“My mother is an ancestor. I’ll have her sword one day,” you countered. You crossed your arms.
If your father had any more arguments, he did not voice them. Your teacher was selected, and swordplay was added to the schedule of your daily lessons. You left the room triumphant. For the rest of the day, it was all you could talk about. During our walk around your gardens, you spoke of it.
“A sword, Shefali!” you said. “At last! Now that I’m being properly taught, my mother will have to recognize my talent.”
Only the plum trees were blossoming. We stopped beneath one of them. Was it my imagination, or did the flowers turn toward you as we approached?
I plucked one of the sprigs of flowers, already tall enough to do so. I can’t say what possessed me to do it—the penalty for defacing the Imperial Garden is twenty lashes, at minimum. Perhaps I knew you’d never go through with such a punishment. What I did know, as soon as the flower was in my hand, was that it deserved to be in your hair. I stopped us with a small motion, swept your hair back between your ear, and slipped the flower there. The bright pink petals echoed the ones on your favorite winter dress.
What a pretty sight you were. I got the feeling it would be strange to tell you that you were pretty—that you might take it differently than you did when other people said it. So I changed the subject.
“Why not a naginata?”
You scoffed. “The weapon of cowards,” you replied. “The weapon of those who think our only enemies come from the North.”
And so we stood beneath the plum tree and spoke of other things. You spoke, and as always, I listened.
Two days later, your mother returned from her assignment in Shiratori Province. In those days she left often. On that particular morning, your mother returned with a man on a stretcher. We were not told what had happened, and in fact, we did not learn your mother was back until she called the two of us to meet her.
We stood in the healer’s rooms. She was a stooped old relic, with more bald skin than hair and more hair than teeth. And yet, despite her appearance, she was no older than twenty-two. Such was the life of a healer.
When we entered the room, she tried to shoo us away from the man in the stretcher. “This is not a sight for young eyes,” she said.
But I’d seen men die before this. I did not move. And you were made of iron and fire; you did not move, either.
“Leave them be, Chihiro-lao,” your mother said. “They are here on my command.”
“I am going to put this man down, O-Shizuru-mon. You cannot wish for them to see that,” she said.
But your mother paid this no heed, and came to kneel at our side. “Shizuka,” she said, “I understand you’ve chosen the sword.”
“I have,” you said. “And nothing you can show me will change my mind.”
“I thought you might say that,” said Shizuru. “Shefali-lun. Have you seen what happens to those who challenge your mother?”
I thought of Boorchu and nodded.
“Was it fast?”
Again, I nodded.
“That is because your mother is an honorable woman,” Shizuru said. “At least as long as the situation calls for it. What I am about to show you is different. If you both insist on leading a warrior’s life, you must know what happens when you are not careful.”
I’d done no such insisting. On the steppes, you are either a warrior or a merchant or a sanvaartain, until you are old enough to simply be an old person. But I did not want to correct a woman who slew demons for a living.
“Step aside, Chihiro-lao.”
The healer lumbered out of the way.
The man in front of us was a man in the loosest sense of the term. How long had it been since he was infected? Black coursed through his veins, black pulsed at his temples, black blossomed at his throat. His skin was pale and clammy. An unbandaged stump remained where his arm should’ve been. His eyes were closed, but his face contorted in pain. As we watched, shadows played beneath his skin, forming faces with two mouths and too many teeth. Sometimes we’d hear a popping sound, and one of his limbs would snap out of place—with the man himself not moving at all.
“This man slew a demon today,” your mother said. “But he made the mistake of letting its blood mingle with his. When he dealt the beast its killing blow, a gout of it landed on the stump of his arm.”
The man thrashed. Your mother drew her sword.
My eyes flickered over to you. There you were, still as the noontime sun. You clenched your jaw and creased your robes with white-knuckled hands. Ah, Shizuka, you tried so hard to tear yourself away from what you were seeing!
“He is having a violent reaction,” your mother continued, stepping toward him. “Normally he would lie in bed and rot of a fever before he began thrashing.”
The healer smothered him with a pillow while your mother wrapped her hands in cloth.
You reached for me.
Your mother made a clean slice.
There was a soft sound, then an awful smell. It was done. Shimmers clung to the underside of the pillow as the blood seeped up into it.
Chihiro-lao winced. She looked right at the two of us and mouthed, “I’m sorry.” You weren’t looking at her, but I was, and I appreciated that moment of warmth. Children remember who showed them kindness when the world tried to make them cruel.
This was necessary cruelty, but it was cruelty all the same.
I gave her a little bow from the chest. It was the least I could do to thank her. Satisfied that my soul wasn’t lost, she made the sign of the eight over the man’s body. Then she bowed to your mother and left.
She must have gone to fetch people to move the body. You needed at least four to do it safely, and though she was young her body was not. It would have to be five.
O-Shizuru tore the cloth off her hands and wiped her blade clean. When she glanced at us, we still had linked hands.
“When you use a sword, Shizuka,” she said, “you must get close to your opponent. And when your opponent’s blood is a poison to the gods themselves, you must be careful.”
Shizuru must’ve expected you to buckle. Instead, you ground your bare heel into the floor.
“Careful?” you roared. “I am O-Shizuka, born on the eighth day of the eighth month, eight minutes past Last Bell. I don’t need to be careful of the Traitor, Mother. He needs to be careful of us!”
And so you turned and stormed off before your mother could say anything.
You did not run. Instead, you walked as fast as you could while maintaining a degree of grace. Soon the plum tree rose above us, and soon we stood beneath it again. You stared up at it as if it offended you, and you finally snatched a fruit from it the way a queen backhands an unruly servant.
“Shefali,” you said, “promise me something.”
I nodded.
“If I am ever foolish enough to have that happen to me, you will put me out of my misery within the day.”