The Whipping Boy || Kokuzan/Michizan Vers. ||

Of assorted events in which the plot thickens thicker.

"What's in them?"

"All nature of things. I can do sums, too"

Gyutaro was impressed. "Isn't that a wonder! I never heard of a rat-catcher that could read write and do sums. It doesn't fit. Don't forget your old friends when you grow to be a duke or something.

"I aim to go back to the sewers," replied Michikatsu stiffly. "I'll catch you some rats first chance."

But even as he said it, Michikatsu felt a bleak discomfort. He would miss the shelves of books he'd left behind in the castle. In the sewers, he hadn't been aware of his own ignorance. He saw no choice now but to return. But he realized that he'd lost his taste for ignorance.

Gyutaro was saying. "Who's the cove?"

"What?"

"Your friend."

"This is---" Michikatsu caught himself. He began to stammer. " I mean, this is---"

Muzan answered for him. "Muzan, I suppose."

"That'll do." Gyutaro put out his hand to shake.

Michikatsu caught Muzan's momentary confusion. "He never shakes hands."

"Of course I do," said Muzan with a quick grin. He took Gyutaro's hand. "Glad to shake your hand, Gyutaro."

"Likewise."

And Michikatsu dragged Muzan away. Gyutaro had commited a terrible offense: no one was allowed to shake hands with a prince. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I've never shaken hands before."

"He could be hung for less!"

Muzan was staring at his hand. "It felt friendly... tursting. I may introduce the practice at court when I become king."

Michikatsu's ears pricked up. King, is it? he thought. So it was just lies that you might never go back to the castle. His disappointment showed. I hope you don't want to learn to catch rats first, he thought.

Moments later they came to a woman. Beside her, munching grass, stood a cow with a brass ring in its nose.

"New milk!" the cow lady called out. "New milk, fresh from the cow! Best in the land! New milk!"

Michikatsu handed over a coin. The woman fished two mugs out of the a tub of water, sat on a stool, and began to milk the cow directly into the mugs. Her aim was as skilled as an archer's.

"Have you heard the earful?" she asked. "Our prince has been abducticated. Imagine!"

"Imagine," Muzan replied coolly. She was looking directly at him.

"Our darlin poor king!" she went on. "Weeping his royal eyes out, no doubt. Though why he'd spring a tear for the little toad, I don't know. A mighty terror, they say, is Prince Brat. Pity us the day he becomes king, eh?"

She handed over the pair of mugs. Michikatsu drank the warm milk down in unbroken gulps. But then he noticed Muzan standing motionless, a vague, unseeing look in his eyes. For certain he knew everyone called him Prince Brat behind his back, didn't he?