"No, Lady, he is not, not him, only the Shogunate, the Bakufu are enemy, he is above all that, he is not enemy,"

Sumomo said vehemently, the lie coming easily, then added before she could stop herself, "Katsum--my guardian impressed that on all of us."

"All of you?" Koiko's face went chalky.

"Namu Amida Butsu! You're one of his acolytes!" Katsumata had told her that a few, select young women were being trained by him to be members of his warrior band. "He, he trained you too?"

"I am just a humble loyalist, Lady,"

Sumomo said, fighting for control, and to keep her face guileless.

Koiko looked around in disbelief, her mind almost stopped, the blissful world she had been inhabiting fallen apart. "You are one of them, you are!"

Sumomo stared back at her, not knowing how to extricate herself from the pit that had suddenly opened in front of them. "Lady, please, let us think clearly. I, I am no threat to you, nor you to me, let us leave it like that. I swore to protect you and I will, and Lord Yoshi if need be. Let me travel with you. I swear I will leave the moment we reach Yedo. Please?" Her eyes willed Koiko to agree. "You will never regret the kindness. Please. My guardian asked a lifetime favor. Please, I will serve you..."

Koiko hardly heard the words. She watched her as a mouse would a poised cobra, no thought in her head but how to escape, how to make all this a dream. Is it a dream? Be sensible, your life is in the balance, more than your life, you must collect your wits.

"Give me your knife."

Sumomo did not hesitate. Her hand went into her obi and she gave her the sheathed knife.

Koiko took the blade as if it were on fire.

Not knowing what else to do with it, never having handled or owned or needed one before, all weapons forbidden in the Floating World, she thrust it into her own obi. "What do you want with us? Why are you here?" her voice barely audible.

"Just to travel with you, Lady," Sumomo said as though to a child, not realizing her own face was stark.

"Just to travel with you, there is no other reason."

"Were you part of the assassins, the attackers on Shogun Nobusada?"

"Of course not, I am only a simple loyalist, a frien--"

"But you were the spy who whispered that my Lord was going outside the barracks to meet Ogama--it was you!"

"No, Lady, I swear it. I have told you he is not the enemy, that was a lone madman, not one of ours, I keep say--"

"You have to leave, you must," Koiko said in a tiny voice. "Please go. Please go now, please. Quickly."

"There is no need to worry or be afraid.

None."

"Oh, but I am, I am terrified, and terrified that someone should, should denounce you, Yoshi would..." The words seemed to suspend themselves in the air between them. Their eyes locked, Sumomo willing her, Koiko helpless and wilting under their strength. Both seemed to have aged, Koiko torn apart that she could have been so naive and that her idol had used her so evilly, Sumomo furious that she was so stupid not to have agreed instantly the moment this meddlesome whore had proposed she should leave.

Fool, fool, both were thinking. "I will do as you say," Sumomo muttered, "I will leave even though..."

The shoji opened. Yoshi strode in jauntily, heading for the inner room. Their trance shattered. They hastily bowed. He stopped in midstride, all his senses shrieking danger.

"What is it?" he asked sharply. He had noticed their instant of fear before their heads bowed.

"Noth... nothing, Sire," Koiko said, collecting herself as Sumomo hurried for the brazier to fetch fresh tea. "You will have tea, breakfast perhaps?"

His eyes went from woman to woman.

"What-is-it?" he said slowly, the words like ice needles.

Sumomo knelt humbly, "We, we were so sorry not to be going with you, Sire, it was just that, just that the Lady Koiko was so sad. May I serve tea, Sire?"

The silence gathered. His fists bunched on his hips, face set, bare legs planted.

"Koiko! Tell-me-now!"

Koiko's mouth began to move but the words would not come out. Sumomo's heart stopped, then thundered in her ears as Koiko dragged herself to her feet, tears beginning and she stammered, "You see, she... it is true but she is not quite what ..."

Instantly Sumomo was on her feet, her right hand darting into her sleeve and bringing out a shuriken.

Yoshi set his teeth, seeing it. Her arm curled back for the throw--he was unarmed, an open target, his swords in the inner room. At once he ducked left, hoping the feint would confuse her, preparing to hurl himself at her, his eyes fixed on her hand. Unperturbed, she aimed for his chest and threw viciously.

The barbed circle of steel spun across the room. Frantically he arched his body and skewed around. One of the barbs caught the edge of his kimono and sliced through the material but touched no flesh and went on to disappear through the shoji and thwackked into one of the posts in the inner room as, jerked off balance by the supreme effort, he slammed into a wall and buckled into a heap.

For an instant everything seemed a slow dream ...

Sumomo reaching endlessly in her sleeve for the next shuriken, seeing only the great enemy lying helpless and his dimwitted whore who had caused this unnecessary conclusion gaping at her, a pillar of fear --but feeling no fear herself, only elation, sure that this was her zenith, the moment she had been born for and had trained all her life for, and that now, invincible champion of the shishi, she would conquer and, dying, live in legend forever...

Koiko, standing paralyzed, aghast that she had been duped by the godlike guru who had betrayed her, told her nothing but lies, the girl equally a cheat, and because of them this monstrous conspiracy was happening: her Patron would die and even if he did not die, she was disgraced and would die, either by his hand or those of the guards, everything in this life wasted, never to marry her samurai, never to have sons, never in this life, better to end it quickly by her own hand than foully by theirs but how, how, and then she remembered Sumomo's knife...

Yoshi craning around from the floor, frantic to see the next throw, hauling his feet under him for the charge he had to make or die, everything taking so much time, his mind exploding that he had been nursing a viper in his embrace, then his eyes saw Sumomo's hand with the second shuriken--how many does she have?--her lips drawn back from her very white teeth...

The frozen instant ended.

Sumomo hesitated, exulting in the kill, but the moment was too long and she saw Koiko come out of her trance and the knife appear in her hand.

Instinctively she shifted her aim, caught herself, wavered, aimed at Yoshi again and began the throw, but at that instant Koiko lurched forward, tripped over her hem and sprawled toward her.

The spinning shuriken embedded itself in Koiko's chest and she cried out and that gave Yoshi time to lunge at Sumomo from the floor. He caught one of her ankles and brought her down, stabbed fingers for her throat but she was an eel and twisted away, trained in martial arts, her hand seeking the last shuriken. Before she could reach it, his iron fingers grabbed part of her kimono, tore half the sleeve off, inhibiting her. Again she squirmed from his grasp and was on her feet in a second, but now he was too.

At once she shrieked a nerve-racking battle cry, bunched her hand and threw again. He was transfixed, dead--yet her hand was empty, the throw only a feint, the last shuriken still caught in her torn sleeve.

As she groped for it the shoji behind her was jerked open by the guard. "Quick," she shouted, pointing at Koiko writhing and moaning on the floor, distracting and directing him. As he darted forward, she ripped his long sword out of its sheath, raised it and hacked, wounding him, and in the same movement turned for Yoshi. But he had leapt back a pace, jumped over Koiko's prone, squirming body and sprinted for the inner room and his swords, bursting through the closed shoji, Sumomo in fierce pursuit.