Chapter 43
My Two Mothers
"Asako!" I call out after her. But she is gone, her moon dust- colored hair fluttering loosely behind her.
She cannot stay here alone! Shingen will unleash all of his anger, frustration, and embarrassment upon her once the rest of us walk out of Black Dove, flanked by my lover and the Imperial Guards. She'll live the rest of her life crushed under his hatred for me.
"Asako!' I yell again, jumping up from my bed and leaving the other women staring blankly after me, their lips parted and hands clenched in disbelief of Asako's announcement. I fling my door open and see her walking calmly down the balcony hall to the staircase that leads back down into the tavern. I call out her name again, but she ignores me. Refusing to give her up to the smoke-filled air and morbid life of the Black Dove, I race after her, my unbound hair flying wildly behind me.
I reach her just before she sets her small, bare foot on the top step of the staircase. Not knowing what else to do, I dart my hand out and grab her wrist as her fingertips lightly press on the banister. "No," I say bluntly, "You're not staying here alone."
She turns her face to look at me, her hooded eyes testament to her sleepless nights, her slightly crooked nose testament to her years at the mercy of brutal men, her shimmering gray hair testament to the life that has forced her to age beyond her twenty-eight years. And yet there is no other woman besides my departed mother whom I believe is more beautiful than Asako.
She lifts her free hand and rests it on mine, gently prying my fingers from around her wrist. I hold tight and pull her away from the curious stares of the customers lounging at the base of the staircase. She allows me to guide her to the dimness of the balcony hall, but her face remains blank of all emotions. I realize that she is trying to seem indifferent to me. Unaffected, I let her wrist go and take both her hands in mine. I press her knuckles to my lips and kiss them softly.
"You can't stay here alone, Asako," I reply quietly, my eyes downcast to study her slightly callused palms and chipped fingernails. "I can't leave you behind."
"My life is here, Tansho," she whispers back, pulling her hands from mine to lift my face with the tips of her fingers. "What life could I have away from here? The one I had before I came to the Black Dove? You would want me to return to that?" I frown at how she has twisted my words around. It is so like her to do that at a time she feels cornered, at a time when she knows that even though she is my senior by eleven years, I am the one who's right.
Asako once told me about her childhood. But only once, and never mentioned it again. She sympathized with the sorrowful circumstances that had brought me to the Black Dove, and one night, when there was no moon in the sky to spy on us, she let me curl in her lap in front of the kitchen hearth and told me about the years before she became a whore. "My father died from the liver disease not long after I was born. He drank himself to death I suppose you could say," she began, her lean, muscular arms squeezing me gently, "My elder sister married young, when she was only thirteen, and died in childbirth before her sixteenth birthday. My elder brother went away one day not long after Father's death. My mother always told me she last saw him walking in the direction of the north, and that he not once glanced over his shoulder. My two youngest brothers died before they could ever reach the end of their first year; one from the consumption, the other from evil spirits that penetrated our mother's womb and killed him before he could even be born. Mother died not long after she gave birth to my stillborn brother. I always thought it was from grief of losing all her family except for me, a useless girl who would rather lie on the beaches by the sea instead of helping her mother in the kitchen. Our neighbors helped to bury her, and told me that her weak heart was what had killed her. I thought they were fools; my mother's heart had beat like a warrior's. So, when they offered to take me in and care for me until I found a suitable husband, I refused." Her eyes had trailed off, and I had always wondered if she thought she had made a horrid mistake all those years ago.
"I came to the capital when I left home; passing merchants had always told me it was the center of the universe," she continued. "But instead of finding a suitable job in the markets or at as a noble's maidservant, I wondered the city entranced by the golden buildings and richly dressed inhabitants. I soon ended up half-dead from malnutrition and fever, huddled in front of the Black Dove and begging for whatever the customers who passed by would give me. Shingen found me one day, my hair tangled, my face encrusted with dirt, my clothes stiff with my own sweat, and he picked me up and carried me inside. And I never found my way out again."
I had listened to Asako's story with tears in my eyes. "Don't cry for me, little one," she had told me, "I am what I am on account of myself. No one forced me to sleep with men for my bed and food. It wasn't long after Shingen took me in that I realized the advantages of being a whore. I had more money than I had ever seen in my life, and I had plenty of food and a warm, clean bed. I adored it, and still do to some extent, I suppose."
She had not been fourteen when Shingen had found her on the steps of the Black Dove, not much older than I was when I first entered the brothel. It was sometimes hard for me to think she had spent nearly fifteen years inside this place when I had spent only five.
I look at my dear Asako with the same eyes I had five years ago- the innocent, untainted eyes of a girl-child who knows only what she sees to be true. And what I see now is a woman being slowly devoured and killed by the place she was once thankful for. In another five years, she will most likely be withered away and buried beneath the ground. I will not go to visit her grave before I should have to!
"Asako!" I say sternly, "Of course I do not want you to return to the streets of the capital and beg for your survival. But I also do not want you to have to beg for your survival here as well."
She sighs heavily and I try to take her hands in mine again, but she pulls away with a look of pure pity on her face. "You don't understand, Tansho. You're young, and you have someone who loves you and wants to save you from this place. I'm old, little one," she continues, addressing me as she once did long ago, "I'm old and have no other life waiting for me beyond these walls."
I want to call her an idiot for describing herself as old. Even though her hair is as gray as an old woman's, and even though several of her teeth are missing, it is not hard to notice how high her breasts still perch on her chest, or how her hips still swing invitingly with every step she takes.
"What life do you have remaining here?" I ask her harshly, grabbing her hands again even though she tries to keep them from my desperate grasp. I am ready to threaten her to make her come with me. I am ready to stay if she will go. "Answer me, Asako! If you can tell me why you're bound to this place then I will turn around now and leave tomorrow without asking again you to come with me!" My mind is slipping from logic. I'm panicked and afraid. I must save her, for I could not save my first mother. "Tell me, goddamn it!" I plead, my voice suddenly rising to that of a terrified child. I don't mean to yell at her so harshly, but I know no other way to stir her usually boisterous and fiery soul. I must make her see how much I love her. I must make her understand that I look at her and see my mother behind her eyes.
"Because this is my home, Tansho!" she screams suddenly, her voice cracking like thunder. "My family is dead, I have no one, and Shingen gave me a home. He loves me Tansho, as he once loved you before you loved another and turned cold to him. And even though I am far from loving him, I could never leave the place that has been my home for the past fifteen years-even to go with the one I love with all my heart."
My mind surges. She cannot be serious! "Asako!" I scream back at her, "This is not your home! This is no one's home! This place is lingering on the edges of hell and is about to fall straight into the fires! Shingen loves no one, Asako! He loves only this place because it's what pours money into his pockets!" I see her eyes close and her mouth twist in sorrow. I grip her hands tighter. "I want to take care of you; please, let me take care of you like you have taken care of me. You became my mother when Shingen brought me here; daughters always take care of their mothers, Asako." I pull her to me and throw my arms around her as if the action could keep us forever connected; then she would have other choice than to come with me. "If you love me like you say you do, Asako," I plead into her shimmering silver hair, "Then come with me."
I feel her hands come to rest on my back, her fingers pressing into my skin affectionately. Her sobs echo though her lungs so hard that I can feel them. My dear second mother. My dear Asako.
"I love you, Asako," I whisper gently to her, "I don't want to lose another mother."
"You won't, little one," she answers, her breath warm on my cheek, "I will find a new home beyond the walls of the Black Dove-I will go with you even if you lead me to the gates of heaven or hell."
So the gods will allow me to love this mother longer than my first. For this, my heart burns with gratefulness. Our days in the Black Dove tavern and brothel have come to an end, and by the time the sun rises to its noon zenith tomorrow, our backs will have been longed turned to this place.
After the other women learn that Asako will be accompanying us also, the vivid, lighthearted atmosphere that had filled my room earlier returns. But there is no time to celebrate our departure. We must prepare for the morning when Tasuki will return for us with the emperor's decree and Imperial guards to escort us back to the palace. I send the women scurrying to their rooms to pack whatever they can, and I quickly begin my own preparations for my first day of true freedom since the day I left my home five years ago.
I open my wardrobe doors and remove piles of silks and other fabrics that Shingen had given me as gifts when I suddenly became enthusiastic about my work not so long ago. I throw them on the floor, not intending to take them or the boxes of jewelry heaped on my vanity table. I only plan on packing the azure overcoat that Tasuki gave to me and a few of the plain, loose gowns that I have lived in for the past five years. And perhaps I will place a few pieces of jewelry inside the lovely little wooden box that was Tasuki's first gift to me. I plan on wearing the golden hair clasp for my journey to the palace.
I continue cleaning my wardrobe until I finally find what I'm looking for at the very bottom-the cedar chest that Shingen allowed me to bring on our trip to the capital, my new home. I had packed what few belongings I had and watched as Shingen lifted the chest easily with one hand. It had been my mother's when she had used it as a storage place for left over pieces of fabric she could never use in her tailor shop. She used to add the bits and pieces of lace and chiffon to my sleeves or the hems of my skirts, or use them to tie my hair in twisted buns and braids. I would now use this cedar chest to carry my few belongings to my new home-and from there, to the home on the mountain that I have dreamed about ever since my beloved appeared to me that night in the tavern, his hair licking the ink-black sky like fire. I smile, as I always do when I think of Tasuki.
I grab the brass handles on either side of the chest, dull from the years that have passed, and heave it out of the bottom of my wardrobe. I plop it down on my bed and open the top to see if anything is still inside it after all these years. My breath leaves me when I see what is resting at its bottom. I step away from the cedar chest, my fingers flying to my mouth to hold back the sorrows of the past. But the treasure hidden at the bottom of the chest lures me to it as if it were a rare flower, and I can't stop myself from walking back to its edge and leaning over to gaze upon the thing hidden inside. It is a gown. A red silk gown neatly folded and protected from moths by the strong scent of the cedar wood, and it appears to be newly sewn.
My heart convulses painfully behind my ribs. I know who made this dress and who placed it deep inside this old chest for me to find one day. By why did I never see it before? How has it hidden itself her for so long without being seen or disturbed?
Fearful of touching a piece of my past, I keep my hands clenched at my sides even though the temptation to caress the gleaming silk of the gown is almost too much for me. It is obvious that my mother sewed this gown before her death. Just by studying the stitching of the sleeves and the fine silk of the bodice, I can tell that this is my mother's handiwork. Her stitches were so small they left no trace of their existence, and she would choose only the finest and most expensive silks for her gowns. And red was always her favorite color; she always told me that it made her brown hair and gray eyes come to life, even though I thought my mother's hair and eyes could never be more alive and vivid.
My desire to touch something that my mother once touched with gentleness and precision overcomes me. I reach my hand down into the sweet- scented cedar chest and lightly run my fingertips over the glossy silk of the ruffled collar of the bodice. I must see what it looks like. Even though I fear that the moment I pull it from its hiding place it will disintegrate in my hands and become nothing but dust, my yearning to see a part of my mother outweighs all my uncertainties. I reach my other hand in and carefully scoop the silk gown into my palms as if it were a newborn infant. I lift it into my embrace and breathe in the scent of cedar that clings to it, hoping that a trace of my mother's exotic perfume might still linger on it. I then grasp the shoulders gently and hold it away from me to allow it to unfurl. The red silk of the bodice and skirt cascades from my fingers like a waterfall of blood. My breath leaves my body and I stare at the shimmering crimson dress in awe. No wonder my family was wealthy when I was young; my mother was a master of the needle.
I recognize the fashion of the gown as that of nearly fifteen years ago, but the graceful flowing sleeves and plunging neckline of the bodice make it seem brand new. I realize that there is something missing from the dress, and I gently spread it out on my bed to peer inside the chest again. Ah, I think, now it's complete.
I reach my hands back inside the chest and pull out a dazzling, knee- length golden satin girdle and blood-red thick sash embroidered with golded threads to tie it around the waist. Folded neatly beneath the ruffled girdle is the outer layer of the gown, a magnificent robe the color of the night embroidered with red and golden maple leaves. My hands fly to my lips once again at the sight of the gown in its entirety. It is the most gorgeous outfit that I have ever come across. Not even the courtesans of the emperor's seraglio could have a gown as perfect and breathtaking as this. I decide without a second thought that I will wear this tomorrow for my journey to the palace. Tasuki will not be able to take his eyes away from me, and Shingen will see how I have climbed into the sky and now loom over him like a goddess.
I gently fold the garments up again and pile them on top of each other. I hurry to my vanity able to select a few pairs of earrings and three bracelets to pack inside the little wooden box that Tasuki gave to me before he left for Hokkan. I pick out two bracelets and pair of onyx and gold earrings to match my dress tomorrow, and separate them from the remainder of useless jewelry that Shingen gave to me not long ago. I pull out a few of my flimsy gowns and a pair of slippers from my wardrobe, settings aside a plain black pair to wear tomorrow. I take the dazzling blue coat that Tasuki gave me and fold it neatly inside the chest first. After I have packed the remainder of my few belongings inside the cedar chest on my bed, I carry the gown, girdle, and robe to the kitchen. When I first came here, Okichi taught me how to hang my clothes next to the hearth fire and sprinkle them lightly with water to smooth out the wrinkles in the fabrics. This dress has been resting inside my mother's chest for probably fifteen years or more, with only the strong scent of the cedar to keep it safe from hungry moths. The wrinkles are quite prominent in the garments, but they could never take away from its obvious beauty.
I wait by the fire as my mother's magnificent gown flutters gently in the heat emitted from the hearth, and only when I'm certain that each piece of the apparel is as smooth as the skin of my breasts do I gather it gently into my arms and return to my room.
A/N: Hey guys! I'm so sorry this update took forever, but I'm getting settled in my new house and getting used to my class schedules (they're a bitch ^_^) But I am trying my hardest to keep updating this story as faithfully as possible because I'm very loyal to it as well as to all of you! It may take a while for the next chapter to come out because I'm having some trouble uploading off my new lap top and have to figure out what the hell is going on.
And thanks again for all the great reviews! They've been helping me revise and edit my chapters, so I hope you keep 'em coming! ^_^ Love you all, and I'll talk with you again soon!
My Two Mothers
"Asako!" I call out after her. But she is gone, her moon dust- colored hair fluttering loosely behind her.
She cannot stay here alone! Shingen will unleash all of his anger, frustration, and embarrassment upon her once the rest of us walk out of Black Dove, flanked by my lover and the Imperial Guards. She'll live the rest of her life crushed under his hatred for me.
"Asako!' I yell again, jumping up from my bed and leaving the other women staring blankly after me, their lips parted and hands clenched in disbelief of Asako's announcement. I fling my door open and see her walking calmly down the balcony hall to the staircase that leads back down into the tavern. I call out her name again, but she ignores me. Refusing to give her up to the smoke-filled air and morbid life of the Black Dove, I race after her, my unbound hair flying wildly behind me.
I reach her just before she sets her small, bare foot on the top step of the staircase. Not knowing what else to do, I dart my hand out and grab her wrist as her fingertips lightly press on the banister. "No," I say bluntly, "You're not staying here alone."
She turns her face to look at me, her hooded eyes testament to her sleepless nights, her slightly crooked nose testament to her years at the mercy of brutal men, her shimmering gray hair testament to the life that has forced her to age beyond her twenty-eight years. And yet there is no other woman besides my departed mother whom I believe is more beautiful than Asako.
She lifts her free hand and rests it on mine, gently prying my fingers from around her wrist. I hold tight and pull her away from the curious stares of the customers lounging at the base of the staircase. She allows me to guide her to the dimness of the balcony hall, but her face remains blank of all emotions. I realize that she is trying to seem indifferent to me. Unaffected, I let her wrist go and take both her hands in mine. I press her knuckles to my lips and kiss them softly.
"You can't stay here alone, Asako," I reply quietly, my eyes downcast to study her slightly callused palms and chipped fingernails. "I can't leave you behind."
"My life is here, Tansho," she whispers back, pulling her hands from mine to lift my face with the tips of her fingers. "What life could I have away from here? The one I had before I came to the Black Dove? You would want me to return to that?" I frown at how she has twisted my words around. It is so like her to do that at a time she feels cornered, at a time when she knows that even though she is my senior by eleven years, I am the one who's right.
Asako once told me about her childhood. But only once, and never mentioned it again. She sympathized with the sorrowful circumstances that had brought me to the Black Dove, and one night, when there was no moon in the sky to spy on us, she let me curl in her lap in front of the kitchen hearth and told me about the years before she became a whore. "My father died from the liver disease not long after I was born. He drank himself to death I suppose you could say," she began, her lean, muscular arms squeezing me gently, "My elder sister married young, when she was only thirteen, and died in childbirth before her sixteenth birthday. My elder brother went away one day not long after Father's death. My mother always told me she last saw him walking in the direction of the north, and that he not once glanced over his shoulder. My two youngest brothers died before they could ever reach the end of their first year; one from the consumption, the other from evil spirits that penetrated our mother's womb and killed him before he could even be born. Mother died not long after she gave birth to my stillborn brother. I always thought it was from grief of losing all her family except for me, a useless girl who would rather lie on the beaches by the sea instead of helping her mother in the kitchen. Our neighbors helped to bury her, and told me that her weak heart was what had killed her. I thought they were fools; my mother's heart had beat like a warrior's. So, when they offered to take me in and care for me until I found a suitable husband, I refused." Her eyes had trailed off, and I had always wondered if she thought she had made a horrid mistake all those years ago.
"I came to the capital when I left home; passing merchants had always told me it was the center of the universe," she continued. "But instead of finding a suitable job in the markets or at as a noble's maidservant, I wondered the city entranced by the golden buildings and richly dressed inhabitants. I soon ended up half-dead from malnutrition and fever, huddled in front of the Black Dove and begging for whatever the customers who passed by would give me. Shingen found me one day, my hair tangled, my face encrusted with dirt, my clothes stiff with my own sweat, and he picked me up and carried me inside. And I never found my way out again."
I had listened to Asako's story with tears in my eyes. "Don't cry for me, little one," she had told me, "I am what I am on account of myself. No one forced me to sleep with men for my bed and food. It wasn't long after Shingen took me in that I realized the advantages of being a whore. I had more money than I had ever seen in my life, and I had plenty of food and a warm, clean bed. I adored it, and still do to some extent, I suppose."
She had not been fourteen when Shingen had found her on the steps of the Black Dove, not much older than I was when I first entered the brothel. It was sometimes hard for me to think she had spent nearly fifteen years inside this place when I had spent only five.
I look at my dear Asako with the same eyes I had five years ago- the innocent, untainted eyes of a girl-child who knows only what she sees to be true. And what I see now is a woman being slowly devoured and killed by the place she was once thankful for. In another five years, she will most likely be withered away and buried beneath the ground. I will not go to visit her grave before I should have to!
"Asako!" I say sternly, "Of course I do not want you to return to the streets of the capital and beg for your survival. But I also do not want you to have to beg for your survival here as well."
She sighs heavily and I try to take her hands in mine again, but she pulls away with a look of pure pity on her face. "You don't understand, Tansho. You're young, and you have someone who loves you and wants to save you from this place. I'm old, little one," she continues, addressing me as she once did long ago, "I'm old and have no other life waiting for me beyond these walls."
I want to call her an idiot for describing herself as old. Even though her hair is as gray as an old woman's, and even though several of her teeth are missing, it is not hard to notice how high her breasts still perch on her chest, or how her hips still swing invitingly with every step she takes.
"What life do you have remaining here?" I ask her harshly, grabbing her hands again even though she tries to keep them from my desperate grasp. I am ready to threaten her to make her come with me. I am ready to stay if she will go. "Answer me, Asako! If you can tell me why you're bound to this place then I will turn around now and leave tomorrow without asking again you to come with me!" My mind is slipping from logic. I'm panicked and afraid. I must save her, for I could not save my first mother. "Tell me, goddamn it!" I plead, my voice suddenly rising to that of a terrified child. I don't mean to yell at her so harshly, but I know no other way to stir her usually boisterous and fiery soul. I must make her see how much I love her. I must make her understand that I look at her and see my mother behind her eyes.
"Because this is my home, Tansho!" she screams suddenly, her voice cracking like thunder. "My family is dead, I have no one, and Shingen gave me a home. He loves me Tansho, as he once loved you before you loved another and turned cold to him. And even though I am far from loving him, I could never leave the place that has been my home for the past fifteen years-even to go with the one I love with all my heart."
My mind surges. She cannot be serious! "Asako!" I scream back at her, "This is not your home! This is no one's home! This place is lingering on the edges of hell and is about to fall straight into the fires! Shingen loves no one, Asako! He loves only this place because it's what pours money into his pockets!" I see her eyes close and her mouth twist in sorrow. I grip her hands tighter. "I want to take care of you; please, let me take care of you like you have taken care of me. You became my mother when Shingen brought me here; daughters always take care of their mothers, Asako." I pull her to me and throw my arms around her as if the action could keep us forever connected; then she would have other choice than to come with me. "If you love me like you say you do, Asako," I plead into her shimmering silver hair, "Then come with me."
I feel her hands come to rest on my back, her fingers pressing into my skin affectionately. Her sobs echo though her lungs so hard that I can feel them. My dear second mother. My dear Asako.
"I love you, Asako," I whisper gently to her, "I don't want to lose another mother."
"You won't, little one," she answers, her breath warm on my cheek, "I will find a new home beyond the walls of the Black Dove-I will go with you even if you lead me to the gates of heaven or hell."
So the gods will allow me to love this mother longer than my first. For this, my heart burns with gratefulness. Our days in the Black Dove tavern and brothel have come to an end, and by the time the sun rises to its noon zenith tomorrow, our backs will have been longed turned to this place.
After the other women learn that Asako will be accompanying us also, the vivid, lighthearted atmosphere that had filled my room earlier returns. But there is no time to celebrate our departure. We must prepare for the morning when Tasuki will return for us with the emperor's decree and Imperial guards to escort us back to the palace. I send the women scurrying to their rooms to pack whatever they can, and I quickly begin my own preparations for my first day of true freedom since the day I left my home five years ago.
I open my wardrobe doors and remove piles of silks and other fabrics that Shingen had given me as gifts when I suddenly became enthusiastic about my work not so long ago. I throw them on the floor, not intending to take them or the boxes of jewelry heaped on my vanity table. I only plan on packing the azure overcoat that Tasuki gave to me and a few of the plain, loose gowns that I have lived in for the past five years. And perhaps I will place a few pieces of jewelry inside the lovely little wooden box that was Tasuki's first gift to me. I plan on wearing the golden hair clasp for my journey to the palace.
I continue cleaning my wardrobe until I finally find what I'm looking for at the very bottom-the cedar chest that Shingen allowed me to bring on our trip to the capital, my new home. I had packed what few belongings I had and watched as Shingen lifted the chest easily with one hand. It had been my mother's when she had used it as a storage place for left over pieces of fabric she could never use in her tailor shop. She used to add the bits and pieces of lace and chiffon to my sleeves or the hems of my skirts, or use them to tie my hair in twisted buns and braids. I would now use this cedar chest to carry my few belongings to my new home-and from there, to the home on the mountain that I have dreamed about ever since my beloved appeared to me that night in the tavern, his hair licking the ink-black sky like fire. I smile, as I always do when I think of Tasuki.
I grab the brass handles on either side of the chest, dull from the years that have passed, and heave it out of the bottom of my wardrobe. I plop it down on my bed and open the top to see if anything is still inside it after all these years. My breath leaves me when I see what is resting at its bottom. I step away from the cedar chest, my fingers flying to my mouth to hold back the sorrows of the past. But the treasure hidden at the bottom of the chest lures me to it as if it were a rare flower, and I can't stop myself from walking back to its edge and leaning over to gaze upon the thing hidden inside. It is a gown. A red silk gown neatly folded and protected from moths by the strong scent of the cedar wood, and it appears to be newly sewn.
My heart convulses painfully behind my ribs. I know who made this dress and who placed it deep inside this old chest for me to find one day. By why did I never see it before? How has it hidden itself her for so long without being seen or disturbed?
Fearful of touching a piece of my past, I keep my hands clenched at my sides even though the temptation to caress the gleaming silk of the gown is almost too much for me. It is obvious that my mother sewed this gown before her death. Just by studying the stitching of the sleeves and the fine silk of the bodice, I can tell that this is my mother's handiwork. Her stitches were so small they left no trace of their existence, and she would choose only the finest and most expensive silks for her gowns. And red was always her favorite color; she always told me that it made her brown hair and gray eyes come to life, even though I thought my mother's hair and eyes could never be more alive and vivid.
My desire to touch something that my mother once touched with gentleness and precision overcomes me. I reach my hand down into the sweet- scented cedar chest and lightly run my fingertips over the glossy silk of the ruffled collar of the bodice. I must see what it looks like. Even though I fear that the moment I pull it from its hiding place it will disintegrate in my hands and become nothing but dust, my yearning to see a part of my mother outweighs all my uncertainties. I reach my other hand in and carefully scoop the silk gown into my palms as if it were a newborn infant. I lift it into my embrace and breathe in the scent of cedar that clings to it, hoping that a trace of my mother's exotic perfume might still linger on it. I then grasp the shoulders gently and hold it away from me to allow it to unfurl. The red silk of the bodice and skirt cascades from my fingers like a waterfall of blood. My breath leaves my body and I stare at the shimmering crimson dress in awe. No wonder my family was wealthy when I was young; my mother was a master of the needle.
I recognize the fashion of the gown as that of nearly fifteen years ago, but the graceful flowing sleeves and plunging neckline of the bodice make it seem brand new. I realize that there is something missing from the dress, and I gently spread it out on my bed to peer inside the chest again. Ah, I think, now it's complete.
I reach my hands back inside the chest and pull out a dazzling, knee- length golden satin girdle and blood-red thick sash embroidered with golded threads to tie it around the waist. Folded neatly beneath the ruffled girdle is the outer layer of the gown, a magnificent robe the color of the night embroidered with red and golden maple leaves. My hands fly to my lips once again at the sight of the gown in its entirety. It is the most gorgeous outfit that I have ever come across. Not even the courtesans of the emperor's seraglio could have a gown as perfect and breathtaking as this. I decide without a second thought that I will wear this tomorrow for my journey to the palace. Tasuki will not be able to take his eyes away from me, and Shingen will see how I have climbed into the sky and now loom over him like a goddess.
I gently fold the garments up again and pile them on top of each other. I hurry to my vanity able to select a few pairs of earrings and three bracelets to pack inside the little wooden box that Tasuki gave to me before he left for Hokkan. I pick out two bracelets and pair of onyx and gold earrings to match my dress tomorrow, and separate them from the remainder of useless jewelry that Shingen gave to me not long ago. I pull out a few of my flimsy gowns and a pair of slippers from my wardrobe, settings aside a plain black pair to wear tomorrow. I take the dazzling blue coat that Tasuki gave me and fold it neatly inside the chest first. After I have packed the remainder of my few belongings inside the cedar chest on my bed, I carry the gown, girdle, and robe to the kitchen. When I first came here, Okichi taught me how to hang my clothes next to the hearth fire and sprinkle them lightly with water to smooth out the wrinkles in the fabrics. This dress has been resting inside my mother's chest for probably fifteen years or more, with only the strong scent of the cedar to keep it safe from hungry moths. The wrinkles are quite prominent in the garments, but they could never take away from its obvious beauty.
I wait by the fire as my mother's magnificent gown flutters gently in the heat emitted from the hearth, and only when I'm certain that each piece of the apparel is as smooth as the skin of my breasts do I gather it gently into my arms and return to my room.
A/N: Hey guys! I'm so sorry this update took forever, but I'm getting settled in my new house and getting used to my class schedules (they're a bitch ^_^) But I am trying my hardest to keep updating this story as faithfully as possible because I'm very loyal to it as well as to all of you! It may take a while for the next chapter to come out because I'm having some trouble uploading off my new lap top and have to figure out what the hell is going on.
And thanks again for all the great reviews! They've been helping me revise and edit my chapters, so I hope you keep 'em coming! ^_^ Love you all, and I'll talk with you again soon!