Dream of a Spring Night (Hollow Reed series) (26 page)

Eventually, Toshiko returned to the eave chamber.
 
Lady Sanjo was not likely to show her face again after her defeat over the note with the one-eyed cat, and Toshiko felt safe to take it out again.
 
She would sit near a place where the sun slanted through a crack between the curtain and the door frame and carefully unfold the small scrap.
 
Once it was dry, the writing had become more legible.
 
It was very faint, but she recognized the word “come” and guessed that the rest gave directions to his house or a place where they could meet.

Her heart began to beat faster at the thought that he had wanted her to come to him.
 
Oh, if only she had been here when he left the note.
 
Or if at least she had found it right away.
 
She would have run to him then.
 
Now everything had changed, and besides he surely no longer expected her.

She spent much time staring at the smudged words, trying to guess their meaning.
 
One was surely Sumei-mon, a gate in the city.
 
Perhaps he lived near this gate, or in a quarter with that name or near a street called Sumei.
 

But always she would know that it was too late and, holding back her tears, she would refold the precious scrap and tuck it inside her mother’s letter.

*

In the eave chamber, she felt close to him and had some privacy from prying eyes and from the constant chatter.
 
The emperor only rarely sent for her now that He was preparing for the move to the new palace.
 
She busied herself with writing down the last of the imayo for His collection.
 
Soon He would no longer need her for this work, and she was afraid that He had tired already of her body.
 
There were times when she wondered if her parents would consider Takehira’s appointment and a few gowns worth their efforts.
 
Of course, if she were to conceive, that would change everything.
 
Takehira had been quite right about that.
 

Because of her loneliness and isolation, she wished for a child with all her heart.
 
She would have someone of her own then, someone to care about, and who would care about her.
 
Even if the child were taken from her to be raised elsewhere, she would watch it grow from a distance.
 
She knew that giving birth to the emperor’s child would not elevate her to the grandiose heights imagined by her family.
 
Everyone still treated her like the lowliest of His Majesty’s ladies, without the slightest recognition of the fact that she was also His occasional bed partner.

*

But her status seemed to have changed a little the day Lady Sanjo approached her with an invitation to make the eave chamber her own private domain and to sleep there in the future.

Perhaps Lady Sanjo wanted to make amends for her rudeness, but Toshiko was pleased for different reasons.
 
Lately, a few of the ladies had received nighttime visits from men.
 
Toshiko suspected that Shojo-ben was one of them, because her friend was strangely distracted and had a dreamy look on her pretty face.
 
Toshiko was happy for her, but also uncomfortable.
 
When you shared quarters with others, separated only by flimsy screens, and spent much time lying awake in the dark, you could hear every sound, and such sounds as these were all too familiar to Toshiko now.
 
Her closeness to the secret lives of others embarrassed her and reminded her of her own duties in the emperor’s curtained bed.

So she welcomed the change and had her maid move her trunks and bedding and a few screens to the eave chamber.
 
Lady Sanjo was there, all smiles and bustling energy, ordering grass mats to be brought in and lamps and braziers to be placed just so.
 

“You will be quite comfortable now,” she said, fluttering her fan.
 
“This room is small but private, and you have your own small garden.”
 
She
raised
a shade and peered out.
 
“Delightful.
 
Nobody ever comes here.
 
You can sit on the veranda if you like.
 
I am sure His Majesty prefers that you keep away from the noisy visitors who seem to plague us lately.”

It was, of course, more isolation, but Toshiko was glad of that.
 
There was even a possibility that the emperor had become considerate of her feelings and suggested the change.
 

That night, she spread her bedding and set her headrest so that she faced the veranda.
 
The weather was still cold, and the shutters were closed at night, but she propped one open a little — finding the catch already unlocked — so that she could watch the pale moon rise above the roofs of the palace buildings.
 
Then she undressed to her under robe, something she had not done for a long time, and lay down beneath a double layer of quilts.

The moon was very beautiful this spring night, a silver disk that floated along the roof ridge in the starry blackness.
 
She remembered how she had sat with her mother and sister, composing poems about the moon.
 
They had not been very good poems, but she had felt cherished and happy then.
 
She let her tears blur both moon and stars.
 
It was a rare luxury, this open grieving.
 
For too long a time she had had to stifle her sadness, always afraid it would be noted, or that the call for her would come while her eyes were swollen from weeping.
 
Tonight it was too late for a summons from the emperor.
 

After a while, she stopped weeping and dabbed away the tears.
 
Somewhere to the east of her, the doctor would also have gone to bed.
 
Perhaps he, too, was looking at the same moon.
 
Perhaps he thought of her as she thought of him.
 
She imagined their thoughts meeting among the stars like winged fairies or like the herdsman and the weaver maid who met to make love only once a year.
 
Oh, she would give everything for one such meeting.

The emperor had called her His Moon Princess that first time, plying her with pretty stories and pictures like the child she had been until He had taken her in His arms.
 
Sometimes she thought she hated Him.
 

Her moist cheeks began to itch and she rubbed them dry with her sleeve.
 
Children may cry, but not grown women.
 
She closed her eyes with a sigh.

It was much quieter here than in the great room beyond the door.
 
She was farther from her companions, whose dim shapes, covered with piles of bedding or robes, used to breathe and rustle until the darkness seemed like a huge beehive.

As she dozed off, a faint sound, barely noted, niggled at the remnants of her consciousness.
 
A door closing somewhere?
 
Someone on her way to the privy?

Walking on gravel?
 
There was no gravel on the way to the privy, just the smooth boards of the corridor.
 
Old buildings creaked.
 
Wondering if the new palace would have fewer creaks than this one, she fell asleep.

And dreamed.
Some creature hissed and scrabbled in her dream.
 
It tugged at her quilts.
 
The cat, she thought with a drowsy smile.
 
Mikan, the one-eyed cat.
 
The doctor’s one-eyed cat.
 
What gentle hands he had.
 
His hand on hers, soothing the hurt from Mikan’s scratch —

She came fully awake when the hand — a cold hand — parted her gown and touched her bare skin.
 
A dark shape hovered above her, murmuring, searching with that impatient hand, breathing hotly in her face.
 
For a moment she thought it was the emperor and moved sleepily to accommodate Him, but then the strange scent told her that this was not the emperor and she cried out.

It was only a soft cry and stifled instantly by the man’s hand on her lips and his hissed “Ssh!”

She resisted, scrambling away, frightened now, her eyes wide, yet unseeing in the darkness.
 
He snatched at her arm and whispered, “Don’t be afraid, Lady Toshiko.
 
I did not mean to startle you.”

In her confusion, she tried to account for his presence. Had the doctor sent a message by this stranger?
 
“Who are you?” she managed, pulling her cover closer.
 
“What do you want?”

“I’m Fujiwara Munetada.
 
Don’t you remember me?”

She shook her head.
 
“No.
 
What do you want?
 
You’re not supposed to be here.”

Their furtive whispering made the encounter strangely intimate.
 
Then Toshiko remembered the questing hand on her breasts and was afraid again.
 
But perhaps this Fujiwara nobleman had made a mistake and come to the wrong bed.
 
She said so, and he chuckled softly.

“No mistake, my lovely.
 
Come
a little closer so I can see your beautiful face in the moonlight.
 
I have dreamed of this moment ever since I saw you dancing.”

Toshiko silently cursed the circle-dancing excursion.
 
“You must leave instantly,” she hissed.
 
“If you don’t, I shall cry for help.
 
Surely you don’t wish His Majesty’s anger to fall on you.”

“B-but,” he stammered, “d-didn’t you get my letters?
 
Didn’t you w-wish me to come?”

“I have not accepted letters from anyone, and I certainly did not wish this.
 
Go!
 
Now!
 
Before it is too late.”

There was a moment’s silence.
 
Then, to her astonishment, he said, “No, I won’t be tricked.”
 
Crawling closer on his knees, he said in a low voice, “You are beautiful, but your manners leave something to be desired.
 
Come, making noise will do you no good.
 
These things are much better carried on in silence.
 
Especially in your case.”

There was a touch of menace in his tone.
 
She suppressed her panic.
 
He was right.
 
She could not afford the scandal of being found with a man in her bed.
 

It struck her that her sudden move to this room had been Lady Sanjo’s idea, and that this visit was planned.
 
While she arrived at this knowledge, he was coolly divesting himself of his robe and untying is trousers.

“Don’t,” she pleaded as steadily as she could.
 
“Please don’t do this.
 
It will destroy me.”

It did not work.
 
Laughing softly, he slipped under her cover and reached for her.
 
She found herself grasped against a lean and muscular body that was heavily perfumed.
 
Nausea welled up and she gagged, barely controlling the urge to vomit.
 
Using all her strength, she pushed him away.
 
But he was young and much stronger and heavier than she.
 
Chuckling again deep in his throat, he pinned her down and forced a knee between her legs.
 

Toshiko was seized by a furious and desperate anger.
 
When he positioned himself, breathing heavily now, and then raised himself to enter her, she screamed and struck his face hard with her fist.
 
He fell back and staggered up with a muffled cry.

A moment later, the door flew open, and noise and lights invaded the eave chamber.
 
Women’s startled faces, ghostly white in the candle light, peered in at the pair of them.
 
A young man was standing above her, holding his nose and staring in disbelief at the blood that dripped down between his fingers, staining his white under robe, and falling on Toshiko’s bare thighs.
 

Sobbing, Toshiko snatched a robe and crawled away from him.

Lady Sanjo pushed past the others.
 
“What is going on here?” she cried.
 
The answer was obvious — except for the disgust and anger on the young nobleman’s face.
 
He glared at the women as he reached for his trousers.