L5r - scroll 01 - The Scorpion Page 14

  Asami nodded knowingly. "A pretty trap for a young lion," she said.

  Kachiko nodded in return. "Just so. Do it quickly."

  "As swiftly as the wind," Asami said. She left. Kachiko smiled.

  xxxxxxxx

  The next day the Scorpion mistress, in her Aki disguise, came to the House of Junko. Her ninja-ko had stopped by earlier to arrange Kachiko's visit. She wanted to make sure she arrived when few customers occupied the house, so she chose the early morning for her visit.

  As she approached the gate, Junko and Yoko appeared—as if by magic—in front of the house. They bowed and scraped deferentially and ushered Aki into the house, making excuses for the humbleness of the establishment. Kachiko made all the appropriate responses, though her keen mind was actually elsewhere.

  Asami had done her work well. In short order she had turned up a small cabin within the Imperial Forest. It belonged to an imperial gamekeeper, but he had been renting it out to earn extra money.

  "The people he has rented it to are either fugitives or poachers or both," Asami told Kachiko. "The cabin is not currently being used." Since Asami possessed persuasive abilities nearly comparable to those of her mistress, it took little effort to convince the gamekeeper to change tenants. The cabin would be rented to Asami—or, rather, her Aki persona—for the purposes of a romantic tryst the "widow" was carrying out.

  Kachiko chuckled. Asami had nearly told the truth, though the person involved in the tryst would not be Asami or Aki.

  They examined the cabin in the late afternoon, and by evening had determined what renovations would have to be made to render it suitable for their purposes. Asami arranged for a Scorpion repair crew to work through the night. By morning, the gamekeeper would hardly have recognized his own home. Kachiko, who had carefully avoided contact with the work crew, deemed it "perfect."

  Then the Scorpion lady, as Aki, had gone to visit Junko's geisha house.

  "Our woman Hatsuko," Kachiko said, "where is she?"

  "Awaiting your pleasure, Mistress," Junko said.

  "Her room is in the back quarter of the house," Yoko added. "Her samurai prefers to be close to nature. Our gardens abut the forest near there."

  Kachiko nodded. "Good. I shall see her. Take me to her room. Then you may go."

  "Mistress," Junko said flatteringly, "we obtained many good ideas from our other girls."

  "I'm sure you have," Kachiko said. "I'll be delighted to hear them after I've talked to this girl."

  Junko and Yoko bowed. Yoko led the Scorpion lady to Hat-suko's room and slid back the screen. "My lady," Yoko said, "your geisha Hatsuko."

  Hatsuko bowed low, touching her head to the clean tatami mat on the floor. The geisha's room was large but plain, almost monastic. A few simple lacquer tables and brush paintings were the only decorations—in keeping with the character of her lover.

  Kachiko nodded to Yoko, and the younger woman left the room. Kachiko crossed to where Hatsuko knelt. The Scorpion mistress opened her fan with a flourish and said, "Let me take a look at you."

  Slowly, Hatsuko rose. She did not meet Kachiko's eyes. The Mother of Scorpions looked her up and down. She saw a girl fair of face and form, with shiny black hair and the painted features of a geisha. The girl's kimono was of good quality and accentuated her figure nicely. She had delicate hands and feet and a generous bosom. She could have made a fine woman, but—in Hatsuko's posture, in the stance that revealed one's soul—Kachiko saw an emptiness. The geisha had been beaten down into her station in life, and had no spirit to rise above it.

  Kachiko put her hand on Hatsuko's chin, lifted up her face, and looked into the geisha's eyes. They were brown and soulful, but reminded the Scorpion lady of a doe's eyes. Kachiko smiled, but not for the reason Hatsuko apprehended. Good, thought the Mother of Scorpions. There is much I can use here. Hatsuko smiled back timidly.

  "Walk with me," Kachiko said.

  Hatsuko nodded and followed Kachiko to the outer exit of the room. Kachiko glanced at the shoji and waited. Hatsuko rolled back the screen and the two of them stepped outside. Kachiko led the girl to the woods at the edge of the gardens.

  "You know who I am?" Kachiko asked the girl.

  "You are my mistress's mistress," Hatsuko said.

  "And do you know why I am here?"

  "No," Hatsuko said.

  Kachiko looked straight at the girl, but Hatsuko turned away from her gaze. "Come now," the disguised Scorpion said, "I'm sure Junko and Yoko spent a good deal of time discussing my visit with you. They probably spent hours asking you questions they thought I might ask and suggesting responses you could give. I suspect they had you up half the night, which is why you look so tired."

  Kachiko glimpsed real fear in the geisha's eyes. "No ... I mean yes," Hatsuko said. "I mean, they spoke to me, but that's not why I was up late."

  "Oh?" said Kachiko, arching one lovely eyebrow.

  "I was waiting for my ... for a client."

  "And did he arrive?"

  "No."

  "So you were not paid, then?"

  Hatsuko shook her head. "He has never been late before. Always he arrives early."

  They had walked very near to the forest now. "I see from your face that you care for this man," she said. "You shouldn't, you know. A man is just a man. A customer is just a customer. They're all alike in the end."

  Hatsuko turned her face down, and she blushed behind her white makeup.

  "He is ... different," Hatsuko said softly.

  Kachiko frowned slightly. "This young man, is he the soldier that Junko and Yoko told me about?"

  Again, Hatsuko blushed. "He is a soldier, yes." "I too loved a soldier once," Kachiko said, adding just a hint of a wistful sigh to her voice.

  "What happened?" Hatsuko asked.

  "He died," Kachiko said. "They all either die or move on in the end. That's the way soldiers are. When they go they leave you heartbroken."

  "He will not leave me," Hatsuko said.

  "Really?" Kachiko asked, arching her eyebrows. "Then he must be something special." She turned to the forest. "Do you know these woods, girl?"

  "Not very well," said Hatsuko.

  "But you have been in them?"

  "Yes. Sometimes."

  "With your soldier?"

  "Yes."

  "Come walk under the boughs and tell me about it," Kachiko said. "It would do my widow's heart good to hear." She stretched out her hand to Hatsuko.

  At first, the girl seemed reluctant to take it. Then, timidly, Hatsuko put her hand in the hand of the Mother of Scorpions.

  As the girl talked in vague, romantic ways about the man Kachiko knew to be Akodo Toturi, the mistress of Scorpions led Hatsuko ever deeper into the woods. Kachiko agreed politely with the things the geisha said, chatting as if she were an interested older woman who feared she might become a spinster. All the while, Kachiko led the girl toward their true destination.

  Suddenly, Hatsuko stopped and gasped.

  "What is it?" Kachiko asked, though she already knew.

  "This cabin," Hatsuko said.

  "What about it?"

  "Totur—I mean, my soldier often speaks of a cabin in the woods."

  "Is it a cabin he has been to, then?"

  "No," said Hatsuko. "It is one he dreams of."

  Kachiko laughed. "He dreams of my cabin?"

  Hatsuko's brown eyes grew wide. "This is your cabin, my mistress?"

  "Yes," Kachiko said simply. "Though I seldom come here." She sighed wistfully as she said it. "My husband built it for me when we were young and in love."

  "That's exactly what my love wishes to do for me."

  "Does he?" Kachiko asked, arching her eyebrows again. "Maybe he isn't so bad. Why don't you come inside? We'll have some tea."

  "Oh, I couldn't," Hatsuko said.

  Kachiko frowned. "Who is to say what you can, or cannot do, besides myself?"

  "No one, Mistress."

  "Then come inside and stop being foolish."r />
  Kachiko slid back the screens and stepped inside the cabin. Inside was a single room, plain white with simple decorations—almost like Hatsuko's room at the geisha house.

  The geisha noticed the resemblance. "It's almost like a dream," Hatsuko said.

  "Indeed it is," said Kachiko, taking a pot from over the small fire. She'd arranged for the tea to be ready when they got there. Even now, her ninja-ko waited in the woods should she be needed further.

  "I put the pot on before I came to see you," Kachiko explained as she poured the tea. I thought I d like to have some when I got back, though I had no idea I'd have a visitor."

  Hatsuko bowed and took the cup Kachiko offered. "Thank you, Mistress," she said. She put the cup to her lips and drank deeply, trying to quiet her nerves. The geisha never felt the subtle Scorpion herbs that, from that moment on, dulled her will— herbs to which Kachiko had long ago built up an immunity.

  "You said this is like a dream," Kachiko said softly. "Whose dream? Yours or your lover's?"

  "His ... I mean both," said Hatsuko, her head suddenly feeling cloudy. "Both of ours."

  "The dreams of men and women are seldom the same, you know," Kachiko said, refilling Hatsuko's cup. "Especially the dreams of samurai and geisha. What is it you want, Hatsuko?"

  "I want..." Hatsuko began, a faraway look in her eyes, "I want to be with my lover forever, until the Sun Goddess sets behind the mountains for the final time."

  Kachiko nodded sympathetically and said, "That will never happen, you know. It never can happen."

  "It will happen," the geisha said a little too insistently.

  "I see in your eyes that you doubt it too," said Kachiko. "My husband died and left me. Your soldier lover will surely leave you, one way or another."

  "No! Never! He has promised!"

  "But men do not keep their promises."

  "Akodo Toturi does," Hatsuko said defiantly.

  Kachiko leaned back on her cushion. "So, that is your lover's name?" she said. "Tell me, Hatsuko-san, do you know who your lover truly is?"

  "He is a great soldier ... a general."

  "He is the emperor's general, a man married far more to his duty than he could ever be to a simple woman ... to a geisha."

  "That's not so!"

  "It is so," said Kachiko, leaning in closer to the girl. "It is the way of the world. Men leave, either to death or to the arms of another woman. He has another woman already, this Toturi, you know."

  "Yes ... I mean, no," Hatsuko said softly.

  "He's engaged," Kachiko continued, "to an advisor at the Imperial Court."

  "He does not love her."

  "He cannot help but marry her," Kachiko said. "He will marry whomever the emperor tells him to marry. And the woman he marries shall not be a geisha—the emperor would never allow it."

  "He will buy my freedom," Hatsuko said, tears welling up in her eyes. "He has told me so."

  "And I would gladly sell your contract to him," Kachiko said. Then she lowered her voice, leaned close, and whispered in Hatsuko's ear. "But he will never ask."

  "No!" Hatsuko cried, burying her face in her hands.

  "He will not ask because he dares not. It would displease the emperor too much. He could have asked me already .... But he hasn't."

  Hatsuko leaned forward, sobbing, until her head almost touched the floor. "He loves me," she said, pounding her delicate fist on the floorboards.

  "But he can never marry you," Kachiko whispered. "Never"

  Hatsuko collapsed in a heap, weeping piteously.

  "How could a simple geisha hope to hold the heart of the Lion daimyo?" Kachiko asked sarcastically. "He'll use you and cast you aside. That is the way of the world."

  Kachiko leaned back and observed the wreckage she had caused. After a suitable pause, she spoke again.

  "However," she said, her voice deep and melodious, "it is possible that you and he can be together."

  Hatsuko looked up. A glint of hope sparked in her tear-reddened eyes.

  "You can be together, forever," Kachiko repeated.

  "H-how?"

  Kachiko leaned back. "I'll tell you presently, but first, I want to tell you what tragedy the future would bring if you were to marry this man. He is the daimyo of his clan, you know that."

  Hatsuko nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  "But you do not know about his fiancee," Kachiko said. "Her name is Isawa Kaede, and she is a powerful sorceress in the Phoenix clan. She is influential at court—the emperor listens to her. If she found out about your affair with Toturi, it would mean the end for him."

  "She would have him killed?" Hatsuko asked.

  "The emperor could order him killed, for the shame he has brought upon Kaede and his own house. More likely, he would force your beloved to commit seppuku."

  Hatsuko gasped, "No!"

  "Yes. The shame would be that great. Of course, you would be executed as well. But that might not be the worst that could happen."

  "What could be worse than ritual suicide?"

  "Seppuku is a way to regain lost honor. That would be the best Toturi could hope for. Far worse would be to be left to the devices of this Kaede."

  "What could she do to my Toturi?"

  "As a sorceress, there is no end to the horrors she might inflict on him. You've heard that a Phoenix is a bird that dies in flames and yet lives again?"

  Hatsuko nodded, fear building up behind her eyes.

  "Well," Kachiko said, lowering her voice once more, "I have heard that Phoenix sorcerers can inflict a thousand burning deaths on one man. They call it 'the hell of burning devils.' In this terrible spell, they set a man afire, but their magic makes his skin grow back each time it burns away."

  Hatsuko gasped.

  "So a man may burn for a day, or a thousand days, and yet not die until they let him."

  "Surely she would not do this to her fiance," Hatsuko cried.

  Kachiko tilted back her fine nose and looked down at the girl. "What would a woman not do to the man who betrayed her?"

  "I will take him away," Hatsuko said, looking around frantically. "We will flee from this place!"

  "Where could you flee that a sorceress could not find you?" Kachiko asked sympathetically. "And if he were to strike first—if he killed this witch-fiend—the emperor would have him killed just as surely, though probably more swiftly. Either way, it would be a terrible blow to the empire. The Phoenix and the Lion would go to war. It could tear the empire apart. All this because of love. Do you want to bring about the end of the empire?"

  "No," Hatsuko sobbed.

  Kachiko leaned back and took a deep breath before continuing. "Toturi is young. He doesn't see the folly he has brought

  upon himself—and the empire. To him, you may seem but a simple dalliance, but in fact, you are his death."

  "Then I shall kill myself!"

  "Too late. The damage has already been done. Or would you kill Junko, Yoko, all your friends, and me as well?"

  Tears streamed down Hatsuko's face once more. "I would but..."

  "But?"

  "But I cannot. I have not the strength." She buried her face in her hands and collapsed once more. "Oh, we are doomed! Doomed!"

  "Yes," Kachiko said, stroking the girl's black hair. "As are moths who fly too close to a flame."

  "You said there was a way we could be together ...!" Hatsuko sobbed, her voice almost smothered by robes and tears.

  "There is," the Scorpion lady said calmly. "You can be together forever and the empire will be saved."

  "Please," Hatsuko said, grabbing the hem of Kachiko's kimono, "please, I beg you ... tell me how."

  From around her neck, Kachiko took a small blue medallion. "With this," she said, holding out the amulet before the frightened girl.

  Hatsuko looked up, her eyes spellbound by the glittering blue jewel in its golden setting. Inside the gem, she could see a small amount of white powder. "What does it hold inside?" she asked.

  "The
Sleep of Eternity," Kachiko said.

  "Poison?"

  Kachiko nodded. "If you prefer to think of it as such."

  "But you said we would always be together."

  "How else can one always be together with one's love— except in the afterlife?"

  Hatsuko lowered her tear-stained eyes and wept piteously.

  Kachiko watched her carefully. "Think of eternity in paradise," she said, her voice calm and soothing. "Surely that is better than pain and death here upon this callow world. Surely

  it is better than war and the destruction of the empire. Remember, you will be together."

  Hatsuko sobbed softly on the floor.

  "Will you do it?" the Scorpion lady asked. "Do you have the courage to save yourself and your lover? Do you have the courage to save the empire?"

  From beneath her robes, Hatsuko said, "I do____I will."

  The Mother of Scorpions stood and walked to a nearby wall. She hung the amulet on a small peg there. "When the time is right," she said, "you can bring him here. Put half in his tea, and then take the rest yourself. Sweet oblivion will come swiftly. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "But you must use the powder soon," Kachiko said. "Its potency will diminish after one month. The gem will be here when you need it. I will be using the cabin for the next week. One of my servants will come and tell you when you may bring your man here. It should be the next time you see him."

  "He was supposed to visit me last night," Hatsuko said plaintively.

  "So you said. So you said," Kachiko replied, knowing full well that her people would keep Toturi busy for a long while yet—nearly until the time she and Shoju chose to move against the emperor. "The time will come soon enough. When you have your chance, you must take it. You may never have another opportunity."

  "Why are you doing this?" Hatsuko asked.

  "Because I know what it is like," Kachiko said, "to live without my one true love. I should have killed myself when he died. See that you do not make the same mistake."

  Hatsuko nodded, but the tears didn't stop.

  It seemed as though Kachiko would leave the room, but she turned back as she slid open the shoji screen.

  "And remember," she said, "every moment you tarry is another moment in which Toturi may be discovered—• another moment that brings him closer to dishonor and the