my arm!” Mamoru cried, looking about with wild eyes. It seemed cruel to mock him, when he was so clearly apprehensive, but the words were out before I could stop them.
“Your arms aren’t very big, Mamoru.”
He looked at me in surprise and utter confusion. I couldn’t blame him. I’d never had much practice at telling jokes, and perhaps I’d misspoken. Then my lord was laughing, all the louder for how anxious he’d been a moment ago, and I felt my heart resume beating at a normal speed.
That afternoon, we had catfish when we stopped to rest the horse, and my lord wore a particularly satisfied look on his face as he chewed.
It was deceptively soothing to ride the daylight hours into dusk as we were, with my lord in front of me. We were travelers, and the steady pace was like a lullaby. While we were under the cover of trees, or passing by the rice paddies, or winding our way on narrow, empty roads that encircled the hills, it was easy to imagine we were all alone in the world. But soon enough, we would come to a resting stop by the side of a larger road, or crest a hill to find a small village laid out before us, and we would learn fresh news of our very own flight toward safety.
“What shall we do at the border?” Mamoru asked me, shooing a mosquito away from his cheek. Thankfully, it was not their season. Nevertheless, he would feel the itch and the burn soon enough, and I would have nothing with which to soothe him.
“For the crossings,” I began hesitantly, “I thought we might avoid closer scrutiny by continuing dressed as we are.”
“I might pretend to be your sister,” Mamoru offered. If it troubled him to return to that mode of disguise—one so familiar and yet so remote—he did not show it.
“Two men are suspect,” I agreed. “A man and a woman… That is not the quarry they seek.”
My lord nodded, satisfied. “Yes,” he said. “They would never think…”
He did not finish the thought. I wagered a guess as to why, and did not press him. At least he was not dressed as some lowly creature of burden, but a simple common woman. I knotted my hands in the horse’s reins, and we rode on.
It was late in the day, the sun already beginning to sink below the distant horizon, when the dusty back road we were on opened up without warning, and we found ourselves riding into the roadside rest stop.
There was a tea-and-noodle house, and a sheltered bench just outside it for rainy days, should any unlucky traveler be caught out beneath a sudden storm. Only two horses were tethered outside the shop, and the door was closed, but we could hear well enough the sound of a few voices from within—no doubt belonging to the shop owner and the few travelers who were stopped there for the night.
In front of me, Mamoru breathed in deeply, as though he were trying to calm the quickened pace of his heart. After a moment, however, I realized the truth of the matter: he could smell food on the air, the simple, clean scent of white rice in the pot. There was a hunger in his eyes I’d never seen.
We had some money from my old clothes; I’d spent most of it on new shoes for Mamoru and then, when he insisted, on sandals for myself, as well. There was a little coin left—enough for a night spent at a roadside inn, a bowl of rice for each of us, and some left over.
Mamoru’s fingers tightened against the horse’s mane, and the creature whinnied. I thought of my prince sleeping on the forest floor, of his bathing in the forest stream, of skinning rabbits for his breakfast.
“I’d like to sleep in a real bed tonight,” I said. Perhaps it was weak of me to give in so easily to the mere sense of what my lord desired, but how was I to know when we might get the same chance again? Honganje and my sister’s cooking were both a great distance away from where my lord and I found ourselves.
“Kouje,” Mamoru said, but the protest was weak.
“Only if you think it wise to grant my wish, of course,” I said. “It was merely a suggestion—and perhaps it was an unwise one?”
My lord looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes bright with the conflict. He wanted a simple bed