Twelve Lies I Told Shingen Takeda

Chapter Six: Lessons In Flirtation

"Who gave you this?" Shingen glanced up from the anonymous letter I'd written, and 'found.'

"No one," I was able to answer with complete honesty. "It was with the other messages at the drop site near the front gate." (Because I had put it there before leaving to deliver his outgoing messages). I returned my attention to the burr puzzle, carefully laying the pieces out in front in (hopefully) the order needed to reassemble it. (When I'd returned with his messages, Shingen noticed me coveting the puzzle again, had tossed it to me and told me to "do my best.").

He flipped the message over and back, possibly looking for an additional clue to its origin. "Hm."

Curious as to what he thought about Aki's information, I ventured a question. "Is it bad news?"

"Not exactly..." He handed me the letter and let me read it for myself.

Although already familiar with the contents of the letter, it was sort of a thrill to be given it to read. Maybe Shingen was interested in my opinion, maybe he only wanting a sounding board for his own – either way, I was being officially let in on this new puzzle. This puzzle was far more treacherous than the wooden burr puzzle. Pretending the information was a surprise, I read over the letter once with a frown, then re-read it again as if to think things through.

"I guess the question is – since this letter doesn't name which of you was the target, what is the purpose of killing one or more of the three of you, then blaming Nobunaga? Is the endgame one of your deaths with Oda as a convenient, and yet not terribly believable, scapegoat, or is the endgame to use the death of someone close to you or Kenshin to reignite the war? If the latter, which of your deaths is the most likely to achieve that?"

He smiled at me – not one of the flirtatious smiles he used on pretty, well, on all women, but one of genuine approval. I wanted to bathe in that approval until my skin wrinkled. "You parsed that out pretty quickly."

Well, I had had a day and a night to think about it. In fact, I'd been doing nothing but thinking about it all through this afternoon's errands, looking at nearly everyone in the town suspiciously. It hadn't helped that once again, I'd had that prickling sensation of being watched – followed even. At one point, I'd even doubled back through an alley to see if I could locate anyone suspicious. No such luck. I was so new to this place that I didn't know who was supposed to be here and who was a stranger. How could I figure out what was out of place, when technically, I was the one out of place?

Less out of place than yesterday, true. The recipients of the messages all greeted me with smiles today – some had even heard about my archery demonstration. The only non-smiling recipient was Chiyome, who handwaved me through with a stern look. But given that yesterday she'd had her guards hold me at knife point, I considered that a win.

Once again I went back to the wooden puzzle, building the center structure so the exterior pieces would have something to grab onto (hopefully the notches were in the right places), to keep my hands busy while my brain considered issue of the assassination attempt. Finding out the "who" at this point was unlikely, especially as the sniper had passed away overnight. I felt another wave of regret for his death, then out of necessity, pushed past that to consider once again the "why."

Bizarre conspiracy theories occupied my thoughts until I realized that the comforting sound of Shingen's brush against the paper had stopped. I glanced up to see him watching me. Did he want me to continue speculating? Maybe he needed someone around to bounce ideas off - this kind of discussion had always been one of the more intriguing aspects of working for Aki. "If it's the first possibility and someone wants you dead, do you know anyone who wants to kill you?"

That got a short laugh out of him. "Dozens. None who would bother to pin it on someone else. They'd simply kill me." Then his mood altered in an instant, changing from contemplative to bleak, his knuckles gripping the edge of the desk so tightly they whitened. "Not that it would be necessary."