The Bride Who Read the Contract novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: His Terms

Fumika put her spectacles on and read it.

The first line said:

ONE. The lady of Kurai sleeps in the lord's bed.

She looked up.

He was sitting across the low table with his arms folded and his face perfectly grave.

Suzuna had stopped chewing. Kaede had her hand over her mouth.

"No," Fumika said.

"I said you wouldn't like it."

"That's not a term. That's a wish."

"Most terms are wishes," he said. "With witnesses."

She picked up the brush from her father's old writing box, dipped it, and wrote under his line in her small neat hand.

When she chooses. The east wing keeps its lock.

She turned the paper round and pushed it back across the table.

He read it. His mouth moved at the corner.

"Accepted," he said. "Read on."

TWO. Supper together every night.

"That's not new."

"It's my favourite. I put it in twice."

He had. It was also number seven.

She crossed out seven.

THREE.

The oni of Kurai keep the north road.

The shrine of Hinase keeps no cord and no rite against them, ever, and the rite book burns.

"Yes," Fumika said, and wrote it underneath. And I'll burn it myself.

FOUR. The lord of Kurai sits on the Council of Seven Shrines as the eighth seat.

Suzuna whistled.

"The Grandmother will have a fit," she said.

"The Grandmother suggested it," Ibuki said. "Yesterday, on the steps."

"And?"

"She said if she had to look at me across a hall again she'd rather I was on her side of it."

"Yes," Fumika said. She wrote it.

FIVE. The lady of Kurai is paid forty yen a month into her own hand.

She put the brush down.

"I'm the head of a shrine," she said. "I have a shrine's money."

"You have the gift money, which you're giving to my mountain. The shrine is broke, Fumika. I've seen the ledger."

"That's not the point."

"It's exactly the point," he said. "You asked for it in front of seven clans. I'll pay it in front of eight."

Kaede made a muffled sound behind her hand.

Fumika picked up the brush and wrote: Accepted. And the shrine pays its archivist the same.

Kaede's hand came down.

"Me?"

"You," Fumika said. "If you want it. Somebody has to keep the records now I'm busy."

Her sister looked at her for a long moment.

Then she burst into tears and Suzuna gave her a bean cake.

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