They’d spent time in each other’s company before. Yumi had cared for Mariko while the girl had healed from her injuries. Though Yumi had kept Mariko hidden and fed, she had not spent much time actually speaking with her.
It was quite simple: Yumi had not trusted her. And why should she? ōkami had been livid when he’d brought the girl to the okiya. Mariko had concealed her identity from him, putting them all at risk.
Any esteem Yumi had felt for her had been relegated to the simple fact that Mariko had won over the heart of ōkami. Another impossible feat. Up until now, Yumi had seen little to recommend a true friendship between them. Yumi held her secrets close to her heart, and Mariko was direct in her pursuits. Far more direct than Yumi thought wise.
Though it pained her to admit it, Yumi realized her reticence to befriend Mariko might stem from jealousy. It bothered her immensely to know that. She had far better things to do with her time than be jealous of another girl.
The two young women knelt in the center of the small chamber of Yumi’s living quarters, regarding each other in silence. Her trusted maidservant, Kirin, slid open the doors, and an elegant courtyard framing a serpentine stream flashed into view. The calming sounds of the winding water granted Yumi a moment of serenity in a world of madness. Her sense of peace renewed, Yumi smiled as Kirin shuffled back to the sliding doors, leaving a tray of steam cakes and other refreshments behind.
Yumi and Mariko drank their tea. From beneath her eyelashes, Yumi studied Hattori Kenshin’s sister, trying to glean more of her personality.
Now that Yumi had spent two nights in Kenshin’s company, she could say without reservation that Mariko did not resemble her brother at all, in manner or in speech. There was a beautiful urgency to everything she did. An earnestness that both warmed Yumi and cautioned her in the same instant. In contrast, Kenshin seemed determined to punish himself for every breath he took. Nothing seemed urgent to the Dragon of Kai, save for escape.
For the first time, Yumi understood what ōkami saw in Mariko. Unfaltering resolve. ōkami had always been steadfast in his lack of principles. One could even suggest it was an honor-bound struggle for him. He cared about little and loved almost nothing. Yumi understood why. He’d lost everything, just as she had. In recent years, ōkami provided her with a foil for Tsuneoki. She’d knowingly used her affection for him to inflict hurt on her brother.
To make him feel the pain of her rejection as she had felt the pain of his.
Yumi set down her porcelain cup and let her shoulders fall in relaxation. “Mariko, we’ve spent most of our time together speaking about the men we are unlucky to know, but I wish to learn something of you. Why are you doing this?”
Dismay flashed across Mariko’s face. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t have to be involved in these matters. You could simply live your life. Get married if you wish to marry, go home if you wish to go home. You are not in a situation where your life depends on whether or not we can depose Minamoto Roku. In fact—given your family’s longstanding support of the Minamoto clan—it might be more problematic for you than helpful to assist us.”
A breath passed in stunned stillness. Yumi watched Mariko’s features shift from astonishment to guilt to calculation. She appreciated the girl for not trying to play a game of words simply to impress. It shed further light on her character.
“I’ve not spoken about this with anyone before,” Mariko said. “No one in my family’s province could have been trusted with it, even my personal attendant—a girl who died trying to save me that day in the forest, when my caravan was overrun by bandits. I’ve been listening to the words of men all my life. I’ve done what I was told to do for seventeen years. Before I infiltrated the Black Clan, do you know the last time I felt in control of my own life? The last time I felt alive?”
Yumi waited.
“It was not long after my parents formalized the match with Prince Raiden,” Mariko said. “When I wished to do something bold that only I would know, that only I would understand. I seduced a young man in a hay loft, with the intention of losing my maidenhead to him purely out of spite.”
Yumi’s eyes went wide.
Mariko continued. “But that wasn’t the only reason. I did it for myself; so that I would not feel like a piece of chattel traded at the whim of men. So that I would know at least one part of myself I gave of my own will.”
Yumi kept silent.
Toying with the rim of her cup, Mariko averted her gaze. “I learned something else that afternoon, though it would take me an unforgivable amount of time to realize it fully. I learned how unaware I was of life outside my experience. I used that poor boy like a thing to be discarded, never once considering what might happen to him.” Something caught in her throat, a shimmer welling in her dark eyes. “Do you know the most important time I realized my own ignorance?
Yumi shook her head.
“It was that night you and I first met, at the teahouse next door. When I watched you dance wearing a mask meant to entice, and I was so jealous of you. Even more jealous when I saw you doff the mask for ōkami. I knew at that moment how much you cared for each other. I realized then that every person has a story to tell. And for every person, that story is the most important one. Since the day I first saw you, that feeling has stayed with me.” Her eyes locked on Yumi, her expression wholly without guile. “I never want to be the kind of person who uses others solely for her own gain again.”
In silence, Yumi moved to her dressing table. Her chest felt strangely tense, though her soul felt lighter than she could recall it being for a long time. She twisted the lid off a jar of white paint, then dipped a dampened sea sponge in its center. With careful patting motions, she covered her face and neck until they were coated in a thin layer resembling the palest cream. Then she picked up a charred piece of paulownia wood, holding its edge to a flame until it began to smolder. Yumi felt Mariko’s gaze on her as she used the ashes to darken her eyebrows.
“What do you see when you look at me, Mariko?” Yumi asked while she painted careful lines above her eyelashes with a three-haired brush.
“A maiko. A smart, lovely young woman.”
“Anything more?”
“I see mystery and sadness. Anger. Not necessarily because you were born a woman”—Mariko smiled in obvious remembrance of what Yumi had said not too long ago—“but more because you have always been treated as less than what you are.”
“Those feelings are to be expected,” Yumi said. “Young women do not find their way to an okiya from a place of hope. Whatever mystery you sense is the work of my trade.” She put down the smoldering paulownia wood. “In truth, I hate the idea of mystery, and if I could, I would say whatever I wanted and do whatever I wished every day of my life.”
Mariko’s grin widened. “We should create a world for women like us. It would be a thing to see.”
“I intend to do just that,” Yumi said. She loosened her obi from around her waist, then untied her kimono to hang it from a wooden display rack with great care. After she crossed to the back of the room, she removed two sets of nondescript garments from a fragrant tansu chest.
Garments made for a boy.
“Will you join me?” Yumi asked. She let her smile widen slowly until it took on an air of mischief. It was a look Yumi hid from most people. One of unbridled happiness, absent any calculation.
After the initial shock, delight warmed across Mariko’s face. “It would be my honor to join you.”
Her openness endeared Mariko to Yumi even further, for the younger girl did not ask where it was they were going. What it was Yumi wished them to do.
Hattori Mariko trusted Asano Yumi.
Later tonight there would be time for Mariko to share any more information she might have obtained at Heian Castle. For Yumi to agree to pass along Mariko’s revelations to Tsuneoki. For Yumi to continue playing Mariko’s brother for a fool.