child, privy to the dressing room where actors removed their mantles and became the real people they’d always been underneath.
He looked first at me, then at Aiko, since neither of us had responded to his question. My own reply had been delayed out of surprise and delight, and likely Aiko was waiting for me to speak. It was my place as a wife.
I giggled, unable to help myself, and hid my face behind my sleeve.
“Oh, I see how it is. That’s just fine,” Kouje said, stretching once more and leaning back to lie on the forest floor. “I’m not invited to share women’s talk, I understand. I was only lifting things all night with the thought that I might come back to the ministrations of my darling wife, but I see now that it was all for nothing.”
I stared at him, gaping mouth hidden by my sleeve. He was acting not at all like himself.
“What’s got into you?” I asked, though my question was not a part of our jest.
On my other side, Aiko shook her head. “The actors are a terrible influence. Rough lot. Not suited for finer folk.”
Kouje smiled, and I caught his eye in the dark. Where had this skill in acting come from? And why had I possessed no knowledge of it until that very moment?
“Husband,” I said, lowering my voice as other men trickled in toward the campfire, some of them toting blankets, “if you run away to become an actor, I shall be terribly cross with you.”
“I have always wanted to play the hero,” Kouje confided, eyes practically gleaming with wickedness.
I sighed. His enthusiasm was infectious, and I had always been particularly weak when it came to resisting enthusiasm.
“Aiko, what am I to do with this man?” I asked. “Who will explain to his dear sister, who once had such high hopes for him?”
“Every man wants to run away to become an actor at least once in his life,” Aiko told me in the midst of setting up her own bed for the night. “It’s the real fools who actually do it.”
“We should worry about crossing the checkpoint,” I said in a whisper, and the shadow of the wall came over me again, chill and sudden.
Kouje seemed to sense it, for he sat up, hesitantly putting a hand against my arm.
“Better to worry about getting a good night’s sleep tonight,” he said, low and calm, in the voice I recognized best of all.
“All right,” I agreed. To the soothing cadence of actors laughing in the night, I slept.
I woke with the bump and jolt of the caravan in the morning, my face against Kouje’s shoulder. I couldn’t believe that I’d been sleeping so deeply as to miss our getting under way, but it seemed we’d commenced with me snoozing on like a baby.
Slightly embarrassed, I clutched at Kouje’s arm and peered around curiously. I couldn’t tell from our position inside the caravan how far along we were.
“Are we stopped?” I whispered.
Kouje half turned, his face bearing none of the impulsive humor from last night. “We are at the checkpoint,” he said. “They’re queuing up wagons and caravans to go through a separate gate.”
“We’ve got all our papers,” Goro muttered, “so what’s the holdup? Morning, princess,” he added as an afterthought just for me.
“There’s a lot of people going through,” Aiko said, sterner than she’d been the day before. “That’s the holdup. No problems. We’re in order.”
I could feel Kouje go nearly rigid with concern next to me. I laid my hand carefully against his shoulder, leaning my head against his back to calm him.
“We’ll be through,” I murmured privately, for myself as much as him. I could feel my heart hammering like a hunted animal’s, but I willed myself to ignore that. We’d made it that far, hadn’t we? That much had seemed impossible, once.
Our carriage moved with miserable slowness, inch by aching inch, as though with each passing moment we grew farther from our goal. The countless ways in which we might be caught ran through my mind—something like a play, I supposed, though one which Goro would never have the inspiration to write—and I could hear Kouje’s heart hammering in his chest from where my ear was pressed, up against his back.
Where was his skill with playacting from the night before? The disgruntled husband, snared by the allure of the open road? And where had my laughter gone?
“Hey,” Aiko said, pausing for an instant before she covered my soft hand with her