Lord Onikage and the furniture ninja - part 1

Lord Onikage slid the fusuma closed behind him, and, now in the privacy of his quarters, allowed himself a small yawn. The moon had set over the flowering cherry trees several hours ago, and the sun was beginning to pinken the eastern sky. It had taken all of the day and most of the night, but he had discharged his duties towards Edo for the next week. In the coming days he could focus on his real task.

He slipped off his geta and padded softly across the room in his tabi. The room was severe and stark, like it's owner, and contained only a single decoration; a large painting, from the Muromachi era, of a women in a sumptuos kimono, sitting on a large couch under a willow.

He carefully avoided looking at the painting as he passed into the adjoining room. The open window let in the first fingers of dawn, and threw into relief the salmon-and-white kimono of his favoured geisha. She sat, still and white as porcelain, before a low table, upon which sat a teapot and a steaming cup of tea. The Lord picked up the cup, inhaled it's delicate jasmine promise, and went to stand before the window. The geisha did not blink, or even appear to breathe.

In the predawn light he could make out his nemesis. It had been there before he was born, before his grandfathers' grandfather was born. Enshrined in a frosted cloak of black, his enemy was menacingly silent. Lord Oinkage could not see past the cloak, but he could sense the brilliant jade aura eminating from somewhere within. His train of thought was broken by the sound of a tear falling onto silk, and he turned to watch her leave the room - she knew what he would do that day.

He knelt before the table and wrote a short note, his brush running over the parchment with masterful effeciency. He had loved the art of calligraphy when he was young - the simpleness of it, the exactness, the black and the white. There was no confusion, no shades of grey.

He finished, and barked for a servant while the sand lay scattered over the parchment, drying the last of the wetness. In a moment, his eldest samurai Wannabe knelt smoothly before his door and slid it open a fraction, bowing low. Oinkage handed him the folded note through the gap, and whispered a name.

Onikage had once seen Watanabe stand firm against a charging yari cavalryman. At the last possible moment, Watanabe had leaped aside and slashed the man from the saddle. One instants hesitation, and Watanabe would have been speared and trampled, but he had not flinched.

He flinched now.