Tiger Lily by K. Bird Lincoln

Author:K. Bird Lincoln [Lincoln, K. Bird]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: medieval Japan, kami, alternate history, samurai, Jindo (Shinto), Japan, Fantasy, K. Bird Lincoln
Publisher: K. Bird Lincoln
Published: 2012-04-25T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

* * *

So, Too, Do This World’s Cares and Woes Fade

“YOU ARE AWAKE,” I said, the words bare and clumsy in the quiet darkness.

“I could not seem to sleep,” said the lordling. Clothing rustled. “Though the charcoal maker gave me his own bed.” He gestured at a tangle of mats and blankets.

For some reason, the idea of Ashikaga lying upon the charcoal maker’s pallet while the charcoal maker himself probably lay on the bare ground outside made irritation bubble up inside me.

“I would go home,” he said, “but . . . it is not always wise to roam the halls of the Great House after moonset.”

I went through the opening and slid the door closed behind me, not wanting our voices to wake my sister. My body ached for the hearth’s warmth. Being awakened at this strange hour brought on a dizziness. All that was human lay sleeping.

The feeling in the room was very fragile, as if a too sudden movement might shatter us both. I rubbed my eyes. My heart beat too strong in my chest.

He was still here. Why wasn’t the lordling at home in his own soft, clean bedroll, being waited on by Lady Hisako and Lady Kiku? His excuse about not roaming the Great House halls at night was oddly flimsy, lacking the wit and strength of daytime Ashikaga.

Though the hearth lay between us, Lord Ashikaga filled the room, the coppery scent of his wounds, the stale smell of the buckwheat tea, the hushed abrasion of his breathing, making me aware of him as if we were crammed together in the sedan chair again.

I could not be still. My hands rubbed over my thighs. I squinted, trying to make out his expression. The pressure to say something, anything, ached in my throat, but the only words that formed were unallowable, things not to be uttered by a field worker to the son of the Daimyo of her domain, even in the darkness of a charcoal maker’s hut.

He was still here. His presence was both unthinkable and undeniably real.

“You must be exhausted,” he said, his voice rattling like gravel in a parched throat.

“Shall I make you more tea?” I jumped to my feet, eager to have something to occupy me, but he made a soft sound of disapproval.

“No, Lily, don’t wait on me right now. Just sit for a moment.”

“Shall I find the sedan chair bearers?”

“Be still for one moment!” Irritation colored his voice, but he did not raise it loud enough to be in danger of waking May. Gingerly, as if it were I that was wounded, I folded my legs underneath me and sat.

“Won’t Lady Hisako and the Lord Steward be worried you have not returned to the Great House?”

Lord Ashikaga let out a short, exasperated sound, and slid the short space around the hearth to my side.

I had crossed some line. Now he would be angry. A part of me was satisfied with this. A scared part of me did not want the lordling here so close to me in the dark.

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