecting hasty fortifications in the field, so the methods were time-tested and proven.
The children worked eagerly, all their melancholy forgotten in the exciting task of building the tree house. Once, I looked down from where I had been helping Yoshi-kun fasten together two of the planks for the floor. One of Surei’s yojimbo was standing almost directly beneath the tree, staring at us, his mouth open in astonishment. His expression was so comical I had to work to keep from laughing. I didn’t want to spoil the children’s fun, so I frantically signaled him to go on his way. He walked off shaking his head and looking back over his shoulder a couple of times as if he couldn’t believe what he had seen.
Finally, we were finished. We had produced a snug little hideaway where the children could sit and watch the goings-on at the saké house without being seen. I told the children, “We want to keep this a secret, right?” They nodded. I pointed to a hollow in the back of the tree, just within the children’s reach when they were on the ground. “When you are up here, pull the rope up, and when you get down, hide it in that crevice in the tree. Unless someone gets behind the tree and looks, they won’t see it.”
The children were excited about having a secret route up to their hideaway.
We sat up there for a little while, enjoying the treehouse. There came a commotion from the Summer Hall. A man with a shaven head and wearing a yellow robe came staggering down the stairs yelling for more drink and girls. A couple of the yojimbo came over and tried to quiet him down, but he kept yelling until finally, Surei herself arrived and began speaking to him. Whatever she said seemed to get through to him, and he quieted down. Surei took him by the arm and led him to the front gate.
Aoi-chan looked at me in surprise. “Yoshi-ojisan, who was that? Mama told us that the Buddhist monks were holy men and didn’t drink saké or sleep with girls. Men like Benkon-ojisan.”
I shook my head and mentally cursed the drunken lout who had made a fool of himself in front of the children, forcing me to come up with an explanation wouldn’t contradict what their mother told them.
“Benkon-ojisan is a great man and a true monk. He has spent his whole life following the teachings of the Buddha. He even went to far-away China to study for twenty years. He left when your mama and I and Surei-obasan were even younger than you. He just got back a couple years ago. He obeys all the teachings of the Lord Buddha.”
Aoi-chan nodded in agreement. I continued, “Some wealthy and powerful men think becoming a monk will help them in the next life. These men aren’t like Benkon-ojisan. The only reason they become monks is because of the advantages they can gain from it. They don’t care about the teachings of Lord Buddha. They think they can continue to do all the things they did before they were monks and still attain enlightenment because they give lots of money to the temples and pay for lots of prayers to be said for them.”
I sighed. “I don’t know whether they are right or not. But I think things will be much better for people like Benkon-ojisan and your mother than for these men who still do bad things and try to make up for it with money.”
My answer seemed to satisfy the children. Even the mention of their mother couldn’t dampen their spirits for too long. They sat there, watching the increasing activity below as the Spring Palace grew busier with the approach of evening.
The pavilion Surei had renovated for Magistrate Taira’s party was rarely used during normal business operations. However, on this afternoon, Reiko and some of the other girls came out to work on their dancing. Under Surei’s direction, they practiced the moves and stances of a shirabyoushi. Surei showed the girls some of the stylized maneuvers with the tachi.
I might be able to use some of that when I next work with the women.
Aoi-chan watched the girls, entranced by the dancing. After a little while, Surei left, and another shirabyoushi took over the instruction.
At the Winter Hall, two of the yojimbo appeared with a protesting customer between them. He was shouting angrily as they dragged him along. With one final heave, they tossed him through the gate out onto the street, where he landed in the mud and lay a moment before getting to his feet and staggering away down the road.
Yoshi-kun laughed when the man landed in the mud. He thought it was so funny that he kept saying “supponku” in imitation of the sound the man made when he hit the ground.
I was beginning to wonder if this had been such a smart idea after all. I decided it was time to head back home. The children protested, but I was adamant. We walked back in a stony silence, neither one of them looking at me. Aoi-chan stomped her feet the entire distance with an angry look on her face. It took great self-control keep from laughing at her, but I managed to keep my face expressionless.
Surei was at the house when we arrived. The children rushed over to her, yelling “Surei-obasan!” Between schemes against Ikeda Minbukyou and Akiko’s funeral, she hadn’t had much opportunity to spend time with the children since their mother died. After she hugged the children, Aoi-chan gave me a dirty look, as if to say, “At least Surei-obasan still loves us.”
Surei disentangled herself. The children excitedly started telling her about their adventure that morning. “We went out and found a tree, and we climbed it.”
“But it was too high to get in, so we made a secret way up and built a house in it.”
So much for a secret hideaway.
The children continued. “We sat and watched the people in the saké house.”
“There was a man who looked like a monk, but he was drinking a lot.”
“Then I saw the girls dancing. It looked like fun,”
“And I saw the yojimbo throw a man into the street! He went supponku! It was funny.”
Surei’s eyebrows went higher and higher on her forehead as the children prattled on. When they started talking about watching the people at the Spring Palace, she gave me a long look, her lips compressed tightly.
I shrugged at her.
She turned back to Yoshi-kun and Aoi-chan. “Children, I have some exciting news to tell you. Your uncle, Abé no Isamu, is a very important man, the governor of Isé. He is coming to get you, then you will go live with him.” She looked at me. “I got a note from him today. He is coming immediately for the children. He expects to be here in three days or so.”
I gave an inward sigh of relief. I had been afraid he wouldn’t want to take the children. With his patronage, the children would at least get good educations and be taken care of.
Aoi-chan said, “No! I don’t want to go with him. I want to stay here and become a shirabyoushi like you.”
Yoshi-kun chimed in, “And I want to stay to become a yojimbo and throw people into the street.” He made a supponku sound and started laughing again.
Surei seemed taken aback. “Your mother asked me to take care of you, and this is the best way I know how.”
Aoi-chan didn’t say anything for a moment, scowling as she thought, but finally, she declared, “I don’t care, I want to be a shirabyoushi.”
Patiently, Surei said, “If you go with Governor Abé, you will be a great lady and can make a good marriage. You will live in an elegant house and have servants to take care of you. A shirabyoushi has a hard life. We have to work all the time. Your mother and I don’t want that for you.”
Aoi-chan started to cry. “I want to be a shirabyoushi. I don’t want to sit around the house all the time like mama did. I want to have fun!”
Yoshi-kun joined in, screaming “I want to be a yojimbo.”
I could see Surei’s jaw tightening. Akiko tended to let the children do as they pleased, but Surei was used to being obeyed. I braced myself for a battle.
Surei gave me another accusing look as if to say, “This is all your fault.” Turning back to the children with a false smile, she said, “All right, you will start your training tomorrow morning. You have to join the rest of the girls in their work. Otherwise, you won’t learn what you need to know to be a shirabyoushi. Is that understood?”
I didn’t trust Surei. She had given in all too quickly. I wondered what unpleasantness she had planned for the children.
Aoi-chan replied happily, “All right. Whatever you say.” The children ran off to play with their companions. “Wait until you see what we made today!” they yelled as they left.
I asked Surei, “Did Professor tell you about the intruders he discovered yesterday?”
She sat down. “Yes. I am not sure I completely understood him, though. He said they were going through your things?”
I dumped my few belongings out on my sleeping pad. “Do you see anything here worth stealing? Besides the naginata, and they ignored that, even though they must have seen it.”
Surei walked over and picked up the flute. “I didn’t realize you still had this,” she said, softly. “Would you play for me sometime?” Surprised by her request, I nodded my head.
In a more businesslike manner, she continued, “I don’t understand. This is the second time someone has gone through your things. What could they want? You can get everything you own at any market.”
“I don’t know, but I think I know who is doing it.”
Surei gave me a startled glance. “Really? Who is it?”
“Based on Professor’s description and the intruder’s speed with a club, I think he is the man who led the attack on the high priestess and tried to kill me in Isé.”
“What could he possibly be looking for?”
“I don’t know. I have been trying to figure that out myself. Maybe he works for Ikeda Minbukyou and is looking for the deed.”
Surei stared at me in shock. “That would mean that Ikeda Minbukyou was behind the attack on the high priestess. If that’s true, then it is likely Junior Retired Emperor Sutoku was also involved in it.”
“Well, who else would have done it? No one who supported Go-Shirakawa.”
“I don’t know, Yoshi, but don’t mention your speculations to anyone else. It’s treason to accuse the Retired Emperor of something like that.”
Surei rubbed her temples. “Enough is enough. I’m going to find my grandmother and get some answers from her. She knows more about this than she’s told us, and I want to know what is going on.” She stood up. “I will assign two men to guard the house whenever you are not here. Before you go anywhere, let me know so I can send someone over.”