current of the river strong against my chest and bitterly cold. That particular river was one of the many that ran down from the mountains in the west; the glacier-melt from the snow and ice was what made it so, even in the height of summer.
I heard a splash, and a yelp from my right, which announced Mamoru’s presence far better than he could have if he’d intended it.
“The water’s cold,” I said, feeling a rush of apology once more. My lord had never bathed in anything but the heated baths at the palace, and the great tubs that one could build a fire under during the war. He was used to those hot baths, and to servants who passed him bath oils and lotions to scent the water and soothe his skin; it was not private, by any means, but the ceremony obscured the vulnerability of nakedness. Here, we were completely bare, and both pink-edged with the chill, our fingertips wrinkling.
I should have warned him sooner.
“It’s… it’s all right, Kouje,” my lord said, though I could have sworn I heard his teeth chattering. “Really. It’s very bracing. A good start to the morning, I expect.”
My stomach tightened as a crow cawed overhead, and I strained to listen for any rustling in the bushes, any sound at all. It took flight over our heads. I watched it go.
“Do you find it a good start to your morning?” I asked my lord, taking a cue from his fondness for making jests.
He cast me a baleful look, for a moment resembling some pale river spirit and not my lord at all.
I laughed, softer this time, for the crow had reminded me that we were not alone in the woods. “You’ll feel much better once you are clean and dried,” I promised.
Mamoru nodded, pressed his lips together bravely, and ducked his head under the water to wash his hair.
I allowed my body to drift with the current, trying to put my thoughts into the same ordered flow. We would come to a checkpoint at the border of our prefecture sooner or later. We would have to cross more than one, if memory served, to get to Honganje prefecture and the fishing village where my sister lived. I thought it likely that Mamoru’s disguise would get us safely past at least one checkpoint, since the guards had doubtless been instructed to stop two men, and not a man and a woman, but what would happen after that? My lord could not very well live out the rest of his life under such a disguise, despite his admitted experience in the practice. Such times were past. He was a young man now. More than that, he was a prince.
I remembered a time when my lord had been just three months shy of his fifth birthday. Awakened by nightmares in the middle of the night and unable to sleep on his own, he’d roused me as well. His eyes had been very grave while I tried to comfort him in all the usual fashions, and finally, I had abandoned protocol that I might ask him directly what was the matter.
“Kouje, why do I look different from Iseul?” he’d asked me. “Is there something the matter with me?”
“No, my lord,” I’d told him. “There is nothing at all the matter with you.” And then, because I could not help myself, I added, “Things will change for you soon enough.”
How could I ask my lord now to return to such a state of isolation? I had already taken him from his home, from his very station. I would take no more from him than that.
A shout and a loud splash interrupted my thoughts—Mamoru, in danger—and a current of fear cut through the very center of me. My short blade was on the riverbank. Could I reach it in time? I scanned the land for any sign of movement while yet holding one hand out for Mamoru to take, that I might draw him behind me.
“What is it, my lord?” I asked.
“My ankles,” he cried, and pointed.
Beneath the clear, swirling water, I could see the dark shapes moving with the current and between the larger rocks, their long whiskers swaying beside them.
“Catfish,” I said.
“Catfish?” he gasped, splashing himself and me in a poorly-thought-out attempt to run in water that swallowed him from the shoulders down. “It was enormous, Kouje—did you see it?”
Relief made my knees go weak. “A catfish,” I repeated, just to be certain.