The house of Inoki was cold and drear. Lamp oil and firewood had become precious commodities, not to be wasted. In the once-lustrous dining room, the family sat assembled about their meager meal in dim silence. The fine hangings and sculptures had long since been pawned for the most basic of necessities. Food and fuel. Nothing else seemed of importance now. Only earlier that day, Sumire herself had traded a large sapphire for a small bag of rice, a few knots of shriveled radishes and some strips of old dried meat. And that had been a hard bargain to drive.

It was this pathetic bounty upon which they now all feasted. Inoki Shurei bustled about, replenishing the empty bowls with dregs from the cooking pot as if serving a second portion. Her dark eyes were hard and bright as she did this. She was a fiercely proud woman, and Sumire’s heart ached for her.

“Mother,” she said, inclining her head deferentially as she dispensed a share of scraps to Sumire far larger than her own.

When Sumire offered it back to her, Shurei staunchly refused. Even her placid husband Kouta frowned at her for this. But Shurei heatedly ignored his censure, as she sat down and glared resolutely ahead. After finishing their slim second helpings, the elders of the clan retired, Kouta’s parents among them.

Seeming ever at odds for her age, Sumire remained. One of her grandchildren, the youngest boy, had found his way into her lap. From her own bowl, Sumire fed him little clumps of rice as she soothed her hand over his grumbling stomach.

“Mother…” Shurei chided, but Sumire only smiled mildly in response.

“You know I eat like a bird, Shurei. I’m quite full as it is. But you’re still hungry, aren’t you, Kenichi?”

“Baa-baa,” the little boy said, his brown eyes smiling up at her as he chewed.

As she fed Kenichi, she listened to the conversation between Kouta, his siblings and cousins. All of them were engaged in the merchant trade, though Kouta was the principal heir and decision-maker, now that his father had passed the mantle to him. The tone of the conversation was grim to say the least. 

Until the dubious harvests of next summer came in, the city was wholly dependent upon outside resources. Supply trains from other provinces kept being forced to divert, if they were not abandoned altogether, in the face of bandit raids or impassable roads. The new daimyo had yet to set about attending to the very prize he’d won. Yet as Kouta’s cousin sardonically observed, he’d himself suffered no shortage of liquor and other luxuries being escorted into his heavily-armed fortress.

No decisions came from these grumblings. No actions were proposed. As one and all subsided into weary silence, Sumire spoke.

“Things are difficult now,” she began, “but they will only grow worse. Civil war has weakened the land. Our new lord’s hold is tenuous at best. Soon, very soon I fear, other warlords will strike at us. They will lay siege to this city and all the rest. Until a victor is established, there will be no end to the famine and strife that plague us now.” Her gaze rested upon Kouta’s. “We must leave this place while we have the chance, and seek sanctuary elsewhere.”

Pouring what passed for tea these days, Shurei gaped at her from across the room. At once, a slew of voices rose in dissent.

“Leave, she says? Over the shadow of a war which may never touch us…”

“Abandon our homes, our trade, all that we have built for generations, to squatters and thieves?”

“Fool woman, do you think the roads are any safer?” A scoff. “But then you’ve scarcely left that brothel of yours, so of course you would not know.”

“Let her return to it, I say, and take her wild notions with her. Heeding the craven words of women, that would be the ruin of us…”

Sumire took their scathing criticisms in stride. She had expected no less, especially with their nerves frayed as thin as her own. After all, the idea still seemed half-mad even to herself. But she had spoken her piece. Kouta alone of the bunch made no reply. As the rest continued to deride her, he remained silent still. 

Kouta was not a loud man. He spoke very little, in fact. But when he did speak it was always to an effect. And so his quiet voice carried somehow over the clamor as he inclined his head to Sumire.

“Mother,” Kouta said formally, “you speak the truth. We will do as you say.”

Shurei gasped, dropping the kettle altogether. “Kouta!”

The rest of Kouta’s kin were equally aghast. One and all they stormed from the room, muttering ‘idle madness’ and worse. But Kouta’s mind was set, firm as his word.

The bitter season deepened. As the streets churned to mud by autumn storms began to freeze over, those of the Inoki family who’d sided with Kouta made their final preparations to depart. It was a small crowd, in the end. Despite his exhortations, Kouta’s parents were not among them.

“Our life is here,” they insisted. “Here we shall stay.”

Meanwhile, Sumire had made preparations of her own. The guards and servants of the brothel house had long since been dismissed, though some had stayed on anyway. To these and the remaining whores, she now put the choice to them directly: stay or go. Their reply cleaved her in two.

In the quiet of her bedroom, Sumire smoked her little pipe for the last. Barely a wisp rose from it, the ghost of a ghost. The fragrance itself might be only a phantom scent. Closing her eyes, Sumire breathed it in nonetheless.

When she opened her eyes, her daughter was standing before her, visibly pregnant now and haggard from the ordeal of packing. Arms crossed above her protruding belly, Shurei peered down at her and frowned.

“Mother, where is your trunk?” Glancing about the room, Shurei narrowed her eyes as she realized Sumire had made no move to pack anything at all. “No,” she said, her voice rising a sharp, hysterical fraction. “No, Mother. You cannot mean to stay here—you can’t!”

“Shurei—”

Shurei shook her head, stamped her foot as her face flooded red. “The nerve of you…it was your idea to leave in the first place! How can you send me on, and stay yourself? Me, your only child, and in the state that I’m in. Look at me, Mother. Look.” As Sumire looked at her, Shurei’s lip began to tremble. With weighty grace, she sank to her knees and clasped at Sumire’s. “I need you, Mama. We need you.”

Sumire’s gaze returned to the window, whose bars were visible now only to her. It was Sanada, the grizzled captain of the brothel house guard, who had spoken up for all the rest—

“We are with you, Sumire-dono, whatever you decide.”

In her daughter’s wide, imploring eyes she felt the burden placed upon her multiply ten-fold. “This is the only home I’ve ever known,” Sumire said quietly, her voice breaking beneath the strain. “Shurei, I’m afraid.”

“So am I,” Shurei said thickly. “Kouta-kun is too, though he doesn’t show it. But together, Mother, we’ll find a way. You said that to me yourself, and I believed it. I believe it still.”

Two days later, the brothel house had been packed and boarded-up as best it could be. With a heavy heart, Sumire locked the gate behind her. Carts loaded and shoulders laden, her party joined with up with Kouta’s outside the city walls, in the gloom of pre-dawn.

Together they set out, wary pilgrims toiling along toward the only safe place in all the world she knew. Eastward, toward Edo, and the rising sun.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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