Free Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein

her about the sword. Why on earth did she hire spies in the first place, if not to give her information? They’d told her about the money, and the expanded fief; even the number of horses was correct. But the sword—a sword he would have ridden to the castle without , and which would have been gifted to him before he ever received the horses—how could they have failed to notice it?
    She was astonished that her husband remained as calm as he’d been, though for every minute their conversation lingered on the weapon he’d looked as if he were going to burst. He had a right to be upset; she should have had the alcove and sword stand already prepared before he ever entered the village. Now she was going to have to sneak a priest in here and have the alcove and stand blessed without her husband’s noticing. No, she decided. Better yet, she would do it when he got the new crossguard fitted, and tell him the blessing was for the sword now that it was truly his own. Yes, the family crest would be perfect for that. Certainly he would not be angry then.
    In the meantime she was going to have to set some of those newlyacquired koku aside for hiring more spies, and more competent ones at that. How was she to be a proper hostess if she didn’t know who her unannounced guests would be well before they arrived? Drooling ill-bred mongrels! How she had gotten by this long with such incompetents in her employ was beyond her understanding.
    She was so mad at them, she almost didn’t notice her husband’s tension. Riding usually took that out of him; he was so natural in the saddle. Today, though, he was decidedly on edge. Was it her failure with the sword stand? Somehow his unease didn’t seem to be directed at her. Unless…yes, of course that was it. It was almost two weeks ago that he’d left, and before he departed, she’d had her monthly bleeding and they hadn’t been able to…Yes, it was clear to her now. It had simply been too long for him.
    An easy problem to solve, she thought, touching her hair. She’d fix it tonight.

10
    The singing of cicadas woke Saito from his sleep. A sheen of sweat cooled his chest as a breeze blew through the tiny gap in the sliding paper doors. Hisami lay next to him, naked, her nipples lavender in the blue moonlight. She was still sound asleep—but then, she could not hear the haunting sound.
    Somehow the melody of the cicadas echoed the whistle of the Inazuma blade slicing through the air. It was as if the two sung in harmony, his memory of the sword’s song a soprano to the alto of the chirping cicadas outside. He could not ignore their harmonizing. It seemed impossible, but as he recalled it, the sword’s hum through the air was an uncanny match to the chirping in the garden. After a minute or two he found he could repress neither the cicadas’ song nor the intrusion of his memories, so he got out of bed. His feet padded silently to the door. Sliding it aside, he stepped through to the next room and closed the door behind him. Hisami stirred slightly as the breeze swelled through the widened gap, but rolled back into her pillow as soon as he pushed the door back home.
    Beautiful Singer was sitting in the sword stand in the alcove. A moonbeam shone through one of the paper windows and cast a silky square of luminescence over the weapon. The blade’s song echoed in Saito’s mind. He walked over to the alcove and picked up the sword.
    Its balance could not have been more perfect. Soundlessly heslid the sword from its ill-fitting sheath and spun it through the air. It was a thing of beauty. Inazuma truly was a master among masters; no other sword smith could possibly duplicate the balance of lightness and strength Saito now held in his hand. Still naked, he had nowhere to wear the scabbard, so he laid it aside, then wrapped both hands reverently around the silk-bound sharkskin handle. Beautiful Singer floated in his grasp. He stepped forward and back with it in a ready stance, the Inazuma