“They’re excited! Gendo-kol, what do you say we make this more interesting, hmm? Every time I hit you, you’ve got to buy one of my famous bamboo mats.”
“Bamboo mats?” sneered my brother. “She can’t be serious.”
“She is,” said Kahei. “Haven’t you heard of Minami bamboo mats? They’ve been selling them for the last five years.”
I laughed, again, louder and harder than I had since the war. Bamboo mats! I knew of the Minami clan’s financial troubles, but bamboo mats of all things?
Sugihara was also laughing. “Then I shall walk away without a single mat,” he called. Next to Minami Shizuru, everything about him was stiff and old-fashioned, including his accent. “And what of you? For each blow of mine, what do you offer?”
Minami Shizuru grinned. I could not remember the last time I saw a noble grin in public. “Don’t be so cocky!” she said. “How’s this—if you can hit me even once, I’ll run an entire lap around the palace, naked as the gods made me.”
Sugihara did not hesitate. “Accepted,” he said. He drew his sword, and Minami Shizuru followed suit.
Except that she wielded nothing more than a wooden training sword.
I could not believe my eyes. A wooden training sword? Against Sugihara Gendo? How was she going to parry with that thing?
And yet!
I watched, flabbergasted, as she dodged his most expert strokes. That woman turned herself to water right there in the arena. How else to explain the fluidity of her movement? One moment she was a laughing brook, swaying away from his sword; the next, she was falling rain landing blows on his arms and shoulders. All the while she was grinning, laughing, teasing him. When she ended the duel by breaking his nose, it was a mercy to the man’s reputation.
In the end, Sugihara Gendo bought no less than fifty bamboo mats, and no one saw Minami Shizuru naked.
Over the course of five more duels she made the same wager. The results never changed: fifty mats sold, and not a lap taken. The winners of the tournament received ten thousand ryo each, but at this rate she was going to win that purse solely through selling mats.
And all this with a wooden sword! Where was the Minami clan’s fabled Daybreak blade? That, too, I longed to see in person—though watching the endlessly entertaining Shizuru was its own reward. Kahei informed me that Shizuru and her brother traded the sword each day they were in competition.
“Where is he competing, then?” I asked. There were eight arenas spread throughout the city, though obviously the palace courtyard was the most prestigious. I’d seen Keichi dispatch two street thugs at once on the third day, now that I thought of it—and he was using the wooden sword. He was impressive, but he lacked his sister’s effortless charisma.
“Out in the Harabana district,” said Kahei. An hour’s walk—and Minami Shizuru was not yet done for the day. As I looked out at her taking drags from her pipe, I knew without a doubt who I would rather watch.
I called for paper and a brush, and then for someone to carry my letter. To this day I remember it.
Minami Shizuru,
Eight thousand apologies for misrepresenting you. I admit, I should have waited to write that poem until we met; your true self is far more interesting than my lines. Before you I am as awestruck and speechless as a schoolboy. Will you allow me the honor of your company after your final match of the day?
May the Fallen Son favor you today,
O-Itsuki
I watched the servant run out from our platform, watched her weave through the crowds to reach the Queen of Crows. I watched her tear open the letter without a wink of care for the expensive paper. I tried to search her expression for any hint of her reaction, but it was difficult to do as far apart as we were. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
She flipped over the letter, shouted at someone for a brush, and scrawled something back. I was so eager to read it I stood and walked to the edge of our viewing platform, that I might receive it heartbeats earlier.
Her handwriting was as rough and untamed as the rest of her. Some of those characters were so badly done they’d paint a scholar scarlet.
But I loved them. Who else would dare to send me such a thing? It was so honest!
Poet Prince,
The price for my company is fifty mats and two bottles of plum wine. Afterward, if I like you, it’ll be twenty-five mats and a single bottle. Impress me.
The Queen of Drinking You Under the Table
Needless to say, it was a price I was more than happy to pay. That night, Minami Shizuru introduced me to a teahouse the city guard didn’t dare go near—White Leaf, White Smoke. She did so on the condition that I keep a hat pulled over my face the whole time, and that I dismiss my bodyguards.
“And should I be attacked by an assassin?” I wondered. “Whoever shall protect me?”
“Are you as dumb as you are pretty?” Minami Shizuru replied. She smelled of smoke and sweat and wine and leather. “It’s your brother they’re after, everyone in the empire loves you.”
“Do you count as ‘everyone,’ Minami-zun?” I said. There was an ease to being around her—I did not have to try so hard. She did not expect metaphors to drop out of my mouth as easily as honorifics.
She pulled the pipe out again—offering a quick glimpse of her scandalous tattoo—and bit down on the stem. Even so, she was smirking. “That is the question, isn’t it?”
Though I badgered her to expand, to confirm one way or the other, I soon discovered her fluidity also extended to conversation. She’d turn my inquiry into a question about Yusuke the Brawler, or my inspirations, or my opinion on whatever painted opera the Fujino Theater Company was putting on. From there we’d branch out, like a river, into any number of conversations. By the time I walked her to her room at a local inn it was nearly Second Bell—but I didn’t care.
I might have used all the luck in my life that night, for Shizuru agreed to see me a second evening. And then a third. And soon Minami Shizuru’s presence became as essential to my nights as the moon, as the stars, as the breath in my lungs and the blood in my veins.
Being with her—meeting her even once—was the culmination of my life till then. Every experience I’d had—every sorrow, every joy—had prepared me for her. The first time we kissed I knew that I would ask her to marry me.
I resolved to ask her one evening as the two of us sat in White Leaf, White Smoke. Keichi was with us. I felt it was appropriate to have him there when I asked, in case he had any objections he wished to discuss with her.
But fate, as I have said, is a cruel mistress, and she had other plans that day. As we sat together, the three of us sharing our first round, we noticed an outpouring of people coming from the back of the teahouse. White Leaf, White Smoke was packed more often than not—a spot near a table was a treasured thing to have. To see so many abandoning their hard-earned space did not bode well.
Minami Keichi sniffed. “I’ll give it a look,” he said, before setting off to do just that.