“I am sure Lord Hiro is very sorry to hear there will be no more stretching today.” Michi handed her a pitcher of water and a towel. The girl shot a stern glance up at the Iron Samurai in the seats. Hiro was looking intently at his gauntlets, pretending not to have heard. Wiping the sweat from her eyes, Yukiko gave the girl a broad smile.
Aisha had commanded Michi to wait on Yukiko after the tea ceremony. The girl was to ensure Yukiko conducted herself as a lady of the court should, but in secret she also carried messages back and forth between the conspirators. Michi had a black sense of humor and an infectious laugh, and her insight into courtly affairs was as sharp as razors. Against her better judgment, Yukiko found herself liking the girl.
“Can you ask Lady Aisha if she will have tea tonight?”
“Hai.” Michi bowed at the knees. “I will prepare a cushion for your shadow to kneel on in the hallway.”
Casting a mock frown in the samurai’s direction, she tiptoed off to the motorrickshaw waiting outside. Yukiko waited until she had gone, then climbed the stairs and sat down on the same bench as Hiro, keeping a respectable distance away. She pulled off her goggles and kerchief, wiped the sweat from the back of her neck and drank deeply from the water pitcher.
“Training is taking longer than I thought,” she sighed.
“You have many months until he is ready to fly.” Hiro glanced at her, careful not to stare. “And you are making progress. Yoritomo-no-miya is pleased at our reports so far.”
“You report on me?”
“The Shōgun commands it.” Pistons hissed as Hiro shrugged.
“But you’re saying nice things?” She looked at him sidelong, risked a teasing smile.
“I could never say otherwise.”
“Even about a commoner like me?”
“There is nothing at all common about you, daughter of foxes.” He looked at her then, as if offended by the suggestion. He didn’t look away. “Or should I start calling you Arashi-no-ko?”
She turned to face him, and they stared at each other for what seemed like an age, poisoned wind wailing around the arena in words she could almost understand. Even at a distance, Yukiko could see her reflection in his irises, curved and splintered on that field of sea-green. His skin was statue-smooth, turned to copper in the light of a strangled sun, lips parted slightly to breathe. Time stumbled, sand slipping through the hourglass one tiny grain at a time, falling earthward with that same gravity that dragged her forward, inching closer, pulse pounding in her ears.
She found herself wishing they were somewhere else. Somewhere private.
Anywhere but this.
“Come on,” she finally sighed. “We should be getting back.”
“Did he try to kiss you?”
“No.”
“Did you try to kiss him?”
“Of course not, Michi!”
Yukiko scowled at the maidservant in the looking glass, trying to keep
the flush from her cheeks. The girl was up to her elbows in Yukiko’s hair, drawing the thick coils back into an elaborate golden headpiece studded with tassels and pins and tiny prowling tigers. Michi raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
“A matter of time. That boy is so heartsick he’s practically green.” “Stop it.” “He’s probably out there in the hallway right now, composing bad poetry in his head.”
Michi cleared her throat, her voice taking on a breathless lilt:
“Pale Fox’s Daughter,
Her cherry lips haunt my dreams. Something, something, breasts . . .”
“Don’t you think I’ve got more important things to worry about than Lord Hiro?” Yukiko’s hiss cut Michi’s laughter in half. “Don’t you think I should be avoiding undue attention?”
“You already have undue attention.” Michi wiped the grin from her face, shrugged again. “It can hardly be avoided, so use it to your advantage. A man will turn a blind eye to the misbehavior of his lover more readily than that of his prisoner.”
“You’d do that?” Yukiko blinked. “Sleep with a man just to get your way?” Michi stared at Yukiko as if she had asked the color of the sky. “There is nothing I would not do to free this land from the yoke of the Shōgunate.”
“Why?” Yukiko watched her in the mirror. “What did they do to you?”
“What makes you think they did anything to me?” She returned to arranging Yukiko’s hair, deft fingers wrapped in ribbons of gleaming black.
“Because people don’t just wake up one day and decide to . . .” Yukiko caught herself, lowered her voice again, “. . . to do what we’re going to do.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m not in the mood for games. What did they do to you, Michi?”
The girl paused, meeting Yukiko’s stare in the mirror. All trace of amusement was gone now, and it seemed that a shadow passed over her eyes. When she spoke, the facade of the impetuous, lively young girl Yukiko had spent the last few days with fell away, and for just a fraction of a second she caught a glimpse of the rage that lurked beneath that pretty mask.
“Daiyakawa,” Michi said.
“What about it?”
“I was born there. I was six years old when the riot happened. The prefect. The one they forced to commit seppuku . . .”
“You knew him?”
A nod.
“My uncle.”
“Then the children they killed . . .”