Tale of the Warrior Geisha Read Online Free PDF Page B

completely at ease with the ruins. With each season, another layer of leaves from the overhanging beech trees and blown-in dirt covered the pits, so the landscape underwent a constant metamorphosis. Tomoe proceeded cautiously, in case branches and leaves completely covered a pit. It was also possible the boys had set a trap for her, which they should not have done. Falling into a pit would break her horse’s leg, if not Tomoe’s. Nonetheless, she didn’t discount the possibility.
    Tomoe pulled up on her little white mare, Yuki, and dismounted. Yuki had been fitted with Kaneto’s old
kura
, a saddle. It was a faded brown, the leather seat worn into her father’s shape. For her brothers, Kaneto had saved his best saddles—Yoshinaka had a black lacquer one, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while Kanehira had a black one with red lacquer accents. Her father said hers was the best for shooting with bow and arrow, though. “Just because it looks rough, Tomoe, doesn’t mean it is,” Kaneto had said. He had taken off the leather seat to show her. The wooden parts of the saddle underneath were connected with cord, so each part moved separately but had stability across the horse’s back. “This makes for a sturdy platform when shooting, the best I have ever used,” he had said, patting the wood. “Your aim will always be true on this.”
    â€œShouldn’t Yoshinaka get this one, then?” Tomoe had asked. She wanted the prettier saddle, the one with mother-of-pearl accents. She pictured Yuki in it with a red bridle, red fringe hanging from the saddle blanket and bridle. Samurai horses didn’t go into battle plain.
    â€œBoth boys refused it,” he answered, a disappointed slant to his posture. “The boys wanted what looked better on the surface, instead of what
was
better. But I know that you won’t make that mistake.”
    Now Tomoe thanked her father for his wisdom. Though she had gotten the ugliest saddle by default, it was indeed more stable; and whether by talent or the saddle, she was indeed the best archer. It was difficult enough to get an arrow out of a quiver and fire it from the back of a galloping horse. To do so accurately took a great deal of practice. Tomoe had never been afraid of hard work.
    She surveyed the trees scattered amid the ruins, the thicker forest around the perimeter. No hint of the boys revealed itself, no shattered vegetation, no visible footprints. Her mouth tasted acrid brush smoke, but she saw none rising. The day was overcast, the light dim, just west of overhead. The boys were better at these games now, she had to admit.
    At sixteen, Tomoe was taller than her mother, taller than her younger brother, Kanehira, who at fifteen still had a high voice and slight frame. Yoshinaka had done his growing this past winter, shooting up during a time when everything else went dormant. Always, he had to be contrary, even in growing.
    â€œGo to the right,” Yoshimori Wada said, trotting up next to her and swinging himself to the ground. She still liked to call him Wada, because it both irritated and amused him. He hadn’t been coming around much for the past year, as his father needed more help on his farm. Tomoe missed him. Wada was her regular teammate. Kaneto felt it was important for Yoshinaka and Kanehira to stick together, as they would forever.
    And now Wada was Tomoe’s suitor, of a sort. For who else would be her suitor? There was no other young man of suitable age, or rank. Only farmers—and Yoshinaka, her foster brother. She was fonder of him than she was of her blood brother, but still—in her imagination, he remained the little boy she’d chased. Though, as her parents had reminded her since childhood, he was not her little brother, but her charge—and she was to treat him like the lord he would grow up to be.
    â€œThat Wada idiot follows you like a motherless puppy,” Yoshinaka remarked. It