A Fox in the Works
Chapter 3 - A Maiden's Hand
Kaori was not angry.
Clearly, she was not angry. The half-dozen cutting poles laying around the edge of the garden, slices into neat sixths by her blade, were far too perfectly cut for her to be angry. Maybe that was the problem; she should cut them into eights instead.
She assessed the final pole, its thick woven padding covering a strong bamboo rod. Her focus shifted as images, scents, warmth from the last month intruded on her thoughts. Letters delivered in the middle of the night, when she was sleeping. Walks in the garden in the heat of the day. A poetry contest, even though he was so bad at it, in which he dedicated every halting haiku to her.
Kaori clenched her teeth. To keep herself from biting her tongue when she struck, not from anger or frustration or the unfairness of a world in which she could fall in love with an adventurous, thoughtful, sweet, honorable, handsome man and not be allowed to be with him because
HE WAS NOT KUGE!
The cutting pole fell into seven pieces.
Now, she was angry.
---
Misao washed Kaori's back, taking care not to rub too hard on the scars her mistress earned during the days when the five companions (in truth four companions and their servant, not that she minded) travelled together through the Empire and beyond. She gently lifted Kaori's long hair, rubbing soap, then oil into it to keep it strong.
"Misao?"
"Hai, Kakita-ue?"
"Misao, we are in a bath. You are washing my hair. You can call me Kaori, here if nowhere else."
"Hai, Kaori?"
"Is it hopeless?", the swordmaster's voice was wistful. "I knew it would be hard when I took Toshiki's place. I've never regretted it - the training would have killed him. But." She hunched forward, drawing around her pain. "Is this going to be all that I am allowed to be?"
Misao poured hot water on her mistress' back, then worked the oil into a lather and rubbed her shoulders. "Iie, Kaori. You know I like to read histories?"
"Hai. I remember Toshiki teaching you to read."
"I was reading the tale of Doji and Kakita last night. The author mentioned," and Misao prayed that Kaori did not ask to see the text, for she would have to explain how she knew of the hidden laws of the Kakita, "that the family of Doji was, in some ways, still bound by the Hantei's words."
Misao's mistress still under her kneading hands. "What do you mean?" Kaori's voice came out as a high, thin whisper.
"That a man might ask for the hand of a Crane maiden and, if he can present unique and true answers to the three riddles, he can win it."
Misao felt her mistress crumple around herself, pulling her knees to her chest, her soft sobs muffled by her hands.
Oh Ka-chan, I will make this right.
---
Finding Renshin was not difficult.
The Kitsune thought of himself as clever. He thought he was good at hiding. He may well have been both. But Misao knew where to look for him. She served the same truth, in the same way, plotting out the courses Toshiki and Kaori would take during the day, looking for the unobtrusive corners where one might hide just within sight in case one was needed. Love was the great truth neither of them could deny.
He stood at the corner of the garden, close enough to hear Kaori at her practice but far enough away that unless she looked she would not see him. He crouched on his knees, right hand down, left hand up and tucked close to his heart. With his red hair and red juban, he looked almost like a fox lying in wait for a mouse.
Some noise she hadn't meant to make must have startled him, for Renshin's head whipped around in her direction. His green eyes reflected the light for a moment, making them seem like mirrors in the sun. But that was just a trick of the light, as he shook himself and rose.
"Misao, ne?" Renshin said as he stood and walked towards her. "You are Toshiki's servant."
"It is my honor to serve both of Kakita-ue, hai."
"Do you have a message for me?"
"Hai. Do you love her?"
Renshin's head rocked back as if slapped. The look he turned on her would have frozen another servant in her steps. She gazed back at him mildly, waiting for his rage to pass.
It took the samurai a few moments to regain his composure.
"You have no right to ask that."
She locked eyes with him, her brown against his vivid green. "I am the only one who can."
Whatever he saw in her was more than he could bear. He looked down at his hands. "Hai."
"Then you must go to the Masters. Tell them you wish to invoke the Trial of Kakita. They will resist, but you have the right to ask as samurai, as bushi."
Renshin looked down at his feet. "What is this Trial?"
"In the early days of the Empire, when Hantei told Kakita he could marry Doji, Doji did not find her brother's words pleasing. So she placed three riddles on the man her brother chose for her: to bring the dead back to life; to tell the Court the length of the world and how long it would take to walk it; and to find a thing of perfect beauty."
The Kakitas' servant continued, her voice low and measured. "These three questions became the Trials of Kakita. It is an ancient rite, and one the Masters may not deny. As a bushi of a family allied with the Crane, you have standing invoke it. "
Renshin nodded, a sudden decision made. "It shall be so." With a leap he was past Misao and running.
Misao turned to watch him go. Standing at the entrance to the practice grounds was Kaori, her face flushed red, hands trembling, eyes filled with tears. The maiden stared at her servant then whirled and ran away.
Oh Lady, please!
---
Wisdom is knowing when not to bend.
Hai? His Lady did not often bother him with simple truths. His sister, on the other hand, was very fond of reminding him that, as her idiot brother, he often forgot the things others considered important. Things like sleeping, or eating, or remembering to visit his wife.
Asooo…
Kaori strode into his study, her perfectly maintained armor and the sacred blade she won on the day of the Topaz Championship at her hip proclaiming some kind of intent. He took a moment to study her, noting the formal hair-ties of blue and white silk, the carefully applied make-up which made her eyes seem wider and larger than they were, and the fine silk of her under-robes.
He stood up, all not quite five feet of him, his stained kimono and loose hair contracting poorly with her perfection. He bowed a little to her, then jumped back as she fell to one knee before him. She bowed her head and pressed the knuckles of her left hand to the ground, the right resting on her heart. The motion caused the acorn bells in her hair to chime.
"Toshiki, brother, I beg you not to allow this thing."
He reached out to her, to draw his sister to her feet, but stopped his hands before they left his sides.
"Hai?"
Kaori's voice was firm. "I know Renshin came to you. I know what he said. You cannot allow this."
"I do not have the authority to…"
She cut him off, "YOU DO. You know you do. You are the last of the line. You are my BROTHER."
"Wisdom is knowing when not to bend," he said, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Why not, sister?
She continued to look to the ground. "You know that Kakita Ichiro-san has asked for my hand. We need this alliance. Yoriko-hime needs this alliance. You need this alliance if you are ever to leave this gilded cage."
Toshiki nodded, watching the future play out in his mind. His sister, a high lady as she deserved to be, forever to put aside the sword. His wife strengthened in the Courts, with access to the influence and power of the Doji. Freedom for himself, to travel again, to see the world beyond the Academy and its confines.
He looked down at the shining figure of duty and honor before him. My sister, crying every night of her life, abused and alone, her art denied so that I can be free.
"I will make my will known to the Masters and then to Renshin."
---
Yoriko slowly rubbed oil into Toshiki's hair, hot water working to loosen the knots in her back and hips as she labored on his neck. She could feel him trembling under her fingers but there was nothing to be said. He knew who he was. She knew who she was. The barrier between them was more than just water and skin.
She rose from the bath and pulled a robe of soft, raw silk around her. Her husband rose as well, coming to stand beside her. In the steam she found towels and began to dry him off. Scars from battles he never mentioned, stains from ink and paint, a tortoise-shell tattoo across his back - his skin was a map of the a world she would never truly know.
He stood as she hung his formal kimono around him. A soft white yakuta of the finest silk. A second kimono of stiffer blue silk, painted by Toshiki's own hands with an elaborate design of blossoms and cranes. The final outer robe of white and blue, painted just last night.
Yoriko paused, holding the kimono before her to see it better in the light. A painting of Kakita handing Doji a mirror covered the entire silk canvas. He had executed it in the style that got him banished from Court, realism so painful to see that it tore at the heart. She tilted it, and the scene changed slightly; now she was looking at Renshin rather than Kakita, at Kaori rather than Doji.
"Daring, husband." She hung the outer kimono around his shoulders then started work on the ties. He would never get them in the right place to not ruin the effect if left to his own devices.
"Necessary, wife." His words were as clipped as her own but the tone held underlying warmth. "They must know I am not asking."
"Hai." She finished the ties and selected an obi. "You should take your fan."
"As you say." He looked at her. She tried to smile back at him through her wife's mask but all that came out was a little brightening of her eyes. There's the man I met in the garden's that first night, fresh from facing the Hells with nothing but a paint brush and laughing. I've missed you, Toshi-kun.
The Crane Lord turned from his wife and went to remind Masters of the Academy of their place.
---
Renshin paced.
The garden was large for its kind, but he was kitsune, born in the Forest and made from its soil. The walls wore on his spirit. The carefully tended paths which delighted Kaori locked him in place. How could anything here be said to be free, to be alive, wrapped in so much tradition and imagery?
He heard the tread of soft feet on the, smelled the mix of ink and paint and paper that masked Toshiki's own scent drifting down the trail. He looked up to see not the painter but kuge, a Lord of the Crane Clan and child of the gods who came to Earth to save it, in his full splendor. The kitsune fell to one knee. From the recesses of Renshin's heart came dark doubt. This was a mistake such as will be laughed at through the ages. He could have come to this place as a noble lord, as a suitable suitor…
"Renshin-san. Good. I have news for you." Even the painter's voice had changed. Usually light, now it carried subtly and tones that made the fox's ears want to flatten if they still could.
"I have spoken to the Masters. They have agreed that you may answer Kakita's riddles. If you succeed in their eyes, you will be wed to Kakita Kaori. If you fail, you are banished from the lands of the Crane. The Masters will send word to our allies that you have dared beyond your station and exhausted our generosity. There may be a place in this world where you can rest your head but not within the Emerald Empire." Toshiki's voice rattled the fox's bones.
"Be aware as well that, if you fail, kitsune, Kaori will never wed another. This is the price she pays for your audacity."
His voice changed, becoming less of a thing of legend and more that of an angry brother. "I know what you are, Renshin. Do not think retreating to your Forest will save you. I have studied in the High House of Light, walked in the Shadow Lands seeking truths, tore the Sultan from his blooded throne in the Burning Sands, fought beside the Jade Champion when she cast down traitors who stole the power of the Heavens and the Hells for their own. If you fail, I will have your pelt for a trophy and your Elders will thank me for staying my hand."
"You have three days. Now take yourself out of my sight."
Not a mistake to be laughed at; a tale told to young pups to remind them that touching the sun can burn your bones.
---
Yoriko lit three sticks of incense and placed them in the bowl before the statue of Lady Doji. She bowed low, pressing her face to the silk pillows in front of the shrine.
His Lady, he calls you, 0'Doji-kami. Please don't push him so hard. Please don't break him.
Lady, please, make the others see…
She pressed her hands together on her belly below her navel.
…Please make Toshi-kun see that soon we will be three.
Chapter 3 - A Maiden's Hand
Kaori was not angry.
Clearly, she was not angry. The half-dozen cutting poles laying around the edge of the garden, slices into neat sixths by her blade, were far too perfectly cut for her to be angry. Maybe that was the problem; she should cut them into eights instead.
She assessed the final pole, its thick woven padding covering a strong bamboo rod. Her focus shifted as images, scents, warmth from the last month intruded on her thoughts. Letters delivered in the middle of the night, when she was sleeping. Walks in the garden in the heat of the day. A poetry contest, even though he was so bad at it, in which he dedicated every halting haiku to her.
Kaori clenched her teeth. To keep herself from biting her tongue when she struck, not from anger or frustration or the unfairness of a world in which she could fall in love with an adventurous, thoughtful, sweet, honorable, handsome man and not be allowed to be with him because
HE WAS NOT KUGE!
The cutting pole fell into seven pieces.
Now, she was angry.
---
Misao washed Kaori's back, taking care not to rub too hard on the scars her mistress earned during the days when the five companions (in truth four companions and their servant, not that she minded) travelled together through the Empire and beyond. She gently lifted Kaori's long hair, rubbing soap, then oil into it to keep it strong.
"Misao?"
"Hai, Kakita-ue?"
"Misao, we are in a bath. You are washing my hair. You can call me Kaori, here if nowhere else."
"Hai, Kaori?"
"Is it hopeless?", the swordmaster's voice was wistful. "I knew it would be hard when I took Toshiki's place. I've never regretted it - the training would have killed him. But." She hunched forward, drawing around her pain. "Is this going to be all that I am allowed to be?"
Misao poured hot water on her mistress' back, then worked the oil into a lather and rubbed her shoulders. "Iie, Kaori. You know I like to read histories?"
"Hai. I remember Toshiki teaching you to read."
"I was reading the tale of Doji and Kakita last night. The author mentioned," and Misao prayed that Kaori did not ask to see the text, for she would have to explain how she knew of the hidden laws of the Kakita, "that the family of Doji was, in some ways, still bound by the Hantei's words."
Misao's mistress still under her kneading hands. "What do you mean?" Kaori's voice came out as a high, thin whisper.
"That a man might ask for the hand of a Crane maiden and, if he can present unique and true answers to the three riddles, he can win it."
Misao felt her mistress crumple around herself, pulling her knees to her chest, her soft sobs muffled by her hands.
Oh Ka-chan, I will make this right.
---
Finding Renshin was not difficult.
The Kitsune thought of himself as clever. He thought he was good at hiding. He may well have been both. But Misao knew where to look for him. She served the same truth, in the same way, plotting out the courses Toshiki and Kaori would take during the day, looking for the unobtrusive corners where one might hide just within sight in case one was needed. Love was the great truth neither of them could deny.
He stood at the corner of the garden, close enough to hear Kaori at her practice but far enough away that unless she looked she would not see him. He crouched on his knees, right hand down, left hand up and tucked close to his heart. With his red hair and red juban, he looked almost like a fox lying in wait for a mouse.
Some noise she hadn't meant to make must have startled him, for Renshin's head whipped around in her direction. His green eyes reflected the light for a moment, making them seem like mirrors in the sun. But that was just a trick of the light, as he shook himself and rose.
"Misao, ne?" Renshin said as he stood and walked towards her. "You are Toshiki's servant."
"It is my honor to serve both of Kakita-ue, hai."
"Do you have a message for me?"
"Hai. Do you love her?"
Renshin's head rocked back as if slapped. The look he turned on her would have frozen another servant in her steps. She gazed back at him mildly, waiting for his rage to pass.
It took the samurai a few moments to regain his composure.
"You have no right to ask that."
She locked eyes with him, her brown against his vivid green. "I am the only one who can."
Whatever he saw in her was more than he could bear. He looked down at his hands. "Hai."
"Then you must go to the Masters. Tell them you wish to invoke the Trial of Kakita. They will resist, but you have the right to ask as samurai, as bushi."
Renshin looked down at his feet. "What is this Trial?"
"In the early days of the Empire, when Hantei told Kakita he could marry Doji, Doji did not find her brother's words pleasing. So she placed three riddles on the man her brother chose for her: to bring the dead back to life; to tell the Court the length of the world and how long it would take to walk it; and to find a thing of perfect beauty."
The Kakitas' servant continued, her voice low and measured. "These three questions became the Trials of Kakita. It is an ancient rite, and one the Masters may not deny. As a bushi of a family allied with the Crane, you have standing invoke it. "
Renshin nodded, a sudden decision made. "It shall be so." With a leap he was past Misao and running.
Misao turned to watch him go. Standing at the entrance to the practice grounds was Kaori, her face flushed red, hands trembling, eyes filled with tears. The maiden stared at her servant then whirled and ran away.
Oh Lady, please!
---
Wisdom is knowing when not to bend.
Hai? His Lady did not often bother him with simple truths. His sister, on the other hand, was very fond of reminding him that, as her idiot brother, he often forgot the things others considered important. Things like sleeping, or eating, or remembering to visit his wife.
Asooo…
Kaori strode into his study, her perfectly maintained armor and the sacred blade she won on the day of the Topaz Championship at her hip proclaiming some kind of intent. He took a moment to study her, noting the formal hair-ties of blue and white silk, the carefully applied make-up which made her eyes seem wider and larger than they were, and the fine silk of her under-robes.
He stood up, all not quite five feet of him, his stained kimono and loose hair contracting poorly with her perfection. He bowed a little to her, then jumped back as she fell to one knee before him. She bowed her head and pressed the knuckles of her left hand to the ground, the right resting on her heart. The motion caused the acorn bells in her hair to chime.
"Toshiki, brother, I beg you not to allow this thing."
He reached out to her, to draw his sister to her feet, but stopped his hands before they left his sides.
"Hai?"
Kaori's voice was firm. "I know Renshin came to you. I know what he said. You cannot allow this."
"I do not have the authority to…"
She cut him off, "YOU DO. You know you do. You are the last of the line. You are my BROTHER."
"Wisdom is knowing when not to bend," he said, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Why not, sister?
She continued to look to the ground. "You know that Kakita Ichiro-san has asked for my hand. We need this alliance. Yoriko-hime needs this alliance. You need this alliance if you are ever to leave this gilded cage."
Toshiki nodded, watching the future play out in his mind. His sister, a high lady as she deserved to be, forever to put aside the sword. His wife strengthened in the Courts, with access to the influence and power of the Doji. Freedom for himself, to travel again, to see the world beyond the Academy and its confines.
He looked down at the shining figure of duty and honor before him. My sister, crying every night of her life, abused and alone, her art denied so that I can be free.
"I will make my will known to the Masters and then to Renshin."
---
Yoriko slowly rubbed oil into Toshiki's hair, hot water working to loosen the knots in her back and hips as she labored on his neck. She could feel him trembling under her fingers but there was nothing to be said. He knew who he was. She knew who she was. The barrier between them was more than just water and skin.
She rose from the bath and pulled a robe of soft, raw silk around her. Her husband rose as well, coming to stand beside her. In the steam she found towels and began to dry him off. Scars from battles he never mentioned, stains from ink and paint, a tortoise-shell tattoo across his back - his skin was a map of the a world she would never truly know.
He stood as she hung his formal kimono around him. A soft white yakuta of the finest silk. A second kimono of stiffer blue silk, painted by Toshiki's own hands with an elaborate design of blossoms and cranes. The final outer robe of white and blue, painted just last night.
Yoriko paused, holding the kimono before her to see it better in the light. A painting of Kakita handing Doji a mirror covered the entire silk canvas. He had executed it in the style that got him banished from Court, realism so painful to see that it tore at the heart. She tilted it, and the scene changed slightly; now she was looking at Renshin rather than Kakita, at Kaori rather than Doji.
"Daring, husband." She hung the outer kimono around his shoulders then started work on the ties. He would never get them in the right place to not ruin the effect if left to his own devices.
"Necessary, wife." His words were as clipped as her own but the tone held underlying warmth. "They must know I am not asking."
"Hai." She finished the ties and selected an obi. "You should take your fan."
"As you say." He looked at her. She tried to smile back at him through her wife's mask but all that came out was a little brightening of her eyes. There's the man I met in the garden's that first night, fresh from facing the Hells with nothing but a paint brush and laughing. I've missed you, Toshi-kun.
The Crane Lord turned from his wife and went to remind Masters of the Academy of their place.
---
Renshin paced.
The garden was large for its kind, but he was kitsune, born in the Forest and made from its soil. The walls wore on his spirit. The carefully tended paths which delighted Kaori locked him in place. How could anything here be said to be free, to be alive, wrapped in so much tradition and imagery?
He heard the tread of soft feet on the, smelled the mix of ink and paint and paper that masked Toshiki's own scent drifting down the trail. He looked up to see not the painter but kuge, a Lord of the Crane Clan and child of the gods who came to Earth to save it, in his full splendor. The kitsune fell to one knee. From the recesses of Renshin's heart came dark doubt. This was a mistake such as will be laughed at through the ages. He could have come to this place as a noble lord, as a suitable suitor…
"Renshin-san. Good. I have news for you." Even the painter's voice had changed. Usually light, now it carried subtly and tones that made the fox's ears want to flatten if they still could.
"I have spoken to the Masters. They have agreed that you may answer Kakita's riddles. If you succeed in their eyes, you will be wed to Kakita Kaori. If you fail, you are banished from the lands of the Crane. The Masters will send word to our allies that you have dared beyond your station and exhausted our generosity. There may be a place in this world where you can rest your head but not within the Emerald Empire." Toshiki's voice rattled the fox's bones.
"Be aware as well that, if you fail, kitsune, Kaori will never wed another. This is the price she pays for your audacity."
His voice changed, becoming less of a thing of legend and more that of an angry brother. "I know what you are, Renshin. Do not think retreating to your Forest will save you. I have studied in the High House of Light, walked in the Shadow Lands seeking truths, tore the Sultan from his blooded throne in the Burning Sands, fought beside the Jade Champion when she cast down traitors who stole the power of the Heavens and the Hells for their own. If you fail, I will have your pelt for a trophy and your Elders will thank me for staying my hand."
"You have three days. Now take yourself out of my sight."
Not a mistake to be laughed at; a tale told to young pups to remind them that touching the sun can burn your bones.
---
Yoriko lit three sticks of incense and placed them in the bowl before the statue of Lady Doji. She bowed low, pressing her face to the silk pillows in front of the shrine.
His Lady, he calls you, 0'Doji-kami. Please don't push him so hard. Please don't break him.
Lady, please, make the others see…
She pressed her hands together on her belly below her navel.
…Please make Toshi-kun see that soon we will be three.