Tsugaru

A Quiet Spring Morning

In the coolness of the early morning, Moritomo Tsugaru and his father Hidenori danced like swans. Their wooden practice swords slammed together, separated, slammed together again, then paused. The tips hovered inches apart. Sweat soaked through each man's heavy cotton kimono, dripped into their eyes, made their sword-grip difficult to control, sprayed from their hair with every darting move. Separated by less than two decades, in some regions the two men could pass for brothers. Tsugaru's hair was fuller, darker, and more likely to trail down his back in a single long tail than be curled over his shaved forehead, but his father's hair still held strong color and was far from thin. The older man's face bore no scars, just the creases of a man with more worries than he needed. Both were clean-shaven, handsome men, with strong jaws, narrow chins, and hard eyes.

"A warrior," his father said in a brief pause, "is one with his sword. It is an extension of your body, a sharp, deadly extension that feels no remorse and knows no passion."

His father's sword leapt like lightning. Tsugaru countered. Suddenly, the long wooden length was simply not there. Tsugaru jumped back a step. His father's sword whistled past his abdomen. Tsugaru's sword lay against his father's neck.

The old man smiled, pride glittering in his eyes.

"Well done, Tsugaru!"

Frozen with his arm straight, back firm, one foot leading, Tsugaru did not move his practice sword.

"You are dead?"

"I am dead."

In an earlier practice session, Tsugaru had thought he'd won, only to have his father rap him painfully upside the head as soon as he relaxed. It was a lesson Tsugaru had not needed to learn twice.

His father's wooden sword rattled to the ground. A bamboo-thin grey-haired servant in plain indigo kimono named Natani dashed forward to hand him a freshly moistened towel, bow to both of them, and snatch up the fallen sword. Patient as a stone, he waited silently for Tsugaru to drop his practice sword. Not all the servants were so severe, but Natani's family were former samurai and had never given up the discipline of the warrior's life. Natani maintained the house arsenal, it's Inari shrine, and even the tea house. Competence in all things and precise attention to detail, that was the Natani way. Tsugaru did not know why they were forced to give up the sword. It was not a thing proper men discussed, not even among intimates.

"Tea or sake?" His father suddenly asked, breaking Tsugaru from his momentary distraction. Tsugaru hoped he had not inadvertently offended old Natani by staring.

Tsugaru looked at the sun just peeking above the horizon. "Tea."

Instead of dropping it, he handed the oaken sword to the patiently waiting Natani, accepting a moist towel in return. Despite the lingering chill of late winter turning into spring, the towel felt cool and comforting against Tsugaru's skin. Practice with his father was always a long grueling workout that left his arms dull with fatigue and his body adorned with fresh bruises. For the first time in a long time, there were no new ones to send painful jolts through him as he wiped himself down.

Tsugaru and his father moved to a sunlit verandah, stripping off their sweat-soaked cotton kimonos and tossing them to another waiting servant. As that servant hurried off, his father's handmaid Naoko stepped forward with fresh silk hakama and housecoats.

The towels went back to Natani. Bowing repeatedly, he backed away and dashed off to the corner of the castle grounds where he both lived and worked. Naoko quickly dressed Tsugaru's father then turned her attentions to him, muttering the whole while about foolish men catching their death of cold in the morning air. No one else spoke. Where words were not needed, speech could shatter. Tsugaru wondered why that didn't stop Naoko from mumbling, but since his father did not scold her neither did he.

Yuri, the senior handmaid responsible for managing the castle's staff, brought the tea herself. She spent most of her time scheduling and overseeing the many handmaids, servants, gardeners, stablehands, cooks, craftspeople and so on who kept the castle running smoothly. Tsugari's father was fond of joking that Yuri was so efficient she seemed more the master while he himself was but a guest in his own castle. Despite this, the one task she always handled personally was bringing their morning tea. While they sipped and talked, she would sit by smiling in content, the calmness of her presence clearly demonstrating all was well in the Moritomo household.

From somewhere in the distance came the sound of a horse pounding down the road.

Tsugaru's father poured the tea himself, he always did. It was a ritual Tsugaru had not questioned since he was a very small boy. Sword practice from early morning until just after sunrise. Fresh kimonos, hot tea, and Yuri smiling fondly. Life was good, why question it?

The horse came closer, heavy hooves pounding against the hardened road surface at high speed. When the pounding stopped just outside the castle gate, both men turned to look. Yuri frowned.

Neither man was surprised when a warrior in simple, thigh-length kimono came bounding up the path from the gate.

"My lord!" He dropped face down in front of Tsugaru's father. "It is a runner from Lord Toyotomi. He says he will speak only with my Lord Hidenori himself. He will not release the letter he carries to anyone else."

Tsugaru's father frowned. Deep inside his chest, Tsugaru felt icy hands grip his heart.

"Bring him to the Azalea room, Shigeru. Yuri, send someone to fetch my swords."

"Yes, my lord." Both soldier and maid vanished.

"Tsugaru?"

"Yes, father?"

"You will accompany me. Wear katana."

"Yes, father."

Tsugaru left his father staring out over the small practice yard. A servant in blue indigo calmly raked the gravel in long, perfect lines.


The 13th Mission

A cloud drifted over the full moon. In the darkness, three shadows slipped through the dry moat surrounding the five meter tall castle wall. When the cloud passed on, they pressed tight against the hard stone where the moat ended and the wall itself began. Shadows swallowed the deep indigo of their loose-fitting cotton blouses and breeches, making them invisible in the night. Two men, one named Takefumi the other known as Kotori, and a woman named Erika. Of the three, Erika was the most dangerous, but by the time anyone realized it they were already dead. When a second cloud obscured the moon, they were over the wall and into the garden with moments to spare.

Time became their enemy. The garden was mostly wide-open grounds of smooth sand raked twice daily. Even if another cloud came, once it had passed the bright moonlight would make their tracks across the sand instantly visible to the next pair of patrolling samurai that came by. By the same token, the base of the wall was mostly open so even if they huddled together their dark forms against the white walls would be instantly apparent. Lacking options, Erika led them across the sand to slide under the broad porch of a barracks building. They crawled through to the other side, dashed across the sand again, and spread out among the rocks of a Zen garden.

She surveyed the scene with eyes that had seen the same a dozen times before in a dozen different places. The palace was five stories of white-washed reinforced mud and wood. Climbing would take them to their goal, a lone window on the wall right in front of them, but leave them open to archers at the top and along the outer walls. Going straight in through the front door would be a fight worthy of stories told long after their deaths, and probably insure they never reached their goal at all. Setting fire to the palace at three different corners would insure it burnt to the ground, but might provide their quarry sufficient time to escape.

A dozen kills on a dozen different missions and always it was the same, climb, fight, or burn. Her success this far was mostly luck, and she knew that well. Three times she had chosen to fight and found the palace guards either drunk, unskilled, or undermanned. Five times she had scaled walls, twice unseen, once when the archers had happened to be poorly skilled, and twice taking wounds that had nearly been her death. Four times she had burned her target to their death and slipped away without being discovered. This time she did not feel lucky at all and could not choose her tactic.

In the momentary delay of her hesitation, everything went wrong at once. With no warning, an arrow slammed into the rock she knelt beside, spraying her face with stone chips before ricocheting across the yard and thudding into the wall five paces in front of her. She dropped to the ground. Behind her, Kotori screamed in pain while Takefumi would never make a sound again.

Silently as she was able, Erika rolled away from the rocks and sprinted for the barracks, diving underneath just as half-dressed men came streaming out, sword blades and steel pike heads gleaming in the moonlight. No alarm was raised. With hand signals and whispered voices the men spread out and began searching the grounds. Such discipline indicated the lord she had come to kill was either extremely sadistic or extremely wise, and perhaps both.

Frozen with mixed fear and discipline of her own, from her hiding place beneath the barracks she watched them. One group went straight to the Zen garden and her screaming companion. The first to arrive was a pikeman who instead of killing the wounded shadow-runner, gagged him, tied his hands, and began examining where the arrow had entered his back. Nodding his head in satisfaction, he snapped off the shaft. With one mighty heave, he shoved the arrow all the way through, pulling it out through her companion's chest. By that time he had been joined by another and together they bound the now unconscious man's wounds and carried him into a distant outbuilding.

This was not good. If he lived, Kotori would talk. It was the one thing he loved to do even more than drinking and hanging out with prostitutes. There was not much Kotori could say, but he would know who had hired them and who their intended target was. Erika knew she could try to sneak into the palace and kill him, but as disciplined as this lord's samurai appeared to be she did not believe it would be possible.

Someone grabbed her ankles and dragged her out of hiding. As soon as she cleared the porch she had her katana in her hands, but it turned out to be two of them holding her ankles. They stepped apart and held her strung between them like a rack of drying fish while a third came up and calmly took away her sword. She had never been so humiliated in all her life.

In less time than she could believe they had her stripped down to her bare skin and tied hand and foot to a thick pole. Naked as the day she was born, she hung belly down with her hands stretched painfully above her head, ropes cutting deeply into her wrists and ankles, and a gag that was so tight she could barely breathe, never mind screaming in indignation. Silently, she cursed the downturn her luck had taken and wished beyond wishing that the first arrow had split her skull instead of winging off the rock. Unlike Kotori, there was much she could tell them. By the time they finished with her, she knew she would tell them everything. Sooner or later, one way or another, they would wring from her the answers they wanted and there was nothing she could do to stop them.


A Remarkable Old Man

Instead of the outbuilding where they had taken Kotori, they carried Erika into the barracks and left her slung between two sets of crossed poles. Her naked belly hung barely a full hand above the polished hardwood floor, but no matter how she struggled she could not relieve the tension on her wrists and ankles. Half-dressed warriors went back and forth, most of them either ignoring her completely or smiling at her in a way that seemed almost brotherly. In one corner within her range of vision a group of men were gambling with dice cups while in another two fully dressed officers sat at a nearby floor table playing Shogi.

Erika did not know whether to feel humiliated or offended and soon it ceased to matter. Her fears of rape and the crimson blush of embarrassment quickly gave way to annoyance. She knew she was fairly attractive, but none of the men seemed the least bit interested in her as a woman. They acted for all the world as if she were of no more interest than a string of fish drying in the sun. Being strung up naked was bad enough, but to be treated with such indifference was absolutely mortifying.

A short time later a thin warrior in a lightweight kimono stepped through the main door. The officers looked up from their Shogi board and the dice cups seemed to vanish. Seeing that he had everyone's attention, the thin warrior announced in formal tones, "Lord Moritomo Nobuhara is here to inspect the prisoner."

Men all over the barracks immediately knelt face down on the floor while both officers at the Shogi board went to one knee.

The oldest man Erika had ever seen stepped through door. He stood straight as a board. Despite his years, he carried his swords as comfortably as a man half his age. His kimono was made from thin yellow silk heavily embroidered in cherry blossoms with dancing cranes cascading playfully down the skirt. Every hair on his head, including his bushy eyebrows and thin beard, was whiter than the winter snowcaps worn by the mountains surrounding her home village. Everything about him was proud and dignified, except for his eyes. Wide and filled with life, his eyes sparkled with mischief and calm assurance.

"What's this?" He said with a bright smile. "No gambling tonight, boys? The geishas won't be happy if you don't compliment the meager wages I pay you somehow. I guess you'll all just have to give up fighting and become farmers, eh?"

A quiet chuckle slipped through the barracks.

"All right, then," he continued, "back at it, already. You can be formal with my son if you like, but I'm too old to bother with all that foofaraw anymore. C'mon then, Shigeru. I see that dice cup you're trying to hide. Relax and enjoy yourselves. There'll be plenty of time for seriousness soon enough."

Slowly, the quiet hum of men gambling and going about their business returned to the barracks behind her. The officers looked up at the old man with questions in their eyes, but he just waved them back to their Shogi board. Seeing that everyone else had relaxed, the men in corner drew out their dice cups and went back to their sport, albeit somewhat more quietly.

Once everyone was active again, the old man visibly relaxed, letting out a long sigh and allowing his shoulders to settle into a slight slouch. He turned to face Erika then, looking straight into her eyes with an expression of profound sorrow and deep regret. She had never seen a man display so much emotion in one glance. Three steps, each with a slight limp, brought him right next to her, with the thin warrior hovering around his shoulder.

"Cut her down, already, Yagi-kun. Can't you see she's hurting?"

"But, my lord, she's a dangerous assassin!" The little man jumped around in front of the old man. He had both hands on the hilt of his katana. Erika could clearly see the tension in his shoulders. "We should order her to commit seppuku and be done with her. I'll gladly second!"

The old man frowned at the back of the younger warrior. "And then we will never know who sent her, why she came, or what she was here for. Shadow-runners always have more than one mission, Yagi-kun. It'd be a terrible waste of resources if they didn't."

"My lord?" Confusion distorted the thin man's features, making him appear comical, and just a touch addle-brained.

"Cut her down, Yagi-kun. And find something she can use to cover herself."

The young warrior quivered in rage for a moment before the tension flowed out of him like water draining from a roof tile. "Yes, my lord."

With obvious reluctance, he drew out his wakizashi and sliced through her bonds. She fell heavily to the floor and the old man clucked in annoyance. "You'll never win a woman's heart by treating her like a rice bundle, Yagi-kun. Best you remember that."

"Yes, my lord."

"Now then, fetch an old kimono from Yuri or something and let's see what our prisoner has to say for herself."

As the younger man went off in search of a suitable covering, the old man gently helped her into a sitting position and removed her gag.

"Sorry about that," he whispered softly. "They're all good men, but sometimes they're a bit overenthusiastic."

Yagi-kun returned with a plain indigo kimono of the kind worn by servants. To Erika's surprise, he also carried a cup of hot tea. When she was covered and had taken her first sip of tea, the old man waved the younger off a couple of steps and sat down in front of her.

"All right then. I suggest you tell me everything you know. If you like, we can take you down to the cellars and go through the whole hot iron and bamboo routine, but things will be so much easier if you just go ahead tell me now and we avoid all that bother. Besides, it will be none too comfortable for you if we have to do things the hard way, and in the end, you'll still wind up telling me everything."

Erika thought over her options. Torture was a tool she herself had applied on more than one occasion. There was no doubt in her mind that under the hand of a skilled torturer she would pour out information easier than a slit bundle spilling rice. Besides, one of her men was dead, the other probably lay dying, and there was little doubt she herself would not see another sunrise. She had nothing left to lose.

"My team was hired by Lord Otani. He did not come to us personally, of course, but the same retainer has hired me before and I know where the money comes from. Our mission was to assassinate the young Lord Tsugaru, and if possible, his father Lord Hidenori. We were offered a generous bonus if you fell to our swords as well, but you were not a chosen target because they felt you have very few years left to live. The retainer specifically mentioned Lord Tsugaru, adding on Lord Hidenori and yourself as afterthoughts. Burning the castle, emptying the barracks, or creating an uprising among the peasants would all bring generous bonus rewards as well."

The old man's face did not betray concern, grief, fear, or any other emotion she expected. If anything, he looked rather puzzled.

"Why my grandson?"

"Lord Toyotomi is dying. When his son passes into the care of the regents, Lord Ishikawa plans to join with Lord Otani and destroy the Tokugawa. According to the retainer, some are convinced that if they attempt to do so, your son will be married to Lord Toyotomi's niece."

To Erika's great surprise, the old man burst into roaring laughter that made every man in the barracks pause to look at him in wonder. Yagi-kun stepped immediately to the old man's side with a look of concern.

"Oh my," the old man finally calmed down enough to chuckle, "people certainly are strange, aren't they?"

When he realized everyone was staring at him he waved them all back to whatever they had been doing. Yagi-kun retreated back to the place he'd been patiently waiting.

"My dear, that is the funniest story I've heard in years. My grandson married into the Toyotomi clan? If it weren't for Toyotomi's love of a certain variety of northern cod he wouldn't even know how to find Aomori Province on a map. And for this fish tale they paid good money to send you and your two men to kill him? Things down in Kyoto must be sillier than ever!"

Fear clutched her heart. If he did not believe her then hot irons and bamboo were still possible. "My lord? It is true! Every word of it! I swear!"

"Oh, I believe you, dear. It sounds exactly like the kind of thing Otani would do. Petty. Absolutely petty, every single one of them." His expression became more serious. "Now then, my dear, what are we going to do with you?"

Erika sat as straight as her aching shoulders would allow. "I ask only that my death be dignified. I am a shadow-runner."

He clucked at her in annoyance. "How old are you child?"

"Twenty-one summers. This was my thirteenth mission."

"My grandson is seventeen. How would like to be his concubine? It is high time he learned of women, and heaven knows the boy needs a good handmaid."

Her jaw fell open in shock and the kimono slipped from her shoulders. "His concubine?"

"Of course. You are young and pretty enough to appeal to him. You are trained well enough to protect him. I don't know if you can serve, cook, and clean, but if you can't, Yuri will have you straightened out in no time. So what shall it be? Warm my grandson's blankets and fetch his tea or warm the ground with your blood when the sun comes up?"


A Messenger in the Night

Small, soft whispers of silk. The footsteps were getting closer. An urgent feminine voice, still too muffled by the paper walls to make out clearly, followed close behind.

Moritomo Tsugaru opened his eyes to the darkness of his room. Moonlight drifted through the open window. The wooden slats cast eerie black lines across the tatami. Erika lay warm against his back. Her soft breath told him she still slept soundly.

"No, my lord! You mustn't!" The voice of Yuri, still a whisper but becoming clearer, accompanied the steps as they stopped outside the sliding door. "He is only a child, my lord! Please!"

Gently, taking care not to wake the sleeping Erika, Tsugaru slipped one hand from his futon. His searching fingers touched the lacquered wood of his scabbard. They found it icy cold from the late autumn air. Running his hand along its length, his palm brushed over the embedded seal of his house, finally coming to rest on the knotted cord of rank near the hilt. Silently, he lifted the heavy sword from the rack near his pillow and pulled the comforting weight under the futon with him. He rolled onto his side and drew his knees up. Deprived of his body heat, the dreaming Erika mumbled something in her sleep. Whoever waited outside his door would not find him unprepared.

"Every child must one day become a man." A male voice, one he didn't recognize.

It boomed through the thin door, making no pretense of concern for any who might still sleep.

Seven steps to the stair, two flights of twelve steps each down to the ground floor. Rehearsing the possible escape routes in his mind, Tsugaru forced himself fully awake. Using his shoulder, he shifted the bulk of the heavy top futon behind him causing Erika to mumble again. A hint of fear flickered in a distant corner of his mind.

"I am not a child!" he whispered fiercely, "the gods help any man who dares call me one."

The shoji slammed open, the sound echoing through the third floor of the Moritomo family castle.

"On your feet, child! The time has come!"

Tsugaru leapt to his feet, drawing his katana and flinging aside the comforter. He fell smoothly into a defensive stance and to his surprise, a naked Erika appeared next to him with Tsugaru's wakizashi in her hands drawn and ready.

"I am not a child", he said calmly. "What time has come?"

In deference, Erika moved half a step behind Tsugaru. Her stance remained as vigilant as his own.

The man in the doorway was half a hand taller than Tsugaru and barely five years older. He wore full armor, with his wide-brimmed helmet casually held under one arm. A pair of tail feathers from a pheasant gave the helmet the appearance of an insect's head. Black plates crisscrossed with purple and gold satin adorned his chest. The dark green sleeves of his undercoat were embroidered with the Ogawa house seal in gold thread. As his eyes took in the pair facing him, amusement flickered across his features. It soon faded into an unspoken defiance only a hair short of disrespect.

Ogawa? Tsugaru mentally ran down the list of houses loyal to the Moritomo.

Ogawa! Akita province. Seventeen affiliate houses, four thousand warriors, two thousand bushels of rice and fourteen blocks of indigo in annual tribute. A very minor ally. Much too minor to be facing his lord standing on two feet with contempt in his eyes.

"My lord?" A touch of anger stained the man's voice and he frowned at the drawn swords held by Tsugaru and Erika. After a moment, his defiant expression drifted into one of reluctant acceptance and he folded himself into a formal bow. "I have just come from Sekigahara Pass. The Tokugawa have destroyed the bulk of your father's retainers. Your father himself fell early on. The remaining Toyotomi are assembling at Osaka castle."

"We are lost then?"

"Yes, my lord. I am afraid so."

Yuri fainted, falling to the floor in a crumpled heap of cotton underkimono. Tsugaru returned his sword to its sheath. From the corner of one eye, he noted that Erika held herself ready, apparently not the least bit disturbed at being naked in the presence of a stranger. Just where had his grandfather found her?

"How many have survived?"

"Fewer than five thousand, my lord. Obuchi commands them. Of my own house, a bare three hundred fighters remain."

"And you are?"

"Nobuyoshi, of house Ogawa."

"A noble name, Nobuyoshi. Let us hope you can live up to it."

"Thank-you, my lord."

"Gather the remaining family heads, if any, in the Azalea room. At first light we will draft a petition of peace and loyalty to the Tokugawa."

Nobuyoshi looked up. For a long moment the two men stared into each other's eyes. Tsugaru saw disappointment, hurt, perhaps even shame. His father's instructions had been specific though. Survival of the house weighed more than honor, meant more than ethics.

"Is this your wish, my lord?" The Ogawa prince's eyes pleaded stubbornly for a glorious death defending their liege lord.

"It is, Nobuyoshi. If we are to have revenge, then we must survive." There would be no revenge, of course. Both men knew that. Some things simply must be said, while others are best left unspoken.

"As you wish, my lord."

He bowed again and departed, leaving the maid lay where she had fallen.

"From fifty thousand men to fewer than five thousand," he whispered to himself. From a giant house to a minor holding in one fell swoop. His father had been right. The Tokugawa could not be opposed.

After replacing his sword on the rack, he slipped across the tatami and shook Yuri awake. She was a good maid and an excellent house manager, if a bit excitable at times. Without a word, Erika returned his wakizashi to the rack and slipped back into his futon as if nothing had happened. By the time Yuri's eyes fluttered open, Erika seemed fast asleep.

Yuri's eyes immediately filled with tears. "Oh, my lord, is it true?"

"Yes, Yuri. I'm afraid it is."

"Oh, my lord! What will we do?" She made no attempt to stop the tears flowing down her cheeks. In other houses, such lack of control would be severely punished. Tsugaru delicately touched the sleeves of his sleeping kimono to her face, gently wiping away the tears.

"We will do what we always do, Yuri. We will survive."


Grandfather Moritomo's Last Story

The thin paper door was locked, but that did not stop the children from rattling it.

"Wake up, grandpa!" A half-dozen voices shouted eagerly. "Wake up and tell us another story!"

"Sh! Quiet you little hellions! Grandpa is an old man, he needs his sleep."

Moritomo Nobuhara smiled at the sound of Erika's voice. He remembered the night they captured her. She'd been stubborn then, she was even more stubborn now. That stubbornness had served her well during the past few years. Just as he'd expected, when given the choice between new loyalties or death, her new loyalties had become absolute.

Favoring his bad hip, he gingerly pushed off the heavy comforter and rose to his feet. Once all his old bones had settled into place, he pulled on a short house coat and opened the door. Erika's long black hair was tied in a bun this morning. She wore the same plain blue indigo she'd first been given. He would have to remind Tsugaru to buy her some new clothes.

Happy brown eyes smiled up at him. "I did not know you were awake, my lord. Shall I bring breakfast?"

"Grandpa! Grandpa!" Half a dozen joyful voices. One young girl, his grandson's five year-old daughter Suzu, pushed through her friends, cousins, and siblings to throw her arms around his legs. Pain shot through his bad hip. He did not let himself groan.

"Good morning, Suzu." He knelt down and put his arms around her. Before he knew it, he had his arms around all of them. Their voices echoed in his ears in such confusion he could not make out a single word.

"My lord?" Erika's voice slipped through the childish babble.

"I'm fine, Erika."

"Breakfast in the Azalea room?"

"That would be wonderful."

"Come children, let grandpa get dressed."

With smooth efficiency, Erika gathered them all up and led them down to the first floor. She could have done so earlier, of course. He knew that. She also knew how much he enjoyed his grandchildren.

* * *

The storytelling lasted all morning. Erika had kept his tea hot and his tray full of rice crackers, but she could see what a strain it was for him. She would never understand how he could spend so many hours sitting on his bad hip. Once, when Erika had asked Yuri how she'd come to be head of the Moritomo family staff, Yuri had told her that when he was young Nobuhara had broken his hip falling from a horse. The original reason Yuri had been brought into the house had been to help Nobuhara during his convalescence. Like Erika herself, Yuri had started out as a concubine and handmaid. As comforting as that knowledge was, the thing that amazed Erika even more was that in the three years she'd been in the Moritomo family she had never once heard the old man complain.

After lunch, she wandered into the Azalea room to check on him. The children were off playing in the gardens. Nobuhara loved to sit in the Azalea room and listen to them. Not surprisingly, she found him leaning heavily on his armrest. His eyes were closed and his chin rested on his chest.

Quietly, not wanting to disturb his nap, she slipped up to his table and removed the untouched lunch tray.

It struck her suddenly that she could not hear him breathing. When she looked up at him, she realized his chest was not moving.

She touched his cheek and drew her hand back in horror. He was cold as ice.

Little Suzu came charging into the room with a fistful of bright pink Azaleas.

"Look what I found!" she cried in childish delight.

Erika caught her before she reached him and pulled the child into her lap in a fierce hug.

"Grandpa's sleeping," she whispered, "why don't you just leave the flowers here on his table for when he wakes up?"

With Tsugaru and most of their retainers down in the capital for the summer she would have to get the aging but ever efficient Yuri to help her prepare the body. She supposed one of the gate guards could be sent into town for a priest. Maybe she could have Yuri explain everything to the children as well. Until Tsugaru returned, Yuri was effectively head of the house. Erika desperately wished someone could explain it to her. Finding Nobuhara this way was just too much of a shock. Fighting back tears, the memory of the night she'd come to slay Tsugaru flashed through her mind. She owed Lord Nobuhara her life. How could she ever learn to accept his death?

"Okay," Suzu whispered, suddenly breaking her train of thought, "just don't crush me, Erika!"

"I'm sorry, Suzu. I was thinking of something else."

Suzu scrambled off her lap and gently set the flowers on Nobuhara's table.

"Make sure you tell him who brought them!" And then she bounded back out into the garden.

Erika looked at him one last time. She'd never imagined he would die so soon. Some part of her mind had believed he would live forever.

She left the room and went looking for Yuri.