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  The other two travelers ate and watched us to the point of staring. Just as I thought I would have to better inform their poor manners, one of the men broke into a wide smile and waved us over.

  “Lonely night,” he said, “isn’t it?” I nodded. “Jiang and me were beginning to think we’d stumbled into a ghost story.”

  The one named Jiang shrugged, arms folded over his chest. “The old man,” he said, nodding toward the shop owner, “keeps talking to himself. You never know, on a night like this.”

  It was, as I understood it, as much of an invitation to join them for dinner as we’d ever get from people like them. Mamoru and I sat with them as we waited for our rice—and if the shop owner took longer with it, I thought, then he really would be a ghost; I’d see to it.

  “Traveling long?” the man—not Jiang—asked, looking pointedly at the dust that had gathered on our clothes and settled, it would seem permanently, in our hair. Of the two, he was clearly the more outgoing. I wished that he were not so friendly, nor Jiang so laconic, and I wished that both of them would stop staring at Mamoru.

  “And farther still to go,” I said.

  “Your wife?” Jiang asked, nodding this time at Mamoru.

  I swallowed my temper, forcing it back down into my chest, and balled my hands into fists under the table. Mamoru patted one of my hands; I could feel how nervous he was simply by sitting beside him.

  “Not your wife, then,” the friendly one said, breaking out into a wide grin. “No need to explain to me, friend. I see how it can be. Times are changing, eh? The name’s Inokichi, but they call me Kichi for short.”

  I offered up our predetermined aliases. After that, the rice was finally brought, and they paused, almost respectfully, for Mamoru and me to eat. I saw him try not to wolf his food down, but it was a struggle, and he was finished quickly enough that it was plain how hungry he had been. I offered him what was left in my bowl, but he refused, even if he was sorely tempted to accept it. I ate it as quickly as I could after that, so he would not have to sit and watch me eat longer than was absolutely necessary.

  “Hungry, eh,” Kichi said. It wasn’t entirely a question, and he looked too amused by it for me to feel any traveler’s companionship for him at all. Besides which, he’d said it to Mamoru more than to me, and I didn’t like the tone of voice he was using, or the slant of his mouth.

  I edged closer to Mamoru on the bench. “We’ve been riding hard,” I said, trying to find some comfortable medium between too vulgar and too polite. I was a common merchant, if that; I was dressed in a servant’s clothing, and it was better that I spoke like one. Yet to embrace the coarser speech Jiang and Kichi so readily employed, or to speak of Mamoru the way they did, was also a poor option.

  “Riding hard, eh,” Kichi said. “Heard about the young prince, have you?”

  “Gossip, mostly,” I said. “Have they caught him yet?”

  Jiang snorted, and Kichi burst into laughter. “Caught him?” he said, slapping the table. “Giving the Emperor a run ’round the bush at every turn. They don’t even know where he is, I’m telling you; he’s given them the slip and they’ll be lucky if they ever find him. Making life damn hard for the rest of us, though.”

  I feigned concern. “How?” I asked.

  “Imagine this,” Kichi explained. “You’re minding your own business, just trying to sell your goods, when all of a sudden you can’t even get past the borders—that is, if you’re a man traveling alone or two men traveling together. And they search everything. My friend Hanzo was stopped for two whole hours, just ’cause he had a regal look about him.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I didn’t ever think I’d say it, but… It’s a lucky thing we’re traveling together.” I nodded toward Mamoru at that, and he patted my hand again; perhaps he was trying to assure me that being disrespectful in a place like that and under those circumstances was all right. I wasn’t going to be unless I had to, though. My nails dug into my palms, but I offered a companionable smile to our new friends.

  “Well, you’d think that, wouldn’t you,” Kichi said, “but they’re searching women now, too. Apparently the prince could be disguised as anyone, so they’re stripping women who fit the bill right there at the station. Naked as babies, Hanzo tells me. I tell you, brother, I was born into the wrong job—am I right?” Here he slapped at my arm for agreement, and I laughed with them, all the while wanting to slap him back.

  I feared that I would do it too hard, and would then have yet another apology to make to my lord, on top of all the others I felt I owed him. Next to me, Mamoru smiled politely, so that even he looked more good-humored than I. Reluctantly, I allowed a quiet laugh to escape my lips, as though I were either too polite or too slow to have enjoyed the joke properly. Still, knowing what they’d told me now, it was rather difficult to laugh. If they were stopping anyone with even a passing resemblance—if they were going so far as to strip women naked at the station—then my lord and I would soon have a very serious problem on our hands.

  How to get past the prefecture checkpoint without being detected?

  My worry must have shown plainly on my face, for Kichi slapped my arm again, this time in a manner that was meant to be reassuring rather than crass. Or, at least, that was what I thought. “Worried about your lady friend? I’d be too, if she were mine. Very beautiful. There’s no telling for certain whether or not they’ll see a hint of royalty in her. Or maybe the looks of her will leave ’em feeling… particularly dutiful.”

  That time, Mamoru put a hand on my arm before I could move, else I might have lost my temper entirely. He cast his eyes down, for all the world like a shy maiden. His cheeks were flushed with embarrassment, and I could not ignore the sharp pang in my chest of a duty neglected, no matter how I had resolved to shun that duty for another.

  Had we been our former selves, I would have killed anyone who humiliated the prince so. Now I was forced to laugh with them and call them friends. Breathing slowly, I endeavored to be calm.

  They seemed like decent enough men. Perhaps I was judging them altogether too harshly.

  “Yes,” I said, edging the words out until I could make them sound natural. “That thought had crossed my mind.”

  Kichi nodded. “I don’t blame you one bit, either. You get a woman like this for yourself, you don’t want anyone else seeing her naked.”

  “She’s my sister,” I said finally, hoping that would put an end to some of the joking once and for all. I had a sister and I knew well what clarifying that relationship did to dissuade discussion of their beauty or any other… attributes.

  “Ah,” said Kichi. “Say no more, good sir. It’s your protective instincts as a brother that put such a fearsome spark in your eyes. I understand completely. I’ve got sisters myself, two of them—both with faces like radishes, though. Never have to endure such talk.”

  “We’ve been trying to figure out how to get past ourselves,” Jiang said, without warning. I’d almost forgotten he was there, for all that his loquacious companion overshadowed him. “Not that either of us looks womanly enough to be stripped bare, mind you, but I’d rather keep my belongings private and not laid out on display if you know what I’m saying.”

  “Been at this game as long as we have and you’re still nervous as a newlywed on her wedding night. They’re hardly going to keep us, brother.” Kichi laughed, slapping his companion on the back. I was glad it wasn’t me this time. “Not with a face like yours.”

  “I’m less worried about my face, and more worried about your mouth,” Jiang said, with a long-suffering eye toward the pair of us, as though he weathered such abuses every day but only rarely entertained a sympathetic audience for them.

  Kichi stroked his long face thoughtfully. He looked like a painting of the monkey god come to life, I decided, only his beard was short and black instead of long and white.

  “We could travel with you.”

  I nearly didn’t recognize my lord’s voice as it came so sudden and clear
from my side. He bowed his head when the three of us craned around to look at him, as though suddenly conscious of how he’d managed to capture everyone’s attention when he had meant to do anything but.

  “What I mean to say is, that if they’re more suspicious of groups traveling in pairs, wouldn’t it make sense to go along as a bigger group? They might not scrutinize each of us so thoroughly, which would save you time, and I might escape with my dignity intact.”

  Kichi gave Mamoru a look that was admiring, and Jiang surveyed him with something else besides that in his eyes, something I was sure I disapproved of.

  “I like the way you think,” Kichi said, smiling his monkey smile. “Sensible and clever. You’ll want to watch out, brother, or some devilish man’s going to take her from you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, gritting my teeth together. My lord’s hand was still on my arm. He gave me a pat that was equal parts warning and reassurance.

  “Anyhow,” said Kichi. He leaned back in his chair as though he meant to get up, and perhaps he’d sensed my animosity after all. “It’s a fine plan. Your sister’s got a fine head on her shoulders. If you want company for this leg of the journey, you’ve got it, right, Jiang?”

  He stuck out his hand without waiting for Jiang’s confirmation. I got the impression that all their decisions were made in a similarly one-sided fashion.

  I could feel my lord’s hopeful eyes on me, and despite what misgivings I had, I knew what the decision would have to be.

  I put my hand in Kichi’s and shook. The radiant air of his smile did nothing to assuage my misgivings.

  “That’s agreeable of you,” Jiang said, getting up from the table. He didn’t seem to bear his companion any ill will for his brash nature, or for his willingness to make decisions on his own that affected the two of them. Perhaps he’d grown used to it. “Just the spirit of brotherhood—sisterhood as well, you’ll pardon me, miss—that’s been lacking in these parts of late.”

  Mamoru bowed his head and, if he felt any remorse at the mention of brotherhood, he kept it to himself. I waited until our colorful benefactors had left before I dared to turn to Mamoru, my contrition written plainly over my face.

  “They have the right idea, don’t you think?” Mamoru said mildly, ignoring what apologies I might have made altogether. “Perhaps we’d better turn in.”

  I wanted nothing more than for Mamoru to enjoy what comforts he could while he could. If I had the means to provide us both with soft beds for the evening, then it only made sense for us to take full advantage of them. Who knew how early Jiang and Kichi would expect to leave in the morning?

  For that matter, who knew when we would ever get the opportunity to sleep so well again?

  “It’s a fine idea,” I said, allowing myself to praise it as my lord’s own and not Kichi’s. I paid for our dinner, then ushered Mamoru up the creaking wooden stairs ahead of me.

  Our room was just off the landing, second on the right. I was almost gratified to hear that the floorboards creaked as loudly as the stairs did. No one would be able to surprise us in the middle of the night; naturally, it was not a building built with the same niceties of architecture as the palace, and for that I was grateful.

  I slid the door open for Mamoru out of habit, managing not to bow only as a cursory remembrance. My lord was doing so well at playing his part. It dealt a great blow to my humility to think that I was not.

  Our room was plain, with two narrow mats stretched out in the center of the room and a lamp set on the back table. It flickered uncertainly from time to time, as though unsure as to whether or not its presence was welcome. Outside the window, the moon waxed like a ripening fruit, pale and elusive.

  Mamoru slipped his new shoes off and began to undo the tie that held his hair. Out of habit, I paced over the length of the room, searching into all the corners and listening to the sound of the floor as I walked it.

  “Kouje,” Mamoru murmured, his voice as soft as a moth’s fluttering, “I do not think you’ll find any assassins here.”

  “Mamoru,” I said, fighting the urge to bow. “I did not mean to disturb you. It is merely a habit. If you find it offensive…”

  My lord smiled warm in the lamplight. “No. You needn’t stop. I find it almost reassuring, truth be told, and… I am in need of some reassurance tonight.”

  He drew back the thin, summer-season coverlet. It was imprinted with a design of trees, ones that held the most elegant of songbirds. My lord had always enjoyed listening to the songbirds in the menagerie. On some occasions, if the night air was right, he said that you could hear them singing all the way from the palace.

  I knelt on the mat next to my lord’s. “Everything will be well tomorrow,” I told him, “now that we’re traveling in a larger group. No one will take any notice of you.”

  “My face,” he said, touching one smooth cheek thoughtfully. “That man said that they were stopping everyone with a regal air about them.”

  “I shall counsel you to amend your posture,” I said firmly. “And leave your hair uncombed in the morning. And perhaps we might cover your face in dirt,” I added, as an afterthought.

  “Kouje!” Mamoru looked at me for a moment, stunned and amused in equal measures. “Surely our companions would notice something peculiar about such a thing?”

  I shook my head. “It was unwise to bathe when we did. I see that now.”

  My lord sighed fondly, in a way that did not betray his exasperation in the slightest. “Next time, I’m sure we will both think twice, and learn to live peacefully enough in each other’s stench.”

  “Indeed,” I said, allowing myself the smile I’d been holding back. I couldn’t help looking around the room once more, since there were other habits a man accumulated during his lifetime, ones less easy to break than the familiarity on the tongue of a certain title. “Is there anything I might fetch you, before the day is out?”

  Mamoru cast his eyes toward the window, and the moon that had risen high over the trees.

  “I believe the day is already out,” he said, then, “I’ve everything I need, Kouje. Thank you.”

  I rose to extinguish the lamp, trying and failing to make my feet sound noiselessly against the floors, the way I could at the palace. That I couldn’t was some reassurance, but some loss also. I heard a quiet sigh, and the shifting of fabric as Mamoru tucked in underneath the coverlet. I tiptoed back as softly as I could to my own bed and pushed the covers back in the dark.

  “Thank you,” my lord said again. Already his voice was coming slower, half-ragged with the pull of sleep.

  “You have nothing to thank me for,” I assured him in a whisper that would not break the tenuous threads of sleep forming around him like a spider’s web. “I merely felt the need for a proper bed. You have forgiven me for my indulgence, and I’m very grateful. There’s no more to say on the matter than that.”

  “No more to say on the matter,” Mamoru murmured, the words nearly swallowed up in a yawn worthy of the menagerie lions.

  “Good night, my lord,” I said.

  A quiet snore was his only response. I lay awake after that for some time, listening to the creak of men and women walking the halls, finding their rooms for the night or leaving them. Gradually the noise subsided as the rest stop closed down for the night, and then there was no sound at all but for Mamoru, sleeping peacefully in the bed next to me. In such a small roadside stop as this one, there were no gamblers or pickpockets roaming the streets at night, so there was only silence from the road beneath as well. I lay on my side, staring at the wall across the room before turning over, noiselessly as I could so as not to wake my lord.

  There were no crickets to chirp and buzz in the night, and no frogs to hum their mating calls to one another from the streams. The bed was soft beneath my back. I should have been able to sleep, but I couldn’t.

  The only way I realized that I’d eventually dozed off was when the light woke me in the morning, striking me full in the
face like an unwelcome hand. I was up at once, looking about the room with considerable confusion before I realized where we were, and recalled the arrangements we’d made to slip past the border checkpoint later in the day.

  My lord was still asleep, even after I’d gone to the window to judge the relative position of the sun. It was early yet. If I hadn’t promised to wake him whenever I myself was awake, then I might never have found the heart to do it, but I knelt at the side of the bed and took gentle hold of his shoulder.

  “Mamoru,” I said, as softly as I dared.

  He was awake immediately, in his eyes the same dread as the morning before. He seemed to calm when he saw my face, though, and relaxed back against the futon with an odd, sleepy smile.

  “I had the most wonderful dream,” he said, in a voice tinged with melancholy.

  “When we’re on the road,” I promised, “you may tell me about it.”

  Memory passed across his face like a shadow and he sat, his hair something of a mess. Had he slept restlessly during the night? I didn’t remember the sounds of his tossing and turning, but he might have begun to sleep poorly after I myself had managed to drift off.

  Mamoru left no time for concern, sitting up at once and tucking back the hem of the coverlet with delicate regret, a dreamy grace. “Well,” he said, after a moment’s pause, beginning to pull his hair back into a clumsy braid. “Let us attempt the border crossing.”

  ALCIBIADES

  The more time I spent with the Ke-Han, the more time it looked like I was going to have to spend with the Ke-Han.

  If I’d said it once, then I could say it a hundred times: I wasn’t any kind of diplomat, not even a piss-poor one, and I didn’t see how decisions that shouldn’t even need to be discussed could take hours, sometimes whole days, to go over. Were we ever going to get to the real meat of the problem? How much longer was this nitpicking—and some on both sides of the debate had perfected nitpicking like it was a bastion-be-damned art—going to take?