Chapter 8: The Cypress Tub

The last villager left at midnight, and the yard was a field of paper lanterns and empty bowls.

Hanae sat on the porch step with the Hero's letter in her lap.

She had read it four times.

Each time it said the same thing, in the same round hand.

Every time, the words "buy yourself something nice" made her want to put her fist through the wall.

The purse of gold sat next to her, heavy as a stone.

"Shall I burn it?" Jiro asked from the door.

"The letter?"

"The letter, or the gold. Either one."

"The gold's going on the roof," said Hanae. "Let him pay for the Princess's bed. He can say hello to the new tiles."

His mouth moved at the corner.

"And the letter?"

"The letter I'm going to put in the stove tomorrow," she said, "when I'm no longer shaking."

He sat down beside her on the step.

He did not take her hand, or tell her it was all right, or say a single word against the Hero.

He simply sat there, long and warm and solid in the dark, and after a while her shoulders came down from around her ears.

"I'm so tired," she said.

"You have been on your feet for nineteen hours."

"You counted?"

"I have been watching you." The words came out quite plain. "It is the only thing I have done well for a month."

Hanae turned her head and looked at him.

"There's a bath," she said slowly. "At the back. My grandmother's."

"It's a cypress tub, big enough for two. I haven't had time to use it once."

His eyes went dark.

"I could heat the water," Jiro said.

"You could."

He stood up faster than she'd ever seen him move.

The bathhouse was a tiny wooden hut behind the well, with a slatted floor and a stove under a copper boiler.

The deep tub of pale cypress smelled sweet and green when the steam rose.

He lit the stove with his one good hand, and carried the water, and refused to let her lift a bucket.

By the time the tub was full the little room was thick with white steam, and a single lantern turned the walls to gold.

She stood in the doorway with a cloth wrapped around her and her hair coming down.

"Sit," she told him, pointing to the wooden stool.

"Hanae."

"Sit. Back to me."

He sat.

She knelt behind him and scooped warm water over his shoulders from a wooden bucket.