A Scandal in Edo

Kaguya and Luluko had backed away from the fight and taken refuge in a narrow side street hemmed in by the wooden walls of the shops around them. They watched the clash between the samurai and his would-be attackers from around the corner.

Luluko knew that her anxiety was showing, for Kaguya patted her arm reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, for all his grumpiness, my cousin is a good swordsman. Suzaku won’t let anyone get hurt--”

“Oh really?” Behind them, another menacing figure emerged from the shadows that lined the street.

“Suzaku! There’s another one here--” Kaguya was knocked aside as easily as a fly being swatted. Her diminutive frame was no challenge for the man who now eyed Luluko speculatively.

“You should stay out of men’s business,” he growled.

He sounded like the leader of that band of men from before, but he bore the arms of a samurai. She remembered what Kaguya had asked earlier on. What kind of trouble had Suzaku got into?

“You! You must be the woman Yoshida hired for him,” the samurai said, a rather vile grin appearing on his face as he stepped forward. “It will certainly be a scandal if his mistress’ brutally-murdered corpse is found in the morning outside the castle gates.”

Seeing his obvious intent, Luluko wasted no time in turning to run. But like Suzaku, this was not a soft bureaucratic samurai. She screamed when he caught her by the collar of her kimono and dragged her towards him.

“A lively one, eh? I should like a taste of you before--”

His breath was hot in her ears and Luluko was not actually thinking anymore as she unsheathed the dagger hidden in her obi, half-turned and slashed wildly at her assailant.

“Bitch!” he swore as he shoved her aside and clutched at the wound on his forearm.

Luluko briefly regretted that it had not been a more lethal wound as he started for her again. She had caught him by surprise before--it would not work this time, she could see from the murderous rage in his eyes as he drew his short sword. Her mother’s dagger seemed very small right now.

Time seemed to slow as the blade flashed towards her. If she could just deflect it with her kaiken--

Thwack!

The short sword was struck aside by a wooden blade. Its backswing disarmed the wielder and then there was someone else between her and her would-be murderer.

“Suzaku-san!”

“This has gone too far,” he addressed the other samurai. “I am of the mind to make you pay for this with more than just blood, but leave this city and you might just live.”

The other man snarled an obscenity, but retreated backwards. There had been too much noise and commotion. The night watch would be coming around and not a moment too soon.

“Suzaku-san?” Luluko ventured when the samurai remained glaring down the alley where the other man had vanished into. It had barely been ten minutes since they had arrived on the scene, but it seemed like a lot of time had passed since then.

He turned abruptly and she jumped ever so slightly. There had been something terrible in his face just now, but it was gone in a flash as he saw the blood on her kimono sleeve.

“It’s all his,” she said reassuringly as he tried to check if she was injured.

“That’s--that’s all right then,” Suzaku said, obviously relieved. Gently taking the kaiken from her, he wiped the blood off and examined it for damage before returning it to her. “Take care of this.”

“Of course,” Luluko said, suddenly aware of how fast her heart was beating. She tried to tell herself that it was because she had been that close to death. Not because his hands were still folded around hers over the sheathed dagger.

“Luluko!” The other two dancers, supporting Kaguya between them, turned the corner. “Thank goodness you’re safe!”

“Aa, Suzaku-san chased the other man away,” Luluko said. They had moved their hands apart the moment they heard the others and she hoped that the darkness hid her face. “Is everyone all right?”

“All taken care of, but then again--”

“We should get going before the doushin arrive. Exciting as this was, none of us want to be exhaustively questioned,” Oshiitsu said. They were entertainers and one of the lowest ranking castes in the city. The forces that policed Edo did not view them kindly at all.

“I see. I’ll handle their questions,” Suzaku said. “Take care of my cousin.”

“I’m all right. Just a fall. See you again, cousin,” Kaguya said, disentangling herself to show that she could still walk on her own.

“Luluko-san--”

“Thank you for s--”

“No, we’re even now. Your warning came in time,” he said. “Now you should go before the doushin appear.”

Unsure of what to do, she bowed briefly and trailed after the others. Like before, she could feel him watching her back as she hurried away.

“That was the best night’s entertainment ever,” Naruse said to the others when they were well away from the scene of the night’s madness.

“You would think almost getting killed by hired thugs was entertaining,” Oshiitsu muttered as they meandered their way through the night-time streets. They had to dodge night watchmen twice until Kaguya judged them to be far away enough to be discounted as having anything to do with the excitement down in Edobashi.

“But it is the stuff of tales and legends! Someday, people will write plays about it! Will you write a song about it, Oshiitsu-san?”

“You owe me a new hairpin and that information I asked for earlier.”

“Your older sister is so cold, Luluko-chan” Naruse said dramatically as he fell back to where Luluko was trudging along behind the others. It had been a long night.

“it has been a rather frightening night, Naruse-san.”

“Oh yes, you poor thing . . . but you saved your young man and he saved you. It is rather romantic . . .”

Looking at the ground, Luluko tried to suppress the surge of heat that was threatening to make her blush again. “I wouldn’t know . . .”

Naruse quirked an eyebrow at her. “Hmmm . . . If he liked men and I liked the strong and dutiful sort, I’d go for him.”

“Naruse-san, you do like to joke around.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It was very simple, after the whole thing, to edit his version of the tale when the night watchmen made their belated appearance on the scene that contained a number of downed thugs lying groaning on the street. The officials did wonder about the nature of some of the wounds, which did not appear to be congruent with a beating administered with sheathed swords.

A pair of women’s clogs and a hair pin was not the expected answer.

Jino kept his mouth shut for most of it, which allowed Suzaku to tell a mostly truthful account of escorting the noble back to Edo Castle. There had been armed men preying on unarmed civilians--as a samurai from the clan of a hatamoto, it had been his duty to restore order. The civilians had fled for their lives--a practical and mostly understandable reaction as the criminals were armed. Fortunately, he had his kendou tutor with him and they were able to quell the riff-raff.

With two such impeccable witnesses, there was not much the doushin could do except to take the hired thugs to the lock-up and see the young nobleman to the Castle gates, apologising all the way for the delay that kept them from their rightful rest.
Returning to his uncle’s residence, Suzaku did not believe that there would be much trouble coming from the samurai he had warned off. No samurai would admit to such doings. Not unless they wanted to undergo ritual suicide to erase the stain on their lord’s honour, which was the only thing to do in such a situation. As he did not expect the man to hold to honour, the only way out was to leave Edo under a cloud.

Suzaku exerted his rank for the first time in many years and roused some servants in his uncle's house to open up a guest room so that Toudou-sensei could be saved a walk back to Fukugawa at that ungodly hour. He could feel guilty for that later.

"Well, that was something," the older man had said before retiring, pausing to clap a hand on Suzaku's shoulder. "That draw was perfect--almost textbook--I can retire in peace now."

If Suzaku had not known any better, he could have sworn his former teacher was getting emotional.

It was harder for him to go to sleep after the sudden, swift violence of the fight in that dark street. If he had not held an actor's wooden blade at that time . . .

He tried to mediate then, opening the doors of his room to the small garden of raked pebbles outside which was supposedly conducive to contemplation. The only witness was a lone black cat that padded up and sat down to stare at him. He found himself staring back and the cat, tiring of human foolishness, had bitten him as most felines were wont to do after five minutes in his presence.

Taking that as a sign that he was definitely being too morose, he retreated back to bed to wring as much rest as he could before the next day.

The next morning, Suzaku glumly reflected that there was no justice in this world as he watched Toudo-sensei tuck into breakfast with a will. The man was twenty years his senior and he seemed to be doing fine after a limited amount of sleep. He thanked Suzaku for his hospitality, said something cryptic about it being “the spring time of youth” and departed--his housekeeper would have a conniption if he did not return soon.

In a much less jaunty mood, Suzaku trudged across to the Nishinomaru where the residences of the daimiyo and nobles were. To his surprise, Jino was not intending to go anywhere that day.

Directed by the valet, Suzaku found Jino sprawled across the floor at the foot of a table in his family’s library, brush in hand. The fruits of his morning’s labours lay scattered over the table and on the floor on realms of paper. Someone had been up early. Truly, there was no justice in this world.

"Jino, what are you trying to write?"

"Something like a letter and a poem and declaration of love all mixed together?" Jino looked at his accomplishments and tapped his brush against his cheek. "Maybe I should just preface the letter with one of the better poems?"

Suzaku shrugged. "I have no ear for poetry, so don't ask me to choose one for you."

"You're so helpful as always, Suzaku," Jino said, sitting upright. "And what about you, eh? Shouldn't you be thanking that nice girl who ran all the way to warn you at the risk of her own life?"

“Haven’t we done enough for her already?” Suzaku bit out. That had come out more harshly than he had intended. Or perhaps it was a truer echo of his discontent than he knew. According to social mores and the stricter code of her class, she was a ruined woman.

Jino, however, was in a forgiving mood. “Someone’s grumpy this morning. Didn’t get much sleep?”

And so the matter simmered, unresolved.

Suzaku managed to put it out of his mind for a day, then two days--three . . .

Then while out in the city on his uncle’s business, he saw her again near the fish markets bordering the river. By some coincidence, he had spotted her out of the corner of his eye. A figure pushing a small handcart along the side of the street, one of the hundreds of pedestrians thronging the marketplace on a busy morning.

They passed each other like strangers. The woman in her plain kimono with a smaller girl in the handcart--the crippled sister she paraded around without shame. There was no reason for either of them to address each other on the street. Nothing that would not set off a blaze of rumour and supposition.

Perhaps it was guilt or a sense of responsibility that prompted him to pen a letter later that day. It had reached the second page before he stopped, looked it over and realised that this was exactly the kind of round-about overly-formal excuse of a letter that he disliked receiving from other people.

The second attempt sounded too casual. The third could have been written by Jino.

And his cousin would probably see it first. Suzaku had little faith that any missive he sent through Kaguya would make it to its destination without a short detour in front of her eyes.

He wrote two lines on a fresh sheet of paper, sealed the message and dropped it off at the anonymous musician’s house while he was delivering a message for his uncle. Before he could regret it, Suzaku walked away quickly.

* * * * * * * * * * * *