The Bride Who Read the Contract novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Too Precious to Waste
At the Hinase spring banquet her father hands the oni lord his giftless elder daughter because her sister is too precious to waste; Fumika has the pact read aloud, names her own terms before the seven clans, and the oni lord accepts every one; then the storehouse with her mother's books catches fire.
Fumika's father stood up at the spring banquet and gave her to the oni.
"The pact asks for a daughter of Hinase," he told the seven clans. "We'll give him the giftless one."
Fumika was kneeling at the end of the low table with a sake flask in her hands.
She had been pouring since sunset, because her stepmother said the maids were needed in the kitchen.
Nobody looked at her.
They looked at her half-sister.
Kaede sat beside their father in pink silk with red maple leaves, her hair puffed up in the new fashion with a pink ribbon.
"Kaede is too precious to waste," Genzo said, smiling. "Everyone here knows what her hands can do."
Somebody at the clan tables murmured that her hands had failed at New Year.
Somebody else hushed him.
Then the laughing started, low and polite.
Fumika's stepmother snapped her fan shut.
"At last," Kinue said, loud enough for the far tables. "She's useful."
That got a bigger laugh.
Fumika set the flask down on the tatami.
At the head of the hall, in the place of honour, the oni lord of Mount Kurai had not laughed.
He was the tallest man she had ever seen, even seated.
Two black horns curved back from his hairline into long black hair tied at the nape.
His haori was black, with a silver crescent on the sleeve.
His eyes were gold, and they were on her father, not on her.
Beside him sat a tall oni woman with short bobbed hair and two small horns, eating a bean cake with great concentration.
She had brought the pact up the ninety-nine steps that afternoon in a black lacquered box.
"Then it's settled," Genzo said. "Fumika, bow to Lord Tsukimori. He's your husband now."
Fumika did not bow.
She stood up.
It was the first time in eight years she had stood up in that hall without being told.
"Forgive me," she said to the oni woman. "You're the envoy of Tsukimori?"
The woman swallowed her bean cake. "I am."
"Would you read the pact aloud? The clans should hear what my father is agreeing to."
Genzo's smile didn't move.
"My daughter keeps our records," he said to the clans. "She likes old paper."
Polite laughter again.
The envoy looked at the oni lord.
He lifted one long hand an inch from his knee.
She opened the lacquered box, unrolled the scroll across her lap and read in a clear, bored voice.
The old peace. The mountain and the north road. The oni bound by law while the pact stood.
Then she slowed down.
"When the house of Tsukimori takes a bride of Hinase, let her be the daughter who keeps the shrine's records."
The hall went quiet.
"Let her name the terms of her going," the envoy read. "And let the house of Tsukimori keep them."
She looked up at Fumika with real interest for the first time.
Fumika had read the shrine's copy of that scroll at sixteen, in the storehouse loft, by a candle stub.
Her father had never read it at all.
"I keep the shrine's records," Fumika said. "I've kept them for eight years. So I'll name my terms."
"Fumika," her father said softly. "Sit down."
"A room of my own," she said, "with a lock, and the key in my hand."
Somebody gasped.
"Forty yen a month, paid into my own hand. A clerk's wage."
Kinue laughed out loud.
"My mother's books go with me from the storehouse. All of them."
Genzo's jaw was tight now.
"After one year I may leave, owing nothing. And nobody may fetch me back."
She turned to the oni lord.
Her knees were shaking under the grey cotton, and she was glad of the long skirt.
"And you don't touch me unless I ask."
The silence in the hall was so complete she could hear the cherry petals ticking against the paper screens.
The oni lord looked at her for a long moment.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't a cruel laugh. It was the startled laugh of a man who had just been handed something he hadn't known existed.
"Is that all?" he said.
His voice was deep and dry.
"For now."
He rose, and kept rising, until his horns nearly brushed the lanterns.
"The house of Tsukimori accepts," he said to the hall. "Every term. Write them down, cousin."
The envoy was already writing, grinning around a second bean cake.
He looked down at Fumika.
"Then I'll wait to be asked," he said.
Her face went hot to the ears.
Her father was on his feet, white under his moustache.
Kinue's fan had stopped moving.
Kaede was staring at Fumika as if she had never seen her before.
And then a servant ran in from the dark garden with his sleeve over his mouth.
"The storehouse!" he shouted. "The storehouse is on fire!"
Fumika turned to the open screens.
Orange light was climbing the old white walls behind the shrine.
Every one of her mother's books was inside.
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