I sat in my room thinking when I should have been getting dressed for dinner. I called it a room, and so did Father when he let me move out of the one I shared with Cal and Lon, but it was really a disused archer’s station halfway up the tower. He said the rough surroundings would build character. I think he really put me here to avoid the expense of opening up and furnishing one of the castle’s many closed-off rooms. He never spent so much as a copper as if he could help it.

In it were the pallet I slept on, a writing desk and stool, a few books, and my good suit hanging from a hook. The rest of my stuff was in a trunk under the pallet. There wasn’t room for anything else. There was no privacy to speak of either. The stair was a busy one, especially when the watch changed, and there was no door. I hung a curtain across the opening but it wasn’t much help. The only window was the arrow slit, but through it I could see, beyond the hundred feet of cleared space around the castle, the forest that blanketed the mountainside. It wasn’t much, but it was still better than the alternative.

The way things were didn’t make sense anymore. I could no longer ignore the suspicion that had been growing in my mind for the past several months that something was going on around me that I was not being told about.

If I ever had reason to agree with Father’s opinion of me before today, I didn’t anymore. The smallest of my older brothers outweighed me by at least fifty pounds and I’d just taken them all on at the same time with ease, with no Master present to keep anyone from getting out of hand.

I’d acted without thinking. I didn’t consider that it was by all rights impossible for me to manhandle Tris as I did. He should have been able to simply overpower me, but I had shoved him around like he was nothing. And they had seemed to be moving so slowly. I knew I was faster than they were, but this time they might as well have been fighting through syrup, or stuck like a fly in pine sap or something.

No, I had to be better than Master was letting on. Why did he really argue to get double sessions with me? He hadn’t done that with my brothers, and I just proved I was better than they’d ever been. Master must know that. He might be impossible to please, but he’s not stupid. That means he deliberately misled Father. Why would he do that? Tor said he liked me, or at least didn’t hate me. So why does he treat me as he does?

Reluctant as I was to do it, I was going to have to brave Master’s fiery eyes and confront him about all this. After tomorrow’s session would be a good time. I knew my performance would be flawless, so he’d have nothing real to complain about, and with the effect the forms had on me I’d feel up to it. Let him rant. I was going to get some answers.

I heard a distant chime, the quarter-hour signal for dinner, and realized I’d lost track of time again. I threw off my tunic and wriggled into my suit. The tunic was of sky-blue silk with long narrow sleeves, silver piping, and a high collar, fastened up the front with what always seemed like about two thousand buttons, and embroidered all over in black with a pattern of vines and leaves. The breeches were of similar work. I was halfway down the stairs before I remembered to put something on my feet, so I had to dash back up and shove them into hose and my dress shoes.

I wasn’t the first to arrive in the dining hall. Tor was there chatting with the ambassadors near the hearth, and listening in politely was someone I hadn’t expected to see at all.

“Peri!” I cried. He turned and was about to come over to greet me when Tor gestured for him to stay where he was and strode toward me herself, the layers of her golden silk gown flowing behind her. She was annoyed.

“Sprout, don’t you ever look in a mirror?”

“I don’t have a mirror.”

“Then I’d better get you one. Come here.” She grabbed me by the queue and dragged me towards a corner behind a pillar. “The way this tunic sets off your eyes, you’d look so nice in it if you’d just take care.” she said as we went. She quickly undid my queue, dragged an unceremonious comb through it, and then whipped it back together. “I don’t know what you could have done to mess your hair up so much this quickly.”

It couldn’t have been the fight, and only one person had touched it since she last fixed it. “Um, well, Dak....” My face grew hot.

She snickered. “All right, never mind. Now let’s have a look at you.” She spun me around to face her, then clucked and yanked out my collar where it had gotten tucked under itself somehow. “At least your face isn’t grubby and you remembered shoes this time.”

Just then the chime sounded again, and my parents entered the hall.

Father looked as kingly as a man of his size and authority might, but my mother, Queen Ochiya, with her high cheekbones, erect bearing, and impassive demeanor managed to look twice as regal even though she was tiny next to him. Tor favored her in looks, if not in height. I’ve been told I look more like her too.

Just in time to prevent Father's wrath at their being late, Tris, Cal, and Lon came shuffling in. They were doing their best to hide it, but they were moving very stiffly. Tor noticed it and shot me a glare. I put on my best innocent look. I don’t think she bought it.

I was closer to Mother’s end of the table. Tor was on her left side. Okamoto, the junior member of the embassy, was on Mother's right, and I was next to him. At the other end Father started in on the senior ambassador, Takegawa, even before the food arrived. Across from Takegawa, Peri was rolling his eyes so much I thought they'd fall out of his head. Any other time this would have gotten him into trouble, but Father was too intent on his own words and on Takegawa to notice.

“His Majesty is persistent ,” remarked Okamoto. He spoke quietly, and in Yorozushimago.

“He is accustomed to having his own way,” said Mother. “In most negotiations he has the advantage. You need not fear being overheard, by the way. Our language is unknown to him.”

“Surely,” Okamoto now spoke less softly, “the political realities should be clear to him. His Majesty the Emperor has an official monopoly on the silk trade, true. But he gains no advantage from the concessions the King has granted to your father’s house and has no reason to feel obliged to grant concessions in kind.”

“The King has conceded much in his view. This kingdom has little wealth of its own. It owes its prosperity entirely to our control of the High Pass. To yield any of that, as did his honored father when he arranged our marriage, is almost unprecedented.”

“It is true that the craftsmen of Tetsujima have made good use of the alloys of the Stunted Men,” Okamoto said. “Their work remains unequaled. But the advantage is all to your family. There is no connection at all to the Emperor’s silk trade.”

“It is outside the King’s experience that nobility should be so independent of the sovereign,” replied Mother. “In such a small realm as this, there is little outside the king’s reach. And not just here. Even at its greatest extent, the Regellan Empire was strictly controlled from the capital. So is its remnant today. It is,” she mused, “both its great strength and its great weakness.”

“‘Hachido of the Ten Thousand Islands’... The name itself should suggest the impossibility of any such thing.”

Mother shrugged. “I do not agree with him. I merely explain his thinking, such as it is.”

Okamoto gave a small grin. “This is one of those times when I am thankful that I do not carry out negotiations myself, even though on this mission I have had little to do. Not that the place is entirely without interest.”

He turned to me and switched to Provincial. “I imagine it is very wearisome to hear much talk in a strange tongue, Your Highness.”

“Maybe it is, Okamoto-kakka,” I replied in Yorozushimago. “But I wouldn’t know.”

His reserve gave way just long enough for his surprise to register. He shook his head and turned to Mother again. “I apologize, Ochiya-heika. I have been indiscreet.”

“Kitaro can be trusted,” Mother assured him.

“But you never can tell when he’s paying attention,” Tor broke in. “Usually he isn't, but when you least expect it, it turns out he was.”

Okamoto looked up the table. “Do any of your others...?”

“Only my oldest and youngest have taken much interest in my homeland,” replied Mother.

Father's voice drifted down the table. “I don’t think Takegawa-kakka is enjoying his dinner very much,” I remarked.

“It is,” said Okamoto, “his duty to not enjoy his dinner from time to time.”

“But not yours?”

“At times I may enjoy my dinner. Other times I might not eat dinner at all. The nature of my work is rather different.”

“What's that?”

He smiled and shook his head slowly. “The impertinence of youth.” He considered for a moment. “Ordinarily I would rather die than answer you truly, but as Her Majesty is the daughter of a great daimyō, she knows how Imperial diplomacy is carried out.” Mother inclined her head. “Since it would be simple for you to obtain the truth from her, there is no reason why I should not tell you myself.

“Negotiations depend on reliable information so that we may judge the truth of the other side’s representations. And, of course, to gain any possible advantage for ourselves. Therefore, it has long been our practice to send two diplomats to any mission. One, apparently the senior, is the chief negotiator. The other, taking the role of the junior, may appear to be an assistant or adjutant, but his true purpose to discover all he can concerning the other side.”

I mulled that over for a moment. “You mean you’re a spy?”

Tor slapped a hand to her forehead, but Okamoto didn’t even blink. “Admirably direct. Yes. A shinobi no mono, a practitioner of the art of passing unseen. In reality, this more often means unnoticed. With skill, even one with such a foreign face as mine can learn much unobtrusively.

“Sadly, I have had little to do here.” He looked toward Father, who was thumping the table to make his point. Takegawa, who seemed to have an infinite amount of patience, listened placidly. “The King is no more and no less than what he appears to be. Here there is no intrigue, no scheming courtiers. Such an austere court.” He sighed. “Still, as I said, the place is not entirely without interest. Not all here are as they appear.” He looked at me sidelong. “There is much talk concerning an encounter in the east side corridor not two hours ago.”

“I knew it!” cried Tor. Lon, who was sitting next to her but hadn't understood a word of what we were saying, started at the unexpected exclamation, but then winced from the sudden motion disturbing his bruises. She looked him over and then glared at me. “Out with it, Kitaro.”

I explained about the fight. “Look, they had me cornered. What was I supposed to do?”

Tor opened her mouth to yell at me some more, but Mother cut her off. “We shall let it pass for the time being, Toriko. But I would to speak with you, Kitaro, after your lesson tomorrow. There are certain matters connected with this, and the time has come to discuss them.” That filled me with apprehension for some reason. I took a sip of wine to moisten a suddenly dry mouth.

“Still,” Okamoto went on, unperturbed. “A remarkable young man. Who would think you capable of it to look at you? No surprise you have attracted such a well-favored boy for a lover.”

I choked on my wine. Tor burst out laughing. I coughed and sputtered while looking to Mother for support, but she had a demure hand over her mouth and her shoulders were quivering. This finally yanked Father’s attention away from his talk.

“What’s so funny down there?” he demanded.

“It was a pun,” Mother replied. “It would not translate well.”

When I recovered enough to speak I said, “You can’t have been following me!”

“Not at all. This kind of work is far simpler than you might think in some ways. Romantic tales of men dressed in black sneaking around at all hours are well and good, but it is easier to talk to the servants. In a great house such as this they know everything that happens, and there are always one or two who love to gossip. Find them, and the secrets of the place are yours.”

“I caution you,” Mother said, “this is one secret that must not be uttered in the Provincial tongue. Were it not for certain of Kitaro’s personal qualities, his choice of lover would be met with nearly universal condemnation. As it is, His Majesty does not know of it. He must continue in his ignorance. His reaction would be unpleasant.”

“He will not learn of it from me.” Okamoto turned to me, “Forgive me for surprising you, but speaking my own language put me in the way of thinking as if I were at home. It is not shameful to speak of such things in Hachido.”