Archive of Our Own

Chiyo took a shallow breath, feeling the cut across her ribs sting. The bend in the road was familiar: the stand of shady trees was just ahead and then she would see the longed for teahouse porch. It was the middle of the day, so surely there would be other customers bustling around, and O-Haru and the maids would be running around, complaining about serving food and tea while Fuyuta did nothing but look pretty. Their mother would be far too busy to pay attention to Chiyo past a hurried greeting, but she would tell O-Haru to bring a bowl or rice and there would be tea, endless cups of steaming tea until finally dear Yuwa could come and sit with her. All she had to do was get up the road and around the bend.

"Pick up the pace, Gekido," she said, the dust of the road making her voice harsh. "We must not appear halting when we arrive."

Her horse obediently went to a trot as she touched her heels to his sides. She bit her lip and stayed silent as the pain went through her, and kept her head up as they rounded the bend and the teahouse came in view. Four pack horses stood in front of it and the sound of laughter came drifting down the road.

Gekido came to a smart stop beside the pack horses, looking down his nose at them as if he did not consider them to be of the same kind as himself. Chiyo dismounted and walked slowly and carefully towards the steps of the teahouse, noting the eyes of customers on her. The sound of a poignant tune on the biwa stopped and a tall figure dressed in the bright kimono worn by unmarried girls at festivals draped an arm over one customer's shoulder.

"Aha, look! A hero from the tales approaches! The Fujiwara walk the land once more!"

The merchants all sniggered, and Chiyo ignored both them and the insolent grin in the youthful, made-up face.

"See to my horse, Fuyuta," she said.

"Have you no eyes for elegance?" he said, indicating his clothing. "It's Hanagumo right now, most noble samurai."

"My horse," she said, and walked inside. As she more than half expected, he followed her to complain, which was all right. She just couldn't have spared the energy to talk outside in front of the merchants.

"I'm not getting my work clothes dirty," Fuyuta said, an annoying buzz in her ear as she looked around in the dim light of the teahouse's interior. "And would it kill you to use the classy professional name I came up with? This place could do with a little elevation –"

"Make yourself useful and get some orders from the kitchen!" O-Haru yelled from the back of the room.

"No!" he yelled back. "I'm talking to an important client!"

"Fuyuta, I need to talk to –" Chiyo started, and the room swam before her eyes as she was caught in strong arms. The last thing she remembered was his face, suddenly young and alarmed under the powder and rouge as he yelled,

"Mother! Mother, Lady Chiyo is injured! Again!"

Akai Chiyo had no pretentions to scholarship, nor any regrets that she had not been raised in a more peaceful manner. She was, rather, profoundly grateful that her past lives had accumulated the merit to allow her the existence she had, rather than that of a peasant woman or even another girl of her own class. She had no memory of her mother, who had died when she was still learning to walk; her father had never married again. Chiyo was more than a daughter to him, being raised as the son he never had. From her earliest childhood she trained and fought with sword and bow, and served in the house of her father's lord, Mori Yukihiro, as a page. When she reached the age of a boy's manhood, she cut off her forelock, and shaved her forehead like a man.

When she knelt to swear fealty to Lord Mori and saw the satisfaction on her father's face, she knew she could be no happier. Some of Lord Mori's other retainers had looked a little askance at her over the years, and murmured that it was only due to their lord's great love for her father that her presence was endured, but she had held her own against all the young men in training. She was the equal of some and the better of many. She, and her lord, knew her worth.

And so her life might have continued many years if it were not for the treachery of men. The day came that her lord was betrayed by a vassal to his enemy, Lord Genhara - a man of little honour and less ancestry. Trapped in his home by enemy forces with no hope of success, Chiyo, her father and all Lord Mori's retainers prepared to sell their lives dearly.

Lord Mori came before them, dressed all in white, arrayed for his own funeral, and they all bowed down to the ground, touching their foreheads to the dust.

"My wife - my young son," he said, his eyes burning with unshed tears. "Our daughter, who was to be wed next month." He paused, his breath ragged. "My family is no more."

Chiyo said nothing, thinking of her lord's daughter, whose face had shone like the sun. She had trained beside her with the naginata. Once, the young lady had asked her to free her hair when it had become caught in the padded tunic they wore for training, the black length of it slipping like inked silk through Chiyo's hands. She had died with honour. There was no more to be said; to say anything was to weep.

"My lord," Chiyo's father said, in furious sorrow. "This day we will avenge them."

"Yes," the lord said. "But not all of us. My daughter –" He paused, and everyone looked away so they would not see him struggle once more for composure. "My daughter," he whispered to himself, then, in his normal calm voice, "Yataro, you will not lose your daughter. Chiyo, I forbid you to take part in the battle. Kani Naomasa, likewise. You will marry Akai Chiyo, and the first son will bear her father's surname. Go now, through the stable tunnel."

"My lord!" Naomasa cried, "No!"

"My lord, please!" Chiyo said, distraught. "Let us die with you!"

"Chiyo!" her father said, his face anguished. "Lord Mori has given his order."

"Yes," she said at once, and bowed. "My lord. Father. Farewell."

"My lord –" Naomasa said a final time, then bowed. "Come," he said to her, and they ran for the stables as the others formed a defensive line before the gate. The enemy would be through it within minutes. In the stable Chiyo flung up a straw mat revealing a hole in the earth and jumped down, naked blade in hand. The tunnel was narrow and low in height. She had to bend her neck and creep along, and a man would find it worse. In armour it was almost unbearable. Soil fell down the back of her cuirass and creeping things rained upon her. At long last she saw the dim greyness of daylight ahead and emerged finally onto the hillside in the woods, hidden from the main house. She and Naomasa looked back at the smoke already rising behind them and then turned away and climbed as silently as they could, leaving honour dead and burning behind them.

Months later, some fifty miles from their lost home, they finally found a country squire who fancied himself a minor lord, and offered a place to Naomasa. It did not come with accommodation, and they made shift to find the cheapest house in the town, in the area where the other samurai attached to the lordling lived. The house was small and dark, and the futon that Chiyo bought with the small stipend her husband was granted was damp and unpleasant.

Chiyo did not enjoy life as a married woman nor, she thought, did Naomasa enjoy his life as her husband. He was never cruel to her, but had nothing to say to her past orders to keep the small house in which they resided, and orders to live as befitted a woman of their class. As retainers of Lord Mori, they had been friends, but as husband and wife all their words seemed to have dried up in their grief. She stopped wearing men's clothing, and dressed her hair to disguise the shaven forehead, allowing the hair to begin growing out. She put away her armour and her sword, and only avoided him taking them to sell by saying their lord would surely have wanted them laid up for the first son. At that he scowled, but allowed her to put them by.

The lack of conversation, she decided, was worse than the lack of pleasure in the fulfilment of her marital duties. She didn't think that Naomasa took any pleasure in it either; he was just obeying the command to provide children, and went about it as swiftly as possible to avoid inconveniencing either of them overmuch. She wished there were some polite or acceptable way to ask him to stop trying if he wouldn't at least speak to her. It hurt and made her feel miserable, but she felt that she could bear it better if perhaps they could discuss his service for his new lord. Perhaps there would be a place for her. There never was.

It was a great relief when her husband was killed in a fight in the spring a year after he had taken service, saving his lord from some thieves. It was terrible to be glad one's husband was dead, but she was glad he had died before she had really started to hate him. And he had died with honour, which was all he could have wanted. The only thing was that he had died without knowing that she was pregnant at last, which she told no one. She would, she decided, go to her mother's family. Even if she did not know them, they would surely take her in and shelter her until the child was born. Her father had been high enough in their estimation to marry her mother; they would welcome his daughter and his grandchild.

Naomasa's lord tried to act like he had no responsibility toward a man who had given his life for him, and attempted to have the body simply dumped on her doorstep as if Naomasa was so much refuse. Chiyo dressed herself as the most sober and respectable samurai woman she could imagine, and visited all her neighbours, asking how they would fare if their husbands were treated in such a disrespectful manner. They spoke to their husbands, who spoke to the lord. A grudging allowance was provided for a funeral, although the retainer who delivered it looked at Chiyo with approval and respect, as if she had at last acted as a samurai woman should. Chiyo washed Naomasa's body and was properly grateful when her neighbours helped to dress him in white for the funeral. Perhaps they pitied her, which she was too tired to resent. Perhaps they envied her, being without a husband at last. She was just grateful when one of the women touched her hand silently, and stood with her, saying no words of facile comfort.

After everything had been done properly, and all the forms had been observed, Chiyo sat alone in her house. She put on her husband's clothes, thinking they would disguise her softer midriff, and tied back her hair, shaving the forehead clean once more. Then she took the damp futon, the quilt and his armour, and sold them all, along with every bit of household furniture and utensils. Of all the goods she kept only Naomasa's swords, to give them to the child when it came of age. She sold all her respectable women's kimono and women's underclothing. Perhaps her mother's family would say she should wear women's clothes, and perhaps it would be less strange to the eye as her belly grew. If they wished her to be conventional, however, surely they would make her a gift of new clothes. Then she slept on the bare earth of her floor for some nights, until finally it was time for the monthly fair. Horses were always for sale, the lordling fancied himself a connoisseur of horseflesh.

Among the horses were beasts trained for fighting, that the horse merchants cried out were worth a daimyo's arse in the saddle. She wasn't so sure of that, but some of them were spirited animals. She bought the best of them, a tall black gelding, and tack suited to his station as a samurai's horse, then she loaded her armour and few belongings on him and rode away.

"Gekido," she said. The horse's ears twitched as if in appreciation. "That's your new name. I can't believe that fool of a horse trader called you Sooty. Are you a cat?"

Heading east, not quite toward her old home but not quite away from it either, she felt a cramping in her belly and looked around in dread for somewhere to rest. Through a stand of trees she saw a roof: a peasant home perhaps, where she could lie down. There was a sudden wetness in her lower clothing and a feeling of looseness all though her body; she felt sure she would vomit.

She spurred the gelding on and found a very old-fashioned looking teahouse, the building so quaintly antique in style that it seemed perverse not to have torn it down and rebuilt it new a century before. Its porch was set with tables, lanterns swaying in the breeze. No clients sat drinking and eating at the tables under the eaves, for which she was glad, not wishing to become a spectacle. Two young people, a girl in her late teens and a boy perhaps a year younger dressed in what looked like a woman's ancient kimono kilted up to his knees, were sweeping the porch. They stared at her from identical golden-brown narrow eyes as she slid unsteadily from the horse and came towards them. Two other young women peered out of the doorway and withdrew, looking alarmed.

"Help," she said, feeling the blood rushing down her legs, drenching her clothing utterly. "I need help -"

A woman ran out, leaping wildly down the steps, and caught her in her arms.

"Hot water!" she cried. "Now! It's all right, my dear. You're safe with me. It’s all right."

Chiyo nodded and sank into her embrace.

There was a time of darkness and pain, and she was unsure where she was, her head swimming. She felt for her sword, knowing that she could still, if she hurried, find her father and Lord Mori, and fight beside them, but her weakly moving hand found only air.

"Hush, now," a woman's voice said. "Ah, yes, give me the water –"

"Let's at least move her to a guest room, mother. Won't she see too much?"

"She can't be moved, look at her! Why isn't your brother back yet? Has that old fool drowned him?"

"I do not mean –" Chiyo whispered, trying to say she would not inconvenience these people, and found herself pushed back onto the futon.

She was naked, but had no strength to complain or worry, feeling a hot, wet cloth wash her gently, and slim, female hands turn her carefully. The woman was speaking gently, but her words no longer made sense. After some time there was another person in the room, who touched her with cold, clammy hands and muttered about herbs and poultices. It was shameful to be seen by a man in such a state, but Chiyo could not bring herself to care, and fell at last into a sleep.

When she awoke again, she found herself in a room that could have stood to be dusted, but the futon was clean and warm. There was a girl sitting on the floor against the wall, her legs shamelessly bare, one foot curled up into her lap as she inspected her foot. She looked up and gasped.

"You're awake!"

It was a boy, still wearing the forelock of youth, dressed in what had to be his mother's old kimono. He unfolded himself and came over, folding himself down into a neatly-arranged kneeling position.

"You had swords," he said accusingly. "And armour. And a war horse. And you wear your hair like a man. Are you really a samurai?"

Chiyo nodded. "Yes."

He looked at her, then stood in a smooth movement. "Well. This place is going up in the world. I'll get my mother, and have the maids bring your lunch too, if you can eat. We may not have any tofu left. I ate most of it for breakfast."

When he was gone Chiyo sat up and looked about her, noting the clothing hung on a stand in the corner, and the small vase of flowers put in her line of sight. For all the room could have done with dusting it was not unpleasant, and was, if she wasn't mistaken, the private room of her host. She was wearing, she found, a rather worn nagajuban that must also have belonged to her host. She had sold all her women's clothing when she bought Gekido.

The door slid back and her host entered, a drably dressed young woman following her bringing with her a tray of small bowls.

"Ah! You can sit up! Good, perhaps you can eat too?"

Chiyo found herself hungry, as if she hadn't eaten in days. She awkwardly knelt beside the futon and tried not to fall on the food at once. The maid set it out, bowed politely and left. There was tofu, no matter what the strange boy had said, rolled in thin sheets and filled with rice to make inarizushi, a little dish of pickled vegetables and hot miso, with a bowl of hot rice and a piece of grilled fish.

"If you can get through this, I'll have more brought," the woman said, as Chiyo inclined her head in thanks over the small bowls and dishes. "Best not to try to eat too much at first."

"Thank you," Chiyo said, an inarizushi already in her mouth. It tasted better than anything she had ever eaten in her entire life. She was sure she would gobble up everything in seconds, but struggled to finish what was laid before her, exhaustion coming over her once more. "Thank you," she said again, as the woman placed the tray to one side. She tried to bow deeply, but her host stopped her.

"Do not move too much. You must recover."

"The child is gone," Chiyo said.

"Yes," the woman said. "Neither you nor I could have stopped that."

Chiyo nodded. There was nothing to say. Her father would not have an heir to carry on his name. She had failed her lord's last command, that was all. They sat there in silence as she stared, dry-eyed, at nothing.

"I went to a shrine and made offerings to Jizo for the child," the woman said, and put her hand on Chiyo's. "He is very kind to children."

Chiyo buried her face in her hands and sobbed. She cried for Lord Mori, for his stern and dignified wife, their little son and their daughter with the lovely hair, for all her friends, and for Naomasa, who had wanted to die with them as much as had she. She cried for her father and for the child who would never be, and for herself, for being so stupid as to have started to think of the future. She was both alarmed and thankful to have the woman stroke her arms and murmur kind words until she could bring herself under control once more.

"I apologise for my outburst," she said hoarsely.

"It's the illness," the woman said. "You're not yourself."

"You are very tactful. I am Akai Chiyo. I was a retainer of Mori Yukihiro."

"Ah," the woman said. "I heard that Lord Mori was killed almost two years ago. Lord Genhara's men are sometimes seen in this area; I can assure you they are not a welcome sight. Are you on a hopeless quest for vengeance?"

Chiyo looked at her, askance. "How quickly you veer from tact to mocking the actions of my class. No. He forbade it."

"Forgive me," the woman said. "I have been told my sense of humour is often inappropriate. I am Yuwa; this is my teahouse. You have already met my son Fuyuta."

Chiyo bowed her head politely. Yuwa might be a woman of the merchant class, but she was indebted to her. She had the same narrow face as her son, with the same golden-brown eyes, striking and beautiful.

"Thank you for all you've done for me, Yuwa. I can't repay you fully at the moment. I will have to leave some of my belongings as surety while I –"

"Tcha!" Yuwa said. "Who has said anything about payment? Since I married my late husband I have striven to follow the teachings of the Lord Buddha, and no monk I've ever had the misfortune of listening to has ever suggested that He went around demanding payment."

"But this is your own room, isn't it?" Chiyo said. "And you did call a doctor for me – a doctor's fees are expensive."

"This is my own room, and so loses me nothing if I wish you to sleep in it," Yuwa said. "My guest rooms are full, don't you worry. As for the doctor," she smiled. "He owed me. So you see, you will stay here as long as you need to, and not worry."

The next day Chiyo carefully came down to the common room and watched Yuwa's daughter O-Haru rush around with trays of food and drink, while her son Fuyuta swept the floor and now and then chased drunks away, wielding his broom furiously. The maids poured drink for the clients and put thin, long-fingered hands on their shoulders, smiling and encouraging them to drink more. That evening Fuyuta outlined his eyes in black, making them seem impossibly golden, and sang an old-fashioned song that Chiyo vaguely remembered from her youth, about ghost maidens and human youths regarding each other wistfully. The whole room fell silent to listen.

"He sings beautifully," Chiyo said in surprise as O-Haru put a cup of tea before her.

"He loves the arts," O-Haru said, rolling her eyes. "It stops him working, in case his throat gets too dry. Lazy so-and-so." She smiled fondly as Fuyuta sang the tragic final verse and several patrons looked as if they would weep. Others murmured about the delicacy of his face and the fleeting beauty of his youth's forelock.

"But why is he dressed so –" Chiyo waved a hand.

"Why did you turn up wearing men's clothes and with armour tied to your horse?"

"It's easier to ride in men's clothes," Chiyo said and started back, indignant as O-Haru laughingly brushed a hand over her shaved forehead.

"That makes it easier to ride too, does it?"

"That's my own business."

"And my brother's clothes are his. You both dress as you wish."

It was galling to be corrected by a girl of her class, but O-Haru was very pretty, and Chiyo owed her mother and her family her life and health, so she just sat there and drank her tea in a dignified manner as Fuyuta sang and the men gathered in the common room wiped the tears from their eyes.

"The young master likes you," Okako, one of the maids said, when she found Chiyo looking askance at Fuyuta on a later evening. His choice of song was more ribald and people cheerfully drank during it without quite noticing the maids refilling their cups. "He says that a fine lady brings an air of refinement to our establishment."

"A fine lady," Chiyo muttered in derision. She looked at the girl under her brows, belatedly thinking she had been too fierce. "Your pardon. I am not used to conversing with high-ranked courtesans."

The girl giggled, an odd high-pitched laugh. "I've never had such a term used about me before! You do have such lovely manners!"

She departed, a pleased air about her, with spots of pink in her cheeks. Chiyo felt for a moment that her skills in pleasing girls had not abandoned her, then she mocked herself for attempting to charm a maid in a roadside teahouse.

When her strength had returned to her, she packed everything up and tied her belongings on Gekido once more. He was well-rested and his coat shone from the attentions of the teahouse's groom, a perpetually tired-looking, large-bellied man with swift, agile hands.

"Where will you go?" Yuwa said. She had a pretty lacquer box filled with onigiri for Chiyo's journey, and would not be dissuaded from giving it to her. "I have collected many such things over the years," she had said. "This is now yours."

"I must try to find a position," Chiyo said. "A samurai without a master is a pitiful creature."

"You'll always be welcome here," Yuwa said, patting her arm. "Come back if you can. We could visit that shrine together."

Chiyo nodded once, sharply, and swung up into the saddle.

"If my mother says you needn't bring back silver for your care, bring me back something pretty," Fuyuta said with a grin. "Ow," he added as O-Haru slapped him. "You're a cruel older sister. I hope the dogs catch you."

"Something pretty," Chiyo said calmly, to show that she might be no more than a country ronin, but she was a woman of the world for all that, "perhaps I will." She leaned down from Gekido with a knowing smile, as if Fuyuta were a girl of the town that she and her friends were teasing, "And what will I get in return, pretty thing?"

He went bright red and scurried behind his mother, to O-Haru's laughter.

"Don't tease him too much," Yuwa said. "He's a good child. Come back if you can."

"I will," Chiyo said, and rode away.

Thereafter, she returned whenever she was within a day's ride of the bend in the road.

The first time she came back with silver she had earned from a trip escorting a silk merchant and his new wife on pilgrimage. The merchant felt himself to be a man of some rank and tried to order both Chiyo and the other bodyguard he had hired, Hamada, in the proper carrying out of their tasks. She met Hamada's eyes, wondering how the man could endure being commanded by a fool like the merchant, but he just looked back, impassively. The only sign that he was embarrassed by their employer was at night when the merchant said something stupid and to drown the nonsense out Hamada would drink more deeply of wine than was perhaps wise. Chiyo was embarrassed to keep such company and glad when bandits attacked and she and Hamada could finally act with some dignity. The bandits had once been men of honour it had been clear, now fallen on hard times. They were defeated more easily than she had expected, given that she was so lately risen from a sickbed. She was glad to pray for continued health with the merchant's wife when they finally reached the temple they journeyed to. The woman was young and delicate, her face pretty under an elaborate hairstyle. She was always properly quiet in her husband's presence, though she smiled politely and murmured her thanks to Chiyo whenever the merchant turned away. She was attended by a maidservant so young Chiyo was surprised that the girl was in her service at all.

"Do you ever wish to renounce the world?" the merchant's young wife, Kane, said, leaning on her arm as they walked to the shrine away from the men. She looked at the shorn heads of the nuns in something like longing.

"I'll leave the world in battle," Chiyo said. "I'm not cut out for a life of prayer."

"I could give my whole life up," Kane said, looking up at her, "if I were emboldened in my resolve by someone like you."

Her little hand tightened on Chiyo's arm as she looked up with a slow sweep of her thick lashes. She was quite the prettiest thing that Chiyo had ever seen, prettier by the standards of great cities even than her old lord's daughter, with whom all the retainers had been in love. But made for decoration only, Chiyo thought. She could not imagine the girl having the strength to wield a naginata. Or to take a sick and blood-drenched stranger into her house to nurse, for that matter. But decoration had, perhaps, its place. Chiyo found herself suddenly glad to be alive, glad to have lived through the illness that had followed losing the child, glad to have a pretty girl look at her through her lashes.

"I've heard so many stories about the monks and nuns of these temples," Kane said. "How they train and fight – I don't understand how this can serve the Lord Amida! Do you?"

"I've never thought about it," Chiyo said. "I leave matters of religion to others."

"Suppose one of these martial monks forsook his vows," Kane said breathlessly, "and came into the guesthouse where the women sleep!" Her maidservant behind them squeaked in fear. "We would be defenceless against his lechery!"

Chiyo tried not to smile.

"It would seem very likely that that would be the case," she said. "You would be utterly defenceless."

"I will not be able to so much as close my eyes unless you are by my side all night!"

"And me, madam!" the maid whimpered.

"I'll find you somewhere else safe to sleep," Kane snapped.

Chiyo patted her hand. "I will take good care of you," she said.

That night Kane proved a pliant and charming bed mate and Chiyo found the endeavour far more to her liking than any night with Naomasa. The woman sighed beneath her hands, biting her plum-pink lips to keep quiet. She was attractively modest, although by Chiyo's reckoning more than one other pair of pilgrims sought pleasure in the room. When she touched Chiyo in turn, her slender fingers caressing her thighs and slowly circling upwards she was so much more refined than the kitchen maids with whom all of Lord Mori's retainers had spent their evenings, and whose good natured view on pleasure and food was the same: best served quickly.

It was a pleasant week spent at the temple. Chiyo felt entirely well, whether it was the passage of time since her illness, the care that Yuwa had shown her, the prayers of the holy men and women, or the simple presence of a beautiful young woman in her bed. When she supervised the packing of the merchant's belongings at the week's end she felt truly hopeful for the first time in months.

"My mistress wishes to speak with you," Kane's young maid said. She had become mousier and quieter over the week, unable to compare to her mistress in any way. Chiyo walked by her side to where Kane stood, and the girl didn't raise her eyes even once.

"Chiyo," Kane said quietly when they were alone, the maid kneeling in the far corner of the room, "I cannot return with that man. I loathe him. I really do wish to renounce the world! Help me to stay!"

Chiyo sighed. She had agreed to guard the merchant and all that he had both on the way to the temple and on the way home. That included his wife, and she could not break her word. In truth, she needed the silver she'd been promised. She wished to buy a better saddle, and would still have enough to put by some for emergencies. She could even buy something pretty, as she had teased, for Fuyuta although she would have preferred to give the money to his mother.

"If you leave him," she said, "he'll do his best to get you back again."

"But if I've already shorn my hair and taken on religious orders –"

"He may decide to sell your maid," Chiyo said. Perhaps care for the girl, if she had it in her, would change her mind.

"Oh! Oh!" the girl sobbed, showing that she'd been eavesdropping. "Mistress!"

Kane looked at her in first annoyance and then pity.

"Poor child," she said. "He'd sell you without a thought for your welfare. Your life would not be long or good. You must also renounce the world."

"Wait!" Chiyo said. "This list of religious women is getting longer!" She glared at the maid as if at an enemy. "Stay right there." She pulled Kane into the doorway and murmured, "Are you set on this?"

"Yes, I am! I cannot live as that man's wife."

Chiyo regarded her. She had so often felt that when she lived with Naomasa. She lowered her voice still further.

"Listen. You must not raise suspicion. Leave the girl here – tell your husband that that was the matter you wanted to speak to me about. You were telling me I'd have one less woman to guard. You cannot allow her to go back with you; you cannot rely on her discretion – she's too young and too scared. Give the temple one of your jewels to take her as a novice. Right now, the moment I leave you. Then I'll bring you and your husband safely home – shhh! – and two days after that you will leave your house alone and meet me at the Wisteria Fragrance teahouse on Silver Street. Understand? You can easily walk there without getting lost."

"Silver Street," she breathed. "What if he wants to come to my bed?"

"Tell him that you have your monthly blood. You must fool him; your freedom is in reach. The teahouse at noon – don't be late."

Without another word she went back to the tasks of watching the packing of luggage and checking of animals. The trip back to town was uneventful but for the merchant vacillating between a smug piety that the Lord Buddha would surely bless all he did during the year and a whining annoyance at the ingratitude of Kane's maid for leaving her service and at Kane herself for being a soft-hearted fool for allowing her to do so.

"Don't you know that her father owes me money?" he said for the tenth time. "If you didn't want her to work off the debt I could have sold her!"

"She will pray for us," Kane said. "It's like you've invested in perpetual prayers – cheap at the price of the silly little thing, husband, dear!"

The merchant grumbled and continued to complain about the stupidity of women, even when Chiyo rode near his carriage.

In town Hamada did not even say farewell; the moment he received the silver promised he bowed and left. It was no doubt charity on his part to save the merchant's ears from hearing an honest opinion of himself, Chiyo thought sourly. For her part, she gladly took the silver, although it was handed over with condescension and a hope that she could now afford to live a more ladylike life. She bowed politely, thinking that she would enjoy taking his wife away from him. She would take Kane and flee. The trip would be quick with only one person under her care. Then she could pay a visit to Yuwa and her children to show she was fully recovered and then –

And then.

She did not know what she would do. She didn't want the merchant's recommendation for anything: she wanted proper, honourable service. She wanted the wisdom of Lord Mori and of her father to tell her how to live. She wished yet again with all her heart that if they had not given her permission to die that she had been permitted to seek vengeance.

Pushing such thoughts down she rode to the Wisteria Fragrance teahouse and took a room. The establishment was clean and plain, and her recent employer would never have set foot in such a place. He would never think to follow Kane there, if indeed she were set in her resolve to flee. Chiyo spent the day as she had planned, finding first a better saddle for Gekido, as her old one was shoddy and ancient, and then idly looking in shops at things she could not afford.

"How much is that biwa?" she asked, watching a craftsman inlay coloured wood on the body of the instrument he was making.

"This one, my lady? It will not be finished for some time, and will cost the buyer fifty silver monme."

"Huh," she said, as if the matter was of no importance. It was more money than she had. "An expensive toy."

"My lady's swords were expensive, if I may be bold enough to say so."

Her katana and wakizashi had cost four times her yearly salary, and had been given to her by Lord Mori who had believed that his retainers should be properly outfitted. Chiyo bridled at the biwa-maker's insolence, her hand going to her sword hilt.

"They were made by an artist of the craft."

"So too is this biwa."

"Huh," she said again, but took her hand from the hilt.

She wandered back to the teahouse and played a game or two of dice with other patrons, disturbed by how expensive everything was in town. She still had Naomasa's swords; she could sell them and raise money if she had to. It alarmed her to even think of such a thing, to consider exchanging Lord Mori's gifts – even to another – for money.

At a little past noon on the appointed day Kane came into the main room, her eyes wide with fright as a man brushed past her.

"Kane," Chiyo said. "Over here."

She rushed over. "I said I wanted to visit a sweet merchant," she said. "He loves his sweets, the pig. I told the girl with me to go on to another shop to save time, and then ran here."

"It's all right," Chiyo said. "You did it. We'll go right away."

"Right away? Now?"

"No better time."

She rose and collected her belongings from where they lay ready-packed by her feet. Kane scurried out to the stable in her wake, eyes darting from side to side.

"Don't look so frightened. You'll give people cause to remember you."

"I'll try."

Gekido was glad to see her again, whickering softly and nosing her hopefully for treats.

"Not now, my sweet. Now we must work."

She saddled him and lifted Kane to sit before the saddle; the packs of belongings were secured next. Then she swung up and they rode away at a calm and easy pace. Onlookers would glance and see what they expected: a samurai and his woman. If she rode as she wished, Gekido racing flat out, people would stare and say, Why yes, two women fled, one with swords and a fearsome mien.

"Chiyo," Kane said when they were finally out of town and riding a little faster. "He'll search for me.

"He won't find you until it's too late. You won't be missed until evening; we'll be far away by then. We should sleep in the open to make our trail harder to follow."

"Oh," Kane said. "If you're sure. I could pay for an inn?"

"So could I. Not tonight."

That night they ate onigiri that Chiyo had purchased from the Wisteria Fragrance and lay wrapped in each other under the stars. Kane sighed in pleasure and did as Chiyo bid her, and afterwards they stared peacefully up at the night sky.

"Kane," Chiyo said, "How would you have paid for an inn? Was your husband so generous with an allowance for you?"

She wondered that Kane was so frivolous as to run away if her husband really were generous. For a woman of the merchant class a comfortable life was surely worth an unpleasantly superior husband.

"I broke into his strongbox," Kane said. "I took all his silver and tied it up under my kimono."

"I did think your clothes were a little unyielding," Chiyo said, shocked. Outright theft was not something she had ever resorted to, unless she counted the removal of Kane herself, which she preferred to consider a daring feat of romance.

"Are you annoyed?"

"Perhaps a little surprised," Chiyo said, thinking that she would never have considered that Kane had the bravery or the wit to do any such thing. The dishonesty could not really be held against her; she was of merchant stock and knew no better.

"I will not have to be a servant in the monastery," Kane said. "I will give them a donation and be seen as a devotee of gentle birth."

The second day their pace was swift but not frantic. Chiyo was determined to deliver Kane to the monastery in good time. She enjoyed the young woman's company but did not want Kane to fancy herself in love and to give up her plans of renouncing the world. Chiyo was sure that such a thing would be displeasing to heaven and bad luck for them both. For her part, what was a diverting companionship for a little while would no doubt be tiresome if it lasted too long. What did Kane know of the lives of warriors, or Chiyo of those of merchants? They would end in despair and dislike as she and Naomasa had. She sighed. She had not thought of him properly in some time and now his memory weighed her down, although after his death it seemed to her that his greatest sin had been to act as if he were married to a normal woman of their class.

"When you are a nun," she said, "Will you pray for me?"

"Yes, of course."

"Will you pray that my husband may be reborn in the Pure Land?"

Kane regarded her curiously.

"Did you love him so much?"

Chiyo shrugged. She saw no reason to speak of her innermost thoughts or of the child that never was. All she had ever told Kane was that Naomasa had existed.

"He never wished to hurt me."

"How low a fence we women set for men to leap over," Kane said, and squeezed her hand. "I will pray for him."

"Let's not be sad," Chiyo said. "We've surely outdistanced any pursuit, and with luck your husband will spend at least a day searching for you in the city. We can sleep indoors tonight."

"Are you sure? Won't they say, Yes, a woman samurai was here with a fugitive?"

"People see what they expect," Chiyo laughed. She pulled her underclothes tight and then put on her men's riding clothes. She combed her hair back neatly, binding it into the samurai's style, her shaved forehead clear and pale.

"Well?" she said, standing there unsmiling, her legs wide like a man, her head high and her hand on her sword.

"Ah! If I didn't know –" Kane said.

"You'll be the only one who does. Call me Husband in the inn."

"I'd gladly call you that at any point," Kane said coquettishly and Chiyo thought that she was right, they must not delay in their journey. It was a pity as she had not wished to push Gekido too much and had been hoping for a pace he would not find taxing.

She brought them to an inn at a crossroads and helped Kane dismount. Then she carried their bags inside and called for the proprietor in a penetrating, low tone.

"A private room for the night," she said. "And dinner."

"Yes, sir," the man said. "I'll send the girl to attend your –" he paused.

"My wife," Chiyo snapped.

The man bowed his head at once. "Sir, Madam, this way."

"Why did he look at me like that?" Kane said when they were alone.

"I seem quite a young man," Chiyo said. "Perhaps he wondered if I were really married, especially to someone with such excellent clothes. He may have thought you were competition for his own girls."

She looked blank.

"The whores who work in the inn," Chiyo explained.

Kane glared in outrage. "I'm a respectable woman!"

"You're not. You're a runaway wife in company with the samurai who has stolen you. We'll eat in our room, and then I'll go down and see if there's any gossip that concerns us."

Their dinner was acceptable, although Kane found it provincial and not very interesting.

"This fish is very muddy," she said, lifting a few flakes up to inspect them.

"No doubt it's a local delicacy," Chiyo said.

"No doubt it's cheap and overcharged," Kane muttered, like the merchant she was.

After they had eaten Chiyo took a few silver coins and went down to the main room where she drank some wine and watched a girl sing with less than half the skill of Fuyuta. She amused herself keeping up the guise of a young man, having a maid bring her more wine and pour it for her as the girl perched upon her knee to be fondled. No one paid them any mind or gave any indication of seeing other than a young man spending time and money with a teahouse girl.

"Ah, sweet thing, I have a new wife who must not be kept waiting," Chiyo said as the girl wriggled close against her and tried to slip a hand within her clothing.

"Surely she would wish to be in a good humour when you go to her?" the girl said, pouting. "You have already been so attentive to me! Can I not be so to you?"

"Ah, but I do not sigh so prettily," Chiyo said gallantly. "One last kiss, my lovely –" She fitted action to word and then pressed a silver coin into the girl's hand. The girl's eyes flickered down and she tucked it into her obi before anyone saw she had been given anything. Chiyo put the payment for her wine and snacks on the table. "You'll see my wife and I are not disturbed, hey?"

"You'll have all the peace you need to wear yourselves out," the girl said with a grin. "I'll tell everyone you're too in love for any of us to bother trying to get you drinking later."

Chiyo went back to the room and found Kane sitting, worried and fretting, in the centre of the room.

"You were so long! I thought you had left me!"

"Don't be so silly! I told you that I wanted to see if there were rumours about us – I heard nothing. We can sleep safe tonight."

Chiyo took her outer clothes off and pulled back the quilt on the futon. It all seemed clean enough and wasn't damp at all.

"Husband," Kane said joining her, "you smell of terrible perfume."

"In a place such as this, it is usually the maids who know the most," Chiyo said, pulling her close. "Don't be jealous, she wasn't as pretty as you and when she loses what looks she has, her employer will cast her out. Your future is assured."

They had no more conversation then for a while, although Kane did cry out most satisfyingly. As they lay entwined in each other's arms she sighed and rested her head upon Chiyo's shoulder.

"I wish you really were my husband," she said. "Wouldn't that be good, Chiyo? We could go to a far part of the country. To a different island!"

"What, will we go to Hokkaido and live amongst the bears and the barbarians?" Chiyo said, vaguely. "I have never slept with a barbarian woman; truly, that is an expedition to consider."

"You are so silly," Kane said, swatting at her. "I am being romantic, and you speak of seducing bears!"

"The bears I will leave to others," Chiyo grinned, and held her close. "I am a moneyless ronin," she said. "I have no home. I'm in no state to take on a wife, Kane, and you wouldn't want to be a samurai's wife anyway. Or you wouldn't want me as a husband – how can I give you children? Have you turned your back on your plan of the monastery so soon?"

"No," Kane said in a small voice. "But I thought you liked me."

"Of course I like you," Chiyo said, amazed. "And I will therefore do what is best for you. Listen, if we run to the north, we'll be too cold – if we actually crossed to Hokkaido, we'd be even colder and would face attacks from the people of that land. If we travel to the far south we'll be too hot! If we go to some other island – we'll be bored! I'd somehow have to find a master, which I've had little luck in doing since Lord Mori died. I don't want to pretend to be a man, it would come out soon enough that I'm not. How would I support you? You should go to the monastery – you'll be safe, you'll be safe for your whole life long."

"You would give me up despite wishing it could be otherwise? To protect me?" Kane said.

"Of course," Chiyo said, which was no more than the truth. She had given up many things in her life that she had wished were otherwise, and she in truth saw no way that Kane's little dream of being her wife on some other island could come to pass. That she did not in fact wish it to come to pass she kept behind her teeth, as being discourteous and unnecessary to say. They fell at last into sleep, and no one disturbed them the whole night long.

When the monastery came into view at last Chiyo felt relieved, although she knew from the way that Kane's hands tightened upon her that the young woman was worried. Gekido trotted forwards cheerfully as Kane buried her face against Chiyo's back, not looking up as they entered the monastery grounds.

"Venerable Lady," Chiyo said as an elderly nun stopped to watch them, "we need to rest, and my companion is a woman of great piety. May I take her to your guesthouse?"

"The guest quarters are separated," the nun said. "She will have to go by herself, men are not allowed in the female side of the monastery."

"Venerable Lady," Chiyo said, raising her head so that her face could be clearly seen, "I am a woman."

"A woman of war," the nun said. "You may bring your companion."

In the guesthouse Kane divested herself of the bags of silver carefully distributed about her person and sat looking smaller and bereft. It was not the season for pilgrimages and they were alone.

"Let me have this one last night," she said. "I should see how much money there is –" She and Chiyo spent some time counting it, and then Kane filled two bags with coins and pressed them into Chiyo's hands. "Please, I hope that this is enough for your help."

"It's more than enough," Chiyo said. "Do you have enough for the monastery?"

"Yes, yes! Look, there are five bags more! And I have my jewels. Will you wear a ring as a memento of me?"

"Yes, if you'll part with one."

Kane drew off the richest of her rings, a bright golden band set with emeralds. Chiyo managed to force it onto her little finger.

"They'll sell my clothes too, I suppose. My kimono is very good, although it will need cleaning after I've ridden in it for days – please, Chiyo, take it too! Maybe you can wear it now and then and remember me."

"Thank you," Chiyo said, feeling moved. "Tomorrow, though. You need to wear something this evening!"

That evening they ate the plain food they were given, and slept wrapped in each other's arms. In the morning, wearing only the plain, innermost of her undergarments, Kane flung herself on the mercy of the monastery, making clear her intent to renounce the world and follow the teachings of the Buddha for the remainder of her life. The nuns took her from Chiyo's view and she went back to the guesthouse, where she packed everything away. The silken kimono, obi and decorated nagajuban took very little room. She waited all day, ate and slept again, alone in the long shadowed women's quarters.

In the morning she came out and found a solitary nun hesitantly approaching, her feet leaving silvery steps in the dew behind her. As she drew near Chiyo recognised Kane's face beneath the shorn head and Kane's lovely body hidden beneath the shapeless black robes.

"I've come to say goodbye," Kane said.

Chiyo went on one knee. "Venerable Lady," she said. "Pray for me. Pray for my father Akai Yataro and my lord, Mori Yukihiro. Pray for my husband, Kani Naomasa."

"I will pray they have all been reborn in the Pure Land," Kane said, "and that you will be in due time, but not for many, many years. I'll pray that you will be happy and well."

"Thank you, Kane," Chiyo said.

"I am Nikekomi now," she said.

They stayed there a moment longer, looking into each other's faces.

"Farewell, Chiyo," Nikekomi said.

"Farewell, Venerable Nikekomi," Chiyo said.

Nikekomi turned and walked away. She did not look back.

The way back to town was easy and light. It was uninteresting at night without Kane's company, but the lack of conversation during the day made for a peaceful journey. Chiyo felt calm and happy, knowing that her saddlebags held enough silver to support her for weeks, and that she could hope to repay her debt to Yuwa. Even if the woman would not accept money, there had to be some way of showing gratitude. She could bring gifts for her and her children. Her mind shied away from the thought of providing offerings at the shrine for Jizo. There would be time enough for that.

She was a day from the city, planning what she would buy and which of the houses of the pleasure district she might waste money visiting, when a warhorse stepped out from the shade of a tree by the road, its rider in a tight-laced breastplate although his thigh and shoulder pieces were missing. Although the armour and the horse were not of any great quality, he wore a helmet that had been lovingly cared for, covering his head and face. That piece alone came, it seemed, from more prosperous times.

"Where is the woman?" the samurai before her said.

No one had ever impugned Chiyo by saying that she was a liar, so she did not bother to pretend she didn't understand.

"Beyond your reach," she said.

"Then where is the money?"

"She has spent it all."

"Then I must simply take your head back," the samurai said. "In truth, I was told to do that one way or another."

"Hamada!" Chiyo said, for she had recognised his helmet. "You can't still be working for that overbearing and overdressed fool!"

"If you had had the chance to live more years masterless, Akai," Hamada said, "you would understand that even a boor of an employer can't be so easily cast away. When he found his wife and money gone he had his servants seek me out to find you. Shouldn't I take some pride that he thought of me first in his hour of need?"

"Tell me, Hamada," Chiyo said, pulling her own helmet on and wishing for her armour - Hamada graciously indicated that she should take her time - "How is it that that fool thought I stole his wife away? I was careful in my preparations."

Hamada gave a dry, short laugh.

"The woman was clearly in your bed every night in the temple, Akai, though I didn't tell him that. Even he wasn't so blind as not to see the way she looked at you, however. And the silly chit was, it seems, given to sighing over the charms of samurai to her maids before she went missing. Who else would he suspect? Me? He has convinced himself that you're no woman – he thinks you a fresh-faced youth that turned his wife's head and stole her virtue along with his strongbox."

"A fool," Chiyo said in disgust. "You should work for someone else. Now I must kill you and you'll never have the chance."

"We shall see," Hamada said, and his horse leapt forward at the touch of his heels. His sword slashed down, to be caught on Chiyo's blade and to slide almost harmlessly down as the horses shoved past each other. It caught her a light blow on the outer thigh, but the force of Hamada's strength had been spent and she knew that it was not so serious if she could get help.

They both brought their horses around and back together, Hamada striking down again, trusting in his greater reach, but Gekido forced himself hard against the other, weaker, horse, and Chiyo thrust up, taking Hamada in the armpit. His sword fell from the nerveless hand as she brought the sword around again to cut him straight across the forearm, the limb falling into the road to be trampled beneath their horses' hooves.

With only a hiss of pain, Hamada dropped his reins, blood pumping from both wounds in his injured arm.

"So, we have seen," Chiyo said. "I'll help you from the horse."

He was fading fast as she got him into the shade, and took his helmet off to give him water.

"You shouldn't have taken work for that fool. Why did you need to? We had just been paid."

"I drank it all," Hamada said faintly. "The yearning for strong drink is like a ghost that clings to me always." Now that his helmet was off she could smell the trace of wine on his breath. "In the Pure Land I won't need to drink. Give me my wakizashi."

"Are you left handed? You won't have the strength for the cut," Chiyo said. She longed to bandage her leg, but good manners and compassion called for dealing with Hamada first.

"You're right," Hamada said. "For the sake of the time we were comrades, kill me."

"I already have," Chiyo said. "Here, get on your feet, don't die lying down like some peasant."

She got Hamada standing, somehow, his eyes already fixed on the next world.

"Namu Amida Butsu," Hamada said in a thread of a voice.

Chiyo's sword came around.

By the time she had dealt with Hamada as best she could her leg was aching, and blood was seeping through the bandages she had wrapped about her thigh. Chiyo sighed, looking at Hamada's body tied across his horse, and thought of the questions there would be in town, and how the merchant might send another samurai to fight her before she had even had her dinner.

"I had wished to buy gifts," she grumbled, and turned Gekido's head back down the road leading away. Behind her on a lead rein Hamada's horse obediently ambled along, not seeming to mind that its owner was even more taciturn than usual.

It was evening when she reached Yuwa's teahouse, for her leg was hurting more and more and a faster pace had made her lightheaded when she tried it. Hamada's horse had been unhappy to increase speed and pulled back on its rein, the ill-mannered beast. Chiyo swung down and called for the groom.

"Bring both horses into the stable," she said when the groom ran up, a pot-bellied fellow with dark circles about his eyes as if he needed a good night's sleep. "I must speak with the owner."

"Ah – there is a body on that horse, noble samurai," the groom said, very politely.

"Most of one," Chiyo said. "The head is in the saddlebags. Just lay him decently on straw." She scowled as the man kept staring at her with his dark-circled eyes. "Don't stand about, man!"

She strode up the steps and into the teahouse, marching straight to a table and sitting with a bitten off sigh.

"Ah! What's this on my freshly-scrubbed floor? Which of you filthy little vixens doesn't know how to wear rags at her time of the month?"

O-Haru had come into the main room and was staring down at the floor in displeasure. The maid Okako looked up from where she perched on a customer's lap and gave a high-pitched laugh, an odd yipping sound that showed the girl had definitely been drinking along with the man.

"It's not us! Look, it's Lady Chiyo! You won't be so high and mighty with her!"

Okako squeaked as Fuyuta appeared from nowhere and pinched her ear.

"Such rudeness to my big sister! She's boring, but she keeps us fed! Go and scrub the floor!"

The girl scurried off and Fuyuta batted his eyelashes at the customer who had been laughing at all of them. "Now, sir, why don't I pour for you? That lazy girl has a very light hand when she pours –"

"Lady Chiyo," O-Haru said, settling by Chiyo's table. "You're wounded – " She turned about, seeming to hear something that Chiyo did not. "It's not your business! Clean that blood up!" O-Haru turned back to her, and carefully touched the blood soaked bandage. "Ahhh," she breathed. Then, "Should not you have put this on under your clothes rather than on top?"

"I was in a hurry to try to stop the bleeding."

"Mother has gone to do some shopping. She'll be back soon. I don't know if I – we should call for the doctor."

"I didn't dream up the doctor, then?" Chiyo said.

"Oh no. He's very old and a drunk, but he's good at medicine."

"The man who gave me this was a drunk too," Chiyo said. "I don't think it's serious, but I've never been good with bandages."

"Come with me," O-Haru said decisively. "Mother would want you put in her room, and I can at least wash the wound out."

Chiyo followed her to the room she remembered and removed her clothes as instructed, putting on the patched nagajuban and faded but spotless yukata O-Haru found for her. Her everyday hakama and kimono had dark blood stains upon them that surely would never come out. The maid who had been chastised brought hot water and a jug of wine up to them and went off, her sharp nose in the air. It hurt to have the cut washed with the wine and water, but Chiyo held herself still and silent. One had to remember one's position.

"I'm not sure that it's as bad as I feared," O-Haru said, after she had bandaged the wound, and finally allowed Chiyo to cover her legs. "I think it had just been seeping into that bandage for a long time."

"I can walk on it, it's fine," Chiyo said dismissively, although her thigh felt as if a hot brand was being held to it.

"I can still send Fuyuta –"

"You will have to peel that customer away from him," Chiyo said. "And what might the doctor expect in payment from such a prettily-dressed boy?"

"Fuyuta can take care of himself," O-Haru said. "If you're worried about appearances, I'll send Okintamabukuro. The groom," she said as Chiyo looked at her in amusement.

"A big name for a big man," Chiyo said. "I thought he was just called Tama."

"Everyone calls him that, it takes too long to say his full name."

"You are kind to me, to worry so," Chiyo said. O-Haru smiled, and Chiyo thought that she was very pretty to boot. Her eyes, although a little close-set, were almost golden in the lamplight and her narrow face was delicate and high cheek-boned. If Chiyo were not of such good moral character and needing to keep Yuwa sweet, she would not hold back, she thought, admiring her own powers of self-restraint.

As she thought this she heard the sound of feet running up the stairs and scant seconds later the door slid back to reveal Yuwa, her face full of worry.

"Chiyo! Are you –"

"Mother! I've bandaged her leg –"

"Yuwa, I don't think it's serious –"

Yuwa breathed out, one hand still on the doorframe.

"Fuyuta said you were likely to lose the leg and O-Haru was pouring wine into you to make you insensible. I'm going to set the dogs on that boy."

"I'm going to do it first," O-Haru muttered. She rose and inclined her head politely. "I'll make food for you, Lady Chiyo. Excuse me, Mother."

"You were really worried," Chiyo said in amazement. She had not expected that, and had forgotten what it was like, to have a life with people who worried about her.

"Of course I was worried! Tama tells me there's a samurai's corpse in the stable, Fuyuta tells me you have a probably mortal wound –" Yuwa put her hands over her face for a moment, then fixed her golden eyes on Chiyo. "What happened?"

"I rescued a woman," Chiyo said, feeling that this was a better description of her actions than many others. "She wished to flee her detestable husband and join a monastery. On my way back I met the man her husband had sent after us. That's him in the stable; he needs a proper funeral. The cost of his horse and armour should easily pay for that."

"This woman's husband must have been gravely insulted by her decision to leave," Yuwa said, sitting by her. "All this sending of samurai, hither and yon!"

"Mostly, he was insulted by his wife taking all his money with her," Chiyo said. "She made a very great donation to the monastery, and paid me well for my help." She smiled in remembrance of their trip. "She was a pretty, plump little thing with lovely hair. All shorn away now, of course. She's as plain and simple in appearance as any other nun, and safe from her husband."

"You smile very fondly as you call her pretty," Yuwa said.

"Ah," Chiyo said, and coughed in embarrassment. "Obviously one would not presume to bother an ordained and holy woman –"

"Oh, I see," Yuwa said, and laughed at her, putting a fond hand upon her cheek. "You undertook this rescue from the purest of motives."

"The very purest," Chiyo said, and laughed along with her.

"Let me see that leg. It's not that I don't trust O-Haru, but if we do need the doctor –" Yuwa unwound the bandage, looked carefully at the injury and then poured a cup of wine for Chiyo. "It's been well-cleaned, but it should be sewn. Drink two cups and I'll do it."

Chiyo did as she was bid as Yuwa got her needles and thread, and then sat quite still, her eyes on the corner of the room, never moving, as sweat ran down her face and Yuwa worked quick, neat stiches in her flesh. When it was done it took a little for Chiyo to be able to bring her attention back from the strange place to which it had vanished and she made herself smile as if they had both been out doing no more than picking flowers.

"Thank you, Yuwa. The trouble with Hamada, my headless friend, meant that I did not get a chance to buy gifts for you in town, but I do have a fine kimono and all its underrobes for you, if you'll have it. Kane, the woman whom I helped, gave them to me. I have silver too, and can pay your expense for nursing me –"

"I already told you," Yuwa said. "I'll take no payment, it's unnecessary. If you don't want the kimono for yourself, I'll happily take it."

"It's yours," Chiyo said. "And I'll buy you and O-Haru better yet."

"What," Yuwa said, but she was smiling, "will Fuyuta have to make do with our cast offs?"

"He has a sharp-tongued sense of humour and an unorthodox style of dress for a boy," Chiyo said, "though I should not speak, I suppose. I will find him something he'll like."

"Can you walk on that leg?" Yuwa said, and at Chiyo's nod added, "then let us go down. We can think what to do for our dead guest in the stable."

"Whatever silver is left over from the sale of his belongings, you must keep," Chiyo said. "His funeral need not be extravagant but it should be proper. By such compassion I hope that in time to come I may myself be shown charity and have a funeral provided."

"Chiyo," Yuwa said, helping her down the stairs. "I will not allow you to die unmourned and unburied. Do not fear that."

Chiyo nodded brusquely, and knew all at once that Yuwa was truly her friend. The thought that she would be mourned when she was no more overcame her, for she had long since given up even the hope of such a thing. She thought for a moment that she would weep, but it was only tiredness and the aftershock of the pain, and by the time they reached the main room although she needed to lean upon Yuwa's arm her head was high and she felt entirely happy and filled with a strange and calm joy to see O-Haru and Fuyuta, and the maids rushing about the room.

Some months thereafter it was a fine winter's morning, and Gekido was blowing plumes of hot mist with every step down the snow-covered path. His views on being out in the brisk air were obvious as a little load of flakes fell from a branch onto his flank, making him shiver dramatically.

"Poor boy," Chiyo said. "My little precious –"

His ears swivelled back at her voice and his breath came in a more pathetic manner, as if he were a tiny foal and not a great warhorse. She laughed and patted his neck.

"We'll cross the river and soon be at the shrine to the Merciful Goddess," she said. "We'll be on the road to warmth again before you know it."

It had been many days since either of them had been warm, and she felt that a little untruth if directed at a horse would not matter. It was not as if Gekido understood her anyway. More than once she had cursed herself for taking on the task that she had bound herself to, but both she and Gekido had to eat, and she needed to maintain her armour. Among the offerings left at this shrine was a famous pearl of great size, stolen, her employer said, from her family in the previous generation. Chiyo was to retrieve it.

She did not like the idea of being a thief, but her employer was a lady of exquisite form and grace, with unbound hair of such a sheen that it almost appeared to be wet, though it was perfectly dry. How Yuwa was acquainted with the household of a person so obviously a high-ranked noblewoman Chiyo could not imagine, but it was a note from her friend that had led her to the imposing house in which the lady was staying, chaperoned by her bright-eyed maidservants. Chiyo had thought she was to speak with the lady's steward, who was to expect her, but found herself brought into a private room where she bowed in front of a young woman who had been practicing calligraphy, sweeping her brush across the paper with inexorable grace. She nodded most graciously upon hearing Chiyo's name, but her own was not given by the steward in return, who addressed her as if she were a lady from a poem, calling her Lady Raincloud, a name that suited her perfectly, in her robes of silvers and greys. They were extremely old-fashioned in appearance, but Chiyo had looked upon the beauty of Lady Raincloud's slender hand as she gestured towards an antique cup made to hold the stolen pearl, and the pale hollow of her throat and had paid very little attention to her sense of fashion. They did things differently in Kyoto, everyone knew that, and Lady Raincloud's fine, old-fashioned accent was certainly that of Kyoto. She was like a woman from a story; for once, Chiyo felt the urge to read.

So it was that she rode, armed and armoured, through the winter's cold, dreaming of a beauty in many-layered robes, and came at last in sight of a wooden bridge across ravine through which flowed a fast-running river. Another figure in armour could be seen standing before the bridge, leaning upon a naginata. Chiyo sighed, and put on her helmet.

"Out of my way," she said, riding up.

"Piss off," the armoured warrior said, the voice low and calm.

"I'm going to Lustre Gorge Shrine," Chiyo said. "I don't want to fight you, although I will."

"I'm stopping people like you from going there," the warrior said. "I do want to fight you. You can stay on the horse if you want, though I'll probably kill him."

Chiyo flung the reins over Gekido's head and jumped down, drawing her sword. Her opponent nodded slowly.

"Most men would have kept the advantage of height, even for the first blow."

"I'm not most men," Chiyo said, and charged. She ducked under the first swing of the naginata, the deadly blade scything down and past her shoulder, but could not come near the warrior as the weapon was spun about and the blade came around back at her. Try as she might, she simply could not approach her opponent. For a foot soldier, the warrior was skilled indeed. She smiled to herself in the depths of her helmet. She herself had trained with sword and naginata all her life, and noble women, like Lord Mori's lost daughter trained in naginata too. It was a weapon well suited to a woman's grasp.

"You're not a man," she said.

"Neither are you," the warrior said. "Your weight is centred lower." She thrust the naginata forwards suddenly and Chiyo struck it aside at the last, steel ringing against steel.

"Are you of a samurai family?"

"I am not. I was a commoner." The warrior swept the naginata at Chiyo's feet but Chiyo had already run forwards, forcing her to back up nearly to the bridge.

"Was?" Chiyo said, her sword moving in a flurry of strikes that the warrior caught on both the blade and reinforced shaft of her weapon. "Are you not any longer?"

"I have renounced the world," the warrior said. "I take refuge in the teachings of the Buddha."

"You will forgive me," Chiyo said, narrowly evading a strike that would have split her head in two, "but I detect little compassion in your actions."

"Am I not stopping you from wrongful behaviour? No one visits this shrine except with theft in mind."

Chiyo's blade skidded down the length of the shaft, but the warrior-nun quickly dropped her grasp with the endangered hand and thrust the naginata out in a one-handed move. It snagged on Chiyo's armour, cutting through the cord on a couple of plates and making them clatter loosely. It was not forceful enough to penetrate more than a shallow scratch's worth, and Chiyo knew it had been her off-hand.

"A good blow," she said. "You have loosened my armour plates."

"I would happily loosen them further," the warrior-nun said.

Chiyo pressed her hard, forcing her back, and all at once whistled shrilly. Gekido sprang forwards and bore down upon them both, and a the warrior-nun brought her naginata up, attempting still to keep her attention upon Chiyo, Chiyo leapt upon her, tumbling her backwards onto the bridge itself.

"I have you!" she cried as the naginata fell end over end into the river beneath.

Her opponent gasped for air under her.

"Allow me," she rasped, "to pray a moment before you kill me."

"Of course," Chiyo said, magnanimous in victory. She stood, and pulled the warrior-nun upright. The woman unbuckled her helmet and removed it, revealing a face pleasant in its fresh and clear complexion, though of no great beauty as far as the world saw things. Her hair was a dark shadow upon her scalp. She was perhaps ten years older than Chiyo, who also removed her helmet; they stared at each other.

"You are very skilled," the nun said. "Might I know your name?"

"I am Akai Chiyo. And you?"

"I am Ongaeshi. I shall not pray long, it is too cold to keep you waiting."

She knelt at once, and began to chant. Moved by her bravery and her skill, Chiyo sheathed her sword. Ongaeshi was also pleasant to look at; not as unearthly in her beauty as Lady Raincloud, but then she was here, and had no objection to conversation. Chiyo would not know what to say to a delicately raised noblewoman anyway. She waited until the chanting had stopped.

"I am ready," Ongaeshi said, and bowed her neck for the sword stroke.

"Swear you will not stop me crossing the bridge, neither now, nor when I return," Chiyo said.

"You have beaten me," Ongaeshi said. "I will swear it."

"Then I see no reason for you to die. Are women such as us so plentiful that we must slaughter each other?"

"We are rare," Ongaeshi said, rising to her feet. She put a hand against Chiyo's cheek. "And precious."

She was by no means as lovely as Lady Raincloud, and her clothing was armour and a padded under-tunic rather than silken robes. Her hair, when Chiyo raised her own hand to touch her head, was not long and lustrous, but soft bristles. Her smile was open and bright, and her eyes amused, and when Chiyo kissed her, she pulled her close. They wrapped their arms about each other and kissed for a time in the cold air, ignoring the breeze that, colder yet, came up from the ravine.

"Ah," Ongaeshi said, unlacing the side of Chiyo's armour, "I have loosened your armour some more."

"You have," laughed Chiyo. "I have blankets."

"I have a shelter," Ongaeshi said. "Come." She led the way, Gekido following them as faithful as a pet dog, heading back from the trail to a small hut that contained no more than an offering shelf, a thin futon, a brazier and a rough-hewn table on which were stacked food containers and bowls.

"How do you live out here?" Chiyo asked.

"I forage. Once a month I am brought rice from my monastery. It's enough."

Chiyo lit the kindling lying waiting in the brazier and fed the flame until a fire had caught. It would take forever until the hut was warm; she went outside and brought in her own blankets. She helped Ongaeshi out of her armour and was helped out of hers in turn, then they both stripped themselves of the padded undertunics and fell onto the futon, pulling the blankets about themselves.

"Ah, you are indeed a swordswoman," Ongaeshi said, tracing a finger down a scar on Chiyo's arm. "You are not soft and rounded under that armour." She ran her hands down Chiyo's muscled arms and thighs, and pressed a cloth against the shallow cut across her ribs.

"You are disappointed, perhaps," Chiyo said, admiring the evidence shown in Ongaeshi's shoulders of many years of training in the naginata.

"I have no interest in delicate little misses," Ongaeshi said, slipping a hand between her legs.

"Delicate misses can be diverting," Chiyo gasped, straddling her. "But I want your strength."

She was very pleased with Ongaeshi's prowess and fortitude, and they lay at last quite warm and content under all the blankets.

"It's late," Ongaeshi said. "Stay here and go onwards in the morning. It's not a path to attempt in the dark."

"Don't you fear that someone might try to cross the bridge at night?" Chiyo said.

Ongaeshi laughed, a low, rich sound. "There are too many ghosts and demons in these mountains for anyone to move around at night," she said. "No one would dare."

Chiyo at once felt that she should leave at once, to be the first to reach the shrine at night, but then she considered that if Gekido slipped and broke his leg she would be stranded with a very long walk back to her employer.

"Very well," she said. "I will leave at dawn."

"You are seeking out the Lotus Pearl, aren't you?"

"The lady who sent me swears that it was stolen from her family in the previous generation. I will merely return it to her."

"Whoever took it made of it an offering," Ongaeshi said. "It would bring her more virtue to leave it where it is." She rose, scratching her side. "I'll cook rice." She began to pick over some rice in preparation, then looked up. "The lady is not so truthful. The pearl has been in the shrine for more than two hundred years. Are you sure she deserves your service?"

Chiyo sat up, the blankets about her waist. It pained her to think that anyone as pretty as Lady Raincloud might have lied. What of the antique cup that had held the pearl? She frowned. It had most certainly been very old.

"She perhaps said a previous generation rather than the one previous to her. I was distracted by my attempt to see into her robes."

Ongaeshi laughed at her and washed the rice. "No matter. You vanquished me and I shall not stop you."

"Have I brought condemnation upon you?"

"This was a task I appointed for myself. Now it is over."

Chiyo nodded; it was obvious that Ongaeshi would have quite properly accepted any punishment due to her, but she was glad that the nun had not had trouble brought upon her head.

"What will you do?"

"I'll return to my monastery. What will you do, once you have returned the pearl?"

"I don't have a home," Chiyo said. "I don't have a lord." She paused. "I have, if you don't think it improper for me to say it, friends." She went a little pink under Ongaeshi's gaze. "They're common folk."

"I'm common folk."

"Yes, but you're a nun. That makes you better than a commoner! No samurai or lord is shamed to speak with a monastic!"

Ongaeshi flicked cold water at her.

"You samurai are such snobs. Who are these friends who endure your company?"

"She owns a teahouse; I visit when I can. Her daughter helps her run it and her son," Chiyo rubbed her face thinking of how to put it. " – is very artistic. And annoying. He's very annoying. I have put away some payment from every employer so that I might buy him a master craftsman's biwa that I saw."

"Oh," Ongaeshi said. "There are rewards for being annoying."

"Come here and I will show you some."

At last, sated with pleasure if not with food they slept, and although the hut was not as warm as Yuwa's teahouse, it was warmer than the night outside. When dawn came Chiyo arose and drank the water that Ongaeshi gave her, along with half a bowl of cold rice. She stood patiently while Ongaeshi wound a long scarf about her ribs, tying it tightly so that the cut would not reopen.

"Take care on the path," Ongaeshi said. "It is called Lustre Gorge because of the way that the light shines on the wet rocks. Your horse's hooves will slip."

She loaded most of the food onto Gekido, along with all the blankets. Chiyo frowned; would the woman keep nothing for herself? Ongaeshi tied her armour for carrying, and wrapped herself in a monastic robe that looked too thin for the weather.

"You will be cold," she said.

"No," Ongaeshi said. "I will be warm enough while I walk, and the food can be eaten as I go. Come, it is light enough to travel."

They walked back down to the trail and Chiyo regarded the bridge. Ongaeshi looked at the path leading upwards on the far side once, and turned away.

"I will not be here when you return from the shrine. Be safe and happy, Akai Chiyo."

"You also, Venerable Ongaeshi," Chiyo said.

"You were not so formal last night," Ongaeshi said with a grin. "Pray at the shrine before you take the pearl. And leave an offering."

"I shall," Chiyo said, and watched her walk away, her armour and helmet tied up in a bundle and slung across her back. Her gait was easy and as free as any man's. Chiyo turned back to the bridge. "Come, Gekido," she said, and led her horse across the ravine.

The path narrowed as it ascended, clinging close to the rock face. Ahead and further up, Chiyo could hear water rushing loudly, and marvelled at the speed of mountain rivers. Gekido picked his way behind her on their ascent with the delicacy of a young deer, now and then snorting as if to remind her that it had not been his idea to climb a mountain in the dawn's dim light.

"Brave lad," Chiyo murmured.

They turned at last about a large boulder and Chiyo stopped, blinded as the winter sun shone straight down into her eyes. It reflected off the rocks, and made everything gleam with a blurred appearance. Chiyo blinked, putting her hand against the boulder and finding it wet, wetter by far than the path had been so far. She shaded her eyes and looked ahead, towards the rising sun. From a cavern in the rock face ran the river that flowed through the ravine Ongaeshi had guarded; here it was a waterfall, flinging itself forward into space. The sunlight glinted through the spray, making a rainbow form in the ravine. Above the cavern Chiyo could see steps carved into the rock, leading to a shrine in the centre of the rockface. It was not a path that a horse could take. Or anyone who was not agile and careful. She turned back to Gekido, who was also blinking in the bright reflected light, turning his head from side to side trying to get some relief.

"Easy, my precious," Chiyo said, and tied a cloth about his eyes. He snorted again, uneasily, but his training held as did his trust in her, and she was able to lead him onwards to a position where the light was not so direct. Beneath the start of the steps to the shrine there was a flat rock just large enough for a horse to turn around, and she brought him there, wishing she did not have to leave him.

"I'll be back soon," she promised, and took rice and wine from her stores, along with Ongaeshi's blanket. She could offer that for her friend's well-being. She tied the food and drink into the blanket and slung it across her back, to leave her hands free. Then she very carefully began to climb up, each step slippery with water and moss, feeling almost greasy beneath her feet. She was high above the water when one foot slipped and she came down upon one knee, a spike of pain running through her leg. From sheer will she rose to her feet and crept to the top of the steps, stair by stair. With every slippery step her knee throbbed with pain. It was a relief to stand within the shrine and find that there was space enough to move and know that she was not in danger of falling.

As her eyes adjusted to the lack of sunlight in the shrine she looked upon the statue of Merciful Kannon, gazing out over the gorge with distant compassion upon Her face. Some other worshipper had been here, she realised, for a garland of winter berries adored the goddess's neck and shoulders. It did not matter, for her goal remained intact: resting in one of the goddess's upturned hands was by far the largest pearl that Chiyo had ever imagined, as round as a child's ball and seeming to glow softly from within.

Chiyo stood respectfully before the statue and brought her hands together in front of her face.

"Merciful Kannon, Compassionate One –"

"Does your prayer conclude, Forgive me for stealing from Your shrine?" a thin, quavering voice said from the side of the shrine.

"Fuck!" Chiyo gasped, and her hands went from an attitude of prayer to drawing her sword.

A thin cackle of laughter came from behind a smaller statue, and an ancient woman shuffled into view. She was wearing little more than rags which at one point, Chiyo thought, might have been a nun's robes.

"How jumpy you are, little samurai."

Chiyo glared at her, then sheathed her sword. Ongaeshi had said nothing about a shrine guardian, yet here the woman was. Briefly, and with little respect, Chiyo bowed her head.

"I am here to pray to the goddess."

"No one comes here, little samurai. I have a gatekeeper at the bridge. You have killed her, no doubt."

Chiyo allowed herself to look pious, although it did not come very naturally.

"I did not. Would not one coming to the shrine of the Merciful Goddess show mercy? One of the things I wish to pray for is Ongaeshi's continued well-being. She wouldn't even take her blanket with her; I want to offer it here as a prayer that she'll always be warm enough."

The old woman came closer. She was so shrunken and bent with age that her head barely reached Chiyo's waist. She looked up with bright, clever eyes, then nodded decisively.

"I believe you. You may make your offerings."

Chiyo felt better all at once, as if the word of an ancient country nun should mean something. "Thank you, mother," she said. She laid out what she had brought, and stood again politely to pray. After a little, she looked at the old woman, who was still watching her.

"Mother," she said, "who was here to put the garland on the statue?"

"I adorned the statue," the old woman said. "I thought the berries would look beautiful against it."

"Mother!" Chiyo said, aghast at the thought of such an old woman creeping up and down the steps. "You should not have endangered yourself! You could have fallen into the river! And to climb up the statue! Suppose that you had fallen – or that the statue had fallen? Tell me your monastery, and I will bring you there. They can send a younger nun to tend the shrine."

The old woman put her head on one side and regarded her calmly. "Do you say this because I make you think of your own mother?"

"I don't remember my mother at all! She died when I was a baby. It's just not right that you're left alone out here. The cold and damp is not good for an old person, even before one considers the danger –"

The old woman patted her hand. "It seems there may be hope for you, even if you came here as a thief. No, don't look so shocked. What treasure does this shrine have but the Lotus Pearl? Others have come before you, little samurai, marching into the shrine and wrenching it from the statue." She sighed. "Such a shame. Do you know, it was an offering from a dragon lordling? Ever since it was offered the rains further in the mountains have been much more plentiful, and this waterfall has increased in size. The farmers downstream who depend on this river need never worry that their water will run short."

"That is indeed a great boon," Chiyo said. No doubt those farmers paid a rice tax to a landlord of her own class, or to a noble family. It would be presumptuous of her to deprive such people of the earnings of their tenants. She had, however, a duty to retrieve Lady Raincloud's family heirloom and so she gently put her own hand, hardened through work and callused through long use of the sword, over the old woman's.

"Mother," she said, "doesn't it rain a great deal in the mountains? And snow heavily in the winter? Surely that won't cease whether or not the pearl is here. And believe me when I tell you, I have been sent by the pearl's rightful owner – it was stolen from her family in time gone by, which means that whoever offered it had no right to do so. Surely the Merciful Goddess would not wish to be a receiver of stolen goods?"

The old woman looked at her in stubborn, mulish silence, as if Chiyo were no more than a foolish girl, trying to persuade her nurse that she should be given sweets before her meal. She was so small and frail, her stick-like hand mere tendons and worn-down bones under Chiyo's that Chiyo felt all at once that her heart would break and for the first time she wondered what her own mother would have looked like if she had managed to live so long.

"Mother," Chiyo said quietly, "let me bring you somewhere safer and warmer, please. We can talk on the matter there. I swear I will not so much as look at the pearl until we have done so and you are safe and well."

"Your heart is better than you know," the old woman said. "Others have come and simply ripped the pearl free, perhaps throwing me to the ground as they did so. Their impiety was so great that I had to punish them."

"If I had been here," Chiyo said, furious at the thought of the old woman being so treated, "I would have punished them myself. You mean, of course, that the goddess acted against them?" Even if the old woman had been as fierce a warrior as Ongaeshi in her youth, those days were long past.

"Yes," the old woman said, with a glint in her eyes. "That is exactly what I mean." She hobbled around to stand before the statue, looking up at it with a critical eye. "That dragon lordling was over-willing to part with the pearl in the first place," she said. "I think you are correct, daughter. The pearl was not his to give. And you are correct also that the Merciful Goddess is not a receiver of stolen goods. You may take the pearl back to its rightful owner."

She gestured at the statue and Chiyo stepped forwards, pausing to bow in deep respect, before stepping up onto the plinth and laying her hand on the pearl that lay on the goddess's outstretched palm. It lifted easily free and she jumped down, holding it against herself. It was heavier than she had expected and the size of a good melon. She immediately knew that she would need to use the blanket she had brought as an offering to tie the pearl across her back for the descent.

"You do wish to return it to its proper place," the old woman said. "It would not have come loose so easily if you had lied."

"I'll bring it down to my horse," Chiyo said, "and then return for you. You can ride Gekido, he's very well-mannered, and we'll travel to your monastery or any other place you wish."

"No, daughter," the old woman said. "I must stay here. I am bound to this shrine, but you may take my blessing with you, if you feel it is worth anything."

Chiyo knelt before her at once, and the old woman chanted a sutra over her head before laying a withered old hand upon her shaven forehead.

"Continue to be brave, Akai Chiyo, and continue to be kind and to receive kindness. One of those virtues comes easily to those of your class, the others are not as natural. They are all important."

"Yes," Chiyo said, and stood, tying the pearl tightly about her. "I'll come back with the blanket at least."

"No need. I have everything that I need here. Go, start the long journey home."

Not without misgivings, Chiyo picked her way down the moss-covered steps above the waterfall and back to the path where Gekido waited for her. She thrust the blanket-wrapped pearl into one of her bags and tied it closed.

"We will go," she said to him. "It's just we two, she will not –" She paused, and looked back. There was no sign of anyone standing within the shrine. She had never told the old woman her name, yet – "Let's go," she said, and led Gekido as quickly down the path as she safely could.

She did not waste time seeking out the abandoned hut where she and Ongaeshi had passed the night, nor did she attempt to follow the warrior-nun's path. Their fates led them in different directions. Instead she placed her foot in Gekido's stirrup and swung herself onto his back, clicking her tongue to start him moving at a brisk pace that would warm him nicely. She wanted to spend as little time on the road as necessary while carrying the Lotus Pearl; while it seemed unlikely that the word of its removal from the shrine could possibly spread, Chiyo felt in her heart that enough unusual things had occurred already in her retrieval of it. If mountain birds brought word of her track through the woods to bandit camps she would not, she muttered to Gekido, be surprised.

Within a week she was in town, having washed as best she could whilst never leaving the bag with the pearl out of her sight. She put on her only formal clothing, a navy-blue kimono cut in a man's style and dark-grey hakama, tied her obi in a sharp, asymmetrical masculine knot and strode out freely for the mansion taken by Lady Raincloud.

"I am Akai Chiyo," she said to the silent guards at the gate, standing in fierce, demon-faced helmets. "I am here on your mistress's business."

One of them opened the gate and stepped back, still not speaking. Chiyo went through, smarting a little.

"A good day to the both of you, too," she snapped.

With a hiss of ill-mannered laughter the fellow closed the gate behind her. She marched up to the main house and into the entrance hall, where a steward bowed and led her with such genteel manners through the house that she felt quite mollified. She was shown into a room where two of Lady Raincloud's maids sat on either side of the room beneath a raised platform on which was placed a patterned screen, such as had been used in ages past by fine ladies when they spoke with men of other families. Chiyo looked at the silken robes spilling out at either side of the screen and the shadowed form behind it and smiled at the serene, antique beauty of the sight. She bowed deeply.

"My lady," she said. "I have returned, and have carried out your commission."

"Is not the warrior Chiyo a woman of good family and a friend to me?" Lady Raincloud's clear, low voice said. "Hisame, remove the screen."

One of the maids rose from her knees and stepped onto the dais, kneeling by her mistress to remove the screen and revealing Lady Raincloud, her gleaming unbound hair falling down about her shoulders, her lovely face as pale as the sky before it darkened irrevocably towards a storm. Chiyo mocked herself inwardly for such poetry, and bowed again.

"Sit," Lady Raincloud said.

Chiyo sank comfortably to her knees.

"You have carried out my commission to you," Lady Raincloud said. "You have brought me my property?"

"I have, my lady. It was in a shrine in Lustre Gorge; the attendant said there was a story that a minor dragon lord had offered it there. These country people! How superstitious they are! The shrine attendant said I might take it, you need not fear that your name is associated with despoiling the goods of the Merciful Goddess."

"Show me," Lady Raincloud said, so quietly that her voice was little more than a hiss.

Chiyo brought out the bag, wishing that she had used a better receptacle, for the lady's mansion made it look no better than a rag. She brought out the blanket and unwrapped the pearl, and a soft light spilled out over the mats. Lady Raincloud breathed out, and then rose to her feet.

"Mistress!" Hisame said as Lady Raincloud stepped down from the dais.

"Lady –" the other said, her voice quelled at a sharp look from Lady Raincloud.

Chiyo froze at the sight of Lady Raincloud sinking down close enough to touch, her layers of silver and grey silks spreading out and settling against Chiyo's knees. Lady Raincloud held out her beautiful, slender pale hands and Chiyo passed the pearl into them, feeling that she would faint at the mere touch of those fingers against hers. The light brightened and Lady Raincloud closed her eyes, looking as if her very self had been restored to her. As she sat back the collars of her robes slipped a little, showing Chiyo her sharp collarbone and Chiyo felt light-headed at such beauty.

"I am in your debt," Lady Raincloud said quietly in her lovely voice, so clear and so deep for a woman. "If you need my help, be sure I will give it."

"Mistress!" Hisame said again.

"Enough!" Lady Raincloud snapped, her voice echoing in the quiet room. "This woman has done what none of us could do. She will be treated with deference! Chiyo, the payment promised will indeed be given to you. Is there anything else you want from me at this time?"

The mansion was full of items of value. Gold and silver were everywhere, and costly antique porcelains and jades that had to be heirlooms of Chinese origin. Chiyo couldn't begin to imagine how much any of those things were worth, and was suddenly sure that Lady Raincloud would heap them up in exchange for the pearl. She was also sure that she wanted none of them.

She leant forwards, so that she could whisper.

"Might I kiss you?" she said.

Lady Raincloud laughed in surprise, a sound far less lady-like than Chiyo might have expected. The maids both glared, as if a whisper had been of no use at all in hiding Chiyo's request, and Hisame rose to grab at the screen.

"You are like a hero in a tale," Lady Raincloud said, her eyes sparkling, "who does not know when he dares too much."

"In such comic tales," Hisame said, the other maid nodding in annoyance, "the impudent samurai ends up as the laughing stock."

"But in heroic tales," Chiyo said, "the samurai wins out against great odds and achieves feats no one might expect."

"How unusual you are," Lady Raincloud said, and moved forwards, placing her hand against Chiyo's cheek. The mere pressure of the slender fingers and the slightly chilled palm was enough to send pleasure coursing through Chiyo's body and the touch of Lady Raincloud's lips against her own transported her with delight. Her mouth was cool and tasted of fresh water and Chiyo longed for more, but Lady Raincloud was already sitting back.

"If I have need of a hero," she said in amusement, "I will call for you again, Akai Chiyo. Remember, if you need my aid, call for me."

"Lady Raincloud," Chiyo said in respect, and bowed deeply. She couldn't imagine a time when she would go to Kyoto, or would need to call for help to come from there, but it was kindly meant. She withdrew, and was escorted back to the entrance hall by the steward, who took up a large purse from the side table and presented it politely to her as if it was already hers and she had merely misplaced it. Being honest, Chiyo felt she had to say something.

"This seems – a little too heavy?"

"The lady is pleased with you," the steward said. "She wouldn't want me to stint."

Chiyo bowed in appreciation. Then, knowing that she would not forgive herself if she said nothing, added, "Might one visit the lady at an appropriate time and day?"

The steward gave no indication that he wished to laugh, which raised him far above the maids in Chiyo's view.

"Ah, we will soon return to court," he said, bowing his head. "One regrets, but –"

"Of course," Chiyo said. "Of course. I hope your trip to Kyoto is safe and fast."

"Kyoto," the steward agreed. He smiled. "Of course. I shall convey your good wishes."

Chiyo bowed again and sauntered back to the gate where a guard opened up for her and she strolled out past the silent guards on duty outside. She went straight to a teahouse and sat with food and drink before her as she counted her pay, trying not to attract attention. It was three times the amount she had expected. She could buy Yuwa and O-Haru lengths of silk for formal kimonos and have enough to pay off the remainder on the biwa for Fuyuta and still have enough to live on for several weeks. Lady Raincloud was as generous as a noble who had never known what it was to be poor, and thought everyone needed to keep her standards. She was a patron that Chiyo wept to lose to Kyoto.

When she arrived at Yuwa's teahouse she was at first chagrined not to be noticed immediately but then stood against the wall observing how the maids ran to and fro, bringing wine and tea to the patrons, and how Fuyuta made himself charming to all, while O-Haru toiled in the kitchen. It seemed like chaos at first, as if an ants' nest had been overturned but was then revealed as order in which the maids kept iron control, slapping down the hands of patrons who were stingy, and vanishing for short times with those who were more generous. Fuyuta drifted amongst them all like a rare blossom, with men sighing after him as he sang.

Yuwa came down from her room and saw her, her narrow face lighting up.

"Chiyo!" she said. "You have come back to us!"

Some merchants turned to look, and then looked away when they marked her swords. Chiyo walked forwards and took Yuwa's hands. They were chapped in the cold, and she felt protective and tender towards her dearest friend, for all that she was of a subordinate class.

"I have. I carried out a task for the lady to whom you referred me and she was very pleased. I have presents for you all!"

"Is this sensible?" Yuwa laughed.

"Mother!" Fuyuta said, leaping up beside her. "If Lady Chiyo wishes to spend money on us you must encourage her! What have you bought me? Tell me, tell me!"

"You shouldn't call me "lady"," Chiyo said, and smiled as he laughed. "I have brought you this –" She lifted the case containing the biwa and held it out.

Fuyuta's face went still as he opened it.

"You're making fun of me," he said at last. "You've borrowed that and will need to give it back."

"No. It's yours."

"Mother," he said plaintively, as he took the biwa in his hands, "I'll have to stop mocking your friend." He held it carefully, gently, as a man might hold the woman he loved.

"I have silk for you and O-Haru," Chiyo said. "Enough for two kimonos each. And printed fabric for the girls."

"What, no silk for me?" Fuyuta said.

"You cheeky thing, do you know how much that biwa was?"

"Yes," he said, and bowed very low. "Lady Chiyo, you are a bodhisattva of the arts."

"Don't be so impious!"

"Fuyuta," Yuwa said, "bring Chiyo's belongings to my room."

He grumbled, but picked up her packs and carried them up the stairs, Chiyo following. She glanced back to see Yuwa on her heels.

"You're limping," Yuwa said.

"Ah, it's nothing. I have the gifts for you in the packs."

In Yuwa's room she knelt with a glad sigh and took out the silk and printed fabric.

"For you and O-Haru. And these are for the girls. Here are lengths of silk to make obis for you and O-Haru, and – " she added with a little smile, " – enough for Fuyuta, if you wish to indulge him."

"He'll forgive you the lack of a new kimono for the sake of that biwa," Yuwa said. "That was an extravagant present for a boy you pretend you don't like."

"One's elders must always be mysterious and unknowable," Chiyo said, shifting a little to make herself more comfortable.

Yuwa frowned. "Tell me why you are limping, and why you hold yourself stiffly on the left side."

The woman had sharp eyes. Chiyo made a gesture to show that it was a small matter, not worth the attention of a hardened warrior such as herself. Then, as Yuwa kept her narrow golden eyes on her face, she spoke anyway, for the sheer pleasure of telling someone who cared for her welfare.

"I slipped on stones while climbing above a waterfall," she said. "I came down on my knee. It didn't really bother me until the morning after; at the time I was more worried about tumbling into the ravine below! The side is nothing: a mere scratch caused by a nun over-enthusiastic in her blessings."

"Let me see," Yuwa said in a long-suffering manner, and when Chiyo acquiesced she shook her head. "What was it this nun used to bless you?"

"A naginata."

"It's not deep but it has been bandaged by one with the skill of a mountain monkey."

"Her expertise was more in kindly sending her foes quickly from the world than in providing aid to keep them lingering within it, she didn't set a good example in doctoring for me to follow. And it's a difficult location to bandage oneself without the material being too tight or too loose; I am the mountain monkey you speak of."

"Why did she bandage you up at all, if she had been trying to cut you in two?" Yuwa said. Chiyo grinned at her, and Yuwa cast her golden eyes towards heaven. "The sword and the bedchamber! Are they the only thoughts a samurai has?"

"I believe some also think of politics," Chiyo said. "Though such matters are beyond me. You have two good looking children: thoughts of the bedchamber must have occupied you at some point, Yuwa."

"It's true that women such as I may often be seen as lusty," Yuwa said. She paused, looking at Chiyo's laughing face. "I'm sure that samurai men and women think all other classes below them are without restraint. However, having decided to follow the teachings of the Lord Buddha I control my appetites." She got out her bandages and salves. "And I do not wish any other man to replace my late husband in my memories."

"Yuwa," Chiyo said as salve was spread on her side and a clean bandage wrapped about her ribcage, "Yuwa, I didn't mean to upset you. I spoke as a friend making a jest. I'm a rough-spoken fool."

"You'd think members of the upper class might be better at conversation," Yuwa grumbled. She sighed over the impressively purpled and swollen knee. "I suppose you're an unusual samurai, as I am an unusual proprietor of this teahouse. Many other widows would have passed the work on to their sons." She rubbed a foul-smelling ointment into the knee. "Try not to fall onto stones for a while."

Chiyo sat casually, resting and pleased to have no need to travel anywhere, and drew Yuwa to rest against her.

"I found a great pearl that a dragon had stolen," she boasted. "Such is the legend, anyway. The lady to whom you referred me was very pleased."

"That's good," Yuwa said. "I hoped greatly that her household would employ you."

"Her household?" Chiyo said, staring up at the ceiling. "She gave me her orders herself. Ah, what a woman, Yuwa! Though very old-fashioned in her manner, preferring poetic manners of address to her name."

"You spoke to the lady herself?" Yuwa said in surprise. "I thought that perhaps one of her retainers –"

"I spoke to her before and after I did her bidding," Chiyo said. "Before, I think she found me unusual, a thing of curiosity. After, she was grateful and called me her friend, and she kissed me." She laughed in delight, remembering it.

"Ah! You are unstoppable!" Yuwa cried. "That is a very great lady of a very great house! My father once carried out a task for her father's steward and so I thought I could bring your name before her household, and you – you kissed her?" She sat upright to peer closer into Chiyo's face in mock awe. "Are you a human woman, Akai Chiyo, or some being out of legend?"

Chiyo laughed as loud as if she were a man of Lord Mori's guard. To be a samurai was to be daring, to carry out tasks that no one thought possible, to see that some boundaries were to be observed in all propriety and others were mere shadows to be leapt over. Then she sighed, for although she was as human as any other warrior of her class her training and upbringing had not fitted her to be a woman of her class. Her brief life with Naomasa had shown her that. For a woman to take up arms when needed was not unknown – but one who lived in the manner of a man all her life would be lucky to find another lord such as Lord Mori. To him she had merely been one of his retainers, the heir of his trusted man; what would she be to another?

"Chiyo?" Yuwa said.

"Nothing," Chiyo said. "I am merely feeling sorry for myself. It is a sad trait of my class when we are not lopping off heads." She turned about and laid her head down in Yuwa's lap, sighing then in relaxation as fingers brushed through her hair.

"You have an odd sense of humour."

"I was thinking it would be easier to be a creature from a story. What do you think? What would I be?"

"It would not be easier at all," Yuwa said. "If you were a fox you would always be on edge, fearing dogs and exorcists; I have seen how you splash in the water, you would make a terrible kappa; if you were a tengu you'd flap here and there possessing girls and trying to sleep with monks, which wouldn't be to your tastes at all and if you were a tanuki you'd have balls bigger than yourself."

"I could be a fierce oni."

"And live far from everyone, when you can just stay here?"

Chiyo stayed silent as Yuwa stroked her hair back. The touch of her fingers was pleasant and warm. How kind she was, to try to make a homeless ronin feel better.

"I mean it," Yuwa said. "I see no reason for you to live elsewhere. Do you? There is a reason you were led to my home."

"You've shown me all the kindness and charity that I needed at that time," Chiyo said, her voice tight.

"Mmm. Some of my kin would say that. They're a wary lot, always counting advantages here and there, who wins, who loses. I say that a woman by herself needs friends and love."

Chiyo looked up at her, then sat up and carefully kissed her. Yuwa's eyes were amused, and she was smiling when Chiyo sat back. "I am not a great lady of a great house," she said. "Such rare beauties are delicacies one must barely taste, lest they melt," Chiyo said. "A rough samurai wouldn't know what to do with them." Yuwa laughed at her, as she'd intended, looking all at once much younger. She had to be much the same age as Chiyo, for all that she had a daughter in her late teens and a son not much younger.

"You must have married when you had hardly stated bleeding," Chiyo said. "Was it to your kin's advantage to marry you off so young?" The teahouse was so old-fashioned, although there were always customers - Yuwa's kin could hardly have hoped that her husband would be a wealthy man.

Yuwa gave a short sharp bark of laughter. "I was rather older. I am simply lucky that I have kept my looks; my family all warned me that I would become terribly old and ugly once I gave up my old life. They thought badly of me that I decided to follow the Lord Buddha's teachings."

"You were going to become a nun!" Chiyo said in astonishment. "Did your family really fear that you would be ugly with your hair shorn?"

"I doubt I could have gone that far," Yuwa said. "I'm sadly vain. I loved my husband," she said, "and he loved me. Neither of us ever looked aside all the days of his life." She sighed. "If he had had only so much as another hundred years with me I would have been happy indeed."

"Do you think me foolish?" Chiyo said, not quite meeting her eyes. "That I should wed and have been with child at such an advanced age – it is no wonder what transpired."

"Hush," Yuwa said, and stroked a finger across Chiyo's shaven forehead. "You were not so old at all, and you were doing as your father wished, what child would do otherwise? You had truly never thought before then that he would tell you to wed?"

Chiyo shook her head. "If I thought of it at all – which was no more than once every year or so – I had thought he would find some respectable but impoverished family grateful to connect themselves to Lord Mori's chief retainer, and I would have a demure and pretty wife," she sighed. "Then I would adopt a son." She lay down again and turned her face against the warmth of the thin yukata Yuwa wore for housework, breathing in her scent. "In the end no doubt he and Lord Mori did the best they felt they could for me, choosing a man they knew I was friendly enough with."

"You really have forgiven your husband, then," Yuwa said, stroking her hair again.

"Naomasa's lover died fighting with Lord Mori," Chiyo said. "He liked women as much as I like men. We were better by far as friends – we did not know how to be married. Yuwa," she said, against her belly, "I want to make an offering to Jizo. Will you come to the shrine with me?"

"Of course," Yuwa said at once. "I wouldn't let you go by yourself, not unless you were sure you wanted to. Now," she said, "we will go down and you'll eat O-Haru's cooking! She'll have made inarizushi by the platterful for you."

"I'll be lucky if Fuyuta and those girls have left any," Chiyo said, climbing to her feet and extending a hand. "I've never seen people with such an appetite for tofu."

"There'll be plenty for us all," Yuwa promised, and took her hand. She rose to her feet, then pushed their futons together, smiling broadly as she did. Then she interlaced their fingers once more to lead Chiyo downstairs, back to the light and the sound of a biwa being somewhat inexpertly played below.

"I am back!" Chiyo called, leaping up the steps with a light heart. "Truly, the task I took upon myself was easy and simple to fulfil!"

Yuwa came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. "Where are you injured?"

"I'm not hurt at all!" Chiyo said in a scoffing tone. "I don't know why you country people are so superstitious – those farmers whose words you reported to me were mere fools, Yuwa! Beset by tengu, indeed! They saw some large crows and heard ruffians at night, nothing more."

"I'm glad it was so easily resolved," Yuwa said solemnly.

"Ah, you mock me! The farmers were terrified because they heard loud laughter at night, and found their cattle tipped over. Surely only monsters could have done such a thing! Or drunken fools!"

"Or drunken monsters," Yuwa said gravely. "Sober ones might have eaten the cattle. I'm so glad you're not hurt."

"I've been given a sack of rice for my help," Chiyo said. "I haven't bought anyone a present this time."

"You being here is more than enough," Yuwa said.

"The rice is yours, of course."

"You don't have to pay for your lodging, Chiyo!"

"True," Fuyuta said, spinning past with a broom as if he danced with it, "merely having you as a patron elevates our little establishment to the heavens. What more could we ask than your august presence, Lady Chiyo?"

"Maybe I'll ask for a view of those slender little ankles," Chiyo said, "and stroke them with my fingers."

"I'm not sure either of us would find that very pleasurable at all," Fuyuta sniffed and went on his way. "You will make my mother jealous."

"Don't tease him," Yuwa said mildly.

"He was teasing me, do not be jealous," Chiyo said in her most innocent manner. "Where is everyone? Tama is brushing Gekido down, but O-Haru and the girls should be here –"

"There was a wedding in the vicinity they wished to attend," Yuwa said. "We had no patrons, so I took the chance to clean out the main room a little."

Indeed, the teahouse's main room looked very clean and ready for visitors. Chiyo uncharitably wished for a moment that Yuwa might spend a little of the effort in dusting her own chamber, but said nothing. Free room and board was not to be complained about.

"I hope the wedding was not spoilt by the rain," she said, for surely that was why no one had come to drink or eat yet. "As I rode it fell quite heavily, even though the sun never stopped shining."

"It won't have been spoilt," Yuwa said, smiling. "Let me get you some food."

They sat at a freshly scrubbed table, eating onigiri and talking of nothing much as Fuyuta gave up all pretence of work and played the biwa, a look of purest pleasure on his narrow face. As the evening drew in Chiyo sat up, frowning, for she heard another noise, like a distressed animal howling in agony and fear.

"What's that?"

"What?" Fuyuta said, stilling the strings, then, "Mother -"

Yuwa was on her feet as Chiwako, one of the maids, stumbled in screeching incoherently, her voice more like that of a creature of the forest than a human being. Her yukata was hanging open and torn about the hem, showing a bleeding wound on her calf. Yuwa grabbed her and shook her.

"Where is O-Haru? Where is my daughter? What happened?"

"Dogs!" Chiwako screamed, "They had dogs, mistress, dogs!"

Yuwa slapped her. "Enough! Control yourself! What happened?"

The girl took a huge shuddering breath.

"We, we were coming back after the wedding, and we were met by a rich man and his retainers. They called him Lord Genhara –"

Chiyo half rose, her hand on her sword. Lord Mori's enemy, who had killed him and her father. Whose men had killed all her friends. Who was the reason Lord Mori's family was dead, and she and Naomasa had been cast into utter misery.

" – he said he'd always heard of women like us, and his men seized O-Haru at his command. She fought, Mistress! She bit them! And then his men set the dogs on Okako and me." She looked blank and confused. "We'd all been so happy at the wedding, seeing people in their fine clothes! The woods were full of light! But those men - Okako was so scared that we probably won't see her for a hundred years, if she survives." Tears filled her narrow, golden-brown eyes. "The dogs will tear her to pieces! Ah! Ah! Ah!"

"They won't," Chiyo said, to stave off another descent into hysteria. "Look, you outran them. Dogs are trained to bring people to bay, not to savage them." As she spoke she thought of what a man like Genhara might train his dogs to do.

"But Lady Chiyo, we're –" Chiwako said.

"Even teahouse girls shouldn't get bitten by dogs," Fuyuta said loudly. "Mother, I'll get my sister back, don't you worry."

"No," Chiyo said. "I'm getting her. I won't have both your children in danger, Yuwa. Stay where it's safe, Fuyuta."

Fuyuta made a groaning shriek of frustration and ran from the room.

"Thank you," Yuwa said. "Yes, please, Chiyo. Please save my daughter."

"Yes," Chiyo said. "I'll need the things I've left with you."

Without delay she put on her armour, and had Gekido readied. She hung her bow and arrows from the saddle, and took Naomasa's weapons from Yuwa. They were carefully wrapped, and had been recently oiled.

"If it comes to me needing to fight with his sword things will not be going well," she said quietly. "But perhaps he will see me and forgive me, as I have forgiven him. Perhaps he will intercede for me."

"I am in agony," Yuwa said, seizing her arm. "I should go with you."

"No! Yuwa, you cannot. You would die at once. Or they would catch you, and you would want to die." Chiyo leant her forehead against her friend's. "Lord Mori forbade me to seek vengeance; I am not disobeying him. I am going forth to save O-Haru. If I happen to kill that walking piece of shit whilst saving her, so be it."

"I'm going with you!" a voice said behind her.

Chiyo sighed and turned to face Fuyuta. She paused, looking at the angry, fierce figure he cut. She had never seen him dressed in men's clothing before, and thought he must have borrowed the breeches and loose shirt from Tama. They floated upon him. He had pulled his hair back into a topknot and scrubbed the kohl and rouge from his face.

"What, do you think I'm not man enough?" he said, his voice almost a snarl. "Give me your razor, lady, I'll cut off my forelock. She's my sister, I'm going."

"I think you're old enough," Chiyo said. "You're what, fifteen, sixteen? And so listen to me – be a man and protect your mother. Do you think those dogs don't have Chiwako's scent? If that bastard sends his men here you'll need to get everyone to safety. Don't try to fight them, they're trained warriors, just get everyone out."

He looked down, saying neither yes nor no. Chiyo wasted no more time, but went outside and leapt onto Gekido and rode quickly away. She rode for half the night before she took a few hours rest and rode on in the morning, coming to Lord Genhara's mansion in the late afternoon. It seemed a fine house, with very showy gates and a courtyard beyond that was, from what she could see, pleasant and elegant. It looked very much as if it had been designed by a professional person skilled in hiding the errors of those who did not have long ancestry in the nobility to disguise the owner's lack of taste. Lord Mori's estate had been in his family for many lifetimes and the house had grown over the years; it had not seemed so artificially perfect.

Chiyo dismounted, and made sure to keep herself hidden in the trees, working her way slowly about the walls. There seemed little hope of creeping in like a thief, and everything within her rebelled at the thought. She wanted with all her heart to trample down those gaudy gates, crying out that here was the last retainer of Mori Yukihiro, come at last for vengeance. That would not get O-Haru's freedom. She sighed, and made her way back to Gekido.

"I must wait for darkness," she whispered. "Look, here is a patch of grass, and I have an onigiri. We will at least die fed, if we are to die tonight."

She sat watching Gekido crop the grass, her mind full of dark thoughts, then started up as a bush rustled nearby. She took her hand from her sword as she saw a sharp snout and bright eyes peering at her. It was only a young fox, wandering through the woods.

"You get yourself to safety, my lad," she said. "The affairs of humans will get bloody this day."

The fox came right out of the bush and sat down, regarding her. It was a cheeky thing, with its narrow eyes and triangular little face. It arranged its tail about its feet like a fine lady arranging her kimono and put its head on one side, watching her. Chiyo broke off a piece of her onigiri and tossed it across, grinning against her will as the fox caught it in mid-air.

"I'll take you as an omen," she said. "I'll slip in and out like magic."

The fox panted a little, like a dog that seems to laugh, then vanished back into the bushes.

Chiyo watched the gates shut as the evening twilight thickened, and considered how she would climb over the wall. She would find a way to open the gates on her way out, and then she and O-Haru would run back to where she had hidden Gekido – she paused, hearing a noise. It sounded like blunt claws scrabbling on tile. When she looked towards the walls she saw nothing – no! The gates were ajar! They hadn't been locked properly and had opened again by themselves.

"Gekido," Chiyo said. "The gods are with us. We will charge in there and cause fear and confusion. Come, my dear. Let us find poor O-Haru and carry her away."

She swung into the saddle and trotted down towards the gate, drawing her sword as she went.

"Ho, gatekeeper!" she called out cheerfully, and an unarmoured man opened the gate even further, looking surprised.

"The house is shut up for the night! Come tomorrow!"

Gekido went from a trot to a canter at the touch of her heels and she was upon the man, her sword flashing down, Gekido shouldering the gate open and disdainfully trampling the man underneath. They were through. Lord Genhara had wanted O-Haru for himself – she would be in the main house. Chiyo spurred Gekido to a full gallop and he shot forwards over perfect lawns and flowerbeds, his hooves casting up divots of earth behind him. Another man fell to her blade – samurai or servant, she didn't know – and she went on. She was surprised to see what she was sure was the same young fox again as she burst into the charming courtyard by the main house, Gekido's hooves striking sparks from the artfully laid flagstones. She didn't waste time in calling to the beast, nor did she declaim her family name or the line of Lord Mori for that was meaningless at this time. A man rushed at her, armourless, but sword in hand and she cut him, shoulder to waist.

Other samurai were pouring out of the buildings around the courtyard now, some hurriedly tying pieces of armour on, others simply coming at her in fury. Gekido struck out, his great hoof taking one in the forehead even as the man raised his sword for the strike.

"Bravely done," Chiyo said. "We will ride to Lord Mori's side in the Pure Land tonight if we cannot save O-Haru."

Gekido snorted as if he agreed. Chiyo saw then a man drawing a bow and she felt wild fury that he would surely shoot her brave horse. Namu Amida Butsu, she prayed, on Gekido's behalf. Do not let me be a liar. Admit even a beast to your Pure Land.

Even as she prayed the man yelped and staggered, his arrow flying wild. Chiyo felt the mercy and grace of the Lord Amida as she saw that the fox had rushed in and was worrying the man's calf with its sharp white teeth. He kicked out at the creature but it was gone, making a high-pitched yipping noise that sounded disturbingly like laughter.

Other samurai charged her and Chiyo rode straight over one man while cutting the shaft of another's naginata in two. She tried not to think what she had done to her sword; she still had Naomasa's if the edge was ruined.

In the swirl of fighting she saw the fox appear again, running back and forth by the main house and for a confused moment was sure that she saw Fuyuta with a burning torch in his hand. Then she blinked the sweat from her eyes and saw only a half-grown fox running here and there, confused by the noise and weapons, looking for a way to safety.

Smoke started to rise from the house and flames to lick at the windows. The fox sat down and stared quite intently at the light and conflagration. Flames seemed to leap against the wind, appearing where one could not expect, sweeping through the building. The fox cocked its head on one side and looked on with interest.

"Fire!" one of the samurai, a tall and imposing man, yelled. "Fire! Save Lord Genhara and his family!"

"By all means," Chiyo said scornfully, "withdraw from combat."

"I know you, Akai Chiyo!" the man yelled. "I slew your father! Be sure I shall find you hereafter!"

Chiyo spurred Gekido forwards and cut his head from his shoulders.

"It would be impolite to make you wait," she said as the head rolled on the ground. It was wrong to have broken Lord Mori's order against seeking revenge, but the man had been very rude.

She rode Gekido forwards through an open panel right into the house, roaring, "O-Haru! O-Haru, daughter of Yuwa! You!" she yelled at a terrified servant, a girl of no more than eleven or twelve years old. "Where is she? The young woman seized by Lord Genhara?"

"Upstairs, noblest of samurai," the servant said, trying to speak, fall on her face and back away all at the same time.

"I'll kill you if I have to," Chiyo said. "Be more specific! The house is burning fast."

"Right above were we are," the servant said. "It's the lord's private place."

"Stay with my horse for a few minutes and I'll take you out of here in safety," Chiyo said.

The servant girl nodded in astonishment and Chiyo leapt down, running for the stairs. The door that led to the room over where she had entered was bolted shut.

"O-Haru? O-Haru!"

There was a frantic scrabbling from within and a whining as if a dog had been locked in the room. Both fell silent and a cautious voice said,

"Lady Chiyo?"

"Yes! One moment."

The bolt was stiff, but Chiyo pulled it back and in the room found O-Haru, tear-stained and coughing from the smoke. Her face was pale and frightened and her narrow golden-brown eyes were showing white all around. She was still fuly dressed to attend the wedding, wearing a kimono cut from the silks that Chiyo had brought to her and Yuwa, although the bright fabric was dirtied and torn from her desperate struggles. Through her pity for the girl's terror, Chiyo felt a moment's joy that she had not found her stripped and violated.

"I thought I was trapped here," O-Haru gasped.

"Not while I live," Chiyo said. "How could I face your mother? Where's that dog?"

"Dog?" O-Haru said in fright, shrinking against her. "There's no dog."

Chiyo took her wrist and pulled her down the stairs, which were beginning to burn. The servant girl had stayed with Gekido, which was surprising.

"Up," Chiyo said, shoving O-Haru upon his back. He was skittish, blowing in worry and turning in a tight circle and dragging the servant with him.

"He knows I'm no horsewoman," O-Haru said.

"He is usually better mannered. Gekido, behave."

Gekido rolled his eyes and shifted uneasily even when Chiyo leapt up behind O-Haru. She looked down at the girl, noting her youth and frail frame. She would weigh practically nothing. Chiyo extended a hand and pulled her up too.

"Hold tight," she said and Gekido burst from the building and was through the line of men with buckets before any could so much as think of raising a weapon.

The courtyard was in chaos. Samurai and servants alike rushed here and there, carrying buckets of water to fight the blaze, but it had taken hold and they were getting nowhere. Chiyo galloped straight for the gates which now stood wide open, a child by them ringing the bell discordantly to summon local villagers to help. The first of those come to give aid scattered before Gekido, and shouts were raised after him.

"Stop!"

"That's Lord Genhara's woman!"

Chiyo risked a look back to see men leaping onto horses. Their mounts would be fresh, unlike poor Gekido. She'd have little hope of outdistancing them. She slowed briefly and let the servant tumble into a patch of grass before speeding away as fast as she could. Their only hope was to get to the woods and hide.

As they reached the edge of the woods she saw a small fox that ran in to the trees a little, came back to look at her, and ran in once more. It could not be the same one.

"It wants us to follow!" O-Haru cried.

It was ridiculous, but it seemed as if the fox was indeed leading them down a path only it could see, Gekido's hooves making almost no sound. Behind them she could hear the pursuers' horses blundering around and she was sure that they were safe, then the moon glinted on her armour and the samurai yelled and came after them once more.

She had almost won free to a clearing where she could gain some space when the lead pursuer was all at once beside her, his sword flashing out. She parried, feeling the exhaustion in all the muscles of her arm. The young fox darted from behind a tree and bit her opponent's horse above the fetlock, dancing back as the steed shrilled in freight and kicked out. He ran in again and the samurai slashed down at the lithe red-brown body. Chiyo was incensed that a trained man should fight a young creature of the woods in such a manner, especially one that seemed intent on helping her. She took the chance to strike out with a straight blow, catching the samurai in the chest. At that very moment she felt an impact under her arm and looking past the man toppling from his horse, saw another, lowering his bow.

Breathing hurt. A strange chill was filling her. This was not, she knew, a hurt that she would come back from. She pulled Gekido's head around and spurred him away. Speed was their only hope now.

"Bring up the dogs!" a voice behind them yelled.

"Dogs!" O-Haru yelled into the darkness. "Run! Don't get caught!"

"Why do you all hate dogs so much?" Chiyo muttered, and shivered as the baying started behind them. They would be found with or without dogs. She concentrated on keeping upright.

As they ran she saw the young fox ahead of them, a streak of red-brown fur in the moonlight and suddenly the woods were filled with the sound of foxes barking. Gekido raced past groups gathered together that stood up on their hind legs to stare after them. Foxes ran back and forth across and behind their path, and Chiyo knew she was light-headed as she saw wavering lights accompanying them. The smell of fox fur and fox piss was everywhere, and the dogs sounded less as if they had a scent and more as if they were deeply confused.

"There's not all that much woods left," she said. "We'll have to cross open land. Even if we have a head start the dogs will find us easily. I'll drop you off and lead them away."

"No!" O-Haru said. "I can't go on without you! Mother wouldn't forgive either of us, Lady Chiyo!"

"She wants you safe," Chiyo said. "Trust me, a mother wants her child safe above all else."

"You mustn't try to die because you're still sad! I can be your child! So you need to stay alive!"

"I have no time left to argue," Chiyo said in exhaustion. "It feels as if I am riding through a tale – helpful foxes, desperate last dashes –" She hung her head, breathing shallowly. We need," she said, "we need help –" She knew she'd been promised help, but couldn't remember who by. She couldn't quite remember how to breathe.

"Let's ride on," O-Haru said in worry.

"Yes," Chiyo said, her head beginning to droop. Gekido began to pick his way towards the edge of the woods.

"There they are! We have you now, you bitch! How dare you flee your lord?"

The sound of horses crashing through the underbrush was getting louder and louder. There were many more pursuers than she had realised. Chiyo looked up as Gekido reached open ground, seeing a cloud drift across the moon, as if hiding a beautiful huge pearl behind a robe of grey silk.

"Lady Raincloud," she mumbled.

"Make Gekido go faster," O-Haru said in terror.

"Lady Raincloud, I need your help."

A fat cold drop of water bounced from Chiyo's wrist guard. Then another. She looked at it and her eyes slowly widened. She took a deep breath, ignoring the way it felt as if hot steel had been rammed into her chest. The pursuing samurai were out of the woods, nearly upon them.

"Lady Raincloud!" she yelled. "Help me!"

The heavens opened.

Gekido made a shrill noise of displeasure and surprise and O-Haru screamed as all three of them were immediately soaked through. Chiyo looked back to see that though the rain was heavy over them, behind them it was not rain at all but a flood pouring down from the skies. Lord Genhara's samurai, their horses and dogs, were all swept away. Within minutes, the rain stopped, and the night was still and quiet.

"Thank you," Chiyo said in shock, staring at the sodden empty land behind them with, in the distance the shapes of bodies, both human and beast, lying drowned in the fields. She urged Gekido further on to where the ground was dry. "We can go on now," she said. "Just – just keep going in this direction. Gekido will need to rest. He'll obey you, he's a good horse."

"What?" O-Haru said, turning to look at her, and finally seeing something was amiss. "Lady Chiyo?" She awkwardly jumped down and gasped at the sight of the arrow. "Oh! Why didn't you say! We need to get to my mother as soon as possible!"

Chiyo shook her head. Everything was very far away now, but she'd done what she'd said she would. O-Haru was safe. She would have liked to have seen her dear Yuwa again, but she was used to giving up things she wanted.

"Bury me properly," she said. "Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Bu-"

The ground came up to meet her.

When Chiyo opened her eyes she thought at first she was surely dead. She was unable to feel any pain: indeed, she could not feel anything at all. Her vision seemed to give a soft outline to the beams above her, and when she raised her hand before her face it too was hazy in outline. She wondered why she was lying abed in the Pure Land, but the question didn't seem urgent, so she closed her eyes again and slept.

When she opened her eyes for the second time she smiled, for her friend the fox was there, looking down into her face. She was sorry that he had not evaded fate, but glad that she had proof that animals were welcome. She would see Gekido again, by and by, she was sure of it. Her dear horse would not need to wait for rebirth in human form that could call upon the Lord Amida's mercy. She closed her eyes.

" -yo! Lady Chiyo!"

It was hard to open her eyes again, but she managed. Fuyuta was kneeling over her, keeping watch as he had on that first time she had come to the teahouse. His hair was in disarray and his narrow face worried.

"Are you alive?" he asked. "You're not going to die, are you?"

"Am I alive?" she whispered. "I thought you were someone else."

He leapt up and shot across the room and she heard the door opening violently.

"Mother! Mother, she's awake! Send Tsuchigaeru up!"

There was the sound of many feet running on the stairs and then the room was full of people. Chiyo blinked and tried to look from person to person, confused and unsure what she was seeing.

"Merciful Kannon," Yuwa said, pushing through the crowd. "She's injured, not blind. Have some sense."

There was a murmuring of apology and Chiyo blinked, looking from face to face, suddenly recognising the maids, and Tama, and kneeling by her, O-Haru. An old man, small and slight, came forward and took her wrist in his clammy hand, his fingers on her pulse.

"You are the doctor," she said. "I remember you."

"Hmm," he said. "You are not much improved since I last saw you. You people are over-fond of mortal wounds. I will apply more salve."

All the others drew a little nearer.

"Tcha," the doctor said. "You are well-chaperoned, girl." He gave her a smile that Chiyo drew back from, but when she looked again his teeth were perfectly normal. He opened her clean clothing under the keen gaze of Yuwa and the other women as Tama and Fuyuta looked a little above her head, and rubbed a cold, evil smelling salve onto her chest. The pain flared at once, then died away, leaving numbness behind. "Rest," the doctor said. "You took an arrow in the lung. You need sleep and time to recover."

"How did O-Haru get me back?" Chiyo whispered.

"All our friends and kin saw what you'd done," O-Haru said, crying. "They helped."

"Hush," Yuwa said. "That's enough. Let her sleep." She ushered everyone out then came to kneel beside Chiyo. "I'll stay with you," she said. She stroked Chiyo's face and hair gently. "I can never repay you. He would have tired of O-Haru in time, and killed her. Or forced her to give him children and then thrown her out or killed her. He wanted to be a man out of a fairy story with a wife out of legend."

"I think he's already married," Chiyo said. "His wife's family would have objected to another wife."

Yuwa's hand paused. "Yes. They would have objected if he'd brought in another woman. Sleep now, my dear. I'll be right here." she bent over to kiss Chiyo's face, and held her hand as sleep claimed her once more.

Chiyo felt a little stronger when she woke, then she realised that she had been shaken awake, and that the lamp was out.

"Chiyo," Yuwa hissed, close by her in the dark room. "Chiyo, there is trouble downstairs, do you hear?"

From downstairs Chiyo heard a crash, followed by a scream, and then men shouting. The harsh, preemptory orders she half-heard made her heart sink.

"It's Lord Genhara," she said. "He's come for us."

"I'll get you out of here," Yuwa said. "I won't have you brought back from near death only to be slaughtered. You must close your eyes and trust me, and not ask how I have taken you from the house -"

Chiyo struggled up on her elbow. She could not let this happen again, could not allow herself to be sent safely from combat while her friends gave their lives behind her. She was just a masterless ronin, but she felt that her loyalty was owed to Yuwa and her family; and what lay between them was love and friendship, not oaths. She could not be ordered from this fight.

"He'll kill all the men and take O-Haru back! He'll have his men hurt the girls again! Yuwa, he'll hurt and kill you, and I could not live with that. He'll kill Fuyuta himself." She tried to think past the tiredness to an argument that would sway Yuwa. They all hated dogs so much, she thought, her head feeling as if it were packed with cloth - "Or have him thrown to his dogs. Let me save your children."

Yuwa's hand on her arm tightened, the fingernails like claws. She met Chiyo's eyes in the room, lit only by the stars and moonlight through the window, her narrow golden eyes shining like those of an animal.

"You are wounded," she whispered.

"Help me up."

Chiyo carefully got to her feet, and realised that she was wearing a very old-fashioned, well-worn but spotless man's hadajuban that reached her mid-calves. She could move easily. It had to have belonged to Yuwa's dead husband. Such generosity she had always been shown. It was white in the moonlight.

"You see," she said. "Everything is as it should be, it is quite proper. I am already dressed for my funeral. Give me my swords."

With a catch in her breath as if she hid tears Yuwa moved silently away and drifted back, the swords in her grasp. She flung a narrow men's obi about Chiyo's waist, tying it securely. Chiyo thrust the wakizashi through it and unsheathed the katana.

"Make a noise," she said, stepping into the shadows to the side of the door. "As if you are trying to hide."

Yuwa withdrew into the darkness and there was a scurrying noise that sounded very like a person giving way to panic. After a moment there was a sharp order from beneath and footsteps on the stairs.

"Be brave," Chiyo said. "Stand by the window."

Yuwa stood in plain view and gasped in true fear as the samurai came in. Chiyo's blow was inelegant, and made her hiss with pain as the shock of her blade meeting flesh juddered through her wound. The man folded and fell without a sound. Chiyo caught her breath for a moment, then gathered up his swords.

"Is there anyone who can fight with swords?" she said.

Yuwa looked at her in astonishment. "I don't know," she said. "We're not warriors –"

Chiyo handed them to her. "If there's someone standing down there who can fight, arm them."

She led the way out of the room, her vision swimming. A man appeared suddenly from one of the guest rooms and ran at her, and she barely brought her blade up in time to parry, sweeping it around in a fast return like a swift bird's flight to take him below the ribs.

"The girls will have to sand the floors," she said, stepping a little awkwardly over the body.

She came down the stairs, step by step, her bare feet leaving red prints behind her, seeing that the maids, O-Haru and Fuyuta were gathered in a terrified clump at one end of the main room under the watchful eye of a samurai and a richly armoured lord. Doctor Tsuchigaeru sat to the side, cowering back, every line of his frame proclaiming him an old and harmless scholar. A samurai stood near him, now and then casting a contemptuous look upon the old man, who had near turned green with fear. Tama lay face down in the centre of the room, unmoving in a pool of blood. He was clearly dead. Another samurai stood near the stairs. He looked up as Chiyo descended.

"My lord!" he cried.

"Quiet," Chiyo said, and sent his head rolling across the floor.

Everyone turned to look at her and now, she thought, she had lost the surprise. It seemed, however, that Doctor Tsuchigaeru had gained it, for as the samurai by Lord Genhara ran at her, the doctor flung himself upon the back of the man near him, grappling him close. Such self-sacrifice was unexpected in the scholarly classes, but not unwelcome as a delaying tactic, and Chiyo closed with the remaining samurai as Lord Genhara drew nearer, her blade ringing against that of her opponent. They drew apart and the man was thrown off balance as Yuwa pelted him with all manner of things from her position further up the stairs: shoes, a dish, a vial full of foul smelling liquid like fox piss that splattered over his face and finally the wakizashi that did little more than scratch him, but that distracted him enough for Chiyo to use almost the last of her speed to come in low and take him with a rising cut. Behind him, the doctor seemed, amazingly, to have won his fight.

"Who are you, boy, to have killed the last of my men?" Lord Genhara said. "You destroy my home, take my prize? I'll have her back at least, and those other sluts too."

"Boy?" Chiyo said. "I am Akai Chiyo, daughter of Akai Yataro, retainer of Mori Yukihiro. Lord Mori ordered me not to seek vengeance for his death. He said nothing about holding back from killing you while protecting my friends."

"So," Lord Genhara said. "You're that unnatural woman. And you're friends with creatures such as these. I should not be surprised. Do you even know the company you keep?"

"Yes," Chiyo said. "And all that matters to me is our care and affection for each other."

Lord Genhara charged her, and she was forced to fall back before the ferocity of his blows. She fell back behind one of the house posts as his sword cut deep into the wood, and struck out as he tugged the blade free, but her sword merely glanced off his lacquered plates. She felt the arrow-wound bleeding, and was overcome with weakness, suddenly feeling unable to so much as hold her sword. Her arm faltered, and the sword wavered and dropped.

"The world will be better with such as you out of it," Lord Genhara said, raising his sword high.

Suddenly, four young foxes mobbed him, leaping upon him and swinging from his sword arm, their teeth in the wrist guard, worrying at the laces as if to untie them. One scrabbled at his faceplate, barking in staccato fury as he grabbed at it with his other hand to dash it to the floor. Chiyo seized up her sword and with the last reserves of her strength thrust the blade home up under the edge of his helmet through his head and into his brain. He collapsed with a great clatter of the lacquered armour, his sword hitting the floor with a ringing sound. Chiyo stood there, swaying, looking at the two maids and O-Haru and Fuyuta crouched panting over the body, then her eyes rolled up and she fainted.

When she opened her eyes again she was back in Yuwa's room. It had been dusted, and a vase of flowers stood nearby for her to look at. She was wearing layers of clothing, from hadajuban outward to yukata, all loosely tied but very clean and proper, as if she might not be dead after all. Her wound had been dressed again with Doctor Tsuchigaeru's medicines and hurt much less. Her swords were lying neatly beside the futon, which she found comforting.

After a while she decided that the fact that she was hungry must mean that she really was still alive, and that the sound of the biwa downstairs must mean that Fuyuta was too. Shortly after she had come to this conclusion, the door opened, and Yuwa entered, with Okako carrying a tray of food. Okako put the tray down and bowed very prettily.

"Most honourable Lady Chiyo," she said, her face happy and somewhat shy, and she withdrew.

"I'll help you," Yuwa said, and got Chiyo sitting up.

The food was delicious. There was a lot of inarizushi, as ever, which made Chiyo pause for the first time.

"Is everyone all right?" she asked at last.

"Yes. Even Doctor Tsuchigaeru – it's not often such as he loses a wrestling bout. They killed poor Tama."

"I hope I took enough vengeance," Chiyo said. She ate a few mouthfuls, but could not put off speaking forever. "Might I ask something?"

Yuwa folded her hands in her lap. "Yes. I thought you might want to."

"Your children and the maids. Are they foxes?"

"Yes," Yuwa said.

Chiyo ate another few mouthfuls. O-Haru was a very good cook.

"Are you a fox?" she asked.

"Yes," Yuwa said. "Are you very angry? The younger ones thought you knew, from what you said to Lord Genhara. That's why Okako is so pleased now; she's never had someone know and still like her."

"I meant I didn't mind you being of the merchant class and them being prostitutes," Chiyo said.

"That's what I thought," Yuwa said with a sigh. "I owe you so much, Lady Chiyo. You may stay here, of course. When you're well I'll give you the profit of the teahouse and you can leave –"

"Yuwa!" Chiyo said in fright, seizing her hand. "Don't make me leave! You said I could come back here, that it was my home! You're closest and dearest to me! Haven't we always been kind to each other?"

Yuwa looked at her. "I truly loved my husband and wish he had had more than a human's lifetime. I told you the truth, I have never wanted another man to take his place," she said. "And when I began to follow the Lord Buddha I gave up playing tricks on humans. None of us ever told anyone, it was too dangerous. Do you really want to stay with me even now you know?"

"Yes," Chiyo said, tears starting up in her eyes, "are we not two women alone who need love and friendship? You helped me when my child could not be saved, and I have helped you when your children could be. I am not a man to wipe out your husband's memory - are not our memories of a different kind? Let us not part, Yuwa." She was greatly relieved when Yuwa wept and folded their hands together.

"This is your home, now and forever," Yuwa said. "You go and have your adventures, and come back to me. First of all, you get well, and then come downstairs and eat my daughter's cooking and praise my son's singing and music, and how well my maids serve the customers. We're your family, Akai Chiyo, and don't you forget it".

"I haven't had a home in a long time," Chiyo said, and laid her head on Yuwa's breast as she was gathered close and a kiss laid on her face.

"You are one of us," Yuwa said, and Chiyo felt no insult at her class being ignored.

She had once more people to protect and somewhere to always return to. She was a rare and unusual being, and had found at last a place for herself amidst beings even more unusual. She embraced and was embraced in turn and felt only happiness.