The wind off the sea was bitter cold, carrying perhaps the first foretaste of early snow. It cut through Asano's thin coat with no appreciable slackening until her body and limbs were as cold as as her face and outstretched hands. As cold as the yawning space inside her, now that Kono was gone. It was cold enough, she thought, to freeze the baby growing inside her.
At length, she turned her attention from the small stone lantern before her. Carved by the same friends who had helped her carry Kono's headless body to this point and pitch it off the cliffs into the angry sea, wind-driven into froth on the rocks below. The lantern was her only memorial, since her father had forbidden any marker or burial around the village. Or perhaps there was one more memorial. Reaching inside her obi, she bought forth the thin sheaf of paper that Kono had hidden for her before setting out with the samurai. She had had no heart to read it before now, had not even known that Kono was literate until he had passed it to her. She would read it once before passing over the threshold of the cliff to join him. At the thought, she touched the scarf she had bought to bind her ankles together. No jigai for her, but at least it would show she had ended with dignity. She turned her back on the wind and grey-clouded sea, the better to read the fine papers. Then Asano opened the frail package.
The script was rough, as though written in haste. Although as the headman's only child she had been taught to read and write, it took her a little time to puzzle out the letter's contents.
<My Beloved Wife> She read. <Since you have this, you know the outcome, and I would guess my origins. I have disgraced my clan and betrayed my mission by tarrying with you when I should have been long gone. It saddens me, but it falls to you to redeem my failure. If, as I believe, you carry our son, he should be raised by my clan. There will be no place for you in the village now, and for this I plead your forgiveness. In the tree under which we used to tryst, there is a hollow space. Inside it, there is some small money and a fine Daisho which you can sell in a town for more. There is also a copy of my notes. Take these to the innkeeper at the bridge inn at Hirosaki. He will help you on your journey.>
At this point the letter broke, and was it evident something had been smudged out. Below was simply the phrase. <Your Husband, Kono>.
Asano sighed. Duty? Clan? He wrote like a samurai. What of her duty to her father and his to the castle? Nonetheless, she rose slowly to her feet, wincing as the blood returned to her frozen limbs. Bowing one last time to the lantern, she turned her feet toward the windswept cypress that hid the path to the village.
Asano stood at the base of the steep street that climbed up to White Feather castle. She had never visited Ariki before and her forboding was momentarily lost in wonder at the profusion of people who carried out their daily business below the brooding castle. Higher still, the peak flaunted its streamer of cloud, that named both itself and the castle on its knees.
Regaining her purpose, Asano shifted the heavy frame on her shoulders and continued up the road. No-one paid and attention to the peasant woman and her load of bamboo. Her heart had beaten so strongly that she felt it must be audible, when the bridge guards had halted her. But the guard's attention had shifted instantly to the next traveller, when she had told him she was bringing bamboos Tatsasaburo the kitemaker. She realised now he had never even really looked at her. Her load was her protection, here - and a fine hiding place for the stolen Daisho.
Soon, Ariki was left behind and the road followed the river up into the hills. As Asano saw her path ascend into the mist-shrouded and forested hills, a strangness washed over her and she felt emotions undreamed of in her past life.
"Your son will not be a fisherman, Kono." She vowed. "Your death will not go unavenged".
Her stride lengthened towards Hirosaki.