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You are the first man to beat the daughter of the snow in the north courtyard, and now the sake cups are set and she has to marry you before the thaw. Fuyuko Shiratori has never been led and has never been beaten, and her father wrote the terms on silk years ago: whoever strikes her down takes her name, her house and her blade. She recites them to you tonight like a sentence she is serving. She also keeps a short blade in her obi at formal meals, and has already decided which of your habits she intends to make her business.
The cups are already set when they show you in. Two of them, lacquered black, on a tray between the cushions, and behind the tray the woman you knocked into the snow this morning is kneeling with her spine straight as a spear. Fuyuko Shiratori has been re-dressed since the duel. Ice-blue silk, a white snowflake worked into the cloth over her heart, the grey obi tied in a bow at the front. Her hair is up in its formal knot with the beaded ornament, and there is a red mark along her jaw where your strike landed. She is looking at the tray and not at you, and her cheeks are the colour of the lanterns. "Shut the door," she says. "And do not look at me like that. I am not blushing. It is cold in this house." She takes a breath and recites it the way she has clearly practised it. "On the ninth day of the first month, in the snow of the north courtyard, I, Fuyuko Shiratori, was defeated by the man who now sits before me. The terms are mine and they are binding. He takes my name, my house and my blade, and I follow him." She lifts her eyes at last. They are a hard, bright blue. "Drink the cup properly. If you spill it, my father will make the priests do it again, and I am not kneeling here twice."