Madame Sato spoke little while taking tea, but tea’s end always followed with some new revelation.
“Furi, I have taught you a little bit of reigi and a few skills of the noble classes, but I have not taught you one very valuable lesson.”
“Indeed, Madame?”
“You weave silk for the noble classes. Do you ever stop to consider the cost of their privilege?”
I admitted I did not.
“When I was young and when our domain was more prosperous, my husband received many guests. Even the occasional foreign sea captain of a merchant trading ship was not at all unusual.”
“Is that so?”
“On one occasion, a Vineland Captain dined with my husband and told him an intriguing story. It was, of course, a western legend of a king who had an envious and flattering subject who praised him for his fortune and rank. Do you think the highest king enjoys his wealth so very much?”
“I had always supposed he did.”
Madame covered a slight smile with one hand.
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“And well you might. But this king invited his subject to try the comfort of his own throne. And his subject readily agreed. Only the king had taken a katana blade and suspended it by a single strand from a horse’s tail above the throne. Seeing this, his subject begged to be unseated.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Sometimes even the highest-ranking hold their position with as little ease as this subject did. Can you imagine?”
“Yes, when you put it that way.”
“Risk is the price of possessing anything worth having.”
I remembered Cook’s schemes against Ansei and me, and added, “Some are threatened even by the possibility of your having something valuable.”
“I maintain the only happy people—peasant or noble—are those who learn to accept risk.”
“But how can anyone be happy with a katana dangling overhead?”
“Life is full of danger, Furi. And sitting with fear is a valuable study. Believe me. Your powers of execution should bear you up well under even the mightiest katana.”
* * *
And so, I began to meditate upon this danger, or fear—its many names, colors and forms. Then I began a rigorous practice of ritual, and a gracious hospitality reserved for only the highest ranking in society.
I studied ritual and grace, almost to excess. As a servant, I should never have learned any of it, but Madame Sato was unlike any noble I had ever known before.
The rites did something to me. They measured my breathing, regulated my heartbeat, and steadied my movement. I found greater awareness and equanimity, and the dread I had been carrying so heavily fell away like a burden. I began to understand how Madame Sato affected the appearance of such nobility, even after losing everything.
I wondered why Madame had shared this particular lesson with me. But she had her reasons and she kept them to herself.