Mariko concealed her surprise at the unabashed kindness in the empress’s expression. After all, Mariko was betrothed to the son of the previous emperor’s beloved consort, and everyone in the land had heard the rumors of the empress’s distaste on the matter.
“It is an honor to meet you, my lady.” Mariko lent her voice the delicate melody of a songbird, just as she remembered Yumi doing in the presence of those the maiko had wished to impress.
“And it is my honor to meet the future wife of Prince Raiden.” The empress motioned with her hand to an empty space beside her. “Will you join me for refreshments?”
Mariko was led onto the low platform, a silken cushion positioned to the empress’s left. With Shizuko’s assistance, Mariko knelt upon the cushion as two small tables were brought forth. An array of food was placed upon each tray: rounds of colorful daifuku encircled by edible flowers in an inviting arrangement, a bowl of iced persimmons garnished with gold flakes, azuki beans covered in sugar, and tiny squares of pastel steam cakes. To one side sat a flawless white egg in a porcelain dish, still ensconced in its shell.
The sight almost brought a smile to Mariko’s face.
I wonder what the empress would do if I were to remove the shell as Yoshi taught me to do it.
In silence, similar trays were brought forth for all the ladies present. All the while, Mariko kept her eyes lowered, letting her gaze flit about the space covertly, trying her best to appear demure and at ease all at once.
An impossible feat.
Soft laughter danced around the room.
“You are quite a little doe, are you not?” the empress said with another warm smile.
Uncertainty took shape within Mariko. She had never been gifted at the art of conversation. Was the empress’s comment a compliment or a criticism? Or worse, was it a criticism veiled as a compliment? How best should she respond? Hand-wringing did not seem to be an adequate reply, nor did outright churlishness.
This was why Mariko had floundered around other women, especially girls her own age.
“If it pleases my lady, I am happy to be a doe.” Mariko bowed her head.
The empress laughed. “And if it displeases me?”
Mariko hesitated. She looked to the left, as though she were seeking assistance. Many of the other young women gazed upon her with pointed interest, even as they took dainty sips of their tea. And offered nothing by way of help. Several of them even tittered behind their hands.
Mariko took in a steadying breath. “If it displeases the empress, I am happy not to be a doe.”
Another ripple of amusement passed the empress’s lips. “How did you ever live for so long amidst a group of heathenish men, with such pristine manners? It appears you are relatively unscathed after your ordeal”—she paused to sip her tea—“or are appearances as deceiving as they all say?”
Mariko squeezed her eyes shut, steeling herself. Then she met the empress’s gaze, willing her countenance to appear earnest. Trustworthy. “They did not touch me,” she said firmly. “Their leader forbade it. I believe he meant to barter with my father to return me unscathed for a higher profit.”
“How very fortunate for you.” The empress quirked her head, the motion causing the jewels in her hair to flash as though in warning. “And rather fortunate for Prince Raiden as well.”
It appeared the rumors being passed through the nobility were correct. The empress did not have fond feelings for the son of her husband’s consort. Mariko knew the correct thing to do in this case would be to remain quiet and offer little in the way of opinion. It would not do for her to speak ill of her betrothed in an attempt to ingratiate herself to the empress. Were Mariko’s mother present, she would have urged her daughter to comport herself as all the other young ladies did at court—with nods and smiles and murmurs of agreement.
Mariko tried to smile. The empress did not return the gesture. Any suggestion of kindness on her features had vanished.
What does she want? What is she trying to do?
As though she could hear Mariko’s thoughts, the empress answered. “I’m sure you are curious as to why I asked to see you even before you were brought before my son. The emperor is keen to meet you, of course. He has great affection for his brother.” Her jewels flashed once more, like bladed mirrors.
Mariko lifted a small porcelain cup to her lips and pretended to swallow her tea. The rim of the cup was painted in liquid gold, the contents within it perfectly brewed. The scent alone told her so. Her heart thudded in her chest with such force that it caused her hand to tremble and the tea to slosh from brim to brim.
What does she want with me?
“Has Prince Raiden been attuned to your needs?” the empress asked, as though she were inquiring about the weather.
Startled by the question, Mariko flinched, jostling the tiny cup against her lips, the pale liquid inside burning her tongue. She put down the cup with great care, her mind sifting through all the possible answers she could offer. The possible questions to follow. All the endless possibilities, in all directions.
Stop it, at once. Do not permit yourself to be rendered a fool.
Unless that is the most advantageous course.
“Prince Raiden has had much to contend with over these last few days, following the skirmish with the bandits in Jukai forest,” Mariko said softly. “But, yes, he was very kind on our journey here.”
The empress laughed as she had not laughed before. When the sound of her amusement filled the space, the women on all sides laughed in turn, but none with as much vigor as the empress.
“Prince Raiden? Kind?” The empress laughed again. “My, he must have been charmed by the sight of you, even though you were covered in several weeks’ worth of mud.”
Her sarcasm was not a thing to be missed. Buried beneath it—alongside the naked spark of cruelty—Mariko sensed something much darker. It was clear the empress disliked Prince Raiden. But simply attempting to cause him strife by tormenting his future wife seemed … unsophisticated. All too predictable.
Perhaps she’s trying to learn whether or not I am happy to be marrying Prince Raiden. And, in turn, learn whether or not I can be of use to her, whatever her agenda might be.
Mariko thought quickly.
Though she’d eschewed the notion only a moment ago, Mariko decided it was best to appear foolish when it came to this particular matter. Foolish girls were easy to dismiss, and women like the empress enjoyed doing so almost as much as many of the men Mariko knew. She swallowed and held her breath, biting down on her cheek near to the point of drawing blood. She allowed the strain to become evident, hoping they would mistake her discomfort for embarrassment.
It rang true, even to her. For there would have been a time—not so long ago—that Mariko would have felt nothing but sheer terror at the thought of being embarrassed in a roomful of whispering silk.
That time had not passed. It had merely changed. What would have once been shame had morphed into anger and calculation.
Where there was anger, there was no room for shame.
Mariko bowed, her eyes locking on a piece of unraveling straw from the tatami mat near her left knee. “I am grateful to Prince Raiden.” She spoke to the floor. “If he found something about me pleasing—despite my dirty appearance—I am fortunate for it. He rescued me from a fate I would not wish on my worst enemy. If he only ever glances my way in passing, I will be happy.”
“Happy?” The empress paused. Her expression turned sinister. “And are you happy with the fortunes your life has granted you?”
Mariko blinked. “I—”
“You do not know what it means to be happy,” the empress said. “Happiness is not a thing to be found here in the imperial court. We take moments of pleasure. Collect them and keep them tight in our chests. And we hope they are enough to fill whatever holes our truths leave behind.”
Mariko lifted her gaze to meet the empress. The same voice that had been filled with a careful balance of benevolence
and scorn had changed further as she spoke. Grown higher-pitched and almost shaky. For a moment, Mariko thought the empress might be on the verge of losing hold on her emotions and showing everyone present her true self.
The moment passed as quickly as it came, and the empress’s features leveled once more. She gestured to one side, and a servant scurried from the shadows to place another silken cushion in the center of the room, between the lines of attentive courtiers. Mariko wondered if she would be asked to sit upon it now. To be dissected by the women around her for all her many failings. It was like a childhood nightmare. One in which Mariko had been stripped bare, her every flaw exposed for all the world to see.
Murmurs began rippling through the room. Several of the young women leaned forward as though they were hungry panthers, awaiting their turn to pounce.
In the back of the room, the sliding doors rasped open, and sounds of commotion unfurled into the air. Caught between two imperial guards, a young woman in a simple white kimono struggled in vain to free herself. Her arms were linked behind her back, and her face was stained by tears.
The murmuring grew louder as the guards dragged the girl forward. With a sob of protest, she was forced to her knees upon the silken cushion. Her unbound hair caught in one of the guard’s gauntlets. After he wrenched it free, the long dark strands wound about the girl’s neck in a snarl.
Pity formed a tight knot in Mariko’s throat. Were the girl properly attired and not in the throes of despair, Mariko wagered she would be quite striking, with such lovely skin and a large set of eyes.
Confusion warmed through Mariko, causing the knot to tighten further.
What are they going to do to her?
“Hirata Suke,” the empress began.
The young woman’s head fell forward in a strangled moan. “Y-yes, my lady.” She sniffed as she placed her forehead on the tatami mats in a pitiful bow.
“You stand accused of cavorting in the gardens with a man beneath your station.”
Another sob.
“Is this true?” the empress asked in an amiable tone, as though she were asking after the girl’s family.
“I—I was only smiling in his direction, and we—”
“Before you refute the charges, know that three of the ladies now present saw you with the boy and are willing to say as much to the emperor.”
Suke glanced around for a moment—her features in a panic—willing someone to come to her defense. Several of the other girls near her age averted their gazes or sipped their tea as though Suke’s future were not on trial before their very eyes. When she realized she was utterly alone, Suke sobbed once more.
“You are to be joined in union with the son of Lord Toranaga, no?” the empress continued.
Suke did not reply.
The empress’s lips gathered. “Answer me at once, or we will leave you for the men to punish as they see fit.”
“Yes, my lady.” Suke bowed. “I am to wed Lord Toranaga’s eldest son at the end of the summer.”
Her expression stern, the empress unfurled to her feet in a rustle of silk. “So you are to be wed to one man, yet you shamelessly cavort with another, mere weeks before your union?”
Suke’s eyes flitted around the room once more, but this time she did not seek an ally. Her lower lip trembled in betrayal as she struggled to find the sources of her misfortune. “Yes, my lady.”
One girl—whose heart-shaped face had paled—coughed to clear her throat, then looked away again.
“You shameful piece of filth,” the empress said to Suke. “I should tell the emperor what you have done and ruin the entire Hirata line in the process. You stain the reputation of the imperial court with your wantonness.” The lines deepened across the empress’s forehead as she spoke. As she stared down at Suke, the moment stretched thin. Thinner than a strand of hair about to snap. Then the empress’s face smoothed all at once in an unnerving fashion. “But I am forgiving, am I not?” Her voice became gentle and lyrical once more. Almost pleasant.
“Yes, you are, my lady.” Suke bent her forehead to the floor in yet another humbling obeisance.
The empress’s tone turned quiet. “I could tell my son, the emperor, what you have done, and your future—the future of your entire family—would be ruined.”
Even from this distance, Mariko saw Suke’s eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “Yes, my lady.”
“Is it not better this way?” the empress asked. “For you to admit your guilt and take your punishment safely among your own?”
Suke squeezed her eyes shut. Let the tears fall as she took in a shuddering breath. “Yes, my lady.”
Satisfaction passed across the empress’s features. She glanced about the room. “Once the justice of the Lotus Pavilion has prevailed, we will speak of this matter no longer. Absolute mercy is our just reward.” Her admonition echoed throughout the space—a warning to all the other ladies present.
Anticipation writhed throughout the space. Its menace pulsed to all four corners.
The empress waited, a single brow arched.
Suke lifted her chin and rolled her shoulders back. “I admit to behaving licentiously with a soldier on the outskirts of the imperial gardens. I am undeserving of my lady’s mercy, but I beg for her pardon, and I swear on my family’s name that I will never be so untoward again.”
“Our mercy is granted.” The empress all but beamed at the trembling young woman. “You may begin,” she added almost absentmindedly.
Confusion once again took shape in Mariko’s chest. Suke’s shoulders sagged forward, and it was impossible for Mariko to tell whether it was from relief or defeat.
Another moment of utter stillness passed before a single egg soared across the room and shattered against Suke’s head. Though she clearly knew to expect it, the girl cried out in surprise and raised both her hands to defend herself, then immediately put them back in her lap. Another egg pelted toward her from the opposite side, the bright orange center sliding down the front of Suke’s white kimono. The women began to laugh amongst themselves.
All at once, eggs flew across the room at Suke, shattering over her lovely skin and silken garments. A well-aimed one struck her cheek hard, and a small trickle of blood flowed down one side of her face like a twisted tear.
Soon all the eggs had been launched.
Save one.
The empress looked at Mariko purposely, her attention drifting to the egg Mariko thought she’d concealed in her palm.
A rush of indignation passed through her body.
Why am I being asked to participate in this kind of cruel sport? It is not my place.
She did not know this girl. And Mariko could not stomach doing something humiliating to someone else. Especially a girl she suspected to be innocent of the charges. Another tense moment passed before Mariko realized exactly why she had been asked to see the empress today. This display was to be her introduction into the empress’s fold. Into the inner workings of the imperial court.
This sad display of power over an innocent young woman.
But Mariko did not have the time to contemplate the reasons why she’d been brought here. It came down to a simple decision for her.
She could act from her heart. Or from her head.
Her heart—a compass directed by emotion—pointed her toward the wrongness of the action. How it would eat away at her later if she did such a thing and caused another young woman pain.
Her mind told her what would happen if she failed the very first of the empress’s tests. She would lose an opportunity to gain footing in the imperial court, and the tasks she wished to accomplish would be forced beyond reach. Mariko glanced once more at Suke. At the silent tears the girl spilled as bits of egg dripped down her hair and clothing.
I … can’t do this to her.
But the empress’s eyebrows drew together. Her lips pursed. Her stare was a thousand daggers, each aimed Mariko’s way.
This was not about punishment. Though it was meant to be seen as
an attempt to keep the morals of the young women at court in line, it came across as anything but. Pelting a girl into submission—even with something as harmless as an egg—was a rather strange show of power.
Despite the warnings of her mind, everything in Mariko’s heart rebelled against it.
This strange show of power.
The empress continued to stare at Mariko. In response, Mariko weighed the egg in her hand. Let it roll across her palm. Considered throwing it at the empress in defiance.
But now was not a moment for dreams.
“Do you feel as though I am unjust?” the empress asked coolly.
Mariko gazed up at the dowager empress’s face. When Yamoto Genmei had been younger, she must have been a beautiful woman. But time and pain and pettiness had withered her features into something unseemly, from the inside out. For the empress, every young woman she met was like the servant Isa—someone beneath her, meant for her to trample upon whenever she saw fit.
It probably began like this. With a simple choice.
Inhaling through her nose to allay her disgust, Mariko lobbed the egg hard at the pitiful girl, who dripped with enough food to feed a family for several weeks, letting it waste onto the freshly woven tatami mats. The egg landed at her knee with a splat, a pitiful finale to a sickening show.
Guilt spiked in Mariko’s stomach when Suke looked up at her, a mixture of embarrassment and gratitude passing across her features. Mariko swallowed.
She is … grateful?
“I was a silly little fool just like you, once,” the empress said to Mariko, her head canted to one side. “I thought myself principled and that my principles would carry me through my life, especially in the most difficult of times, when life did not turn out as I had dreamed.” The empress smirked to hide a sudden flash of pain. “Principles are well and good when you are young and life is at your feet, Lady Mariko. Perhaps you see me as cruel, but I am saving this girl from experiencing far more ruin in this way. And making all these young women present realize a harsh truth: men are allowed to wander in their desires.” She sniffed. “Women who wander risk their very lives.”