In other words, it was a time of day where men and women more important and better-monied than we were eating. And over their food, they gossiped.
Perhaps not surprisingly, they were gossiping about me.
It didn’t surprise me for a moment that the story had overtaken us, spreading faster than a fire in the capital. News traveled more quickly, it seemed, than single men could, and anyone traveling along the main roads would have passed the word on with greater alacrity, covering more ground than Kouje and I were capable of with our circuitous and covert path through the trees.
I thought of the other scandals I’d lived through during my time at the palace—when young lady Ukifune had been courted, all too successfully, by Lord Kencho; or when Lord Chiake lost his heart, and his entire year’s stipend, to a young man from a brothel. Those sorts of stories kept men and women alike gossiping for months at a time in their separate rooms, and the subjects of their gossip could never enter a room again—that is, if they hadn’t been exiled from court for their behavior—without all the fans going up, and all the ladies there whispering behind their sleeves.
I’d always felt a mixture of unhappiness and pity when I thought of poor Ukifune, Lord Kencho, and Lord Chiake, and all the men and women who’d fallen afoul of gossip in our court.
When, if ever, would the gossip over Prince Mamoru cease?
“If you’ll excuse me,” Kouje said, suddenly halfway into the noodle house, standing with a deferent posture by the side of one of the busiest tables, “but you say there’s something happened to the esteemed younger prince?”
One of the women at the table, wearing periwinkle blue, gaped at him. She had broad, unrefined features, and especially vulgar lips. She reminded me in many ways of a bullfrog Kouje had caught for me once. I averted my gaze and stared, as so many servants did, at my feet.
“You haven’t heard about the trouble with the prince?” the woman asked, overly familiar.
One of the men slapped Kouje on the arm—which at first shocked me, until I realized it was actually a companionable thing to do—and laughed in disbelief. “You must’ve been on the road a long time, eh?”
“Sit down, and bring your girl,” another man said, taking a mouthwatering slurp of noodles from his bowl. Unconsciously, I licked my lips, then felt my cheeks coloring. At least my disguise was working well enough. “We’ll tell you everything.”
Kouje gestured me over, his pale eyes sorry for the crudeness of the motion. It was necessary, though, and I hurried over, still keeping my eyes fixed to the floor and my shoulders slightly stooped. It seemed the appropriate posture, for no one looked twice at me as we both took our seats.
“He’s stolen a diplomat’s horse and run away from the palace,” the bullfrog-woman said, clearly delighted to be the first one to break the news. “Can you believe it?”
“And he’s a traitor. Was going to kill the Emperor in his sleep.”
“I heard it was with poison. Isn’t that right, Jin?”
“Kamiya down at the tea house said no one knows what the plan was.” The bullfrog-woman slapped me in the arm, and it was all I could do not to wince and to look, instead, appropriately shocked and delighted at once at all the spectacular gossip. Kouje stiffened at my side. If this were the palace, that would have been an offense so great, I wouldn’t have been able to stop him from striking her. Here, it was a rite of passage.
I didn’t think I would be able to summon the strength or the camaraderie to slap her back, however.
“But you know what it probably is,” the bullfrog-woman went on. Her three companions nodded, and suddenly we were all bent over the table while the delicious aroma wafting from the bowls of food made my stomach seize up with hunger.
“It’s the Emperor getting rid of him,” a man with a mole on his right cheek confirmed in a whisper.
“It’s been done before,” another man agreed.
The bullfrog-woman drank from a cup of tea with a noisy gulp, then put the coarse little cup back down on the table, obviously satisfied. “I wonder where the prince is now?”
“His retainer’s gone with him,” the man with the mole added. “Loyal to the last, I say, right?” The other two men grunted in agreement, while the bullfrog-woman merely looked smug.
“Whatever the reason,” she said, taking control of the