The autumn breeze brought with it the winds of change. Sumire could no longer ignore the deepening chill within her heart. Like icy tendrils, her misgivings threaded through her, breaking at last into cold and outright dread. It had begun with the death of her long-ailing daimyo. Too many concubines, too many sons. Luckily, her city had escaped the worst of the carnage, as the late daimyo’s heirs warred over an inheritance they refused violently to share.

By the end of the civil war, the countryside was ravaged. The populace decimated, the stores depleted. Even the commonest of goods were hard to come by. Needless to say, coin flowed less freely at the brothel house. From a stream to a trickle, and then to a vaporous memory.

It took every ounce of Sumire’s resourcefulness to keep her girls clothed and fed. Some sickened nonetheless. Their young ones and babes in particular. Each death cleaved at Sumire, for the terrible senselessness of it as much as the loss itself. A bit more rice, one last pinch of medicine at the bottom of the pouch—would it have made the difference? Such questions tortured her ceaselessly until her mind was forced to shut them out. Into a state of grim numbness, she herself came to rest.

The graveyard at the back of the brothel house resembled more and more a fresh-turned field. With sullen, hollow eyes, Sumire gazed out at the perversity of the image. From the shadows of the trees, the specter of Madam Noh seemed to leer back at her in dark, triumphant scorn.

One day, Shurei came to her room, frazzled and sobbing. Sumire had not yet left her bed. She had been mustering the strength to do so—which with each successive dawn seemed more of a struggle—when her daughter had come bursting in and thrown herself into Sumire’s arms like a child. In the sudden flare of her concern, Sumire had felt a bit of life return to her. She had felt almost like her old self again as she comforted Shurei and coaxed her into confessing what was wrong.

“Kouta-kun,” Shurei gasped out at last, between sobs, “I-I hit him, Mother!”

Sumire was taken aback to say the least. Shurei adored her husband, and he, her.

“Why?” was all she could ask, wondering aloud.

When Shurei raised her teary face from Sumire’s chest, her expression was wretched. “Oh, Mother, it’s because…because I’m pregnant, again.”

Sumire gave her daughter a long and level glance. “And did you hit yourself as well, Shurei?” The younger woman hung her head, her once-lustrous black hair now laying flat and dull across her shoulders. Sumire sighed. “You must go back and apologize to him at once.”

Shurei sniffed. “…I know. I will. It was wrong of me. I knew it as soon as I did it. But, Mother, another child?—now?” Shurei’s look was desolate. “We’re hard-pressed to feed the three that we have. How on earth can we provide for a fourth?”

Sumire hugged her daughter close, so that she could not see the frown that weighed upon her. “We will find a way.”

Her voice was cool and firm. Infinitely steadier than Sumire felt. Yet Shurei was reassured. After washing her face, she left for home to make her amends.

It was some days later, as Sumire was returning from town that she met Umehana at the brothel house gate. Of an age with Sumire, Umehana was yet a working girl. Sturdily-built, she had a coquettish look of mischief in her eye that allured men despite her strong jaw, squarish figure and short, steel-shot hair. Her clientele had ever been a small but devoted bunch.

Some men were drawn to burly women—for reasons Sumire never examined too closely. Nor Umehana either, Sumire wagered. Many unsavory things could be said of whores and their ilk, but ‘indiscreet’ was not among them. The savvy ones, at any rate—and Umehana was nothing if not shrewd and level-headed. She had, after all, been among those bold, itinerant whores who’d sought Sumire’s brothel out by reputation. For almost thirty years, she’d remained.

But no longer, Sumire judged, eyeing the pack slung across Umehana’s stocky shoulders. Sumire’s heart sank at the sight.

“You are leaving,” she observed, though it scarcely needed saying.

Umehana nodded anyway. “Aye, mistress. That I am.”

“I wish you well, though I’m sad to see you go,” Sumire said, taking Umehana’s meaty hands in hers. “Madam of this place I may be, but I have long considered you a true friend.”

For once, Umehana’s small dark eyes lost their impish gleam. “I think of ye the same. That’s why I waited here, to tell ye I was goin’, and to urge ye to do likewise. Fell winds are blowin’, Sumire; best ye leave before the storm sets in. A great bloody one it’ll be, or I don’t know my left teat from my right.”

Sumire frowned. “A new daimyo reigns, Umehana. The war is over.”

“That war, mayhaps,” the old whore snorted, “but if ye can’t see what’s brewin’ on the horizon, ye aren’t the wise woman I thought ye to be. Open yer eyes, mistress. When the young bucks lock horns, the wolves lie in wait. The smart doe, she steers clear of ’em both.”

With that, Umehana stepped past her, through the howling gate.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi