The Dragon Scroll (24 page)

The ride back was without incident. They reached the city as the sun rose over the eastern hills. Akitada planned to deliver Ayako to her father’s place, then return to the tribunal for a few hours sleep, but the girl, looking flushed and beautiful in the golden light of the rising sun, stopped outside a bathhouse that was already open for business.

“There won’t be any hot water at my house,” she said to Akitada, “and I must soak my ankle.” She paused, then added in a rush, “Why don’t you let Tora take the horses and join me? Your shoulders must be stiffening badly by now.”

They looked at each other. Her eyes were luminous in the morning light. She smiled nervously. Akitada realized that she had known all along about his injury and was touched that she cared. It seemed natural to accept her invitation.

“Take the horses back, Tora. I’ll walk home,” he said and dismounted.

* * * *

ELEVEN

A WORLD OF DEW

he woman who took their money led them to a small room with a large covered wooden vat. A stool served both for sitting and for climbing into the bath. There was a drainage hole in the stone floor near the vat, with two small buckets and bran bags beside it. The only other amenity was a raised platform covered with grass matting. Two faded cotton kimonos hung from a hook, and the air was moist and warm, smelling of wet wood and grass.

The woman pushed aside the heavy lid, and thick, moist steam rose against the sunlight coming from a small window. For a moment it looked as though they had stepped into a cloud of liquefying light. Akitada heard Ayako murmuring something to the attendant but was too tired and bemused to pay attention. He had not slept since the previous night. Mechanically he began to strip, dropping his clothes on the grass mat. He filled one of the small buckets from the vat, crouched near the drain, and tried to scrub himself with a bran bag, dimly aware that Ayako was doing the same. Almost instantly a sharp pain shot through his shoulder and he gasped.

When her arm reached past him and took the bran bag from his hand to help him, he was too tired to protest.

“Now get into the water,” she told him. “You will feel better soon.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, nearly asleep in the moist warmth of the room. Recalling himself with an effort, he peered at her through the steam. Her golden skin was luminous in the white vapor—a creature from another world. He asked, “What about your ankle?”

“Don’t worry.” She limped past him, glistening in the warm fog, stepped on the stool, and slipped into the steaming bath with the same smooth ease with which she had scaled cliffs and climbed walls.

He followed more clumsily, entering the water with a splash. The heat enveloped him instantly, driving hours of bitter cold winds and chill night air from his mind. He lowered himself slowly until the water lapped at his chin, his long legs pulled in to allow her room. The hot water soaked into his every pore. He closed his eyes.

But his tiredness fled; he was suddenly wide awake. Akitada had never shared a bath with a woman before, though families regularly bathed together, and bathhouses allowed strangers of both sexes to enjoy communal baths. This was unremarkable, he reminded himself.

Only it was not so in this instance. It was absurd to pretend that this shared bath was simply a practical conclusion to their shared adventure. He had desired Ayako from the moment she had stripped to her waist before their bout with the fighting sticks. Since then he had been unable to take his eyes off her for long, tracing her body through her clothes. His skin had heated to her touch, and now he was aware of his physical arousal.

Ashamed, he looked at her through the wisps of steam, wondering what to do, wondering if she would be angry or disgusted, if she would accuse him of lack of self-control or perhaps, worst of all, laugh at him.

Her eyes were closed. Beads of moisture lay like pearls upon her cheeks, her nose, her lips, and sparkled on her lashes. Her wet hair clung in black tendrils to her slender neck and softly rounded shoulders. Dimly seen through the water, one strand disappeared between her breasts. She was very beautiful. Akitada’s mouth became dry. He wanted to look away but could not. There was a single drop of moisture on her upper lip that the sunlight touched with the colors of the rainbow—like jeweled dewdrops sparkling on the grass in the morning sun. He closed his eyes again.

He awoke to her touch, finding her kneeling between his outstretched legs and gently massaging his shoulders.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked, smiling a little, her breath sweet on his lips.

He panicked at their closeness and drew away, saying hoarsely, “You don’t have to do this.” Hoping she wouldn’t stop.

“Kneading the muscles helps heal them,” she said practically.

“Someone may come,” he protested.

She laughed softly. “No. I told the woman not to disturb us.”

Akitada’s experience with public baths was limited, but he had never considered them places of assignation. It occurred to him that she must have brought other men here before him, and the thought caused his stomach to knot painfully.

She gazed back calmly, continuing to rub his shoulder muscles. Her touch was both wonderful and frustrating. Pain and pleasure fed desire equally.

“Ayako,” he gasped. “You should not do this.”

“Don’t you want me?” she asked and moved closer, touching him with her body. He felt her breasts, the nipples pressing against his skin, a sensation so exquisite he sighed and closed his eyes. A smooth thigh pressed gently against his groin. Her lips touched his and their breaths mingled.

“More than anything,” he murmured and reached for her.

For a moment she returned the embrace, then detached herself. “Come,” she said, taking his hand and rising.

Totally absorbed in each other, they left the water, helped each other into the cotton kimonos to dry their bodies, and then stretched out on the grass mat.

Ayako was experienced in the art of love. Even in his passion, Akitada noted that fact absently, yet not with reproach or distaste but gratitude. His own experience was limited. On the two occasions when he had made love to women of his own class, the business had been awkward. The women had insisted on complete darkness and on being fully clothed. A woman’s gown, worn over several underrobes and tied with a sash, could become a formidable obstacle, especially when he had to contend with his own full silk trousers at the same time. Both women had maintained complete silence and lassitude throughout.

There had also been a few prostitutes in his past. They were more accommodating and talkative, but their attentions had seemed mechanical and, he suspected, forced.

Ayako was like none of them. She engaged in love play like an adversary in a contest of skill, meeting his clumsy urgency with skillful evasions, then seeking out every sensitive part of his body with caresses until he learned to reciprocate and discovered that giving pleasure was more pleasurable than taking it. She was teacher and participant and devoted herself with the same passion and skill to lovemaking as to stick fighting.

When she finally submitted to him with a little mewling cry and he took her, he knew that she was taking him also. Head thrown back, eyes closed, her face beautiful in its abandon, she cried out her triumph.

His absurd confusion of martial arts and lovemaking made him smile and he was still smiling at her when they drew apart.

“I like you, Akitada,” she said in a tone of surprise.

“The feeling is entirely mutual,” he said happily.

But she was matter-of-fact and explained. “I knew you wanted to make love to me when you stared at my breasts last night. Since I wanted you, too, I brought you here. Many men have looked at me in that way. Some I have brought here, but none I really liked.”

Her casual admission felt like a sudden shower of icy water. He sat up, hurt that he had been no more than a convenient palliative for her physical need, and said lightly, “I gather they did not come up to expectation,” then flushed because it sounded boastful.

“No. That wasn’t it.” Getting up, she said, “Come. Other customers are waiting.”

He watched as she filled the bucket again and washed off the traces of their lovemaking without the least embarrassment. Her body, always beautiful in his eyes, was now familiar and precious to him, like a favorite possession, and the thought frightened him. He was jealous but had no claim on her. He certainly could not offer her marriage even if she were to accept it.

“We will have to walk back,” he said. “How is your foot?”

She stood, looking down at her swollen ankle. He gently felt it, manipulating the joint. It did not seem too bad. “Can you walk?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” she said and demonstrated, looking back over her shoulder at him.

He let his eyes travel from her smiling lips to the straight shoulders, down the long, golden back and shapely buttocks to slim thighs and legs ending in narrow ankles and feet. The water in the bath had cooled and there was less steam now, but beads of moisture still clung to the back of her neck and her shoulder blades. He wanted to taste them, taste her again. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he told her.

She began to put on her clothes rapidly. “No,” she said. “I’m too tall and too thin. I look like a scrawny boy. Otomi is beautiful. Any man would prefer her to me.”

“Not I,” said Akitada.

There was a silence. Then she filled the bucket again. “Come! I’ll help you.”

But Akitada refused her help this time. His shoulders felt much better. He dressed and said, “I’ll walk you home,” wondering how he was to face her father.

“No. I have an errand,” she said flatly.

He was confused by her sudden distance but did not argue. They went out into the hallway. The voices of other bathers could be heard through the thin boards. The woman put her head out of a doorway, nodded, and grinned broadly. Ayako quickened her step. “What will you do about the buried monks?” she asked in a tight voice.

Ugly reality was back with them.

Akitada held the entrance curtain aside for her as they emerged into the sunny street. “I don’t have the faintest idea,” he said. “I suppose this is something that only the governor can handle. I plan to see him as soon as I get back to the tribunal.” He paused, remembering. “Those words your sister wrote last night, the last ones, about the pack train, what were they?”

She looked away. “’Another life.’ She wrote it several times, not very legibly because she was upset. I don’t know what it means.”

Akitada’s lips tightened. “We must die in order to begin another life,” he said. “I think that you must watch over your sister carefully in the future.”

Her eyes flew to his in alarm.

Putting his hand on her arm, he looked at her. She was almost as tall as he. “About what has happened between us...” he started awkwardly, hoping for some acknowledgment of affection, but there was nothing in her expression. He dropped his hand. “I never thanked you for showing us the temple’s secrets. It was a very brave thing to do.”