Black Arrow Lord Ch. 04

Then he began to split the wood.

In less than a minute, Valdemar had to stop to take his heavy coat off and hang it from another tree. Then he set to it again as they watched.

Two minutes after that, they saw the steam of his sweat rising from his shirt in the cold mountain air.

"Aiee," the mother remarked, "Look at him work. That won't take him long."

"Do you know him, Aiki-san?" the other young woman asked and Aiki nodded.

"That is Valdemar-san, the trader who came a while ago. He was at our home last evening for dinner with us – Lady Hoshino, Kōichi-san's mother, Kōichi-san and I."

"He sure is different," the girl remarked and her mother laughed a little, "I think that he must be, for I have never seen a trader of any kind who can actually work at anything. Yet this one does and, ... you know? He even looks to be enjoying it.

This one –he is the Black Arrow lord, no?" the mother asked, "I have not seen him before. I have only heard of it. What is a lord doing something such as this for?"

"Well, I know that he likes to help everyone," Aiki said, "and I guess that where he comes from, they have different ways than we do.

"Even so," the older woman said, "I have never heard of a lord who cuts his own wood."

"Kōichi's Mother said that he has lost his lands somehow and I guess that if that is so, then he has no people either. He seems to be a little wise, as well," Aiki remarked, "He told me last evening that there would be a storm either later today or tonight. He seemed to be pretty sure about it."

"Well you only need to put your pretty nose in the air, girl," the mother said, "I can almost smell it coming, but I don't know if I can say that it will be a proper storm."

Aiki shrugged, "Well he told me that last night when it was cold and clear, and by only looking up at the moon. He said that what he saw would bring a storm.

"I know what kind of a storm that I wish he might bring me," the girl said and her mother scowled at her to hush.

"He does not speak our language," the girl said, before she looked over at Aiki a little uncertainly, "does he?"

Aiki smiled uncertainly and she shook her head, "I think that he studied it before he came here, but since he got here, Kōichi-san does all of his talking for him. He was at the bath house early last evening and it fell to me to wash him."

The girl's mother chuckled quietly, "And I'd bet that it was such a difficult task, too."

"Well there was a lot of him to wash, I have to say, but I liked it. I couldn't really even have begun if he hadn't been sitting down."

"Aiki-san," the other girl began, "what was he like, ... you know, ... there?"

Aiki expected to hear the girl's mother chide her again, but when she looked over, she saw the woman listening rather closely as well.

"It looked the same to me as anyone's," Aiki shrugged and the others nodded.

"Only, ... well, bigger."

"How big it is when it hangs means little," the older woman said, "it's only when –"

"I saw it get bigger - as I held it," Aiki said, with just a little pride, "He was very embarrassed then. I would have thought that he'd be a little proud."

But by then, Valdemar was finished and he began to pile the wood on the sled a little carefully so that nothing would be lost during transport. The three females fell silent as he stood up and walked to the tree where his coat hung. He put it on but left it hanging open, since he was still feeling the warmth of the work, and then he grabbed the ropes of the sled and held out his hand to indicate to them that they ought to lead, since he didn't know where they lived.

"He surely cannot move that whole thing," the older woman said, "We will need to help hi-"

But she stopped and stared as he gave the ropes a heave and once it had started moving, he just kept on with a more or less gentle pull. After a few feet, he beckoned to Aiki to help him and she was glad to, though she was surprised at how little it took.

It didn't take them long to reach where they lived, the pair of them walking along in front with Valdemar and Aiki walking behind and pulling the sled together. They walked on up the path right to the door and he waved to them to take what they saw as their share. Even with almost half of it gone, there was still plenty for him and Valdemar didn't mind. He had a feeling that they'd need it if they'd been out hunting up little deadfall branches as he'd seen them.

"Hey, who's your big hairy boyfriend?" the neighbor woman called out as Valdemar and Aiki began to drag the rest off.

"Never you mind," the woman laughed as she answered, "I don't see that you've got one to work for you, hairy or not!"

As the mother and her daughter turned to begin to bring some of the wood inside – just in case the Gaijin was correct about the weather, the mother muttered quietly.

"A handsome Gaijin lord who helps common women and doesn't just walk away when there's work to be done – now I've seen everything."

She smiled at her daughter, "And I hope that Aiki-san knows what it is that she might have, too – the way that he seemed to smile at her on the way here."

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Valdemar and Aiki walked to his home, dragging the sled together. It was on the other side of the village, but that didn't mean that it was especially far. Aiki liked the Dane, no matter what anyone said about Gaijin as a whole, and she quickly dispensed with the awkwardness between them by taking his arm as they went.

He looked at the gesture with a little surprise, but she laughed, saying in her accented English, "I not fine lady, Dane-san. No one cares."

Whenever she was sure that there wasn't anyone within earshot, she just began to talk to him a little, trying to coax a little Japanese out of him. What she heard surprised her actually, since she'd thought that the best that she'd likely get might be 'hai' or 'iye' – literally, yes or no. But he managed to string a few rough sentences together. She had a thought then.

"Dane-san? Did you hear and understand what the women and I were speaking about while you were splitting the wood?"

He looked a little uncomfortable then, but he finally nodded and said yes, though to his credit, he quickly held up his thumb and forefinger to indicate that he had only gotten a little. In truth, he'd gotten quite a lot of it, but he'd mostly only been listening to see if she mentioned anything about his scars.

For the most part, he liked her – really liked her. He understood now what Kōichi had been talking about and he got that. He just couldn't really see how it would work. But then she was talking again, so, ...

"Did Kōichi-san tell you that I want to ... be with you as well? I know that he loves you. Anyone could see that last night. I hope that it went well if you tried with him. He told me that he would do anything for you for the way that you treat him, Dane-san. I think that it is what I want as well. We could have a life anywhere with you then and he and I would be happy."

It was all too much for him to deal with conversationally at the moment in Japanese as it was now. He looked at her and motioned a little, hoping that she understood to go back in her statements. She thought about it and she tried, guessing that it was what he wanted. The thing of it was that she was speaking so quickly so that she could say it before her courage ran out.

"Did Kōichi-san tell you that I want you?"

He shook his head, his face showing that he disliked the way that the question was put, dragging his hand out a little.

"Did Kōichi-san tell you that I want you as well?" she asked very quietly, though it was obvious that she felt a little flustered to be having the conversation in quite the degree of detail which she was in at the moment. She'd hoped to just be able to gloss right on through it at as high a conversational rate as he might be able to manage, but she was pleased when he nodded.

"Must I struggle to ask if it is what you would like?"

He didn't get that, so she tried, "Is that what you would like - Kōichi-san and Aiki?"

He nodded, "Hai, I want to help ... Kōichi-san and Aiki-san," and he took her hand in his. Aiki stared at him for a moment.

And then, ... she understood.

It wasn't quite what she'd meant, but she was pretty much finished with whispering her embarrassed admissions to him out in the street this way.

She sighed with a smile and squeezed his hand with her fingers as they walked on.

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"Look at him," she said very softly into his ear, "He's so beautiful like that." She closed the door very quietly behind them. Right here, there was no one to see, so she kissed his cheek and he smiled as she stepped over to pull the covers over Kōichi.

As she walked back, she smiled, "You must have worn him out."

Valdemar understood little of the words, but he smiled anyway.

"You have no idea," Kōichi groaned as he managed to lift his head, "Why are you here, Aiki-san?"

"I came to help Valdemar with some firewood. Come on and get dressed or burrow deeper into the blankets, Kōichi-san. We'll have the door open for a little while with we bring it in here."

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It was snowing a little as Valdemar and Kōichi ran down the pathways leading back to where the women lived. Aiki was on the sled, hanging on for dear life and laughing as they pulled her along.

The woman was pleased to see them again and offered them rice cakes. "Thank you so very much for the wood. It look to me now as though you might have been right about the weather, Gaijin-san.

Where do you come from, if it is not rude of me to ask? I have heard that there are many kinds of Gaijin. I thought that there was only one."

She reached out a little tentatively, hoping that she was not being rude and she touched the long blonde hair which was there over the front of his shoulder.

"I have heard nothing of your kind before," she said, " and I have certainly never seen anyone with hair like gold before. And eyes which are blue - of all things. The few Gaijin that I saw years ago in the south were all darker somehow with eyes the same color as ours, mostly. I am glad that we met you today."

When he'd heard the translation, Valdemar grinned and began to draw in the snow – just general shapes, but he got her to understand that this place over here was where they were and over there was the island with Edo on it and over there was China. Then he walked over a little way and drew what he termed as Gaijin lands. He grew tired after a dozen or so, but then he finally drew a strange smaller shape.

"Denmark," he said, and he pointed to himself, "Dane."

"That place over there is where he comes from," Kōichi said "His people are called Danes. His name gives Maeda-san fits to try to say, so everyone calls him Dane-san."

"Why, he comes from the end of the world," she gasped.

When he heard that in English, he shook his head and ran off a little farther, drawing more islands and lands until he drew the same spot that he'd begun with. And he pointed down again. As he walked back to her, he held his hands up as though he was holding a ball.

"He tries to tell you that the world is a round thing. He must know something of it, because I know that he has sailed far and been to many lands. He said that he was only showing you the top half of it. There is more down below that."

"Well, he sounds like a bit of a fool to me with this nonsense, but I have learned that he is a very kind man who helped my daughter and me, giving us more wood than we could gather in a fortnight – and all while disguising it to look as though he needed to do it so that he could borrow my sled. Please tell him for me that he may use it whenever he wishes."

She bowed deeply with a wide smile and then she went inside.

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When they'd walked back to his quarters, they found Matsu sitting out in front of the place with her horse tied up. She noticed right away that Valdemar now said nothing after his rather curt bow and greeting to her. She asked him respectfully to follow her inside for a moment.

"I have spoken to my honored mother and my aunt, Kōichi-san's mother, Valdemar-san. I know what was asked of you last evening."

She sighed a little sadly once as she gathered her thoughts.

"I also know that you do not like me very much at all. I find it a little strange that, where I would never have even given someone such as you a thought before with regard to how he might feel, I now do.

I am here for a few reasons, Valdemar-san. One of them is to offer you my apology for my short temper and the way that I was inconsiderate, not thinking that you might hold a different view of things."

She paused then and Valdemar could see that whatever there might be which she wanted to say to him next was difficult for her to the point where he might say that it might kill her to say and he waited in respectful silence for a moment.

She looked up at him and saw those blue devil's eyes regarding her in about the way that she'd have least expected. They were open in their view of her and she saw no hatred or anger there at all.

"Please forgive me," she said quietly to be sure, but clearly all the same.

She was a little surprised to see him bow slightly in acceptance without any sort of smirking smile of pleasure to see her obvious discomfort.

"I accept, and please, stop whatever I see that you are doing to yourself inside over this," he said, "It does not befit you."

She saw his hand reach out for hers then, "Where I am from, we offer our hands at a time like this to show that the matter is to be forgotten."

Matsu looked at his hand and then she looked up into his face again to see his open and honest smile and as hard as she tried so look for it, she saw none of the pleased gloating that she'd have expected.

She cautiously grasped his hand and he shook hers for a moment.

"Forgive me if I do not understand," she said uncertainly, "but why?"

He shrugged, still smiling a little, "Because that is how it is done between warriors of my kind – if they are honorable at all."

She grinned then, "I do not think that I will ever be able to understand your kind then. One minute, you are cold and look ready to eat the heart of another and the next ... "

"We are this way when it is possible to be," he smiled, "though sometimes it cannot be so. But if every slight or imagined one was hounded and pursued to a mortal ending with bloodshed, the land would be empty once more. Sometimes it is better to let the swords rust quietly in disuse."

Matsu nodded, "I also came to tell you of the arrival of some more men for you to teach. I have been given fourteen – though I could use forty – and I hoped that you might teach them from the beginning, tomorrow if you could begin then.

Also, I still would like to take you for a meal. We are not near the inn where I would have preferred to go, but there is one not far from here where the soldiers go, and to eat with you there while we talk would give my 'cousins' a little time alone together away from the lord's hall."

Valdemar looked at Aiki and Kōichi. They tried to give nothing away, but he could see that they had at least a hope for some time alone together, so he nodded, "One thing, Matsu-san. I have a hope that this place, wherever it is, is not very far away at all. There will be a storm tonight."

She looked at him as though she thought that he was simple. Either that or she wondered if he was a little touched, but she smiled, "No more than five minutes on a horse – and I think of YOUR horse now. Come, wear your leather finery and your cloak for me and be sure to take at least a sword. Where we go is a place frequented by men at arms and it is to be expected if one wants no trouble."

She said nothing this time as she saw the scars on his back, though she thought of how the injustice of it must have felt to him, and though she turned her head a little as he turned around, she did admire his body for a second now and then and when she turned away fully, she saw the others smiling widely at her.

"What?" she asked them in Japanese, "Am I not allowed to show a little professional interest?"

Valdemar missed it and he wondered why Aiki and Kōichi were laughing.

"Pay them no mind," Matsu smiled as she took his arm to guide him out of the door, "I was only admiring your finery."

As she closed the door, they heard Aiki almost shriek with her laughter.

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They rode through the gathering gloom of the afternoon and Matsu found herself looking at the sky now and then, wondering.

She looked over at Valdemar one time afterwards and she found him looking at her with a sly little smile, "Have you decided?"

She shrugged, "What am I to decide?"

"Whether I am an idiot or a fool," he chuckled.

"Neither," she grinned, "Even I can tell that it will snow not long from now, but I see no sign of – "

"It will be thick when it happens, Matsu-san," he chuckled, "Just wait a little."

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True to her word, it didn't take long to reach the inn. After tying up their horses, they walked in and the raucous laughter and banter of the drinking soldiers fell away to almost silence as everyone stared.

Matsu and Valdemar appeared not to notice as they took a pair of seats at one end of what looked to him to be one of the bars in the place. No server came near to take their orders until Matsu slammed her fist on the bar and yelled.

A man almost ran over to them and Matsu ordered for them and the place slowly resumed it's former boisterousness.

"Where did you learn to shoot so well with a bow?" Matsu asked Valdemar.

He looked at her, "It depends on what you believe that I truly am."

He smiled, "I could tell you that as a barbarian, it is the first thing that our mothers press into our little hands as we suckle at their breasts."

He looked over and saw her doubtful smirk.

He smiled. "No, hmm? Well then I could tell you that I picked it up while I was running with a pack of other criminal children, robbing the coaches and carriages of the wealthy."

He looked again and saw her smile as she shook her head.

"What if I were to say that I was taught by another lord, an old one who said that I would need to know one day when I was a boy?"

Matsu reached over and patted his bicep lightly, "Save your secrets then. I will not believe it either when you tell me that you grew these arms because a whore grew confused one night and blew when she meant to suck."

He stared at her for a moment and then they both burst into laughter.

As they sat trying to talk and beginning to enjoy themselves, some of the stares turned into comments from several patrons who'd been drinking for a time. Matsu said nothing unless the remarks grew to be too crude, but sometimes even her hot glare didn't cause them to stop since she spent hardly any time in the place these days and many of the men didn't know her.

"Who let the horse in?" one guardsman asked.

Valdemar looked over at Matsu, who shrugged, "That is Taro, the son of Oda-san - a bully who is even more stupid than his father."

"I'm speaking to you, horse," the man said, pushing against Valdemar's shoulder just as he was raising his sake bowl to his lips. The action caused only a little to spill, since the Dane saw it coming from the corner of his eye.

"That is not a horse, Taro-san," a second man laughed, "that is a bear, as large and dim as any of them."

"The first one,"Valdemar said slowly and quietly, "he is the same class as you? As his father?"

She nodded with a sour look, "And he gives us all a reason to be proud – while he sleeps his liquor off. The second one is his friend. He is not Samurai. He is only the son of a landowner. He hopes that his service here and his loud friend's help might see him elevated to Samurai one day. That will never happen."