[Concluding chapter 13]
“Hiroki, do you still have some of your medicine mixed up?” Hiroki opened his eyes to find Tetsuo staring at him, eyes tight with worry. Do I? Hiroki asked himself. What happened to my horse? He didn’t remember dismounting. But here he was, at the mansion’s gate.
He decided that he did indeed have — whatever it was Tetsuo had asked him about — and nodded. “Good,” Tetsuo said. “I am going to tell Jiro to warm you some of that and get it into you while you’re in the bath.” He looked at Hiroki more closely. “I don’t think you should be in the bath very long. You’re hot enough as it is.”
“I’m freezing,” Hiroki told him. “I think that Motonaga’s stare has frozen me as badly as that stream did.” That is a man you do not want to know better, he told himself. Who was it who had said Motonaga was incomprehensible? I should have tried harder to get my message to Hosokawa Katsunata.
A movement from across the street caught his eye. Is that Aki? He was having trouble making his eyes focus now; that might be Lady Tomiko’s maid, it might be somebody else entirely. That girl seems to be everywhere I turn. Perhaps it was just a very short porter. He knew he shouldn’t laugh at the thought, so he didn’t.
“Shiro,” he said. The name seemed to take a very long time to emerge from between his chattering teeth. “See what that girl is here for. If it’s a summons from the arms master” — Tell him to go to all eighteen hells, his burning brain offered — “tell her to tell him … say … my regrets. Too unwell to report now.”
He was aware of Tetsuo supporting him as they went through the gate. And then he was in bed, shivering violently with the cold while sweat seemed to flood out of him.
Hells, he thought. I looked forward to that bath all afternoon, and now I’ve slept through it.
Next Characters Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13
No comments:
Post a Comment