Someone giggled, then immediately suppressed the sound.

Lady Sanjo gripped Toshiko’s arm painfully and nearly jerked her off her feet, pulling her out of the room and onto the veranda where the rainwater rushed from the overhanging eaves and drowned out most sounds, away from the open door and the room full of ears.

Pushing Toshiko hard against the wall, she brought her face close and said through gritted teeth, “You rude, disgusting girl!  You will never — do you hear me, you stupid thing? — never mention His Majesty again.  You will never discuss what passes between you, or tell what was said.  If you cannot do this, you will be sent home in disgrace this very day.  Do you understand me?”  And she gave Toshiko a shake.

Toshiko nodded.  She tried not to breathe — the other woman’s breath stank — and felt hot tears springing from her eyes, and then she felt the sharp pain of a slap.

“Stop that!  No tears, do you hear?”

Toshiko swallowed her tears and nodded again.

“Well?”

“I shall obey, Lady Sanjo.”

“Remember it.  You are in my charge, and I shall have my eye on you every moment.  At the least impropriety . . .”

And now Toshiko understood that this woman hated her and that she must submit to anything she demanded or dishonor her parents.  She sank to her knees.  “I swear,” she whispered.  “I’ll be obedient.  Please do not send me home, Lady Sanjo.  Please.”  And that act of submission took more courage than the defiance that tore at her heart.

But the rest of the day was not altogether bad.  She dressed, and Shojo-ben’s maid helped her with her toilet and praised the thickness and length of her hair.  Toshiko bent over her mirror in the half-light of the cloudy day, determined that Lady Sanjo should find nothing to criticize.  She located her jar of tooth-blackening and applied another coat to be sure that not the least spot of white showed.

White teeth are like the uncouth fangs of wild animals.

Long ago, when she had still been alive, her mother had said this to her, explaining the need for tooth-blackening.  Toshiko was thirteen then and had become a woman.  “It is time to put away the wild and childish things and prepare to become a lady,” her mother had said.  Applying the evil-smelling paste of metal filings and soured wine to her teeth marked her new status as much as did plucking her eyebrows and her hairline.  She learned to cover her face with the paste of ground rice flour and to use burned oil of sesame to paint new eyebrows high up on her forehead and to outline her eyes.  She reddened her lips with safflower juice.  And she learned to wear her hair loose.  It was all very unpleasant.  Being a lady made it nearly impossible to engage in the things she loved so much.  Ladies spent their day sitting or lying down, whereas men rode horses, hunted with falcons, played football, shot arrows at targets, and practiced sword-fighting.

She had complained, but her mother had been firm.  “You are a woman,” she had said.  “It is your karma.”  And then she had begun to comb her daughter’s long hair.

That was the only pleasant part of the daily toilet.  Both her mother and sister had combed her long thick hair and rubbed almond oil into it to make it glossy and smooth, and she had done the same for them.  To have her hair handled produced an inordinately lovely sensation.  It made her whole body feel warm and languid, and delightful little shivers of intense pleasure ran through her.  She grew proud of her hair and begged to have it combed.

But she had still found moments to slip away to the stable to saddle her horse and ride with the wind.  That, too, was a deeply physical pleasure, though of a different, more intensely alive kind.  She had felt in control then, filled with power.  When her hair was being combed, she seemed to turn to liquid.

Lady Shojo-ben’s maid combed her hair now, but Toshiko could not enjoy it because some of the others came to speak to her.  They were curious.  They asked about her family and about her skills, but their eyes remained cold and when she had answered they turned away, as if she were of little interest.

Only Lady Shojo-ben was truly kind.  She showed her around her new home.  Their quarters were in the Hojuji palace, which was very large, to judge from the building they were in, and from the many roofs and galleries Toshiko could see through the open doors.  These were the women’s quarters, but His Majesty’s official wives were elsewhere at the moment, in their own palaces in the city or in nunneries.  The retired Emperor had seven sons by several wives, and the succession was assured.  The high-born mothers of these sons no longer felt it a duty to be on call, but because the reigning sovereign was a mere infant, some of the other ladies still hoped that His eye would fall on one of them, that they would bear Him another prince, and that this would raise them and their families in the world.  That was why Toshiko was here and why the others were wary of her.

When they reached the long gallery that led to the imperial apartments, Toshiko stopped.  She recognized the mirror-bright flooring and the ornate double doors at the end, and shivered with sudden dread.

Lady Shojo-ben looked at her, blushed a little, then took her hand and said, “Are you afraid?”

Serving a “son of the gods” was like a religious duty, like praying to the Buddha, or copying the lotus sutra hundreds of times.  But Toshiko was only fourteen and had not bargained with the gods for this.  Her prayers had always been for her loved ones or for a new horse, or bow, or a sword like her younger brother’s.  But it had been her parents’ prayers that were answered when she was called to court.

Remembering Lady Sanjo’s warning, Toshiko said nothing, and after a moment Lady Shojo-ben said, “You must not worry.  He is very kind.  Mostly he is devout and very busy with matters of state.  And when he does not work or pray, he makes a collection of the songs called imayo.”

Toshiko’s eyes widened.  “Imayo songs?”  She recalled his question and felt ashamed and a little frightened.  Had she already ruined her parents’ hopes by that small, well-intended fib?

“Yes.  Sometimes he sings them for us. They are quite pretty.  Only, you know, imayo is usually performed by certain . . . women.  They are called shirabyoshi.”  Lady Shojo-ben paused, then leaned closer and whispered, “They say some of these women have visited His Majesty to perform for him.”

“Really?  Here?”  Toshiko brightened.  She knew all about shirabyoshi.  Two of these magical creatures had come to her home.  But since Shojo-ben seemed to find them somehow shocking, she did not want to say so.

In the country, there was little entertainment, and the Obe family was close-knit.  When the two female entertainers had stopped on their travels to offer their services, Toshiko’s father had let the whole family as well as the servants watch their performance.  It was a holiday for all of them.  To Toshiko, the two women had been enchanting.  They had worn vaguely masculine outfits in pure white with red sashes and red trousers and had sung and danced like celestial beings.  Later, Toshiko had borrowed her younger brother’s riding costume and secretly practiced their songs and dance steps.  Her father had caught her at this, been amused, and had one of the performers teach her some of the movements and songs.  Many of the songs were folksongs she had already known.

On the night of the performance, the women of the household had withdrawn early, but the men had stayed.  Toshiko found out the next morning that everyone had composed love poems.  In fact, the younger shirabyoshi had exchanged more than poetry with Toshiko’s handsome older brother.  He had gone about in a dreamlike state for days and had followed them when they departed.  Toshiko’s father had brought him back several days later.  As a country girl, Toshiko had a fair notion what passed between men and women, but she had been shocked to hear that her own brother had done such things.