| [Sep. 4th, 2017|11:34 pm] |
"Plenty of things, recently." The woman met her eyes. "My name is Noriko."
"Kurenai. This is Genma." No surnames here; Noriko wanted trust more than identity. Kurenai reached a hand up, and after a moment Genma folded down on the edge of the bench next to her, where he could still watch the mouth of the alley.
Noriko fiddled with the shutter of the lantern, then placed it on the ground and folded her hands in her lap. "You searched Harubi's house?"
"She's not there." Kurenai had no intention of withholding that information. Gratitude could work as many wonders as greed. "Neither her nor the children. Nor their bodies."
"Oh." Noriko sagged a little, boneless with relief. "I wouldn't have put it past him. Harubi said once— And we'd all seen him lose his temper, that time with the rice merchant's guard…"
"Nomiya has enemies?" Kurenai pressed.
"Either enemies or hangers-on. More of the latter, these days." Noriko's fists clenched. "He's so often right, that's the trouble of it. About electrification, about the contracts, about driving off the bandits last year. He's a good brewer and he makes a good leader for the village. And so everybody pretended not to notice what he did to Harubi…"
Genma asked quietly, "What did he do to the rice merchant's guard?"
Noriko looked up at him with a flash of fury. "The man tried to flirt with Harubi, so Nomiya beat him unconscious. I don't know if he died. The merchants took him away before he woke up. And people said Nomiya was defending her." She spat the words. "He was just making sure everyone knew what he'd do to anyone who tried to help her."
A muscle twitched in the side of Genma's jaw. His voice stayed level, calm. "Was that something he thought he had to worry about? Had she been unfaithful to him?"
Kurenai looked sharply at him. Noriko boiled over. "What if she had? How does that excuse him beating her? If you—"
"It doesn't excuse him," Genma interrupted. "At all. But it might explain where she is, if she had someone to go to."
"Ah." Noriko bit her lip, then shook her head. "She loved him, that's the worst part. At least at first. And then there were the children, and she just wanted— She talked about going away, to her parents in Kanagawa or somewhere else, but he'd have come after her. And the brewery would be her children's, someday. She couldn't make them beggars."
Kurenai flexed her hands and carefully did not say, She should have come to us. Maybe they could still rectify that, though. If they could find Harubi safe, first. |
|