11 Chapter 11

Sir Kiba's eyes narrowed suddenly. "Then I hope to Heaven that one day you will fall into the hands of a man who will make you obey," he cried fumingly.

Her scornful mouth curled still more scornfully. "Then Heaven help him!" she retorted bitterly, and turned away to her tent.

But, alone, her anger gave way to amusement. It had been something, after all, to rouse the lazy Kiba to wrath. She knew exactly the grievance he had been nursing against her during the last few weeks in Iwagakure. Though he travelled continuously and often in remote and desolate places, he travelled with comfort and less inconvenience due to the fact that he's a prestigious nobleman from one of the most ancient family and the wealthiest businessman in the Fire Country. He put himself out for nothing, and the inevitable difficulties that accumulated over a period of time fell on Hana's younger and less experienced shoulders. She had always known the uses he put her to and the convenience she was to him. He might have some indifferent feelings with regard to her impudence, he might even have some prickings of conscience on the subject of his upbringing of her, but it was thoughts of his own comfort that were troubling him most. That she knew, and the knowledge of it was not promoting any kinder feeling towards him. He always had been and always would be supremely selfish. The whole of their life together had been conducted to suit his conveniences and not hers. She knew, too, why her presence was particularly desired on his visit to the Lightning Country. It was a hunting trip, but not the kind that they were usually accustomed to: it was a wife he wants to hunt, that was what taking Sir Kiba across the ocean on this occasion. It had been in his mind for some time as an inevitable and somewhat unpleasant necessity. Women bored him, and the idea of marriage was disagreeable, but a son to succeed him was imperative—an Inuzuka must be followed by an Inuzuka. An heir was essential for the big property that the family had held for hundreds of years. No woman had ever attracted him, but of all women he had met, women from the Land of Lightning were less irritating to him, and so he turned his search of a wife into that country. He proposed to take a house in Kumogakure (capital of Lightning Country) for a few months, and it was for that that Hana's company was considered essential. She would save him endless trouble, as all arrangements could be left in her hands and Udons'. Having made up his mind to go through with a proceeding that he regarded as a sacrifice on the family altar, his wish was to get it over and done with as soon as possible, and Hana's interference in his plans had annoyed him. It was the first time that their wills had contradicted, and she shrugged her shoulders impatiently, with a grimace at the recollection. A little more and it would have fall into a vulgar quarrel. She drives out Kiba and his selfishness resolutely from her mind. It was very hot, and she lay very still in the narrow tent, wishing she had not been so rigid in the matter of its width, and wondering if a sudden movement in the night would hurl her into the bath that stood alongside. She thought regretfully of a punkah (a fan used especially in India that consists of a canvas-covered frame suspended from the ceiling and that is operated by a cord), and then smiled silly at herself.

"Sybarite!" (a person who is self-indulgent in their fondness for sensuous luxury) she murmured sleepily. "You need a few discomforts."