best friend.
The boy sought his father’s eyes. For a moment, he thought his father looked his way, but it could have been a trick of the wind. A trick of the perfumed smoke curling above the squat brass braziers.
His father would not want to look into his son’s eyes. The boy knew this. The shame was too great. And his father would die before passing the shame of tears along to his son.
The drums began to pound out a slow beat. A dirge.
In the distance beyond the gates, the boy caught the muffled sound of small children laughing and playing. They were soon silenced by a terse shout.
Without hesitation, his father loosened the knot from around his waist and pushed open his white robe, exposing the skin of his stomach and chest. Then he tucked his sleeves beneath his knees to prevent himself from falling backward.
For even a disgraced samurai should die well.
The boy watched his father reach for the short tantÅ blade on the small table before him. He wanted to cry for him to stop. Cry for a moment more. A single look more.
Just one.
But the boy remained silent, his fingers turning bloodless in his fists. He swallowed.
Don’t look away.
His father took hold of the blade, wrapping his hands around the skein of white silk near its base. He plunged the sword into his stomach, cutting slowly to the left, then up to the right. His features remained passive. No hint of suffering could be detected, though the boy searched for it—felt it—despite his father’s best efforts.
Never look away.
Finally, when his father stretched his neck forward, the boy saw it. A small flicker, a grimace. In the same instant, the boy’s heart shuddered in his chest. A hot burst of pain glimmered beneath it.
The man who had been his father’s best friend took two long strides, then swung a gleaming katana in a perfect arc toward his father’s exposed neck. The thud of his father’s head hitting the tatami mat silenced the drumbeats in a hollow start.
Still the boy did not look away. He watched the crimson spurt from his father’s folded body, past the edge of the mat and onto the grey stones beyond. The tang of the fresh blood caught in his nose—warm metal and sea salt. He waited until his father’s body was carried in one direction, his head in another, to be displayed as a warning.
No hint of treason would be tolerated. Not even a whisper.
All the while, no one came to the boy’s side. No one dared to look him in the eye.
The burden of shame took shape in the boy’s chest, heavier than any weight he could ever bear.
When the boy finally turned to leave the empty courtyard, his eyes fell upon the creaking door nearby. A nursemaid met his unflinching stare, one hand sliding off the latch, the other clenched around two toy swords. Her skin flushed pink for an instant.
Never look away.
The nursemaid dropped her eyes in discomfort. The boy watched as she quickly ushered a boy and a girl through the wooden gate. They were a few years younger than he and obviously from a wealthy family. Perhaps the children of one of the samurai in attendance today. The younger boy straightened the fine silk of his kimono collar and darted past his nursemaid, never once pausing to acknowledge the presence of a traitor’s son.
The girl, however, stopped. She looked straight at him, her pert features in constant motion. Rubbing her nose with the heel of one hand, she blinked, letting her eyes run the length of him before pausing on his face.
He held her gaze.
“Mariko-sama!” the nursemaid scolded. She whispered in the girl’s ear, then tugged her away by the elbow.
Still the girl’s eyes did not waver. Even when she passed the pool of blood darkening the stones. Even when her eyes narrowed in understanding.
The boy was grateful he saw no sympathy in her expression. Instead the girl continued studying him until her nursemaid urged her around the corner.
His gaze returned to the sky, his chin in high disregard of his tears.
In the beginning, there were two suns and two moons.
One day, the victorious son would rise—
And set fire to all his father’s enemies.
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© 2015 by Renée Ahdieh
MEDITATIONS ON GOSSAMER AND GOLD
THEY WERE NOT GENTLE. AND WHY SHOULD THEY BE?
After all, they did not expect her to live past the next morning.
The hands that tugged ivory combs through Shahrzad’s waist-length