Chapter 33: Cover-up

THUMP!

Shooting arrows at targets wasn't doing much to improve my turbulent emotions, but on the upside, I hadn't missed any shots either, even during my speed drills. So at least there was a comfort in knowing that my muscle memory wouldn't fail under the stress of internal upset. In fact, I might have been more accurate than usual.

THUMP!

"You could be Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the hunt." Out of the corner of my eye, I'd seen Yoshimoto come into the practice yard, but he'd politely kept quiet until I finished loosing a round of arrows. Trust him to be familiar with Greek mythology.

"Isn't one sweet talker in your family enough?" Apparently, the silver tongue gene was dominant.

"Standards must be kept," Yoshimoto said, before following my example and speedily sending off seven arrows, one after another, into the targets. "I was told that you were looking for me. Why?"

I jogged out to collect all our arrows before replying. "Two reasons. One, I managed to get my hands on a letter you'd be interested in." I'd read the stolen letter already – it contained the names of the Imagawa vassals who were interested in joining the Shogun. Although I planned to give the original letter to Shingen, Yoshimoto needed to know which of his vassals were disloyal. The knowledge that more vassals were dissatisfied wouldn't be welcome news, but at least it was a short list.

He sighed. "Sounds ominous, and probably like something that is going to cause me a lot of stress and headaches… what's the other reason?"

I handed him his arrows, giving him the first full view of my eye. "Getting the letter involved a bit more effort than I planned for."

He put down his bow, then put his hand under my chin, examined my face carefully. "I see."

"Can you cover it up?" I figured either Mai or Yoshimoto could help here, but Yoshimoto was more likely to be able to cover up both the black eye and my secret. "With cosmetics? You were going to teach me those in any case." My make up skills were limited to making my eyebrows seem more 'boyish.'

That comment gained me another sigh. I had a feeling that sometimes Yoshimoto thought I was exhausting. Still, I would take Yoshimoto's exhaustion over Chiyome's amused condescension or Sute's sly hints that she knew Shingen 'very well.' "Fashionable cosmetics will involve painting your entire face and neck with a layer of thick white powder."

Oh. That wouldn't work. Or rather, it would work, but it would likely create additional questions. "Could you … blend shades together with my skin?"

"Interesting concept." He picked up his archery equipment. "I can try. And in the meanwhile, you may tell me about this letter that you went to such trouble to acquire."

A short while later – after, upon a very strong suggestion by Yoshimoto, I had bathed off the odor of fish guts – we reconvened in his quarters. While Yoshimoto busied himself with his supplies of cosmetics and watercolor paints with the attitude of an alchemist who has been set the task of transmuting lead into gold, I read him the letter and copied down names for him.

"What will you do about them?" I squinted at the list. Lucky for Yoshimoto my handwriting wasn't as terrible as my drawing.

"Truthfully, there isn't much I can do. As long as it's a minority of vassals wishing to join Yoshiaki, the status here will be unchanged. The majority will stay here in Kasugayama, especially when the weather turns colder. The Imagawa are prideful – but they also like their creature comforts. Those who want to leave on their own - I cannot stop them… if they later wish to return to the fold of the Imagawa, I cannot prevent that either." He tested a couple different tints on my wrist. Everything faded right into my skin. "Needs to be thicker."

"So, this is a case of you can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your relatives?" I tentatively touched the skin under my eye. It didn't feel like the swelling had gotten any worse. Small miracles.

"Close your eyes." He approached me with a paintbrush. "Correct. Although since you intercepted their letter, those vassals will not receive a response from Yoshiaki, and may settle into sulky disgruntlement, rather than outright rebellion. I will pay attention."

"What about-"

"Keep your eyes shut."

"Sorry." I felt the soft tickle of the brush over my cheekbone. So, Yoshimoto's plan appeared to be to watch and wait. His middle name might be 'procrastination.' And… on that note. "Did you actually intend to take me to the Shogun's court?"

"I did not. My intention was to keep you from running away." My eyes flew open again. "Eyes shut, Katsuko. While I understand your wish to pursue Iekane, there is no guarantee that he will be at court. Meanwhile, Yoshiaki is Nobunaga's problem. The shogun wished to use the Uesugi-Takeda forces to weaken Nobunaga, and potentially ourselves. The best response to that would be to ignore the bait."

Aki had said much the same. "But… I." I opened my eyes again to see Yoshimoto looking at me sympathetically. "I want to do something."

"And you have done something." He indicated the brush, currently covered in a tinted liquid. "I understand your feelings. One doesn't want to feel that one is unnecessary."

That comment diverted me from my own self-involved musings. "Has anyone made you think that?" Yoshimoto always acted as if nothing bothered him, almost invited people to write him off, what with his near comical obsession with art and antiquities. And yet the same bitterness that came over Shingen when he was talking about his mortality seemed to come over Yoshimoto when it came to his purpose.

"I am a failure as a leader. And here I am living in a castle with the God of War, witness to great leadership on a daily basis." He put the paintbrush down, took a step back and looked at me. "Not dark enough – I didn't account for the shade of the bruise." He picked up another color and repeated the mixing process. "In any case, I suppose if I cannot be fearsome, at least I can be decorative."

"You're more than that. When you're needed to act, you do so. You did save Mai's life. You helped when the river flooded." I gestured to all artwork and antiques in his room. "And… this is an impressive collection. If art is your passion, well, then. Art endures… Not much else does."

Yoshimoto was quiet aside from the soft clatter of the lacquer containers. Finally, he said, "he told you."

I nodded. Well, I suppose technically, Sasuke had told me first, but Shingen had confirmed it.

"Was this-" He lightly touched my eye, "a response to the knowledge?"

"Of course not." I watched him test a few more stripes of color on my wrist. "I get banged up all the time… anyway… it's not like I'm the only one facing a loss. Acting as if I were would be pretty selfish."

Yoshimoto regarded me steadily. "If you hold onto your pain, doesn't it deprive others of the opportunity to share theirs?"

"Proving once again that you're not merely decorative." And since he only raised an eyebrow at that, I added. "Ok, yes, I'm worried, and sad, and scared."

"So am I." Yoshimoto began working on my face again, so I shut my eyes before he could ask me to.

"But I'm also scared I'm going to pre-mourn, and that's not going to do anyone any good either." Hence my turbulent emotions when I took my fear out on the innocent targets in the archery field.

"You have lost me," he said.

I wasn't entirely sure how to explain what I meant, although I had more than one example of pre-mourning in my past. I chose the one that was simpler to talk about. "Before I came here – I mean before the storm washed my brother and I up here, I had a cat. He was not a young cat even before he lived with me, and he was a gentle soul, quite content to stay inside and nap in the sun, and curl up next to me while I was reading. I had him about five years before he got sick. And the doctor said-."

Yoshimoto had been listening intently, but he stopped me there – in an apparently typical familial way of not letting a storyteller tell their story uninterrupted. "You took your cat to a healer?"

"In my village, companion animals are prized and worshipped, so yes there are doctors for cats." And even cafes for cats, but let's not confuse the man. "The doctor said my cat was dying and would only be with me a couple more months. I was so upset about his pending death that I was no longer able to enjoy that he was alive. I would get up to check on him three or four times in the night. I used to talk all the time to the cat, asking him to get better. I may have made his last days more painful because of my sadness."

"Possibly there is something to that," Yoshimoto said. "But your cat knew that he was loved."

Love doesn't always make a difference. Love can't keep anyone alive.

I took a second, and then a third look at Yoshimoto. His face was turned away from me, and he gazed out the window, beyond the walls of the castle. I knew that he was no longer talking about the cat. But I didn't think he was talking about Shingen either. "Yoshimoto… was there someone once that-"

He cut me off. "It was a long time ago." Then he shut the door on further confidences and held up a mirror. "What do you think?"

Well… it would probably fool the unobservant people.

Shingen was anything but that.

I didn't have a chance to pick up teahouse pastries before I stopped by Shingen's room a little while later, but I had talked one of the castle cooks (no huge effort, she adored him) into making him some sweet dumplings. So at least I was bringing him a fresh and hot dessert, which would hopefully distract him from noticing my eye. Or at least give him enough of a sugar rush to not say anything.

However, I had little hope of either of those things occurring.

Shingen was playing a game of Shogi, of all things, with Kenshin, of all people, but when he noticed me hovering at the door, he beckoned me in.

"And before you protest, you are not disturbing me, and while it was gratifying to know that I," he quoted the note I'd left by the side of his bed the night before (to prove that I had indeed kept my promise to stop by), "'looked too peaceful to wake up,' I would have been happy if you had anyway."

Kenshin made one of those grumpy hmphs that actually meant he was in a good mood. "You might as well come in. He's not likely to play any worse."

Curious to see how the game was panning out (well, obviously there were other reasons, but I was also curious), I came in and knelt next to Shingen. Oof, yeah, he was losing. Well, he had said once that shogi wasn't a favorite game of his, but given how smart he was, I was surprised that even as a non-fan of the game, he wasn't doing well.

Both Kenshin and Shingen studied my face a long time – yup, they'd both noticed. Shingen didn't say anything, but there was a tightening of the muscle on the underside of his jaw – I expected he was holding his tongue until Kenshin left. Kenshin returned his attention to the game.

I put the hot dumplings within Shingen's reach, then settled back to watch the game-in-progress. A moment later, I jumped when Shingen's fingers tickled the back of my neck. His fever must have gone way down, because his hands were cold. "I take it you know how to play."

I waited until Kenshin made his move, because I imagined he wouldn't put up with conversation while he was thinking. He had Shingen's king on the run, and if he promoted the rook, Shingen's loss would be almost inevitable. Kenshin promoted the rook, dropping it behind enemy lines.

"I play," was all I said. The literal game was more fun than being a figurative piece in whatever game Aki was playing, but either way, I played Shogi… better than Shingen, unless he was taking a 'let the wookie win' strategy with Kenshin (if so, probably not a bad idea).

Shingen's hand hovered over his silver General, and if he moved it to where he was clearly considering moving it – well, it wasn't the worst move he could make, but he was going to need to open his pawn line to let his King escape Kenshin's rook. He must have sensed my tension on that move, because he paused, then hovered over one of the pawns instead. He seemed to be waiting for something. I patted him on the back. He moved the pawn.

"Interesting." Kenshin straightened up. He smiled, looking much as he looked when he was sparring. Oh. He really liked Shogi. Idly, I wondered what would happen if he and Mitsuhide were to play… they might be fairly well matched. Although the most likely scenario would be that somewhere in middle game, Mitsuhide would say something snarky that would prompt the stabbing response from Kenshin, so it was a good thing that such a match was unlikely to occur. Bloodstains would ruin a perfect nice Shogi board.

The only possible response to Shingen's pawn was to move the opposing pawn to greet it, so once Kenshin did that, it was Shingen's move again. If it were me, I'd set up a trap move… ah, Shingen saw that possibility too, as he held his hand over his castle… and again, hesitated. I patted his back. Ok. Apparently, I was now the one playing Kenshin, although Shingen and I were the only people aware of that.

Unfortunately the game still ended with our inevitable defeat. He'd been too far behind even before I got there. "I resign," Shingen told Kenshin, when he reached the point where there were no more avenues of escape.

"Interesting that your game play improved immensely when she got here. It almost became a satisfying battle." Kenshin began putting the pieces away in what looked like a custom fabric case – probably Mai's work.

I gave Kenshin my blandest and most innocent smile. "I must have brought some luck with me."

"Hmph." He pinned me in the sharp gaze. "I will send a healer with some salve for your eye. Next time, we'll cut out the intermediary and you will play me yourself." He turned to give Shingen an equally sharp look, then took his leave of us.

"Guess he wasn't fooled." I wondered whether or not I would be able to defeat him if I played a game with him from the opening. Or… if I could beat Shingen, which based on this afternoon, might be the more achievable task. "And while I wouldn't have thought Shogi was his game, I would have thought it yours."

"Granted, I am generally better than I played this afternoon, but I'd rather strategize about real life scenarios than spend time memorizing shoji moves and counters. Although I find it incredibly attractive that you are good enough at the game to garner Kenshin's praise," he replied. He scooted himself further back on his futon and patted the spot next to him. "Now… just as Kenshin was not fooled by our shogi ploy, I am not fooled by whatever it you have done to try to hide that black eye. Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"It's not as adventurous or daring as all that." I wondered how much information I could get away with keeping back.

Again, he patted the spot next to him. "Then you shouldn't be apprehensive about telling me the story of your… non-adventure."

I wasn't apprehensive. I plopped down into the suggested spot. Already there was a comforting familiarity in the way our bodies fit together, even when we were sitting side by side. No, I wasn't apprehensive, but the knowledge that his definition of daring and my definition of daring didn't overlap much suggested that conversation would be littered with minefields.