John Flanagan - The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

Halt nodded. 'You're right. It might take a little longer than we expected.' He looked at Alyss. 'Perhaps we should take a couple of rooms in this ryokan of yours, the one with the waddling crane.'

'That's the flying crane, Halt,' she told him. 'But you could be right. That way, we'll give Atsu a chance to come to us unobtrusively. He might not want to be seen boarding a foreign ship.'

Halt turned to Gundar. 'We'll go ashore tonight after dark,' he said. 'No sense in letting more people than necessary get a good look at us. Will you be giving your men a run ashore?'

Gundar nodded. 'They've earned it. But I'll make sure they stay out of trouble.'

'I'd appreciate that. We may have to stay at the inn for more than one night, so try to keep your men confined to the dock area. Don't let them wander further afield.'

'Most of what they'll want will be in the dock area,' Gundar said. 'If it foams and goes in a tankard, that's what they're looking for.'

Halt turned apologetically to Selethen and Evanlyn. 'I'm afraid I'm going to ask you to remain aboard and stay out of sight as much as possible,' he said. Both of them nodded immediately, understanding his reasoning.

'You're right, Halt,' Selethen agreed. 'Too many exotic gaijins wandering around will draw comment, and that might frighten our man off.'

Evanlyn smiled at the Wakir. 'Do you include me as an exotic gaijin?' she asked and he nodded gravely.

'Perhaps the most exotic of all, my lady,' he said.

Halt was pleased to see that Evanlyn had accepted his decision that she should not go ashore. That reminded him of something else that had been on his mind.

'Alyss, do you think you might do something to make yourself a little less exotic?' he asked. 'I was thinking about your hair, in particular.'

She nodded agreement. 'I've been thinking the same thing. I'll get busy on it right away.'

As she turned away, Evanlyn surprised her by asking, 'Can you use any help with that?'

Alyss turned back and smiled at the princess. 'I'd appreciate that,' she said. 'A girl always likes a second opinion when she tries a new style.'

The two girls disappeared into the stern cabin once more. Will watched them go, then asked Halt, 'Anything you'd like me to do? Grow a beard? Learn to walk like a rooster?'

'If you could stop asking facetious questions, that'd be a start,' Halt told him. 'But it's probably a little late in life for you to do that.'

Halt and Will were waiting by the gangplank for Alyss to emerge from the cabin. The two Rangers looked relatively anonymous in their mottled cloaks, and with their cowls drawn up to conceal their faces. Their massive longbows couldn't be concealed, of course, and Halt had wondered if they should leave them aboard. But then he reasoned that they were going into unknown territory and he wasn't willing to do that without his principal weapon.

The hatch to the rear cabin slid open and Alyss emerged onto the deck.

She wore a long, dark cloak, also with a cowl pulled up and masking her face. She was tall – there wasn't a lot Alyss could do to conceal that fact. But she walked stooped over, and that helped a little. When she came abreast of them and flicked back the cowl, Will muttered in astonishment.

Her long hair was gone, cut short to frame her face. And where it had been a gleaming blonde in colour, now it was black – jet black. Alyss's familiar face smiled out at him from this decidedly unfamiliar frame. And yet, there was something different about her face as well. He peered more closely in the uncertain light of the gangway lantern and realised that she had applied some kind of stain to her skin to darken her complexion, changing it from its normal fair colouring to a light olive brown.

'Good grief!' he said. It was disconcerting in the extreme. She was Alyss. But then again, she wasn't. It was like a stranger with Alyss's eyes and Alyss's familiar smile.

'Not perhaps the most flattering reaction,' she said, and he added to the list, Alyss's familiar voice.

'Well done, Alyss,' Halt said approvingly. 'You've worked wonders.'

'Evanlyn did most of it,' Alyss said, indicating the princess as she emerged on deck. 'I couldn't have cut the hair by myself and it was her idea to stain my skin a darker shade.'

'Good grief,' Will said once more. Alyss frowned at him. Alyss's familiar frown, he thought.

'Must you keep saying that?' she said.

'But…how did you do it?' Will asked, and Alyss shrugged.

'I'm a Courier,' she said. 'We never know when we might have to go undercover, so part of our standard travelling equipment is a disguise kit. Skin dye, hair colouring and so on. We cut the hair short because I only had a small bottle of dark hair colour.'

'Well, you won't be mistaken for a local,' Halt said. 'But you'll excite far less comment than you would as your usual, blonde self.'

Selethen had been eyeing the results of the girls' work for some minutes.

'Personally, since I'm used to ladies with darker skins, I find this new look quite glamorous indeed,' he said.

Alyss smiled at him and dropped a small curtsey in his direction. She saw Will draw breath for another comment and said, without looking at him, 'If you say "good grief" again, I'll kick you.'

Since that had been what he was going to say, he said nothing.

The three of them slipped down the gangplank and headed down the quay. As they reached the street that ran parallel to the harbour, they hesitated.

'Right or left?' Halt asked.

'Or straight ahead?' Will put in. There was a broad road ahead of them, flanked by the lights of what might be shops, taverns and bars. It was difficult to tell as the signs were all in incomprehensible Nihon-Jan characters. The road itself was erratic, zigzagging haphazardly, and they could see numerous smaller roads and side alleys branching off from it. Of the three choices, straight ahead seemed the most likely, Halt thought. He took an uncertain pace towards in that direction, then hesitated.

'Why will men never ask directions?' Alyss said. She had noticed a small group of locals perched on the harbour wall, fishing rods protruding out over the dark water. She strode towards them now and, as they became aware of her approach, she stopped and bowed politely. One of the fishermen scrambled down from the wall and bowed in return. Alyss spoke quietly to him for a second or two. There was a certain amount of pointing and arm waving, obviously indicating a sequence of direction changes. Then the man held up three fingers to make sure she understood fully. She bowed again and turned back to where Halt and Will were waiting.

'What did he say?' Will asked.

She smiled at him. 'He said my Nihon-Jan was excellent. Then he sort of spoiled that by adding "for a gaijin". Still, a compliment's a compliment, I suppose.'

'Was your excellent Nihon-Jan good enough to understand his directions to the rillokan?' Will asked sarcastically.

'That's ryokan, and yes, it was. Straight along that main road to the third lantern. Then left, then fourth right. There'll be a graphic of a crane outside the inn – a flying one,' she added, forestalling any comment from Halt. The Ranger simply shrugged.

'So I was right. It is this way,' he said as they set off.

The buildings were set close together, built from timber and with thatched roofs. Doors and windows were covered with sliding screens whose translucent panes showed the warm yellow of lanterns shining inside. Halt stepped a little closer to one and studied the small panels in the door.

'It's paper,' he said. 'Heavy paper. Probably waxed or oiled to make it rain proof. But it lets light through and preserves privacy at the same time. Ingenious.'

'Not so ingenious if a burglar wants to get in,' Will said. The doors and windows looked decidedly flimsy, he thought.