Chapter Text
Akemi had very intentionally dressed informally for this breakfast. She didn’t want her guest to be intimidated by silks and jewelry.
It occurred to her that she needn’t have bothered. She wasn’t sure that Mizu had even noticed. Then again, when did men ever notice anything important? She hadn’t called the samurai here for his fashion sense. Which was a good thing—it was terrible. Taigen was better about those kinds of social cues. Then again, he’d worked at it.
Mizu also had no table manners, which Akemi supposed she should have expected, but she’d seen him eat with at least a little more decorum just last night. Now, he drank his miso soup and filled his mouth with large pieces of grilled fish like a farmer in a hurry to get back out to the field. Akemi had meant to make a note of any foods that Mizu particularly liked, but it was impossible to tell with the way he consumed everything before him with equal fervor.
For all his usual social acumen, Taigen didn’t seem to find this unusual, so Akemi elected to ignore the strange behavior.
“I suppose you must be wondering why I asked you to come here,” Akemi began after a stretch of silence that neither man seemed eager to interrupt with anything other than chewing.
Mizu paused between bites of fish long enough to say, “Someone’s trying to kill you.”
Akemi blinked. Yes, she supposed that someone as adept as Mizu might have guessed that already.
“Yes,” she admitted, “I suppose it must be obvious why I’d ask for your particular skill set.”
Mizu’s bright blue eyes flicked up to meet Akemi’s for the first time since the food had arrived. It could be jarring, meeting his gaze, but Akemi kept her face neutral and her breathing even. Her interactions with the samurai had made his eyes less strange, but eight years was a long time to never see their like.
“Someone is threatening you, but not necessarily your children,” Mizu said simply, like he was reading off a card rather than saying more than he could possibly know. “A lord, or maybe a group of samurai, but no one here. It must be someone who might pose a threat to your place in politics if he has his way.”
It was so dead on, that Akemi looked over at Taigen to see if he’d been the one to tell Mizu this, but he looked equally surprised.
“I assume you want him dead,” Mizu said, turning his attention back to his soup.
“Not necessarily,” Akemi said, rattled and not sure where to start now that Mizu had so succinctly cut through the first half of her explanation.
This seemed to capture Mizu’s interest, however. Enough that he put the soup bowl down anyway. Or maybe that was just because the bowl was empty.
“Lord Riku Matsumoto,” Taigen said, “He keeps insisting that Akemi is overreaching in her role as advisor and regent to her son.”
“My son the Shogun,” Akemi said, just in case Mizu had forgotten.
He showed absolutely no reaction. The bastard.
“He’s been stirring up trouble for months,” Taigen continued, speaking directly and to the point in the way only men were allowed to do.
Even as the highest ranking woman in the nation, alone in a room with two warriors she trusted with her life—with her children’s lives—she found herself weaving webs of words rather than speaking directly.
Akemi took a deep breath and recentered herself.
“He sent a request that I meet with him in a peaceful setting to discuss the good of the nation moving forward. And, as a sign of respect, he wants both of us to be unarmed and without bodyguards.”
“It’s a trap,” Taigen said succinctly. “Just like Heiji Sindo’s damn tea ceremony.”
“Quite possibly,” Akemi agreed.
“Definatley,” Taigen said.
“Probably,” Mizu said, attention turning back to the food. “What do you want me to do about it?”
Akemi took a deep breath.
“We’ve agreed on an old estate about two days ride from here as a neutral summit location. We’ve agreed that I will take a group of my closest women to attend to me during the visit, but no men who could potentially be a threat to Matsumoto.”
Mizu frowned, and shot a look at Taigen so full of venom that Akemi was momentarily speechless. It looked almost… accusatory. She tried to think what she might have said to prompt such a look, but couldn’t find the cause. For lack of any other idea, she sped up her explanation.
“He has agreed to just bringing two unarmed men and we will both bring kitchen staff to prepare a meal. I remember what you did at Madam Kaji’s tea house. The way you cut through all those men, of course, but before that, you… you were like a shadow. Like smoke. You were almost invisible. You could arrive early, with the kitchen workers and hide yourself so that you could provide assistance if Matsumoto decides to become… violent.”
Mizu didn’t answer, but he’d stopped glaring at Taigen. He seemed to have lost all interest in the food as well. He left the remaining egg, rice and fish on his plate, chopsticks abandoned and instead refilled all three of their teacups.
“I realize it’s not ideal, to go into a situation where I may be facing an angry, violent opponent with only one, hidden combatant on my side. But Matsumoto is powerful. Many of the lords believe him to be reasonable. Killing or banishing him is simply not an option without losing the support of many more. I don’t want to resort to violence if a peaceful solution can be found. I owe that to my husband’s memory and to my son. Taigen is too recognizable as a friend and protector to me to be anywhere near this summit, but you… and quite frankly there’s no one else I know of that has fought an army single handed and lived to tell the tale.”
Akemi wondered if she was laying it on too thick. Men liked to be flattered, she knew. It made them pliable. But Mizu had always seen through such things, even if she was only stating facts.
He wasn’t looking at her or at Taigen anymore. He held his tea cup, tracing its rim with his thumb, listening to her words without reaction.
“What do you think?” she asked, unable to keep the words inside her mouth. “You’d be payed of course, you could name your price. I know that this is a deeply unconventional request.”
Mizu’s lips twisted. He opened mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Then took a sip of tea.
“It is not the simplest solution,” he said at last.
Which was no kind of answer at all.
“Well, no,” Akemi conceded. “The simplest solution would be not to go. But as I explained, if I can end this conflict with words rather than bloodshed, it would be in the best interests of the nation and my son—”
Mizu was shaking his head.
“That’s not what I mean,” he said, eyes still fixated on the teacup he was now rotating slowly between his hands. “You need to have this meeting. You need to be protected. You have already said that you will have attendants. The simplest solution is to disguise your protection amongst your women.”
Akemi blinked. He was right. The problem was that it would require finding a swordsman of sufficient skill who was willing to disguise himself as a woman. A swordsman of sufficient skill who could convincingly pass himself off not just as a woman, but a woman of the court. Akemi briefly imagined Taigen in one of her kimono’s with his hair pinned up into an elaborate style and nearly burst out laughing.
Taigen himself looked a little alarmed. Reasonably so, Akemi thought if Mizu was about to suggest that the two of them disguised themselves as her attendants. She tried to picture Mizu in the same courtly get up and found it a little easier, with his willowly frame, but the image fell apart the moment she recalled his appalling table manners.
“Do you have a suggestion of a swordsman of sufficient skill that could pass for one of my ladies?” Akemi asked, trying and failing to keep the amusement out of her voice.
Mizu’s eyes flitted up for just a moment to meet hers, then darted back down to his tea. He took another sip, looked over at Taigen as if weighing impossible options. After an agonizing moment, MIzu sighed and set down his teacup.
“Mizu, you don’t—” Taigen began.
The man in question held up a hand and Taigen stopped his words at once.
“I– I have a sister,” Mizu said.
Akemi didn’t know what to say to that. Taigen looked a bit red and deeply unhappy.
“A sister?” Akemi echoed, when it was clear no other information was forthcoming. “Does she… have you taught her sword skills?”
“She is nearly as stilled as I am,” Mizu said, with no trace of irony or bravado. “And she would be able to join your attendants without notice.”
Well that wasn’t true.
“Your sister,” Akemi started hesitantly, “Is she… familiar with courtly etiquette?”
An accomplished warrior like Mizu could get away with a few missteps, especially here in Taigen’s household where he was unlikely to take offence at anything he said, but a woman could not be so ignorant of the rules. A woman, especially a woman newly come to Akemi’s court, would have to meet every standard and even then, many other women would find flaws to pick at. Akemi’s most trusted attendants, the ones she’d hand selected of the years would be unlikely to do that, but the ones she kept close for political reasons and the ones she trusted to know all the gossip would be dissecting her walk before she stepped through Taigen’s gates.
“Moderately,” Mizu said at the same time Taigen said, “No.”
Mizu shot him a fresh glare.
“This isn’t why I wrote to you,” Taigen said, nonsensically because a solution to their problem was exactly why they’d written to Mizu.
“Isn’t it?” Mizu shot back.
Had Taigen known about the sister? If so, why hadn’t they written to the sister directly? Did Taigen not believe that this woman was as capable as Mizu claimed?
The two men just kept glaring at each other.
“I can’t leave the forge unattended,” Mizu said tersely, “but I could ride home and have her return in my place.”
“Women are not allowed to travel unaccompanied,” Taigen said through gritted teeth.
“Then you will have to send someone to meet her at the checkpoint,” Mizu shot back.
Taigen’s glare looked mutinous.
“I would be grateful for your family's assistance,” Akemi interrupted with as much diplomacy as she could manage, “but I do worry about the ability of anyone other than you to protect me and my attendants. I’ve seen you win fights that I doubt any one else could have.”
Mizu stopped glaring at Taigen and turned his attention to Akemi.
“My sister is extremely skilled,” he said slowly, as if picking his words carefully. “Like me, she learned to defend herself from an early age… I would not suggest her as a solution if I did not believe it was the best way to keep the negotiations peaceful until and unless Matsumoto attacks.”
Akemi looked at Taigen, who still looked deeply unhappy about this, but he nodded at her questioning look. He agreed with Mizu, even if he didn’t like it.
Realization hit Akemi like a lighting rod. It was an obvious answer and one she should have seen immediately. There was no sister. Or rather, Mizu himself would be the sister. He would leave and come back dressed as a woman. She knew that there were tea houses and brothels where men did such things for their own pleasure and the pleasure of others. Mizu must have done it at some point. Done it for Taigen? In front of him? He knew about it at the very least. And Mizu thought that had been Taigen’s plan all along.
Had it been? Who knew. He looked pretty guilty now, with Mizu’s glare pinning him in place.
Mizu’s attention had turned back to his teacup.
Could he pull it off?
There were many men who thought that being a woman was easy, that looking meek and floating through the world beautifully was as easy as putting on a pretty kimono. Akemi would like to see those men try to run a household.
But perhaps if they disguised Mizu in the middle of the attendants, if they didn’t draw attention to him… but how could he fail to draw attention with those eyes?