The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) (30 page)

She nodded: on their journey northward she’d always had a bathhouse to herself for a while, with guards outside, when it wasn’t a private stretch of cold river, and of course the one in her suite here was hers exclusively.

“For peasants, no, everyone same time. Village is like . . . family, neh? But for
shi
, gentlefolk, and in towns, yes, that is the custom. Usually women and small children in the morning, men in the afternoon.”

“Your English pronunciation has gotten a lot better,” Órlaith observed.

Reiko returned her smile, feeling more pleased than she would have expected. The more so when Heuradys said:

“The
Heika
works at it hard enough to leave
me
feeling exhausted. You can hear the difference from one day to the next, and my attempts to pick up Japanese . . . leave a lot to be desired.”

Like every substantial bathhouse she had yet seen in Montival, this
reminded her strongly of its equivalents in the homeland, though this one was very comely in a subdued way involving broad planks and slightly rough stone pavers; the equivalent in the guest suite up in the manor was much smaller but more lavishly decorated. There was a changing room, faucets to provide hot water, and then large tubs sunken in a tiled floor; you scrubbed down thoroughly with soap first, rinsed off and then soaked, then got out and rinsed again and used a hemp-pad scrubber, and soaked once more. There was a steam room here too, which was rarer, though the Imperial Palace at home had one.

A gaggle of chattering teenage girls passed on their way to take advantage of the room with the heated rocks; they were what they called maids-in-waiting, from lesser Associate families serving in the manor as part of their education. They curtsied, which looked rather odd in the nude. She was beginning to see that there was a code of manners and hierarchy here as elaborate as the one she’d grown up with; it just used different symbols, like a similar message written in a different script.

A couple of the young girls stared rudely, but those slightly older administered admonishing taps—or flicks with a wet towel, which produced a yelp and more giggles. She had to keep reminding herself that people didn’t mean to be aggressive here when they made eye contact for long periods; it was just a difference in custom.

When she remarked on the similarity of the bathhouse to the
sento
she was used to, the Montivallans laughed.

“Sure, and that’s because we copied them from you,” Órlaith said. “After the Change, when getting hot water became so much more difficult and single families couldn’t do it each for themselves. I think the Mackenzies started it, but it spread fast. Nearly everywhere people didn’t stop washing, that is—and since the Prophet’s War, they’ve mostly gotten the message of cleanliness even out on the Hi-Line. There’s no wood there, but they started digging a little coal again instead, once we got rid of the Prophet and his crew, who despised human bodies too much to bother washing them.”

“Ah,” Reiko said. “I’d heard of sitting and washing
in
the tub.”

She shuddered delicately as she untied her sash in the changing room.
As she was used to, the attendant was a middle-aged woman who accepted the clothes, folded them to be sent to the laundry, and handed robes and washcloths to the bathers. Strictly speaking she’d transferred the washcloths from an oven-like arrangement to a basket with wooden tongs, then handed them the covered basket: the cloths were hot and damp and smelled slightly and deliciously of lavender, which was a nice touch.

“Yes, I think that used to be the way it was done. Although they had showers, too, of course. Washing
in
a bathtub? Repulsive, that it is, and for the reasons you said,” Órlaith said. “Much better this way. As my grandmother Juniper says, when you steal, steal the best!”

“I think we
Nihonjin
did not use the
sento
so . . . so only?”

“Exclusively,” Heuradys said helpfully, peeling herself out of her hose, which required some indelicate contortions to get the skintight knit fabric off.

“Excrusivery, no,
exclusively
. Yes!”

Her ear was finally starting to pick up the difference between the sounds represented by
r
and
l
; she’d decided that the nearest Nihongo equivalent was about halfway between them. It was even harder when the two were in the middle of a word, but she was getting closer. English was an odd language in other ways—speaking it made it very hard to generalize with any subtlety, for instance, or to discuss something without backing other people into corners.

The very structure of its grammar was faintly . . . rude. On the other hand, it was a good verbal hammer to hit things as if they were nails.

“So
exclusively
before the Change. But for us also there was trouble finding the water, and the fuel to heat it. Terrible trouble with everything at first, of course, but so necessary to be clean to avoid sickness. And to keep up spirits, morale.”

Reiko did find herself glancing out of the corner of her eye as they scrubbed and then doused themselves down in the cleaning room with its slatted floor and stools.

“See something unusual?” Órlaith asked, catching the glance and widened eyes.

“Well . . . so sorry, but you’re both so . . . so very, very
pink
,” Reiko said.

Órlaith grinned. “And hairy, I suppose.”

“Ah . . . not excessively,” Reiko said, turning her eyes aside.

That was true, though it was also obvious they didn’t depilate except under the arms. From what she’d seen, the
men
here were often like monkeys, or the fabled Ainu of legend. There were some Japanese as hirsute, but not many.

But the colors!
she thought to herself.
The same as on their heads . . . I should have expected that, but I didn’t!

“Do your back?” Órlaith offered.

“Thank you.”

The soaking tubs were like sections of great barrels set in the floor, which turned out to be exactly what they were, old wine-barrels rubbed smooth and fitted with round bench-like seats at different heights inside so that you could get neck-deep. There was a slight herbal fragrance to the steaming-hot water, and it worked its familiar magic on stressed muscles and the odd bruise. There were even wooden dippers to pour over your head. They sat in silence for a while, and she admired the interlocking beams of the ceiling. Then she asked.

“The young man with you, he is?”

“My brother John,” Órlaith said. “Prince John, technically. John-
denka
. He’ll be joining us for lunch.”

Reiko frowned. “Please, you have a brother and are . . . the heir?”

Órlaith nodded. “I’m heir to the High King because I’m the first child born to him and the High Queen Mathilda. The Great Charter says the eldest child inherits
that
title, and I’ll be crowned when I turn twenty-six.”

“It’s technically called cognatic primogeniture,” Heuradys said, and Reiko moved her lips to memorize the term.

“My brother is—is going to be—heir to the Protectorate, because Mother holds that title in her own right as the only child of her mother and father. PPA law says that the eldest
son
inherits that, and daughters only if there’s no male heir.”

“Classic primogeniture,” Heuradys said helpfully.

“So the order there after my mother passes would be John, my brother Faolán, then me, then my sister Vuissance. Silly in itself, if you ask me, but there it is. I
certainly
don’t want to be Lady Protector, and it would be politically . . . difficult.”

“No dispute on the dumbness,” Heuradys said. “Mind you, I wouldn’t be seigneur of Ath for a bet, poor Diomede has to handle that, and as for being Countess-regnant in Campscapell . . .” she shuddered. “How my lord my father manages it without starting to run around screeching
off with their heads
is beyond me. Lioncel would be more than welcome to it as far as I’m concerned, even if he weren’t older.”

“Ah,” Reiko said. “We have not settled the law of succession in Japan, yet, whether to keep the old system or make a new as some wish, or even to return to the law as it was before Meiji. There was my grandmother, and she had only a single son, no daughters. And my brother Yoshihito . . . was lost, not yet married, still very young, six years ago. So there is now only myself and my four sisters. So the law does not matter very much yet,
neh
? The issue does not . . . go up?”

“Arise,” Órlaith said. “Or
come
up.”

“Al . . . Arise. There is much . . . debate over it.”

“Sometimes I forget it’s been only two generations since the Change,” Órlaith said, and poured another dipper over her head.

The pale yellow of her hair turned much darker when it was wet, the color of old gold with the hint of red more pronounced. Then she twisted it into a rope and wrung it before she went on:

“As it turns out, it’s extremely politically convenient that John stands to inherit the position of Lord Protector. He’s a man, he’s Catholic—you know that House Ath aren’t exactly typical Associates.”

Heuradys laughed and stretched. “Oh, by the Gray-Eyed, it would be impossible for us to be less typical! Although my brothers
are
Catholics, and they inherit, so the next generation won’t get so many odd looks or whispers.”

“What we need to know,
Heika
,” Órlaith said, “is why your father . . . and his heir . . . came here. We know it wasn’t to meet Montival; you
didn’t know we existed. What was it, precisely? This is a time for truth. There are decisions that must be made.”

Reiko had heard that the Sword of the Lady could detect falsehood. She believed it. And the sacred weapon wasn’t here right now, which was a gesture of trust. The two pairs of eyes looked at her through the steam, amber and blue, like cats on a ledge seen while the sea-fog rolled in.

She sighed.
You think, consider and ponder. Then you act or do not act; there is no point in dithering.

“I can only say the truth, even if it is . . . extremely odd. I owe you my life. There is in Japan . . . or should be . . . three things which are the Sacred Regalia of the Imperial line. Great treasures, very sacred and very old. So old that even duplicates made long ago for safety are also sacred.”

“The mirror, the jewel, and the sword,” Órlaith said, surprising her. A shrug of the strong sloping shoulders. “I’ve been doing a little reading up.”

“
Hai.
Yes. The jewel,
Yasakani no Magatama
, the mirror,
Yata no Kagami
 . . . and the sword.
Kusanagi no Tsurugi
. For abundance, for wisdom . . . and the sword for strength, valor.”

“Uh-oh,” Órlaith said, obviously seeing the pattern. “The Yurok
mahrávaan
and her vision. One of these treasures is
here
?”

“For some general value of
here
,” Heuradys said. “On this side of the ocean at least.”

Reiko licked her lips, tasting salt, uncertain whether it was sweat or tears. “
Kusanagi.
The Grass-Cutting Sword.”

Órlaith frowned. “Wasn’t it kept in a shrine . . .”

“The Atsuta Shrine, yes. Very old, very . . . very
holy
. Venerable. But badly damage . . . damaged in the great war of one hundred years ago.”

They both looked thoughtful. “World War Two,” Heuradys said after a moment. “Against the ruler of Deutschland, wasn’t it? The mad one with the little mustache and the big spiked helmet and the withered arm he was always sticking out? Giant balloons and poison gas and steel war-chariots.”

“Hai,”
Reiko said. “We call our portion the Pacific War.”

According to the version she had learned, Japan had been selflessly
attempting to bring peace and prosperity to Asia when the Americans had suddenly and brutally rained fire on her cities. She suspected the details might be a little more complex. Being raised at court had made her skeptical of political innocence on anyone’s part, even a court as small, austere and tightly disciplined as that of post-Change Japan.

“The Grass-Cutting Sword has been preserved there at Atsuta for a very long time, brought only . . . brought out only for ceremonies of new Emperor. Not
seen
, you understand, even then, even by him. Kept wrapped by Shinto priests. From a thousand and nine hundred years ago, when the Venerable Shrine was founded to keep it by Miyasuhime-no-Mikoto, widow of Prince Yamato Takeru. Until the Change everyone thought it was there . . . then things were very bad in Japan.”

“As bad as anywhere in the world, I should imagine,” Heuradys said thoughtfully. “So many people packed together.”

“
Hai.
The Seventy Loyal Men set out to take my grandmother, only one of my family to survive the first fires, from Tokyo to Sado-ga-shima, Sado Island. Seventy men at the start, and one girl with burns, and ancient armor and swords they take from . . . exhibits? Displays? Twenty-six came to Sado with her, a month after the Change. Half those were dead within a year, broken by what they see . . . saw, and did.”

“Brave men,” Órlaith said soberly.

“Very. They win absolute
meiyo
—”

“Great honor,” Órlaith supplied.

“Yes, great honor to preserve dynasty, all bow, all are . . . inspired. Very necessary in terrible time, to give people symbol of hope, of . . . things going on?”

“Continuity,” Órlaith said.

“Of continuity. My father said to me once, to fight and work and struggle people need more than fear—they must have a hope, a goal beyond their own lives, their own bellies. A flag, a living being, can be the soul of a dream. Egawa Noboru, his father Egawa Katashi was one of the Seventy; and Koyama Iwao, my Grand Steward’s elder brother—both were part of the Regency Council later. But they can . . . could only bring my grandmother, who was a small child. And the
Yasakani no
Magatama
, the jewel—there with them at the palace in Tokyo. Many years later, in the time of my father, we sent expedition . . . an expedition . . . to the Shrine to find the Sword. But it was gone.”