A/N: I use a lot of flashbacks, and in my print version, they are set off by both italics and indentation. But ffnet's editor seems to no longer provide indentation, so when you see a block of italics, that's a flashback. I wish I could set them out more.

Shall We Go to Otsu?

Chapter 2: Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady

In which Tomoe goes with her strength.

He seemed to be always watching. Ever on the prowl. Tension radiated from him in a steady aura of focus and intensity. She never saw him sleep.

When she'd agreed to accompany him in his exile, she'd been sure that this would be the perfect opportunity for her. She knew that, in order to approach him, she would have to slip under his guard, would have to manipulate him into trusting her. But during that last month before the rebels were attacked and driven out, she had watched with increasing apprehension as he'd neared some kind of breaking point. He'd glided like a ghost along the darkened corridors of the inn, and he rarely slept. His pale skin had grown even paler, that single scar blazing against the drained cheek like a red warning. Once, in the cold pre-dawn, before he was due to return, she'd entered his room to clean it and had almost stumbled over him hunched cross-legged, right out in the middle of the floor, far from the safety of the darkest corner. Bedraggled and bloodied, he leaned heavily on his sword, his breathing labored. He'd looked up at her dully, and she could see blood oozing from the wound on his cheek. Her presence seemed not to register with him—she was nothing more than a blip in his world, not a threat, background as much as the tatami under him. As she backed cautiously out of the room, his bloodshot eyes lost their focus on her, and his gaze drifted back down to the floor. But later, when he appeared in the mess hall for breakfast, he was as self-contained and disciplined as ever—no sign of fatigue or disorientation, the only sign of disorder a fresh bandage on his face—and when he'd looked at her with his customary cool politeness, and thanked her for serving him, she felt chilled to her core.

It was no different here—he was impenetrable. She began to fear that there would be no opportunity for revenge. Rather, every day she spent in his company increased her chances of being found out. She began to think more about survival. She knew she could not count on his ignoring her forever.

Oh, she was a fool to have set herself on this path! No, she must get out of it, get away from this place of nightmares and death. She would go home. The sudden decision left her giddy with relief. Enishi! She would see her beloved brother again. And Father, dearest Father! Once more she would cook for them, wander the woods with her brother, tend to their little garden, be at peace.

She must request an immediate audience with Katsura—how did one go about that?—and tell him that she wanted— or rather, ask him if she could— No, first she'd contact Field Marshal Tatsumi and say— No. Maybe it would be best to seek Ōkami's advice— The tangle of impossibilities tightened around her mind, smothering her into despair. There was no way out. She couldn't face Katsura—that way lay almost certain execution—and she couldn't approach the thuggish Yaminobu, who had as much as promised the forfeit of her life if she failed.

Beyond all that, it was the prospect of talking with Ōkami that she found the most daunting. Ōkami knew nothing of Tomoe's secret situation, and the mere idea of first recounting the whole sordid tale and then asking for yet more help from her shamed her to an unbearable degree. Ōkami had been the first person in the City to show Tomoe the slightest kindness, and Tomoe had come to care very much what the older woman thought of her. During their time working together, they had formed an unspoken bond around their shared sensibilities: order, calm, beauty. Loyalty. Akira…

So. There was nothing else for it. She would stay in Ōtsu. And yet it seemed to her that her predicament had been sprung on her like a trap.

Tension had been building among the troops for many days, and she had no idea why. Daily, it seemed, men and equipment disappeared from the compound. Later, she overheard whispers about "hiding places" and "deserters," and hair-raising tales of a few defectors who had been captured and brought back.

"Kei-chan, please don't cry! Not here! Ōkami will hear you and be angry!"

Keiko, huddling in a corner of the kitchen and weeping into her apron, tried to answer, but could manage only sobbing hiccups. At last, she calmed enough to choke out, "But, Momo-onee, if you could have seen—"

Momoko tightened her arm around her friend's shaking shoulders and touched her cool forehead to Keiko's overheated one. "Shhh, shhh, it's all right." She glanced back over her shoulder and, seeing that their boss was nowhere in sight, said, "Come with me. Let's go out into the garden for a minute." She guided Keiko through the door out into the dewy gray dawn and over to the bench just below the kitchen's single window. Tomoe could hear snatches of their conversation.

"...hanging by his ankles...split bamboo rods striking..."

"...worse if you talk about it...why did you go out there?"

"...hot wax...screaming..."

"...don't think about..."

She wished she couldn't hear even that much. The story left her feeling queasy, but she dared not leave the kitchen short-staffed with breakfast underway. She gripped the edge of the big table and leaned heavily on its sturdiness.

Just then, Ōkami came in and noticed the two girls' absence, but one look at Tomoe's ashen face and wide eyes, along with a phrase or two from the window, told her all she needed to know. Ōkami, too, must have known of the brouhaha last night in the back house. In fact, it was a testament to the violence of the times that the whole neighborhood hadn't shown up this morning with the police in tow.

"Tomoe-chan," she said, pitching her voice so it could be heard out the window, "When you see Keiko, please tell her that I'd like her to help me arrange flowers today. In my sitting room." Silence from the garden now. The girls must be holding their breath, wide-eyed with fear. Even safe in the kitchen, she was afraid for them, afraid to breathe lest she betray them somehow. "Momoko must hurry back to the kitchen as soon as she's... finished with..." Ōkami waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the window. "...with whatever she's doing." She blew out a little exasperated sigh and turned to leave.

"Yes, ma'am." Tomoe, still shaken, bowed to her mistress' back. "I'll tell her." Arranging flowers was considered by the girls to be almost like a day off. "Thank you," Tomoe whispered on behalf of the forgiven Keiko.

"And Tomoe-chan?" Ōkami paused in the doorway. She spoke over her shoulder. "Sit down before you fall down."

The next evening, as they were clearing away dinner, Katsura appeared in the kitchen's entrance, stunning the room into a sudden, frozen silence. He'd never even stepped foot into the housekeeping wing, not once since she'd come to work there. She barely knew his face, as she'd caught only glimpses of him across courtyards and down hallways. Once, in the blackness before dawn, as she hurried from the women's rooms to the kitchen to begin the morning meal, she'd passed a doorway that wasn't quite closed. She moved to slide it shut, but a single candle inside, burning too low to be seen in the hallway and guttering in its own pool of wax, stopped her hand in mid-air. The Commander and three other men hunched around maps and scrolls strewn on the tatami floor and spoke in low, urgent tones—their gray, fatigued faces told the story of an all-night meeting. The thought of what it could mean had filled her with dread.

Today, however, he was fresh and collected, if just a little too focused. As he stood in the doorway, he glanced over all of them, seeming to evaluate each in turn. He settled his penetrating gaze on her. A jerk of his head, and then he turned on his heel and vanished into the corridor. In the petrified hush that followed, the girl standing next to her snatched off Tomoe's apron and hissed, "Hurry! Follow him!" and gave her a small shove toward the door. Her heart in her mouth, she scurried out the open door after him, forgetting to close it because she could see he was already down the hall, mounting the steps toward the soldiers' rooms, not even checking that she was behind him.

She couldn't imagine what was going to happen to her. Was she wanted for pleasure? For punishment? And which was worse? Her mind raced over anything she might have done that could have drawn Katsura's attention, or given offense. She was out of breath by the time she caught up with him, just as he stopped at the door to the killer's—her killer's!—room.

Her chest clutched with rising panic. Was she being handed over to him? The idea of being with him… Or had she perhaps been found out? Was this going to be a scene of accusation and forced confession, perhaps even culminating in her target's being given the opportunity to avenge himself on her here and now?

Hiding her trembling with difficulty, she nevertheless knelt smoothly and slid open the shoji, bowing deep as Katsura swept past her into the room. She lifted her eyes just in time to see the assassin drop to one knee, bracing himself with one stiff-armed fist against the tatami and snapping his head down before his commander. She'd glimpsed his face, and was surprised to see uncertainty there, too, and even shock.

"Himura-san, do you have leisure now?"

The soldier looked up and replied in a voice that only just reached her, "My time belongs to you, my Commander." He still had not so much as glanced in her direction.

Katsura drew a breath to speak, but instead stopped abruptly and turned his head towards her. Himura turned as well, and the sudden heat in her cheeks made her eyes water. She started to close the door in obedience to the expected dismissal, so it took her a moment to understand what he'd said.

"Yukishiro-san, please come in and close the door behind you."

Now that they were here, living together, married in law, she struggled to imagine how she could turn her predicament to her advantage. She couldn't read him like he seemed to read her. He had no emotional needs that she could fill, no chinks in his smooth facade. There was no question of his revealing himself to her. Between them, there was only distance and deceit.

Deceit. That was it. Since she'd left her home, she'd done nothing but deceive: her family, when she'd told them she was going to the City to earn her living. Field Marshal Tatsumi, when she'd agreed to be the mole in the Yaminobu's hunt for the demon assassin. She'd allowed Ōkami—her only friend—to think her merely a "lost cat," as someone in need of rescue, rather than someone from whom others might need rescuing. She'd even deceived the murderer himself, shuttering her spirit around him so that he lost his wariness.

She was good at deceit.

So, she would pretend. To Katsura, to do just as he'd requested: to be the assassin's sanctuary, his retreat. To Himura, to truly be his wife: feed him, work alongside him, even sleep alongside him, if it came to that. To the Yaminobu, that she would turn him over to them: meet with her agent, listen to their scheme. Tell them what they wanted to hear, let them think they were using her, rather than the other way around. And she would find her moment.