Murasame's Song: Blood

"I can feel the cold," he whispers, so she goes over to him, careful to avoid trailing her robes in the pooling blood, takes his hands in hers and blows on his fingers, softly, warming them. Not much use she knows, but.

He is doing that thing everybody does when they want to be brave and not cry -- widening his eyes, blinking, looking up; letting one or two tears spill all the same. He cannot believe it. She can see this, so she says, pressing her lips to his ear, "you are going to die."

He says no. And no again.

"Yes," she says. "And I still need to know."

He just stares; possibly he doesn't remember the question -- for which he can hardly be blamed. She sighs a little. The Minister is away, his aide is dying in her lap and still she does not have the name she needs. It will be quiet, she had said. Hoped.

He is looking at her, imploring. She smiles, soft, soft. She has to leave; it is the hour of the tiger -- everybody asleep, the castle quiet, she could slip out unnoticed. At the same time she does not want to leave him like that, lost and cold and scared. And maybe he could still talk.

"This will hurt a little," she whispers.

She takes hold of her dagger and pulls it out of his chest. He coughs. More blood. This time he is crying. I don't know, he says, I don't know they don't tell me I just fetch papers I just --

"Well, which papers?" she asks.

He makes a small gesture, towards a corner of the room -- in the lamplight she can just make out the gleam off the edges of a lacquered chest. She smiles again.