Chapter Four
It had been a warm summer’s night when I had seen Aki for the third time. I had been tasked with observing a certain young courtier who my master suspected of growing discontent, who, as the evening had deepened, had emerged from his chambers dressed in a gaudy summer robe printed with red and white flowers, and I shadowed after him as he strode through the castle gates and descended the road into town. It was the time of a festival, and the way was lit with colorful lanterns. Street-vendors peddled all manner of delicacies; the aromas of fried squid, savory pancakes, noodles, baked sweet potatoes mingling in the still summer air. Everyone knew about Tanabata, the festival held on the seventh day of the seventh month. The event originated from an old story of star-crossed lovers only being able to meet on this one night of the year, which explained the profusion of young couples leaning close against one another wandering the stalls. I felt more alone than ever in my unassuming simple clothing, staying in the shadows I trailed the courtier.
High-born lords and ladies, dressed in their finest, had also descended from the castle to join the festivities. Their samurai bodyguards wore no armor but were immediately recognizable with their shaved heads and topknots of hair, curved double-handed swords sheathed at their sides dissuading any to venture too close.
The courtier paused and I was brought up to a halt, almost at his heels. Between the bodies of the flanking samurai I was close enough to see details of the print upon the ladies’ gowns and smell their wonderful fragrance of citrus perfume. With sudden panic, I saw the courtier’s hand move to the deep sleeves of his robe; did my master suspect an assassination of one of the high-born? I was close to the courtier. Should I reach out, grab at him? If I had been a braver soul, perhaps I would have.
The courier’s hand came out from the folds of his sleeve with a flask of sake. He uncorked it and took a draft. The mistress and the samurai moved on, and the courtier turned his attention back to the market stalls and I breathed a shaky sigh of relief.
The evening that followed dragged on. I stayed within sight of the courtier, shuffling along, my head bowed and gaze fixed to the ground, keeping a watch with only my peripheral vision as my master had taught me. If you must watch someone, he had said, keep your face turned. If you look directly, your face is a beacon, it will call attention to yourself as surely as if it shone like the full of the moon.
So it was that I collided with Aki.
I was apologizing even before I recovered my balance. The words died in my throat as I took in the scene: she was with her friends, they had been crouched around a small tank, and Aki must have stood and taken a step backward. Our touch had been a light brushing of shoulders that I felt now radiated a curious sensitivity, as if I had been touched by some spark.
She turned and looked at me, a broad smile still on her face. She wore a simple cotton gown of deep blue, hair bound into an intricate knot, shot through with a long needle high at the back her head, exposing the whiteness of her neck. My heart began to beat wildly.
Her two friends called to her, waving her back and handing a scoop in her direction. I saw the girls had been attempting a game where the aim was to scoop as many baby turtles as possible using the small net, and judging by their laughter were not having much success.
Aki handed me the scoop.
“Care to have a try? We aren’t getting anywhere!”
I felt the focus of her attention. Her eyes, almond and perfect, looked straight into mine. My gaze dropped immediately, but before I could refuse, a mighty flash and explosion tore the night air. Bright sparks of fireworks shot into the air, accompanied by a series of cracking explosions.
Aki fell back and somehow I had caught her. The crowds around us gave a delighted scream. The roar of the fireworks was already spluttering to a halt. Aki recovered and found her feet again, her hands, cool and delicate, on my shoulder.
The bare-chested young man who had proven his bravery with the fireworks held aloft the bamboo stick and the crowd shouted their approval. Next to him, another man was preparing, holding the tube stuffed with gunpowder in a bear hug, legs bowed, preparing as a flame was brought nearer.
Shrieking in delight Aki and her companions moved further away and somehow I was caught up with them. Aki looked at me and in that moment everything in the world took a step backwards. The fireworks erupted but the sound seemed to come from far away, her eyes were pool of the purest black, reflecting the myriad of bright points of dancing light. I felt I could drown in those depths.
The moment stretched for as long as those fireworks crackled, but when they stopped the world snapped back into focus. Sounds of the festival assaulted me once more, as if a door to my ears had been opened.
“I like your smile,” she said, each word a song through the blood pounding in my ears. “I can tell you are gentle.” She paused, and looked at me as if truly seeing me for the first time. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? My name is Aki.”
Aki. I spoke her name back to myself, as I would do a thousand times again that night.
She smiled and tilted her head in an exaggerated motion of cocking her ear towards me, as if to catch a whisper. “And you are…?”
My mouth worked for a reply but my mind was a blank. Panic gripped me as I twisted my hands together to stop them from shaking and I bowed stiffly. Perhaps I uttered something beneath my breath, but it surely was not more than incoherent nonsense, and before I knew quite what I was doing, backed away and fled.
My face flushed bright scarlet and I began berating myself in a breathless harangue as I ran, calling myself an idiot in as many ways I could think of, each insult flowing freely into the next. At last I paused in my flight and raised my head, risking a glance over my shoulder with all the wide-eyed fear of a man being chased by a bear. The crowds had filled in the space between us, yet through a chance opening I saw her again. Our eyes met. She was smiling, coyly amused, as if she had been waiting for me to turn.
An image strikes me. In the castle there is a smithy with a huge bellows set in the floor; to work it, a team of four men take turns to step upon either side, holding an overhead rope for balance, driving air into the furnace, creating an intense rush of smelting heat hot enough to forge a blade. In that moment I felt as if Aki’s smile were as strong as that sudden rush of warmth. Intense, dizzying, and impossible to stand before. I tried to smile in return, aware it was more of a rictus, before the crowd filled between us and swept her away.
Filled with sudden self-loathing and scared because of it, I cursed myself a fool again, savoring the syllables with grim relish as they rolled over my tongue. My vision blurred, I stumbled and somehow found myself back in the present; snow, alone, deep in the forest, the furnace in my heart now a cold and black iron weight. I found myself on my knees on the far bank of the stream, trembling, with the knowledge that there was no going back. Wallowing like a beast in the mud I threw myself deep into that chill of abandonment, with no place to go and nobody to turn to, a blight upon the world. Knuckling tears, I found my feet once again, letting that trembling energy of fear burn through my legs as I stumbled up the path.
I had no idea how many hours had passed when I came across a woodcutter’s shack, a simple building with a low roof. Snow had blown mounds against the derelict walls as I found the door and entered, finding it empty. I brushed clear a patch of ground and collapsed, my legs tight up against my chest for warmth, muscles quivering with pathetic fatigue, toes and fingers aching, my head ringing with pain. I knew I should keep moving, but somehow I could not, found myself drifting in and out of a light sleep as the short winter day drew to a close. With the coming of night my stomach growled for food and water, but I simply hunched my shoulders and passed the night fitfully, hearing the increasing wind toy with the ramshackle structure.
The sun of the next day came reluctantly, marking the end to the long night. As soon as the sky had changed to a pale grey I gathered my strength to go to the stream’s edge, leav
ing twin furrows in the deep snow. Squatting upon my haunches I cupped my hand to drink from the chill water and I wished there had been time for the old woman to prepare provisions for me. I had not a scrap of food, nor, should I come across any merchant, any means to buy any.
Quite suddenly, the rising sun found clear path through the trees. For the first time in days its orange light held a hint of warmth that fell upon my upturned face. Like the slow melting of ice my thoughts shifted and it seemed I had opened my eyes for the first time - how could I have not seen it before? The awe of natural beauty surrounding me; the way the air was alive with reflective flecks of suspended ice, the gentle mounds and hollows of the ground. Sounds carried clearly in the still morning air; birdsong in the distance. Ridgelines snaked away in all directions and rising up into the sky upon the horizon were a line of stacked mountains, their shade becoming lighter and lighter grey in the distance, and I wondered how far into those hills my path would take me.