The lady of the castle finished her meal alone.

Outside the main hall there was a vague clamor. With a wave, she bid for the doors to be opened, and the petitioners came streaming in. Sitting upon the dais, she repressed a weary sigh. As servants hastened to clear the trays away and bring her more tea, clerks took up their positions. She straightened herself as regally as she could, the many layers of her silk kimono making her swelter a little despite the cool inrush of air.

The samurai came first with their business. Military affairs which could not be delayed. But the lord of the castle had retired early, once again. She told them as much, but they insisted. The lady spoke for him, as she now often did, giving her counsel to them instead, which they accepted without hesitation.

Requesting their lord’s consent seemed to be a growing formality to them, which distantly unsettled her.

The minor lords, country vassals, came next with their grievances and squabbles. Most scarcely bothered to ask after their liege lord before launching into whatever complaint had brought them here. She settled these disputes out of hand—oftentimes genially, sometimes not. But either way, her word was as good as law. Even if it didn’t go in their favor, they accepted it with no more than a half-hearted grumble.

Last came the common folk—merchants and tradesmen first, then peasants if there were any who’d been galvanized enough to leave their labors. Exhausted by this point, the lady endured. She listened to each petition—particularly those of the peasants—with careful determination. The more frayed she felt, the more important it was for her not to let it show. These common folk didn’t even think to question her—lord or lady, what difference did it make to them? In her fine robes sitting literally above them, she probably seemed another creature to them entirely.

She felt another creature entirely, by the time all was said and done.

Everything she could reasonably delay, she did. As the outer doors closed, the lady gazed down dully at the mound of missives and notes the scribes had piled before her—supposedly, for her to relay to her lord, of course.

In reality, for her to skim through later, after she had rested herself.

…

When Kagome woke, she felt a bit like herself once again.

She’d only dozed for a half-hour or so. She would have rested longer, but she’d tasked the maids not to let her oversleep. They were as diligent as they were discreet. Even now they hung back near the doorway as she stirred, swinging her legs out from the futon.

Despite the chill, she would have kept on her thin cotton sleeping robe if she could. She rarely felt cold, even when she should. Almost always she felt feverish instead. But telling the maids so would only worry them. In a house where the health of its lord had always hung so precariously, Kagome was loath to add to their troubles.

Or maybe she was loath to project her own anxieties onto them.

Dressed simply, yet elegantly, she sipped some strong tea as her hair was combed and re-pinned. Coffee would be so much better, she thought wistfully. But such luxuries were centuries away, beyond even her own lofty reach.

Kagome snorted. The maids fussing about her stilled, frowning in concern.

“My lady?”

“Sorry, it’s nothing,” Kagome said, flashing that silvery, enigmatic little smile she’d picked up from Hirokin, which allowed one to read into it whatever they wished. “I just thought of something funny.”

“Oh!—yes, Kagome-sama,” one of the maids tittered, as though she were in on the joke.

“Of course, my lady!” another chimed in.

Placated, the maids smiled and went back about their business. Relieved, Kagome went back to mocking herself. Such good, earnest people would never understand. How could they? They saw her wealth and beauty, felt her power and charm and her hard-earned shrewdness and thought to themselves, Kagome-sama has it all!

And you do, don’t you? she added scathingly to herself. So you can stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself.

Could one be content and miserable at the same time? It was an absurd way to be, and in the privacy of her own mind, Kagome wholeheartedly admitted it.

She relished it even, in some strange perverted way. The spectacle of scorn she’d become to herself was one of her only sources of satisfaction, in a life which had parodied itself time and again.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi