The straggler sleeping on the bench could be a decent choice. If she could successfully rouse him to drink, which at this rate did not seem likely. His chest rose and fell in a rhythm of total relaxation. Perhaps an anvil dropping from the sky might awaken him. Perhaps.
Along the periphery, another young member of the Black Clan studied the leaves in the nearby trees with such serenity Mariko was certain he’d stepped from a story she’d once heard her mother tell—one about a boy who floated through the sky, carried on the wind by an umbrella of oiled paper. His face was smooth and shiny, almost like a pebble shimmering beneath the surface of a stream.
So intent was Mariko in her mission to learn everything she could possibly manage about everyone present that she did not see the elderly man looming over her until he was nearly stooped at eye level, the scent of burning charcoal emanating from his wrinkled skin.
“Another?” the elderly man asked bluntly. It appeared his congeniality was reserved only for Ranmaru and his troupe of murdering miscreants.
“I—” Mariko paused to clear her throat. To deepen the note of her voice. “Yes.”
The man pursed his lips, forming radiating lines all around his mouth, much like a judgmental dumpling. “Are you quite certain, young man?”
Immediately Mariko assumed what she hoped was a distinctly masculine posture. She lengthened her spine. Craned her neck to the right as though she were peering down her nose. For this one blessed moment, she was glad to be taller than most girls her age. Glad to be not so delicate. “I’m quite certain. Are you not in the business of selling wine?”
“To those who like to drink it, yes.” A mischievous glint took hold of the old man’s gaze.
Mariko blinked. “I like it just fine.” In her periphery, she noticed the boy with the haunted, almost murderous eyes draw closer, his expression tight.
The old man rasped a laugh. “You might have a lot of water in you, boy, but it doesn’t make you a good teller of tales. The words don’t form well on your lips. They don’t take shape as they should. You should practice more.”
Water? She’d always lacked the fluidity to be water. The natural grace. Her mother claimed she had too much earth in her. That she was far too grounded. Far too stubborn. Almost like a rock, half buried beneath the soil. If Mariko was anything outside of earth, she was wind—disruptive at times, and invisible always.
Never a day in her life had she been water.
“You are mistaken,” Mariko said gruffly. “Both about the water and about the drink.”
“Akira-san is rarely mistaken about anything.”
Mariko froze. Refused to turn around. Then thought better of it.
Now was not the time for indecision of any kind. Death follows indecision, like a twisted shadow. It was something her brother said. A word of caution too often levied her way.
Though she could not immediately connect the voice to any in her memory of that night, Mariko knew it belonged to the leader of the Black Clan. To Ranmaru.
Far from its most pliable member.
But if I can save myself the work of deceiving my way into his graces . . .
The same instant Mariko turned to face him, Ranmaru walked into her line of sight. Again she sensed a leashed sort of power, like a coil about to spring.
“If Akira-san says you are water, you are water,” he continued.
Mariko’s right shoulder lifted, emulating one of Kenshin’s many nonresponses to her frequent questions. She held fast to her composure, though her pulse ratcheted in her throat. “If it gets me another bottle of sake, I can be water.”
His smile was pointed. “Allow me.” He put his hand out to one side without even glancing to his left or right. The boy with the spiked topknot and the haunted gaze surrendered his bottle of spirits before Mariko had a chance to blink.
Why do they obey him so unflinchingly?
Ranmaru leaned close, and Mariko caught the faint scent of pine and steel. He poured a thin stream of rice wine into her cup with steady hands. Hands that were remarkably clean. Hands that made Mariko want to conceal her own filthy fingers in the folds of her nonexistent kimono.
Just as this realization settled upon her, Mariko fought against it. Fought against the urge to be the proper young woman she’d been raised to be. Hands trembling, she lifted the cup in a salute, then downed its contents in a single gulp.
Of course this would be the moment she coughed from the burn. A hacking, wretched sort of cough. The men at Ranmaru’s back let loose a chorus of raucous laughter. Save for the boy with the murderous eyes. Mariko shuddered to think what he might find amusing.
A box of paralytic scorpions? A jar of venomous snakes?
“This little runt can’t hold his drink,” a burly man with arms of knotted pine and a kosode of burnished black leather announced through his laughter. Though tinged by amusement, the look he gave her bordered on dismissive. Indifferent.
Unease sparked once more within her. If the Black Clan thought her unworthy of their attention, Mariko would lose this precious opportunity to endear herself to their leader.
The leader of the men charged with murdering her.
But she could not readily pretend to be something she wasn’t. And she wasn’t a skilled drinker. Nor was she a skilled fighter. On the surface, she wasn’t a fearsome enemy at all. Mariko was . . . odd. Curious. Clever. Perhaps too clever, as her father always said. It had never been meant as a compliment, though she had always taken it as one.
But perhaps it was better this way. These men would not want to see Mariko as odd or curious or clever. Those were characteristics that would warrant concern in any unknown. Maybe it would serve her well to don a different disguise. One of a bumbling fool desperately in need of direction. Desperately in need of the Black Clan’s most esteemed guidance.
Anything to keep them in her thrall.
Mariko set down her cup, then cleared her throat with a series of raps against her chest, willing her nerves silent. She grinned up at Ranmaru sheepishly. “I’ve recently left home to seek my fortune along the road. And I have not yet spent enough time in such places. Even still, I’m most grateful for the drink. Would you allow me to return the favor?” Her grin widened. “Then perhaps I can learn from you how better to enjoy such things.”
Ranmaru watched Mariko as he refilled her cup, his gaze thoughtful, his broad lips pursed to one side. “While I would normally—”
Just then a series of booming footsteps crashed through the underbrush at the edge of the forest, disrupting the peaceful grove of maple trees across the way.
“Takeda Ranmaru!” An enormous man, standing nearly three heads taller than anyone present, shouted into the night sky. “I will not bear this insult a single day more!”
Ranmaru straightened. The men at his back stood silent. Unmoving.
A moment passed in stillness. A moment laced with tension. The sort meant to be bowed by a sword.
“Then, by all means, state your grievances.” Ranmaru’s smile was wide. Unaffected. “And we shall both face the consequences.”
FALL FORWARD TO KEEP MOVING
Takeda.