side, running Eiko’s brush through her long, black hair. Steam uncoiled in a pale haze from the water’s surface, several sputtering candles the only illumination. As Isao watched, the girl stood and untied her hakama, letting it slip to the floor in a dirty heap. He could see the long, smooth line of her legs, leading up to the delightful curve of her buttocks just peeking out from the edge of her uwagi. His eyes widened and he broke into an idiot grin. Atsushi tried pushing him aside and he hissed, punching his friend in the arm. The boys struggled briefly, slapping one another and pressing fingers to their lips, each urging the other to shut it. Emerging the victor, Isao put his eye back to the hole.
“Oh gods, she’s taking her top off . . .” Another brief flurry of slaps and hisses for silence. Yukiko untied her uwagi and slipped it off her shoulders. Isao caught his breath, drinking in the sight of the naked girl. Pale skin, bruised and gashed, the elaborate fox running down her right arm, one of its nine tails curled under the swell of her small, high breasts. Her skin was the color of honey in the candlelight. She turned toward him and stretched her arms above her head, sighing, slender, hourglass-shaped.
“You’re right,” Isao breathed. “We need to get a picture box.” The girl padded toward the bath, a silhouette now against the flames. She dipped her toe into the water, hands of steam caressing her body. Sinking up to the waist, she turned her back toward him. Candlelight flowed over her skin, falling into shadows along the valley of her spine. She turned and Isao saw a small mole on her collarbone, hair flowing down over her left shoulder, a black curtain parting to reveal the tattoo underneath.
“Oh, shit,” Isao whispered.
“What? What?” Atsushi pushed his friend aside, pressing his eye to the hole,
hands cupped about his face to cut off the light. The tattoo was stark red against creamy flesh, spilling across her shoulder and bicep, striated rays reaching out toward her elbow. It was the hated symbol of a corrupt regime, an engine of greed bleeding the land and its people dry. The flag of the enemy.
“Oh, shit,” Atsushi agreed.
21 Dying Light
Imperial suns drifted in a choking breeze, embroidered on long shreds of golden cloth, deep scarlet against a rippling, sunset sky. Despite the dying light of the day, the heat was a blanket; a living, breathing thing, smothering the stunted palace gardens with a leaden, sticky weight and soaking the flesh beneath in glistening perspiration. Servants stood poised beside spring-driven fans, waiting to turn crank-handles at the slowing of the blades, broad-brimmed hats and brass-trimmed goggles shielding them from the sulfur glare on the western horizon. A chosen few of the Tora court stood in the long shade of the broad palace eaves, cups of water growing milk-warm in their palms, doing their best to appear fascinated as Yoritomo-no-miya, Ninth Shōgun of the Kazumitsu Dynasty, hefted his iron-thrower and slaughtered another defenseless cantaloupe.
The melons sat in a neat row, impaled on the tips of nagamaki spears, juice trickling down the wooden hafts buried in the ground. As the shot from the iron-thrower rang out across the garden, the centremost melon exploded into a haze of pulp and shattered rind. The wilted sugi trees behind were painted in its innards, orange, slick.
Polite applause rippled among the spectators, compliments murmured behind the brass and rubber of their breathers, silken armpits stained with sweat. Why the Shōgun insisted on taking target practice in this awful heat seemed beyond them, but if any harbored resentment at being dragged outside to slap their hands together like trained monkeys, they swallowed it without a word.
The Shōgun raised his iron-thrower and drew a bead on the melon at the far left of the row, elbow slightly bent, chin lowered, feet spread. He struck a formidable pose; the ugly lump of pipes and barrels and nozzles in his hand was the only thing about him that lacked symmetry. His robe was woven of deep scarlet and pale cream, embroidered in golden thread with tall grass and prowling tigers. Long black hair fixed in a topknot, pierced with gleaming pins, his face and eyes obscured by his elaborate tiger-maw breather and its golden jagged smile. Fading sunlight glittered on the glass over his eyes. A thin patina of lotus ash dulled the bronze of his skin to cloudy amber. The servant beside him adjusted his grip on the broad rice-paper umbrella, doing his utmost to keep his Lord in the shade.
The Lady Aisha watched her brother from beneath the swaying arms of a maple tree, surrounded by a dozen serving girls, wilting like flowers in the heat. Pale, porcelain skin, motionless as stone until the moment Yoritomo pulled the trigger. She flinched then, despite herself, jaw clenched, hand at her throat. The hollow boom of the iron-thrower was frighteningly loud, as if someone had chained Raijin inside the hollow tubes in Yoritomo’s hand, leaving the Thunder God only a tiny, black opening through which to bellow his rage.
Another cantaloupe shattered, a spray of bright orange against bloody sky. Another round of feather-light applause floated among the gray leaves.
The hiss and clank of ō-yoroi armor broke the stillness in the shot’s wake, the hollow report still echoing across high, glass-topped walls. The heavy tread of metal boots thudded against the veranda. Yoritomo was bringing the iron-thrower to bear on another melon when a thin, hoarse voice rang out across the garden.