“I hope, too,” Abby said, and was gone, with Cara in tow.
Daisuke seemed to have no trouble negotiating the distance to Kris in his own getas. He presented a quite magnificent-looking scroll to Emiko with a bow.
The young princess started to make a face but quickly suppressed it. Although Kris could detect nothing in the exchange between the two, she had experience with someone very much like Daisuke. The chauffeur back at Nuu House, Harvey, was a retired NCO. Kris learned very quickly that the barest twitch from him should be taken as a thorough reprimand.
Kris suspected that Daisuke and Emiko had their own way of communicating praise and disapproval, and she would bet money she didn’t have that Daisuke had just given his princess a full dressing-down, and had done it without saying a word.
When Emiko turned back to Kris, scroll in hand, she was, if not the perfect princess, at least a proper one.
“Father, the Emperor, invites you to share the Way of the Tea with him at six tomorrow evening. It’s the best part of the day, and the sunsets from the palace garden are glorious.” The last was added in a rush and probably not included in the formal charge. “Please come.”
Kris didn’t need any hints. “I am honored by this invitation, and I will most certainly present myself at the palace before six tomorrow evening,” Kris said.
“Good, good, now, please, do you have some clothes I can put on so we can talk. Can I stay for dinner?”
“Most certainly,” Kris said.
“Now, if you gentlemen will leave us ladies alone,” Abby said, leading a half dozen women staff into the room, “we can get this poor child out of those duds and into something decent.” The look Daisuke threw Abby would have melted stones if there wasn’t just the hint of a smile at the corner of his lips.
The men retired, and the household staff began the delicate job of removing several layers of ancient silk from a princess who held perfectly still for them but chattered on with Kris. “Please open the scroll. I did it myself.”
Kris admired the calligraphy, as Nelly gave Kris a dissertation on both the language and the handiwork. Princess Emiko was delighted that Nelly understood the excellence of her work.
While the silks were carefully folded and put into cedarwood boxes, a blue brocade blazer, white blouse, and white silk pleated skirt were provided to the princess. Kris considered the skirt far too short, but Nelly silently assured Kris that this was what all the college girls were wearing on Musashi these days. White knee-length tabi completed the ensemble, and the two princesses adjourned to the couch, so Kris could tell Emiko “everything.”
Supper was served and long eaten before Daisuke was able to persuade his princess that she was expected back at the palace before bedtime and should herself inform the Emperor that his gracious offer had been accepted. That left Kris and her company waving good-bye on the front steps of Fujioka House just before sunset.
“You are greatly honored,” Tsusumu said.
“How will this play in the media?” Kris asked.
Tsusumu chuckled. “Much better than the party in power will want. I suspect there may be a visit to the Imperial Palace tomorrow and a lengthy conversation about the constitutional crisis that an Emperor dallying in political affairs could bring on.”
Kris looked at the scroll that Emiko had once more pressed upon Kris as she left. “Will this invitation be revoked?”
“Not if the Emperor’s backbone is as stiff as I think it is. No. Aki-san has crossed a line with your indictment. A line a lot of us think we must get back across quickly. I had hoped the Emperor was on our side. Still, that,” he said, eyeing the scroll. “None of us had hoped for an indication of the Imperial Will anywhere close to that. You are truly honored, stranger.”
“Honored or not,” Abby snapped, “I’ve got to get you outfitted and dressed properly before six tomorrow. Where am I going to find a nine-hundred-year-old woman’s kimono that will fit you, my tall beanpole?”
“Don’t you have one somewhere in one of your steamer trunks?” Jack asked.
“Not nine hundred years old,” Abby snapped. “You saw what that princess was wearing. I will not have my princess reduced to some backwoods poor relation. It’s gonna be a night.” And she headed for the servant’s area of the house.
“Is she often like that?” Tsusumu asked.
“Often worse. I suggest that you go home and the rest of us attempt to hide in our rooms. Unfortunately for me,” Kris said with a sigh, “she knows where I live.”
49
Kris arrived, attired in a six-hundred-year-old kimono, and placed her geta footwear on the stone pavement of the Imperial Palace’s entrance at exactly 5:45 P.M. the next day.
It had been a closely run operation.
Kris had never seen Abby in such a swivet. It took less than half an hour to determine that there were several five-hundred-year-old kimonos in the house, but none fit anyone within a foot of Kris’s height.
Mrs. Fujioka was brought in by conference call. Yes, her family had several older kimonos, but all of her ancestors had run to short, by modern standards, and certainly by Kris’s standard. She offered to contact all of her acquaintances. “Certainly some women in Japan needed a longer kimono.”
By midnight, Mrs. Fujioka happily called back. “We have found a furisode for your Kris. You may need to add seven or eight centimeters of cloth at the hem, but this will work.”
“A furisode?” Abby asked.
“Yes, a kimono that an unmarried woman wears. Your princess is unmarried, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Well, she cannot visit the Emperor dressed as a married woman, can she now?”
“No, no, of course not.”
Kris had never seen Abby so out of her depth. Never.
“So,” Abby said, “it seems this matter is even more complicated than I thought. Nelly, Mata Hari, why didn’t you catch me on this?”
“I’m sorry, Abby,” Nelly said. “None of you humans seemed to have a problem, so I figured a kimono was a kimono. I’m now researching the matter and discover there are all kinds of kimonos and parts to them. We will not make this mistake again.”
“Nelly in a mistake!” Penny said.
“I have explained and apologized. Can we please go on from here?”
“Yes, let’s,” Kris said. “Just how gussied up am I going to have to get?”
“Very,” Abby and Nelly said at once. “We dare not offend anyone,” Nelly added.
“Or shame ourselves,” Abby added. “Shame is definitely not an option.”
“What do you say that you go get your beauty rest?” Penny said, taking Kris by the shoulder and aiming her toward the stairs to the south wing. “We girls can get you all set up, and you must stay awake while the Emperor serves you tea.”
“I think the Way of the Tea is a bit more than a tea party.”
“Don’t I know. I’ve had Mimzy do my research on that one. It may take all of our supercomputers to get you through tomorrow, but trust us, we won’t let you down.”
And with that, Kris found herself led off to bed.
Sadly, Jack took the other stairway to the north wing. Right now, it would be nice to have someone hold her and tell her it would be all right.
Kris snorted. Be held, yes. Lie to each other. Not her style.
Next morning over breakfast, Kris discovered that most of her female staff had managed to snatch a few hours’ sleep. However, most of the serving staff of half the older families in Kyoto had lost sleep making sure Kris was letter-perfect for tea.
Abby began listing all the parts of Kris’s ensemble and where it had been borrowed from. Kris cut her off after reaching the conclusion that fieldstripping a 24-inch pulse laser was easier than getting one six-foot-tall woman . . . make that unmarried woman . . . properly attired for an evening with an Emperor.