Chapter 34
Kaneko
“Ispy with my little eye,” Esumi announced grandly from his horse, “something that begins with . . . T.”
“Tree,” Haru said immediately.
“Tree,” I agreed.
Silence from behind us.
“Captain Yamamoto,” Esumi called over his shoulder. “You’re supposed to guess.”
Our guard captain, a stern Samurai who looked like he’d been carved from granite and had never learned what smiling was, didn’t even glance up. In the three days we’d been traveling, I’d heard him speak perhaps ten words, and most of those were “Yes, Your Highness” or “No, Your Highness.”
“The captain does not play games. He keeps us alive,” Haru said diplomatically.
“The captain doesn’t play, period,” Esumi corrected. “Look at him back there, fondling his katana like it’s his lover.”
Yamamoto’s jaw clenched, but still he said nothing.
“Have you named it?” Esumi continued, turning in his saddle to ride backward, grinning at the stoic guard. “Something romantic? ‘Moonlight’s Kiss’? ‘Cherry Blossom’s Caress’?”
“Esumi,” Haru warned.
“Or is it a naughty sword? Should its name be ‘Deep and Rough’ or ‘Do Me, Daddy’?”
I had to cover my mouth at that.
“I bet he sleeps with it,” Esumi stage-whispered to me, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Cuddles it at night. Whispers sweet nothings into its scabbard.”
The captain’s knuckles went white on his reins.
“I mean,” Esumi continued, undaunted. “Don’t get me wrong. I love a good sword. Our gracious prince can attest to that.”
“Esumi!” Haru snapped, his tone belying a laugh he could no longer control.
“Do you oil it by candlelight? Make it all slick and easy to slide into dark places? God, that feels so good, doesn’t it?” Esumi’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “I bet you run your fingers lovingly down its shaft. Does it have its own special pillow beside yours?”
“Esumi, gods, please stop,” Haru said, but he was fighting not to laugh.
“I’m just saying, a man that devoted to his sword must have feelings for it. Deep, passionate, hot-and-bothered feelings, the kind of feelings that—”
“Tree.”
We all stopped. Even my horse’s head turned to look back.
Captain Yamamoto had spoken. His expression hadn’t changed—still carved from stone—but he’d answered.
“I’m sorry, what?” Esumi asked, delighted. “I didn’t hear you.”
“The answer is tree,” Yamamoto said flatly before urging his horse forward. “It has been tree for the last seven times. We are in a forest. Everything is trees.”
Esumi’s face lit up like the sun. “HE PLAYS! Captain Stoney-Face plays games! This is a momentous day! Mark it in the histories!”
Yamamoto groaned—one of the few non-word sounds I’d heard him utter at Esumi’s perpetual sexual references.
Before any of us could react, the stoic Samurai spurred his horse and trotted past, as though the scouts leading our party might need to discuss something, like the color of the trees a few yards to our south.
But I could have sworn I saw his shoulders shake with amusement. Only once.
“Victory!” Esumi declared, punching the air. “I have broken through the legendary Yamamoto armor. Next, I’ll make him smile. Then laugh. Then—”
“Then he’ll run you through with that sword he’s so fond of,” Haru suggested. “And the rest of us will thank him. I might even give him full Imperial honors for sparing us your constant prattle.”
“It’ll be worth it,” Esumi said cheerfully. “Besides, the word wasn’t ‘tree’ that time. It was actually T was for tremendous—for my tremendous good looks.”
The captain, who I’d thought was now out of range of our banter, barked a laugh so loud that it echoed off the nearby mountainside.
Esumi’s shit-eating grin grew even wider.
“Kaneko, it is your turn. Please save us from whatever Esumi might say next,” Haru said, pointing at me with a half-eaten rice ball he’d stolen from my pack an hour ago.
He’d been pilfering my food all morning, but always with such theatrical, un-princely flair that I couldn’t bring myself to stop him.
“I don’t think I understand this game,” I admitted.
“It’s easy.” Esumi couldn’t contain himself. “You pick something you can see, tell us the first letter, and we guess.”
“Thank you, wise one. I think I understand,” I said dryly. “How about ‘H’ for a horse’s ass?”
“That’s two words, doesn’t count. Besides, that would be ‘A’ for ass, not ‘H’ for horse,” Esumi shot back. “Also, my horse has a magnificent ass. Look at those haunches. Any other horse would be lucky to get to sheathe their sword—”
“Please stop discussing your horse’s haunches,” I said, covering my mouth with a hand so I didn’t encourage him. Then I turned to Haru and added a plea. “I’m begging now, Your Highness.”
“Kaneko doesn’t appreciate fine equine beauty,” Esumi stage-whispered to Haru. “It’s very sad.”
The mountain road stretched before us like a painted scroll, but after three days of travel, even the majestic scenery had become a mere backdrop to Esumi’s and Haru’s increasingly ridiculous attempts to entertain themselves—and by extension, me.
“We should play the story game,” Esumi offered.
“No!” Haru said quickly. “The last time we played that, you convinced three guards that there was a ghost living in the latrine that only attacked people named Hideki.”
“There were four guards named Hideki,” Esumi said innocently. “And they held their shit for hours. It was hilarious.”
“It was a medical emergency,” Haru corrected.
“Fine. A hilarious medical emergency,” Esumi compromised.
I found myself laughing—actually laughing—for the first time in longer than I could remember. These two, a prince and his Samurai lover, who should have been formal and distant, were beyond ridiculous and had adopted me into their chaos like a long-lost brother.
“Tell Kaneko about the peacock incident,” Haru said suddenly, grinning.
“No,” Esumi said firmly. “We swore an oath never to speak of those damned birds again.”
“You swore an oath. I nodded vaguely.”
“That’s the same thing!”
“It really is not. Besides, I am second in line to the Jade Throne. You must do as I command.”
“Fine,” Esumi sighed dramatically. “But if I’m telling the peacock story, you have to tell Kaneko about getting the ambassador’s wife drunk on sake and stealing only her left shoe.”
“That wasn’t my fault!”
“You set her wig on fire.”
“It was an accident! The candle was—” Haru paused. “Wait. How do you know about that?”
“I know everything,” Esumi said mysteriously. Then, to me: “So the peacock incident. Picture this: the Emperess’s birthday celebration. Very formal. Very important. And someone—”
“You,” Haru interjected.
“—someone who shall remain nameless decided it would be hilarious to train the palace peacocks to respond to a specific whistle.”
“Oh no,” I said, already seeing where this was going.
“Oh yes. So there we are, the Emperess’s grand birthday feast, all the nobles and dignitaries assembled, and the court musician starts playing the ceremonial flute—”
“Twenty-seven peacocks,” Haru interrupted, tears of laughter in his eyes. “Twenty-seven peacocks burst into the throne room screaming like demons, chasing the Minister of Finance around the hall because Esumi had been training them with treats hidden in robes that looked exactly like his.”
“He ran straight into the birthday cake,” Esumi added proudly. “Face first. It was a joke made art.”
“Father was furious,” Haru said.
“Your divine father was struggling to keep from laughing his royal ass off,” Esumi corrected. “I saw him covering his mouth with his sleeve and turning away.”
“That was horror, not laughter.”
“It was definitely laughter.”
I was wheezing, imagining the scene. “What happened to you?”
“Three months of dawn meditation with the most boring monk in existence,” Esumi said mournfully. “Brother Tadashi. He could make the story of the world’s creation sound like tax documentation.”
“You deserved worse,” Haru said.
“I regret nothing,” Esumi declared. Then, conspiratorially to me: “I’m training crows now. They’re smarter than peacocks.”
“Please don’t,” Haru begged. “I’m running out of excuses for your ‘incidents.’”
“That’s what makes it exciting. The challenge of—”
I touched my neck absently, fingers seeking something that wasn’t there—
The laughter died in my throat, as a chill raced through me despite the warm morning sun.
My horse snorted, ears flicking back, dancing sideways.
Around us, the forest had gone completely silent. There were no birdsongs. No insects buzzing. Even Esumi had frozen mid-sentence.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered.
Esumi’s entire demeanor shifted, the jokester vanishing as his hand flew to his katana. “What do you—”
The whistle came first.
Then the wet thunk of impact as the guard beside me jerked, an arrow sprouting from his throat. Blood sprayed across my face, hot and copper-thick. The man toppled from his horse without a sound, hitting the ground with a noise like dropped meat.
“To the Prince!” a guard yelled.
“RIDE!” Haru roared. “FORWARD! NOW!”
The world exploded into chaos.
Our horses lurched as arrows filled the air, their whistles becoming a symphony of death.
Men screamed. Horses shrieked—worse than human screams, high and terrible. Bodies fell with bone-shattering cracks, their final sounds.
I pressed low against my mount’s neck, her mane whipping my face.
The taste of blood—not mine, gods, not mine—was thick in my mouth.
Beside me, Esumi drew his sword, the ring of steel sharp against the chaos, as he batted away an arrow that hummed past my ear.
Behind us, our attackers gave chase. The thunder of their horses mixed with our own, the ground shaking, dust and blood misting the air.
Gods, there were so many.
More guards fell.