Free Dream of a Spring Night (Hollow Reed series) by I.J. Parker

irritating girl!   She is truly like “the ceaseless cry of the cicadas.”
     
    Of course, I should have suspected it would not end there.   Far too many young men lost their way and had to be chased from the women’s quarters like pesky gnats.   Far too often did I find one of them seated outside the shades conversing with someone and lingering with the moon until dawn.   As a rule, one assumes that a lady has received a visit from a brother or that the visitor carried a message from her parents or husband, but alas, people tell lies.
     
    One day, I caught her.   She was in one of the eave rooms, kneeling just inside the lowered shade and pushing something under it to the outside.   And there on the veranda, clearly outlined by his shadow, sat a man.   Their hands must have touched.   No, worse.   The exchange of poems speaks of intimacy, of shocking night time visits, of bodies touching and hands caressing, of burning flesh.
     
    It had to be stopped.   Heaven forbid His Majesty should discover her betrayal.   Or one of the other ladies should find out.   Such affairs cannot be kept secret for long.   And what if there were results?   In either case, the blame would fall on me.   The thought of His Majesty’s disappointment was an agony and I prayed for deliverance.
     
    Thank heaven, my prayer was heard:   Her father and brother arrived, and instantly I saw the path to salvation.   They must be made to take her away with them.   The “tears she sheds in parting” will turn to dew and refresh me in the days to come.
     
    They were country boors, both of them, just as I expected.   Crude, gross men with dark faces.   They even wore armor – inside an imperial residence!   After all the horrors that soldiers have committed in this city, and even to the person of His Majesty, these two wore their armor!   Not even the Taira and Minamoto generals dare to do that.
     
    To be fair, the brother, being young, was not without a certain attractiveness.   He had a handsome set of shoulders and very good legs.   I was reminded that it will soon be time for the Sumo matches.   His muscles would make an excellent showing there.   For all his roughness, my poor woman’s heart beat a little faster at the thought.   There is something most pleasing about masculine strength when tamed by a woman’s gentle touch.   I must try for a verse on the subject.   The pine and the wisteria?   A rocky promontory jutting into a softly lapping sea?   A hawk, diving for a dove?
     
    But I digress.  
     
    The father was the usual type.   He addressed me rudely, demanding to see his daughter.   Demanding!   It made me angry to see such country scum behave as if they owned us all.   I countered his bad manners by becoming very ladylike and reminding him that his daughter came here only by His Majesty’s excessively generous invitation.
     
    Then the idea came to me in a flash, a moment of true enlightenment.   I added that by now she had outstayed her welcome -- a crooked branch in His Majesty’s flower garden.
     
    It was only a little lie, really.   The girl would have been sent home sooner or later.   Making her leave now will spare His Majesty embarrassment.
     
    I saw that my small stratagem was working when the father’s face filled with shame and righteous anger at his offspring.
     
    So I sent her in, certain that her mortified relatives would instantly pack her up and remove her to whatever rough hovel they inhabit in their wilderness.   Once she was back in her rustic dwelling, His Majesty would hardly send for her again.   No doubt he has already awakened from that “brief dream.”  
     
    I planned to inform him that she had begged most urgently to visit her ailing mother.   Women her mother’s age are always ailing with something.    As His Majesty is a most understanding man and respects proper filial behavior, he would leave well enough alone, I thought.
     
    But alas, they did not