At some point after we said goodnight however many hours ago, Mitsuhide had changed into a loose night kimono and cleaned the rest of the make-up off his face. There was a fresh bruise on his knuckle - had he gone back out and interrogated the priest? Was that the reason for that bleak expression that had been on his face just a moment ago? Or… there were two bottles of sake on the desk. One was already empty, and the other was halfway gone. "Never mind. I'll catch up with you tomorrow when you're sober."
He easily set the cup down. "I could drink twice this much and remain unaffected." Hm. Well, that much sake would have me unconscious, but then again, I have zero tolerance and a lower body weight. And it was true that he didn't appear to be drunk. "What is it?" He indicated the cushion in front of the desk. "I presume this is important."
"I think it might be." Too tired to bother to kneel gracefully, I plopped down on the cushion, then shook my head when he pushed the cup of sake toward me. "I can't. It gives me nightmares. Waking nightmares too. And, I already just had a sleeping one that woke me up." Ugh. I wasn't making any sense, was it?
"A nightmare about the priest?" He rubbed his bruised knuckle. "He will no longer be a factor."
File that one under 'don't need any details.' If the priest was connected to Aki's or the other disappearances, Mitsuhide would have told me. Probably. "A different nightmare." One that left phantom splinters under my nails.
"If you've come to me to be soothed, I'm flattered." He looked at my bare feet, then took off his socks and passed them to me. "Don't protest. I never feel extreme heat or cold."
I went ahead and put his socks on. They were soft and toasty warm from his feet. Comforting. "Alright. I guess to explain the nightmare, I have to go back and explain why I don't like boxes."
"The palanquin." With perfectly steady hands, he poured himself another cup.
"Yes. Well. About five years ago, someone tried to kill me, or maybe just get rid of me – by locking me in a crate and leaving it in a warehouse." I felt my stomach clench when I recalled what a stupid kid I had been at the time.
"The warehouse that currently belongs to Shojumaru." Alright, he was indeed sober enough to follow along.
"Yes – that one. I don't know if he owned it then though. The crate I was in got hidden under a heavy shipment of western muskets. I couldn't get enough leverage to move the lid." As my brain returned to that place and time, I felt cold all over and my fingers were tingling.
"Katsu. Look at me. Breathe." As directed, I looked up and focused on that amber gaze until I felt steady.
Oh. He had grabbed my hands.
Holding hands with him felt – too intimate - and I let go. Or rather, I pulled away and he allowed it. "While I was in there – before I realized I was trapped - I overheard a conversation between a foreign merchant and a man he called Motonari."
Mitsuhide's eyebrow went up. "Five years ago? The only Motonari I can think of who would have been interested in and able to acquire a large shipment of weapons is Mouri Motonari, and he's been dead for longer than that."
Not able to reflect the eyebrow back at him, I simply shrugged. "So were Kenshin and Shingen, and they're still alive."
"You're suggesting Mouri Motonari is not dead." He rubbed his chin. "That's… possible. The Mouri clan has been rather active of late. However…" He left the sentence hanging, and I mentally filled in the unstated comment that this could have waited until morning.
"The thing is, I think he's Shojumaru. His voice. It's been bothering me about him since we met." Sure, it could have been that the warehouse ghosts were playing on my senses. But the more I thought about it, the more I was sure. "Shojumaru was the man in the warehouse back then. The one that they called Motonari."
Mitsuhide went completely still. Not in shock, or surprise… more, like deep into thought. "You are certain about this?" He held up his hand over my initial protest. "I do not doubt your story, only what time does to the memory. As you say, it has been five years."
"Five years of a memory that regularly appears in my nightmares." Pleasure doing business with ye! "He could not have been aware that I was trapped in there. That was just a coincidence on his side." Although Iekane had to have known who those guns were going to.
"How did you escape?" Hm. I thought he would be more interested in the Motonari part of it all, and not so curious about my personal experience. "It's not such an unusual question – someone must have found you, for here you are, sitting with your feet in my socks."
Uh. Well. This answer was bound to anger him… but I supposed it no longer mattered now that the person who had saved my life was dead. (As far as I knew. Given the Sengoku spontaneous resurrection rate, he could still be around somewhere). "A person heard me yelling later and rescued me."
"A random passerby to a warehouse that was used by weapons smugglers." No amount of sake could make that statement less sarcastic. "For if you had been rescued by Aki, you would have mentioned it. And let me digress to remind you that it's as important to take note of what a person does not say, as it is to listen to what they do. Therefore, the name of your rescuer…?"
"I don't actually know if those weapons were smuggled. It could have been a legal shipment…" I trailed off in the face of Mitshide's incredulous look. "It was Kennyo."
"Ah." They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So is one 'ah' as spoken by Mitsuhide. "The reason for your stubbornness at the beginning of the summer is now revealed. Were you working or him?"
"What? Oh. No. But I felt like I owed him for saving me, and that life debt weighed. And at the time you questioned me, I had no idea that he was anything but a travelling monk." Ok. No evidence that he was anything more than that.
That explanation prompted of those x-ray looks from him and I once again felt that prickly feeling through my body. It had been on low hum since moving in here with him, and I'd gotten so used to it that it had become no longer noticable. But that look from him brought that feeling back into sharp focus. "Katsuko, you are far too smart to believe that."
The praise of my intelligence was something I would have to take out and hug to myself later.
My throat was getting dry, almost enough to tempt me to the sake. There was a teapot sitting on the edge of his desk. Mitsuhide nodded at it. "It's from this morning." When I shrugged, he poured the dregs of the tea into a sake cup and passed it to me.
Ugh. Yup. Cold. Strong. Worse than Mitsunari's tea… wait. Huh? Mitsunari who? I shook my head trying to rid myself of that odd thought.
"Kennyo." Mitsuhide's prompt was an order.
"He found me, pulled me out, and Aki caught up to us a little while later. Anyway, he took us back to his encampment, found some clothes for me, and… well, he hinted that he might some day come to ask me to repay him, or ask it of Aki." Ugh. Another tickle in my throat that I suspected was a loose tea leaf. "Forgetting that I had not seen him when I briefly crossed his path that night seemed like a harmless way to repay him."
"Harmless. Did it occur to you that if we had been able to capture him at that point, then he would not be able to return and ask a favor?" He stared me down for a moment. "Never mind. Sometimes I forget how young you truly are."
Unlikely he was referring to my biological age, and probably, he was correct. If we compared life experiences, even with the time travel thrown in, I imagined that Mitsuhide's was longer, fuller, and full of enough angst for three seasons of a K-drama.
"Besides, there were so many people in the woods that night. I figured someone else must have seen him too, and if so, you were bound to figure things out without me." Whoops, nearly outed Sasuke there. As I wanted to get away from this line of questioning, I asked, "What do you plan to do about Shojumaru? Motonari."
He was quiet for a moment. "Watch him. See if he makes a mistake. Find out if he has any weaknesses and exploit them. For the moment, de Sousa still seems to be a key here. Hideyoshi met with de Sousa. If I can prove a stronger connection between him and Motonari, it would give me a lever to press. If Motonari is involved, it makes the situation political. They could be hostages instead of slaves. If Motonari has… executed them already… he would have taunted Nobunaga about that." Aside from the intake of breath on the word 'execute' Mitsuhide sounded measured and calm. There was a grim set to lips though, and I was sure that inside, he was anything but calm.
I understood. Hostages were easier to locate than slaves – but the political implications made the situation more desperate. "What are they like?" The question popped out. A personal question, unrelated to our business, or our contract. I wanted the answer anyway. "Lord Hideyoshi and Lady Mai. What are they like?"
Why did I feel the need to move the conversation into personal revelations? I just… possibly was putting off returning to a room that still contained the shadow of a nightmare.
He poured himself another drink, thus finishing that second bottle. "Hideyoshi is Nobunaga's right hand man. He's a good man… idealistic… devoted… passionate… honest. An all around pain in the ass."
The abrupt change in description caught me off guard and I laughed.
Mitsuhide looked up at the sound. "You don't smile very often."
Oh God. Please don't tell me I have resting bitch face. "Um… what? Should I?"
He waved the comment away. "Dear me, no. Not if you don't feel like it. It wasn't meant as a criticism. For what is needed, your face is completely appropriate."
Oh well, yes. Every girl's dream is to be described as completely appropriate. Not that I care if that is how Mitsuhide sees me. Still. Completely appropriate. I felt like sulking for no good reason. "I don't trust smilers. The man who tried to kill me was like that." I pictured Iekane with that ever-present smile and couldn't hold back a shiver at how badly he had fooled me.
Mitsuhide must have misinterpreted that shiver, for he took off his outer robe and handed it to me. Yeesh. If we stayed up much later, he would be naked.
Which would be bad. Of course. I erased the mental image that was forming in my brain, and simply cuddled myself into that robe. "And… Lady Mai?"
"Completely devoted to Hideyoshi and his dreams. At a look, the two of them can enter a world where they are the only two inhabitants. Hand me that bottle." He gestured to an unopened bottle of sake that sat at the far edge of the desk.
Really? He had brought out three bottles of sake intending to drink them all? But it wasn't my place to question his habits, and I doubted this indulgence was normal for him anyway, so whatever he wanted to wallow over, was his business. I gave him the bottle. "It's nice that they found each other." Hopefully whether they were, they were being held together… and well, hopefully their relationship wasn't being used against them.
"He tried not to want her… but with Mai, that's not possible. He believed that Nobunaga wanted her for himself, and Hideyoshi is nothing if not self-sacrificing. The man would work himself until he dropped from exhaustion if no one stopped him." A fond smile crept across his face, and suddenly Mitsuhide looked years younger. "And then he would still find time to scold everyone else."
To be honest it sounded like Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi had a lot in common. Or maybe I was the only person that Mitsuhide had ever scolded. I burrowed deeper into the robe, letting the smells of sandalwood and cinnamon envelope me. At this time, in this hour, they were comforting smells. "Does he scold Mai too?"
"Sometimes. If she works too hard. He can't help it. It's in his nature to mother everyone. Though Mai at least can get him to rest." That smile lingered on his face. It was not his normal smirk or the grin he used when he was teasing me. I don't think he was looking at anything in the room. Or anyone.
Does he realize that his voice always softens and catches when he mentions her?
Maybe I didn't want to hear anything about Mai after all. Not from him. It was too late now. He was in a reflective mood now and there was no stopping the flow of words.
"Mai is the most idealistic person you will ever meet. Yet, as she much as passionately despises war, she'll leap into any fight to defend her friends or an innocent bystander, or… even me." It sounded like he might have been recalling a specific incident.
"I'm having trouble imagining that you ever needed to be defended." Or wanted to be for that matter. "Who dared?"
"I dared, in fact. I needed to appear to be working for Kennyo, and I carefully constructed matters to make myself look like a traitor. But Mai cut through the entire charade by refusing to believe I was guilty." That fond smile again. He had the same note in his voice when talking about her that Sasuke did. "And the evidence of my guilt was overwhelming – I ought to know, I manufactured it myself. With my reputation, it would have been more than enough to condemn me. But she and Hideyoshi never doubted my innocence."
"Well, to be honest, I would have a hard time accepting your guilt too. I mean, ok, I don't like you, but anyone with eyes and a logically functioning brain can tell you're loyal to the Oda." Even as I said it, I wondered if it was still true that I didn't like him.
He blinked a couple of times, before that teasing expression reappeared. "What a pity. I believe I have treated you perfectly well. I am a very likeable fellow."
Nope. Still hate him.
The fifth thing I hate about Mitsuhide – his ego.
"Although I suppose it's flattering that you too would defend my innocence. Flattering. But foolish." Whatever funk he had been in seemed to be fading away. He tapped my nose. "Have you forgotten that you're my prisoner?"
If I were being honest, it had been a fairly benign prison, given that I still figured I could escape if I really needed to. "Don't worry. I think you're capable of a great many morally grey things. But in service to a Nobunaga's cause… not for personal gain."
Once again he rubbed his thumb across the bruise on his knuckles. "For this cause there must be someone willing to take on the burden of evil. And someone must be the light to my dark. That has always been Hideyoshi. It's a delicate balance we make up – Nobunaga needs him, his honesty, as much he needs someone to carry out the missions that no one speaks about. Someone to interrogate-" he reached over again and lifted my chin so that I was looking right into those golden eyes. "Is that what this has been? An interrogation? Looking for a weakness in your captor?"
Fighting the urge to jerk away, I forced my eyes to stay on his. "Always." I just wanted to know more about you. This was not a conversational path I wanted to follow, so I shrugged. "Making conversation. Trying to chase away my own nightmares."
"Have they been chased?" He let go of me. "For I know that if Hideyoshi were here at this moment, he would tell us both to go to bed now." It was a dismissal. "And to clean our teeth first."
I stood up.
He did not.
"He would be correct… in both. You should go to sleep." I stumbled on trying to figure out if I should call him by name. I never had. "Lord Mitsuhide."
The eyebrow went up. "Will you escort me to my bed? It's not too late to renegotiate." But the words had no bite, and he finally stood up as well.
"To your door." Somehow it felt like our relationship had shifted. Not as far as to say that we were friends. But past prisoner and keeper. Vassal and lord, I suppose, would be the best way to describe it.
Maybe he had been thinking along the same lines, for he said, "Planning to take on Kyubei's role?"
He took my arm, out of habit, I think, and I walked him up the stairs. He was completely steady – I supposed he truly did have an enormously high tolerance for alcohol, for the only difference between his behavior tonight and the night he taught me how to pick a lock was a bit more candor in his conversation. Even with that, I imagined that he had only told me things that he was ok with me knowing, things I could have learned on my own.
But I was learning to pick up on what was not said… and though he had not said it, I had discovered that he was in love with Mai.
As promised, I walked him to the doorway of his room and stopped at the threshold. He turned to look at me, playfully tugged on my ponytail, much like a mischievous child would, then without a word, went inside.
I slid shut his door, then returned to my own room, and lit one small lantern to serve as a night light. Tonight I felt I needed it, not only to chase away the shadows of the past, but any odd daydreams for the future.
I had a job to do. Many jobs, it felt like. Too many people had already disappeared. I would not lose myself as well.
Damn it… I forgot to give him his socks and kimono back.