"No use of you running,
Or screaming and crying.
Cuz you've got a home, man,
As long as I've got mine."
("Going Up The Country," Canned Heat)

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"What's all this?" Kaoru asked Lord Hiko
They'd loaded the ox cart that was to take them to Otsu with provisions for the new house: sacks of millet and brown rice, fresh cushions and futons, and bushels of charcoal pellets. The "all this" Kaoru referred to was a quilted cotton bag, a crate packed with shavings, and a silk pouch that stood out against the humdrum household goods like pearls among dried peas.
Lord Hiko smiled. "Wedding gifts," he said, gesturing for Kaoru to open them. Kaoru started with the silk pouch. "This is from Kohana-San."
Inside was a scroll with the tanka poem Kohana-San had composed on the night Kaoru met her written in faultless calligraphy.

"That was kind of her, Kaoru said. She hadn't expected Kohana-San to take her seriously when she said the poem should be a piece of calligraphy to hang on the wall.
Kaoru picked up the quilted cotton bag next. Judging by its size and shape, it contained a naginata.

"So you can practice," Lord Hiko said as Kaoru assembled and examined the weapon. It was shorter and lighter than most naginatas she'd used and better suited to her small, slight frame. "It'll keep you out of trouble."

Kaoru gave him a smile. "Maybe I'll train the women of Otsu," she said. She lunged forward with the naginata in one of the stances she'd practiced every day since childhood. Keep her out of trouble indeed. She could cause a lot of mischief with this.
"What would your uncle think if you raised an army of onna bugeisha to fight for Mibu?"
"He might be almost proud of me for once." She would never forgive Saito for abandoning her to the Inshin-Shishi and calling her a chewed-up plum.
Kaoru rested the naginata against the side of the cart so she could open the third and final present, a tea and sake set made from black lacquered ceramic.

"Every new bride should have one," Lord Hiko said, quite pleased with himself. "I made it myself."

Kaoru examined one of the delicate tea bowls. The workmanship was faultless. Himura had told her that Lord Hiko made pottery as a hobby. Apparently, Lord Hiko was as gifted at making ceramics as he was with a sword. No wonder he was so arrogant. 
"Thank you for everything." Kaoru kissed Lord Hiko on the cheek. He'd been very good to her despite bringing her to a tea house. All those presents.
Lord Hiko took Kaoru's hand to help her into the cart. "We should get going."

This time of year, the peasants of the Kansai region were in the tea fields and rice patties, bringing in the harvests. Lord Hiko winked at the sweet-faced farm girls they passed on the side of the road, who waved and blew kisses back at them.

"Do you think Himura'll be there when we arrive?" Kaoru asked Lord Hiko. Himura left before they set out from Kyoto, saying that he would catch up with them in Otsu. He must have had some business to take care of for Katsura-Sama.

Kaoru had prayed every night since the one she and Himura were forced to flee that the men from the Kohagiya had made it out safely. Though they were Inshin Shishi, they weren't bad men. Most of them were little more than rowdy adolescent boys like her younger brother, Yahiko.
Kami-sama, how she missed the runt.
Lord Hiko nodded to a group of peasant girls wading shin-deep in a rice paddy, their kimonos tucked into their sashes, leaving their shapely legs bare. "I wouldn't expect him much before sundown," he said. The girls giggled as they picked rice shoots.
Despite being old enough to be Kaoru's father, he was still a very attractive man.
"How did you and Himura meet?" Rumor had it that Himura was the womanizing Lord Hiko's bastard son. Kaoru had been curious to know if this was true.
"I found him in the woods during a hunt." Lord Hiko pulled the reins to get the ox to go left. "My retainers thought he was one of the tengu."
"That's a strange way of saying you got him on some peasant woman." Himura's mother must have been like those giggling girls in the rice paddy.
Lord Hiko chuckled. "If I took in every peasant bastard attributed to me, I'd run out of rooms in my castle." 
If Himura wasn't Lord Hiko's illegitimate child, he couldn't be a tengu that'd appeared out of thin air. "Then where did he come from before that?"
The only response Lord Hiko could give her was a shrug.

Otsu was the first checkpoint outside of Kyoto. Lord Hiko showed their forged passports, which stated that he was a potter returning from selling his wares in the capital and Kaoru was his daughter-in-law to an official who looked them over.

Kaoru acknowledged the man with a bow. He didn't seem to buy that they were who their passports said. Despite their rustic clothing, they didn't look like peasants. Lord Hiko carried himself like someone used to being respected and obeyed, and Kaoru had the glossy hair and white skin of a pampered lady. Still, he let them through.
The village where Lord Hiko kept his safe house was on the outskirts of Otsu, along the Seta River.  Mount Hiei's green slopes loomed in the distance. Kaoru laughed. I'll accept you, she'd told Himura, if you burn Tomoe-San's letters and sprinkle them from the top of Mount Hiei.
That should stop him from sniffing around her as if she was a bitch in heat.

Lord Hiko's safe house stood at the edge of a flooded rice paddy. The house and its surrounding yard and garden appeared to be stranded on an island, only accessible by a dirt road. When Lord Hiko's ox cart approached, he and Kaoru were greeted by a lordly crowing from the persimmon tree marking the beginning of the property. Kaoru looked up. A white onagadori rooster with long, streaming tail feathers sat on one of the branches.

Kaoru bowed to the rooster. "Hello," she said.
Her new friend, Rooster-San's, harem of wives pecked about in the yard. They scattered when Lord Hiko pulled up in front of the house and stopped the cart.
"What do you think?" Lord Hiko asked as he helped Kaoru down.
Kaoru looked up. Like its neighbors in the village, the house was one story tall with a wooden engawa and a thatched roof, something right out of one of those idyllic woodblock prints of rural life. "It's charming," she said. 

"Take a look around while I unload the cart."
The inside of the house was clean and tidy. The wood floors gleamed in the sunlight coming in through the shutters. Fresh tatami mats were placed around the central hearth, and the rafters were swept clear of dust and cobwebs. A koto sat in the corner next to a spinning wheel. 
Lord Hiko must have sent some of his servants to prepare the house for their arrival.

Kaoru placed a furoshiki bundle, filled with snacks made by Misao, that she'd carried in her lap all the way from Kyoto on the low table. She was hungry and thirsty, and Lord Hiko probably was too. So, she went to fetch water from the well in the backyard, which was surrounded by a lush garden of herbs and vegetables.
The same servants who'd cleaned the house would have also been tending the garden.
Lord Hiko was carrying Kaoru's tea set when she returned with a bucket of water. He smiled at her. "We'll make a good little housewife out of our princess after all," he said, opening the crate and taking out two cups.
Kaoru knelt down next to the table. "As long as Himura isn't too disappointed with my efforts in the kitchen." She untied the furoshiki. Inside were onigiri and mochi. "My talents lie elsewhere."
Growing up, Kaoru never had much of a reason to be in the kitchen. She didn't like cooking and wasn't good at it, and there were always servants to do it for her. Even if Misao's onigiri and mochi tasted like mud, they were still better than anything Kaoru could make.
One of the mochi was wrapped in a piece of paper. Written on it were the words: Stay where you are, we will find you- A. Kaoru hid the note in her sleeve while Lord Hiko wasn't looking. So her cousin hadn't forgotten about her after all.

"Decide on me, yeah, decide on us."
("Sleep On The Floor," The Lumineers)

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After dining with Lord Hiko, Kaoru went down to the river for a swim. The day was hot and humid, and her kimono stuck to her skin. When she peeled it off and shook out the dust from the road, Aoshi's note fell from the sleeve. Kaoru tore the note and sprinkled the pieces in the river.
Clean and refreshed after her swim, Kaoru returned to the farmhouse and was greeted by the delicious scents of miso soup and fried fish. Himura had lit a fire in the hearth and started cooking dinner. He rose and bowed to Kaoru. "Welcome back, Kaoru-Dono," he said. "Food's almost ready."
Kaoru bowed back at him. So she was no longer Kamiya-Dono but Kaoru-Dono? "When did you get here?" she said.
"Not long ago." Himura turned over a fish he was frying in a pan.
Poor Himura looked exhausted, and his clothes were drenched in sweat. Not only had he probably been on his feet all day, traveling from Kyoto to Otsu, he was now slaving over a hot fire to cook for her. Kaoru would have to thank him for picking up her slack by drawing him a bath after dinner. She sniffed. Himura definitely needed one. He smelt worse than the fish.
Lord Hiko knelt beside a saké barrel on the table with a wooden mallet on either side.

"Where did this come from?" Kaoru asked. It hadn't been among what they'd brought from Kyoto. Lord Hiko had shown unusual restraint in not having broken it open already.
"Himura brought it," Lord Hiko said. "The sake was brewed by the priests of Enryaku-ji temple."

"Really?" The barrel looked like it weighed about as much as two small children and Himura had carried it all the way from Enryaku-Ji Temple, which was at the summit of Mount Hiei... Kaoru's jaw dropped. He hadn't!
"Kenshin." Himura turned around to face Lord Hiko. "Why don't you help Kaoru-Chan do the honors?"
Kaoru followed Himura's lead and picked up one of the wooden mallets. Smashing open the lid of a sake barrel was a ceremony meant to bless the new house and their life together in it, as if they were a newlywed couple.

During dinner, Lord Hiko drank so much that he passed out at the table. Himura rose to clean the table but Kaoru stopped him.
"I'll take care of it," she said. It wasn't fair for him to have to cook and clean.
If Kaoru had made them, the soup would have tasted like pond sludge, the rice would have chipped their teeth, and the fish would have given them food poisoning. But Himura would have run for the hills and forgotten all about marrying her.
While Kaoru tidied up, Himura sat out on the engawa to enjoy the evening cool. The sun had set and the cicadas buzzed. It seemed pleasant, but that wasn't the reason Kaoru joined him when she finished. She had a bone to pick with him.
Kaoru knelt down next to Himura. "This one would like to know how Kaoru-Dono enjoyed the food," Himura said. There it was again, Kaoru-Dono. Kaoru began to loosen her obi. No one could say she wasn't a woman of her word. Her bare shoulders made Himura turn white. "What are you doing?"
"Isn't this what you want?" She said. Wasn't he just looking to go to bed with her and that was it? If she got this over with, he would leave her alone.
Himura pulled her kimono back over her shoulders. "We'll do this properly and wait until a traveling priest passes through the village."
Kaoru breathed a sigh of relief. This should buy her some time so Aoshi could find her.