Chapter 1: The Errand

The Empress’s instructions arrived before dawn, carried by a girl young enough that she still tripped on her own robes.

Akiko read the note twice, then set it down on her writing table and looked at the wall for a moment. She had been a lady-in-waiting for eleven years. She understood that an instruction which arrived before dawn, written in the Empress’s own hand rather than dictated to a secretary, was not an instruction at all. It was a confidence. The distinction mattered.

The poem she was to deliver had been composed on pale green paper, already folded around a spray of wisteria, the blossoms chosen with the kind of care that looked effortless only to people who had never tried. The recipient was Lord Nobutaka, third son of the Fujiwara branch that occupied the east wing of the greater court complex. The Empress offered no explanation. Akiko did not expect one.

She waited until the household stirred, then dressed with deliberate plainness and walked the long covered corridor that connected the women’s quarters to the outer court. The morning smelled of pine resin and water. Somewhere ahead a brazier was burning hinoki wood, the smoke thin and white against a sky that couldn’t decide between grey and blue.