She said nothing about it at supper that night, on the porch. Or at breakfast, and still there was a kind of melancholy silence about her that told him that she was holding some debate with herself.
Perhaps, he thought, holding to hope, she was in the way of changing her mind. Perhaps that silence and that melancholy boded well for him.
He dared not ask and begin an argument: she was stubborn; she might go the opposite way out of habit. It was her sense of duty she was struggling with; it was—
Fondness, perhaps. A reluctance to leave what was comfortable; to leave a man who was at least her teacher. She weighed that against anger, against grief, against vows made by a child with no understanding of the cost of them to the woman she would be.
He had taught her to weigh things. Taught her to think things through, and the hardest thing in the world now was to keep himself quiet and pretend he had no notion there was anything amiss and just let her do what he had taught her and think down all the paths of the thing.
Trust her to use good sense at the last.
But he feared to go anywhere out of sight of the cabin, for fear that she might make up her mind without him of a sudden, and go, like the child she sometimes was, simply deserting him.
The very thought of that hurt.
One day and another one passed. He began to think perhaps he had read her wrong; or she had changed her mind.
Then he came back up the hill one afternoon to find her at the hearth, rolling up a packet of smoked meat in leather, with others by her.
"What are you doing?" he asked her by way of challenge: he already knew the answer.
She did not look at him immediately. She finished rolling the packet and put it with the others. Then she looked his way, as if facing him was very hard for her, "I'm going," she said.
"You're not ready yet."
"How long will it take? Till Gitu dies of old age?"
"Two years aren't enough. How long do you think a man studies with a master? Three and four. At the least. How long do you think Gitu's studied?"
She shrugged and turned and wrapped up the packets in an old rag and tied it.
"I haven't spent two years teaching a fool!" he said. "If the law catches you with that gear they'll cut your hand off."
She did not look at him.
"They'll catch you, girl. You don't walk like a peasant, you don't look like a peasant, you don't move like one, and you don't look like a boy anymore. Do you?"
"I can when I want to."
"Oh, hell, girl, not a chance. You're not shaped like a boy, you don't walk like one, either. Or like a peasant girl. So what are you going to do?"
She frowned. "Keep to the woods. Keep to the trails."
"With the bandits. A wonderful plan."
She stared into nowhere. "Can I take my mat and my blanket?"
He gave a wave of his hand, beyond talking for the moment. His breath seemed stopped up in his throat. He leaned against the wall by the door and folded his arms and looked at the floor.
"Can I take my mat?"
"Damn, take anything you want. Except Jiro. I don't care."
There was long silence.
She sniffed then, and he looked up and saw her crying.
"Well, you don't have to go," he said. "No one's making you. I don't want you to go. I'm begging you not to. How much plainer can I make it?"
She took up her bundle and went and dropped it on her mat.
"I'll stay here tonight," she said. "Tonight I'll sleep with you. There won't be any other time."
He drew in his breath, cold to the bones. "I don't understand you, girl."
"You said I shouldn't be afraid. So I want you to sleep with me. I want that to remember on the road. If I get a baby now it won't stop me. Nothing will stop me. I'll get there. I'll be as smart as I can. I'll come back here if I can."
"You'll do that and just walk out of here."
She nodded, calm now, and he stared at her in desperation.
Then he walked over to the corner shelf and got down his armor and flung it down by his mat. "Well, you might as well pack double, girl."
"No!"
"What no? I'm not leaving you to the bandits. Don't tell me that's not what you planned from the start."
"I said no!"
"Sorry." He got his sword and put it with his bow and quiver by the door.
"You're banished! They'll kill you!"
"So they will." He drew a breath and looked around him, at the place with its shelves and its accumulation of things that he had saved over the years, the familiar place, the familiar things. He felt a sense of panic, like finding himself poised on the edge of a fatal drop. But the step was easy. Very easy. He had learned that at the edge of duels, of judgements, of skirmishes. When there were no choices, one moved, that was all. He took down the whole hook of smoked venison and laid it on the hearth. "No sense to stint ourselves."
"Dammit, I'm not asking this!"
He looked at her and gave a smile, a laugh, a shake of his head.
"I'm not asking it! I don't want you!"
"That's all right. I forgive you." He found his leather breeches hanging from a rafter, pulled them down and tossed them onto his mat. "Have we got clean shirts?"
"Dammit!"
"You've learned bad language, girl."
"I don't want you to get killed!"
"That's a sensible ambition. Best I've heard out of you yet." He took a spare shirt from the peg and threw it atop the pile. "I don't want you with your hand lopped by some magistrate. I'm along to settle questions like that; and you're still learning. Something could come up. Don't be arrogant. Take help when you need it."
She wiped tears, crossed the room in a few strides and started to snatch his armor up. He turned that intention with a little move of his hand. And she knew better than to carry that further.
"No," he said firmly. "Girl, you can take out down that trail and try to leave, but I can still track you. So can we save all that and start out together, tomorrow, like two sane people?"
"It's my revenge, my life, my family. You have no business in Hua!"
"You're my household," he said. "That's all. You want this. All right. You've got it." He took her hand in his. Hers was like ice, listless. "Let's do this in sensible order. Get a good night's rest. Start out in the morning." He put his hand on her hip and she flinched. "Changed your mind about tonight?"
"I—" Her teeth were chattering.
"Let me tell you: I almost married back in Chiyaden. Lady Meiya and I—were lovers in everything but the act. After that, I had no other women but courtesans. I'm telling you the truth. A boy was in love with a girl who became his emperor's wife. The boy and the girl were fools—who never took the chance they had to be happy. Honor meant everything to them, even when she despised her husband. And gods know he despised the Emperor. —Maybe we did choose right. Or maybe I'm twice a fool to have waited with you—but I'm used to waiting for women, you understand. And I'll go on waiting until you come to my bed. If it's not tonight, that's all right. If it's never—that's all right. Whether we sleep together isn't the important thing. The important thing is the reason I'm going with you. The most important thing is the center of everything I've taught you. You know what that is now? You know why I'm going?"
She nodded, bit her lip and broke into tears. She hugged him and held onto him a long, long time.
A dog, he thought, would take advantage of a tired, distraught girl who had carried everything in the world alone. Even if he wanted to. Even if he figured it was a chance that would never come again and that she had no idea what she wanted.