The look in his eyes did not assuage her. She didn't like the way he spoke to her, either. She clasped the sword to her chest and shook her head. "It's okay. Where am I? What is this place?"
"This is Hairou. Frankly, missy, a dangerous thing like that, don't want you waving it around, specially when you don't even know where you are. Hand it over."
Youko retreated again. "I was told not to."
"C'mon, give it up."
The force of his demand made her quail. She didn't possess the courage to tell him no. Reluctantly she held it out to him. He snatched it from her and examined it. "Yeah, fine work, this. The guy you got it from must have been loaded."
The other men and woman gathered around them. Somebody asked, "One of those kaikyaku, is she?"
"Yeah. Look at what she was carrying. Must be worth a fortune." He went to pull the sword from the scabbard. The hilt did not budge. "So it's just an expensive toy!" He laughed and tucked the sword into his waistband. He reached out and grabbed Youko by the wrist.
"Ow! Let me go!"
"Can't do that. All kaikyaku get sent to the governor. That's orders." He gave her a shove. "Get going. And don't try anything." He raised his voice to his companions as he pushed her along. "Hey, I could use some help, here."
Youko's arm hurt. She could not begin to guess this man's true motives, nor where he was taking her. What she wanted most was to be free of him.
Immediately as the thought entered her mind a cold sensation crept into her hands and feet. She jerked her hand free of his grip. Her arm, quite on its own accord, reached for the sword at the man's waist and came away with both it and the scabbard. She jumped back from him.
"The bitch! Watch out! She's got the sword!"
"What? It's just an ornament. Hey, little girl, calm down and come with us."
Youko shook her head.
"You want to get dragged the whole way there? Huh? Quit clowning around and get your ass over here."
"No way."
More people were gathering around them. The man took a step towards her. Youko pulled the sword from the scabbard.
"What the hell!"
"Don't come any closer … please."
Everyone around her froze. Youko eyed them and backed way. As soon as she turned and started to run she heard footsteps behind her.
"Don't follow me!" she shouted, but as soon as she had glanced back to see them coming after her she drew up, raised the sword, her body preparing itself for combat. Her blood roared in her ears.
"Stop it," she told herself.
She lunged with the sword towards the nearest man charging towards her.
"Jouyuu, stop!"
It was pointless to argue with him. The tip of the sword traced a graceful arc in the air.
"I'm not killing any more people!"
She shut her eyes. At once the movement in her arm stopped. At the same time someone came upon her on horseback, yanked the sword from her hand and knocked her roughly off her feet. Tears welled up in her eyes, more from relief than pain.
"Stupid girl." They jabbed and kicked and punched her, but it was not too much to bear. Someone dragged her to her feet and pinned her arms behind her back. She did not care to resist. She pleaded with herself, with Jouyuu, do nothing.
"Let's take her back to the village. Better take that strange sword to the governor as well."
Her eyes still tightly shut, Youko could not tell who had spoken.
2-3
Youko was marched down a narrow path that wound through the paddies. After a fifteen-minute walk they arrived at a small town surrounded by a high fence. It was the hamlet she had spied earlier, little more than a rough handful of houses. Here, though, set into one wall of the squarish fence was a sturdy-looking gate.
The gate opened inwards, revealing another interior wall decorated with many pictures drawn in red colors. In front of the wall, for no discernable reason, someone had left behind a wooden chair. Youko was pushed along past the wall and towards the center of the village. When she came around the red wall, an unbroken view of the main street opened up to her.
The scene again roused in her both feelings of familiarity and strangeness. The feelings of familiarity came from its overall resemblance to oriental architecture--the white, plastered walls, black tiled roofs, the distinctive latticework of the arbors. But despite this, she felt no affinity for the place, undoubtedly because of the utter lack of a human presence.
A number of smaller paths branched out to the right and left of the wide street facing from the gate. She didn't see a single person. The houses were no higher than a single story, but were all hidden from the street behind a white fence that reached as high as the eaves. Gaps appeared in the fence at regular intervals, revealing glimpses of houses set back behind small gardens.
The houses were uniform in size, and looked very much the same, despite small differences in their outward appearance. They could have been rolled off an assembly line.
Here and there a window was open, the wooden shutters propped open with bamboo poles. Yet from the street Youko could sense no human presence. Not a single dog. Not a sound.
The main thoroughfare was no more than a hundred yards in length, ending at a plaza. Commanding the plaza was a building tiled with brilliant white stones. Yet the dazzling decoration seemed little more than a facade. The narrow streets intersecting with the plaza ran no more than thirty yards or so before meeting the surrounding wall of the town and bending out of sight.
On the streets there was no sign of human activity.
Youko glanced about the plaza. Beyond the uniform black-tiled roofs she could see only the high wall of the town. Turning around she could begin to make something of its shape. It was something of a long, narrow and deep box. The confines of the town were suffocatingly narrow, no more than half as wide as her own school. It was like being inside a big well, Youko thought. The town itself was like the rubble buried beneath the water at the bottom of the well.
They brought her to the center of the buildings facing the plaza. The building reminded her of Chinatown, in Yokohama. Yet the red-painted pillars the sparkling walls struck her as no less superficial than the rest of the town.
They entered a long, narrow hallway in the center of the building. It was dark and also devoid of people. After pausing to discuss some matter, the men prodded her forward again, and then shoved her into a small room and shut the door.
Her immediate impression of the room was that it was a jail cell.
The floor seemed to be covered with the same tiles as the roofs, though many of the tiles were cracked and broken. The earthen walls were cracked as well and stained with soot. A single window high up on the wall, blocked with bars. A single door, its peephole latticed with bars. Looking through the peephole she could see men standing just outside the door.
The room's furniture consisted of a wooden chair, a small table, and a larger platform the size of a single mattress. A thick cloth was attached to the top of the platform. It was obviously intended to be a bed.
She wanted to ask where this place was, what kind of place this was, what was going to happen to her next, and a thousand other questions. But she hadn't the courage to ask the guards. And they clearly had no desire to talk to her, either. So without another word, she lay down on the bed. There was nothing else she could do.
As time passed the human presence within the building became more marked. Outside her cell people came and went. There was a changing of the guards. The blue leather body armor the two new guards were wearing reminded her of policemen or security guards. She caught her breath, wondering what was about to happen. But the guards only gave Youko a pair of fierce looks and said nothing.