.
They followed the old path for days and days, the sun growing stronger and the nights waning mild.
Eventually they began to meet monks on the path. A few of the men recognized Kaoru and greeted her warmly. Shaven heads, jostling each other, they joked with her.
"You've broken all our hearts, miss, coming back with a husband!"
Laughter.
Summer.
Smiles.
Shinta felt his skin burning in the sun. He felt the scars on his face itching, inflamed.
Kaoru reached for his hand to draw him out of his silence, and Shinta plastered politeness all over his face.
"What is wrong with you?" she hissed at him once the monks had passed.
Shinta couldn't explain it to her. He couldn't explain that it was different. His elation at their freedom seemed to evaporate at meeting the monks. These people knew Kaoru. They weren't simply wanderers here.
Suddenly Shinta could feel the callouses on his hand and the scars on his body, and he knew he should have been cut wide open, should have been killed and buried in a field, like the others. He knew he had no right to survive, no right to this happiness.
No right to be her husband.
He couldn't find words to tell her, but when they were alone... When they were alone again, he felt relieved.
.
Following the path toward the monastery, the earth rose gently into hills and rolling farm land.
A boy in the distance stopped his work to watch them. Suddenly he threw down his hoe and started running toward them.
"You... you... ugly old hag!" He threw himself at Kaoru. Shinta had gripped his sword, ready to strike, but the boy wasn't armed, and Kaoru was... smiling.
"Hey, it's rude to talk like that." She knocked him lightly on the head, hugging him. She cast a quick, warning glance at Shinta.
Finally the boy pushed her off of him. "We all thought you were dead! Grandmother and Grandfather have been worried about you! And you're filthy! Have you been traveling all this time, and ...hey that's, that's him!"
Kaoru stepped closer to Shinta. "It's all right, Yahiko. This is... Shinta. He's my husband."
They boy was glaring at him, and Shinta remembered, now: the old man, the boy, the cart filled with cloth.
"He's the samurai."
That night the storm and the Mibu wolves had rained destruction on their camp. He had ridden through the storm to find... her. She had put herself forward, protecting the boy.
He had had armor, then. He had ridden a horse, and his soul had been shriveled and dry. He had been fierce.
That must be what the boy recalled.
Something seemed to lock inside him. Whatever this boy saw, Shinta knew that he had a new life now. Standing in the sunlight, hair shorn, dirty from the road, battered sword by his side - poor and standing tall next to Kaoru, this was his life, and he would fight for it against anyone.
"I'm not a samurai any longer."
The boy continued to stare at him, frowning. Then he glanced at Kaoru, and finally he nodded. He faced Shinta and made a formal bow.
Accepted.
Forgiven.
Yahiko turned back to Kaoru and broke into a grin. "They're going to be so happy to see you, they might die of shock!" He laughed and sprinted toward a small house in the distance.
Accepted.
Just like that.
"Yahiko!" Kaoru shouted after him. "Don't joke like that! Hey, Yahiko!" And then she was rushing after him. She went a few yards and then slowed down, turned. "Shinta, come on!"
Shinta began to pull the cart after her. He moved slowly.
He was poor and a wanderer and Kaoru was his wife. They were among people who considered themselves her family. Their family.
Their country. Their family.
They had nothing.
They had everything.
That boy had known her and known him and had accepted them.
They might be secure here.
As he pulled their meager belongings up the hill toward the house, Shinta began to smile gently.
He would savor this newfound life.
.