The princess of the Mikuma Empire stood still as her servants bathed her. She could do nothing but think, as she often did. Had she been a less thoughtful woman, she might have found the interminable need for silence during royal functionaries utterly oppressive.

Noriko Kurosawa did not. She preferred to be with her own thoughts a lot of the time. Sometimes she forgot she was being pampered.

Except when waxed.

A new thing that quickly came into fashion when the Veravids were allowed access into the empire. She hated this thing.

It hurts too much, she mused. How anyone thought to experiment to the point of discovering such a method is a curiosity. Perhaps a naked man accidentally spilled wax on his manhood one night while thinking to read to himself after getting out of the bath?

Oh dear!

She giggled, her lady’s maid reacting ever so slightly to the outburst. Noriko recomposed herself. When the other two maids left her roooms, one of them, a cat eye, she giggled quite abruptly.

“Tell me what’s making you laugh, Princess?”

“Mika,” Noriko said, “I’ve just had the funniest thought.

“What is it?”

The two often talked and laughed together, making jokes about the rigidness of custom or the countenances of visiting nobles. She whispered her thought to the young maid and they giggled together like silly girls. Like before. Noriko always enjoyed that.

The two girls had been friends while the princess was growing up, but then Mika’s father had gotten work in a neighboring city, his wife and Mika had left the palace with him of course.

But Mika had returned to Yukai City and to the palace. She had been overjoyed upon seeing the other woman for the first time in half a decade.

Their laughter stifled when one of the other maids returned. These were much older and quite prudish. She was sure one of them had reported to her father about what she had said concerning her husband to be.

I’ve never even met the man and I’m supposed to marry him?

It wasn’t unexpected. She wasn’t terribly afraid or angry, but certainly apprehensive of the prospect.

“What’s wrong?” Mika asked the question in a mere breath of words. Noriko said nothing. They both knew what she was thinking about.

Not unexpectedly, Mika leaned over her bathwater and hugged the princess over the neck. The action still took aback. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know.”

Just then one of the other maids entered. It was the most prudish one of all, the old cat eye. Her whiskers were greying and her eyes showed their age. It was hard to tell under the fur. They weren’t “old” per say, but more knowing.

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“What are you doing?” she hissed. “You’re supposed to be helping the princess get ready for the night’s entertainment. Leave at once!”

Mika, contrite and obeisant to the older maid who ranked far above her, complied. With one last sympathetic look in her friend’s direction, she left the chamber, holding her wet arms close to her body.

“I don’t like it when you yell at her, Dija.”

The cat eye was quite prudish indeed, but not the maid she suspected of relaying the things she said to her father. Though she had a bossy demeanor and a tongue like a whip, she was very loyal.

“Yes, Princess,” Dija said. “But if you are not prepared for tonight, it will be her hide. I’m simply saving her the disgrace of a quick sacking.”

She always had a logical reason that made sense, but sometimes Noriko suspected the cat eye might not like Mika.

But why? she wondered. She still hadn’t found out.

She sighed in resignation. Dija knew how to take advantage of the princess, short of getting in a verbal brawl with her, she was sometimes quite forward, though never when her brother the prince was near, and not when her father was either—though she was certainly still strict in the presence of the emperor.

I may be the princess, but Dija is my social superior, it seems. At least in private.

“You’re pouting,” Dija said pointedly. “What is the matter?”

“Nothing…”

“If you’re worried about your marriage to Prince Shinju, don’t be. Your father knows best.”

“For the empire,” Noriko muttered.

“What’s that, Princess?”

“I said our marriage would strengthen the empire.” She didn’t want to get into another quarrel with the old cat. A quarrel Dija would say was a “frank conversation to impart wisdom and learning to a very young princess.”

Noriko brought her hands up out of the water and looked at them. “I’m pruning now.”

Dija didn’t say a word, only moved over to a stack of towels and aided the princess into one as she got out of the bath. The maid then bent to dry her calves and then her head, before helping her into a robe and escorting her to her makeup chair.

Mika came back with the other maid. The spy. Noriko hated that one. She made sure not to say a word around the woman, a human perhaps as old as Dija.

The old bag…

She never thought like that, but she’d heard one of the younger kitchen girls use those words to describe someone and she couldn’t help but laugh.

Dija looked at her with surprise and indignation as if she could read the princess’ thoughts! At least, Noriko felt that way. How does she do it? Some sort of cat sense? No, that’s silly, though she had heard the cat eye possessed strange magicks of illusion and a feral sense of sight and smell.

They dressed her, put white powder on her face. Mika smiled very imperceptibly as she made the princess’ lips red with the cherry stick, Dija doing up her hair into an intricate coif held together with a long stick that tapered on one end.

Mika stepped back. “You’re ready, Princess.”

“Not yet,” Dija said, stepping around to Noriko’s front. She opened the lid of a large ornate wooden box on the mirrored dressing table. It was a large necklace of heavy gold with a single large ruby centered inside the pendent at the bottom.

Dija leaned over Noriko and placed the necklace on her, stepped back. The cat clasped her fur-covered hands together with a look that Noriko knew was pride.

“Now she’s ready,” Dija said, her eyes finding Mika who had come back to assist. “Call the procession, Mika!”

Mika nodded and scurried off. Noriko was ready for the night’s ceremony—the official betrothal of Princess Noriko Kurosawa of Mikuma and Prince Shusuke Shinju of Arekaiwa. A night of entertainment would follow. The whole city was to be in celebration!

They say he’s handsome, she thought, rubbing her sweating fingers against her palms. But will he be? Really? He could have warts, or worse, he could look like a toad. No warts are worse.

“Stop making faces!” the cat commanded.

She nearly jumped. “Sorry.”

“A princess does not apologize to her maids,” Dija corrected.

“You’re right, Dija,” Noriko said, “I’m sorry—I mean, yes—yes, you’re right.”

Dija sighed.

This union would make the empire stronger, her father had said. She wanted to do it. For her country. For him.

Noriko’s heart beat fast with apprehension, and a little bit with anticipation.