Autumn Bridge Read Online Free PDF

smile on her lips, her eyes smiled brightly at Genji.
    She said, “If I told you that, my lord, there would be nothing for you to discover but my body, and how long would that hold your interest, seductive and skilled though it may be?”
    Genji laughed. “I have heard of your beauty. No one warned me of your intelligence.”
    “Beauty without intelligence in a woman is like strength without courage in a man.”
    “Or nobility without martial discipline in a samurai,” Genji said, with a self-deprecating grin.
    “How amusing it will be, if anything is to be at all,” Heiko said. “I will pretend to be a geisha pretending to be more interested in her guest than she really is, and you will pretend to be a lord without martial discipline.”
    “If you are only pretending to be pretending, then doesn’t that mean you really are interested in your guest?”
    “Of course, my lord. How could I not be interested in you? I have heard so much about you. And you are so unlike other lords.”
    “Not so unlike all other lords,” Genji said. “Many have dissipated their strength and their treasure on women, poetry, and sake.”
    “Ah, but none I know except you has pretended to do so,” Heiko said.
    Genji laughed again, though he did not feel like laughing. He took more sake to gain time to consider what she had said. Did she really see through the ruse? Or was it only a geisha’s parlor game?
    “Well, I can pretend to be pretending, all the while I am actually what I am pretending to be.”
    “Or we can drop all pretense,” Heiko said, “and be with each other what we truly are.”
    “Impossible,” Genji said, and took more sake. “I am a lord. You are a geisha. Pretense is the essence of our being. We cannot be what we truly are even when we are utterly and completely alone.”
    “Perhaps, as a start,” Heiko said, refilling his cup, “we can pretend to be what we really are. But only when we are with each other.” She raised her own cup. “Will you make the pledge with me?”
    “Of course,” Genji said. “It will be entertaining, while it lasts.”
    His grandfather had warned him that grave danger would soon come in the form of traitors. Kiyori had not warned him about overly clever geisha.
    What would he make of this one? Genji would make sure the two met as soon as Kiyori arrived back in Edo after the New Year. In these uncertain times, the one thing that could be relied on completely was Kiyori’s judgment. Gifted as he was with infallible prophetic powers, he could never be misled.
    “What are you thinking about so seriously, my lord?” Heiko asked.
    “My grandfather,” Genji said.
    “Liar,” Heiko said.
    Genji laughed. When the truth was unbelievable and lies revealed more than they concealed, what characteristics would a love affair have? It would be very entertaining indeed.
    Lord Chamberlain Saiki made his way next to Genji.
    “Lord, the hour grows late. It is time to send the geisha home.”
    “That would be cruelly inhospitable,” Genji said. “Let them stay the night. We have abundant room. The south wing is vacant.” Those had been the guards’ quarters recently vacated by twenty of his best samurai. They, along with the cavalry commander, were presently stationed at Mushindo Monastery, pretending to be monks.
    “Lord,” Saiki said, grimacing most fiercely. “That would be highly imprudent. Our security would be seriously compromised. With half the household guard gone, we are dangerously shorthanded. We would not be able to watch so many people.”
    “What is there to watch?” Genji waved off Saiki’s next objection before he could speak it. “Have we grown so weak that we must fear a dozen half-drunk women?”
    Heiko said, “I am not half drunk, my lord. I am completely drunk.” She turned to Saiki. “I wonder, Lord Chamberlain, does that make me doubly dangerous, or completely innocuous?”
    Such an interruption from anyone else would undoubtedly have raised Saiki’s