[Continuing chapter 2]
“How comfortable this is.” Shiro flexed his sock-clad toes before settling down onto the thick, soft straw mats that made up the floor of the house's central room. “Much better than that stinky old temple. Even better than our place back in Kozuke, you know. It's a strange way to furnish a house, but I do like it.”
“Lord Hosokawa said it was the new style,” Hiroki said, admiring the effect of the room, whose walls let in some of the diffuse late-afternoon light. In truth, the use of rice-paper walls and mats on the floor wasn't all that new. But it had yet to reach the eastern provinces, certainly. “I agree with you, Shiro: this is comfortable indeed. And how convenient for us that our superiors found this house rather too new and too unfamiliar for their comfort.”
“They certainly do not feel themselves badly treated.” Tetsuo came into the room by way of the passage from the kitchen, working loose the knots attaching his scabbard to his sash as he stepped through the sliding door. “They have settled into one of the other two wings,” he said. “Those are built in the style we’re accustomed to.” The style we're accustomed to meant something more solid than this airy, well-lit house. The mansion Lord Tanuma lived in had a broad veranda, separate from the audience room and the private parts of the house; massive wooden shutters closed out bad weather and night-time intruders — but also shut out almost all light, making the mansion depressingly gloomy whenever it rained or was cold. This new style might be a bit less warm in the winter — a problem they were dealing with by placing one or more braziers in every room — but at least they could see one another, and the food they would be eating at mealtimes.
“Old-fashioned buildings for old-fashioned people,” Shiro said. He snorted his derision for everyone over the age of twenty-five or so. “I’m going to build a house like this for myself when we get back to Kozuke.”
“I’m sure,” Tetsuo said. Turning from Shiro he said, “This mansion is enormous, Hiroki; I think this is the newest of the buildings, but the older ones are larger.”
“You are satisfied, then, having looked around? Our horses are being cared for?”
“Yes. Lord Hosokawa employs good people — in his stables, at least. I think there are still other servants coming. The bathhouse—yes, Shiro, this place has its own bathhouse—is now open, but it will be another day or two before the water in the tub is hot enough for bathing in. The house-master we've been given is very proud of the place.” Tetsuo smiled. “I trust we'll get used to it; he seems to think his position makes him more important than anyone beyond Lord Hosokawa himself.”
“I've had servants of that sort,” Hiroki said, more to himself than to his companions. He got to his feet. “Make yourselves comfortable, you two. Well, you make yourself more comfortable, Shiro. I want to have a word with Lord Naitō.”
“I intend to find our cook,” Shiro said, “and give her some instructions about evening rice.”
As he’d expected, Hiroki found the building Lords Naitō and Matsukata had taken a much more dark and gloomy place. It’s appropriate, I suppose, he thought, given my mood. “My lords,” he said once the servant had left the three of them, “I wanted to talk with you about the fight this afternoon.”
“What concerns you?” Lord Matsukata asked. “You all behaved well. You gave us credit and honour and we were never at risk.”
“I am not so much concerned with the fight itself as with its cause. Did you hear, my lords, what the warrior called to us before he was killed?”
“He asked if we were two people we are not,” Lord Naitō said. “You were quite right, Hiroki, in that it was never our fight. Not until young Hosokawa arrived, at any rate.” The lord looked up at him. “You certainly are worried, Hiroki. Sit.” He gestured to a cushion.
Hiroki sat. “The names were not of people, I believe, so much as they were of groups. Factions, perhaps. One of the names was Miyoshi—that’s the family name of the arms master.” He closed his eyes a moment, conjuring up a memory. “The other was, I think, a name we heard mentioned as we arrived at the arms master’s mansion. Yanagimoto, I think it was.
“But really the name doesn’t matter. What matters is that the fight seems to have been between partisans of those two names. And we are now involved with one of those names, my lords.”
“I know you, Hiroki,” Lord Naitō said. “You do not like not knowing. Anything.”
Hiroki smiled. “You have it rightly, my lord. With your permission, I would like to learn a little bit more about what is going on in the capital. Or at least how what is going on might affect us.”
“You wish to take leave from us tomorrow morning?”
“Not at all, my lords. I understand my duty. I thought I might go out tonight. I, ah, have an idea of a place I might go to learn some useful things.”
Next Characters Chapter 1 Chapter 2
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