by Nick Lake
“Please,” said the lady. “Take my ring. It’s not much, but—”
Shusaku held up his hands. “My fingers are too large. And we don’t need money.”
The lady turned to Taro, and he felt his heart hammer in his chest as her perfect face broke into a smile. She looked at his bow. “Your skill with that thing saved my life.”
Taro felt his face flush hotly. “It was nothing.”
“Nonsense. I have practiced with the bow. It takes a steady eye to accomplish those kinds of shots.” She held out a hand. “And it’s a beautiful one. May I see it?”
Taro handed her the bow, and she lifted it with assurance, pulling back on the string with surprising strength. She let it go with a singing twang. “Not the kind of craftsmanship I would expect to see carried by … people like you.”
Taro looked down, uncomfortable at being a peasant in the presence of a princess, and a beautiful one at that. “It is my most prized possession,” he said. “My father made it.”
She looked at Shusaku.
“No,” said Taro. “He’s not my father.”
“Ah. Your own father is …”
“Gone.”
“Ah.” Sympathy lit her features. “But you love your father.” She said it as a statement, not a question.
Taro nodded.
“Then you are lucky indeed.” She handed him the bow. “I wonder why he made the grip so thick,” she said, almost as an afterthought.
“I’m sorry?”
She touched the grip, and since he was holding it, her hand brushed his own, sending a tingling warmth down his arm. “This part. It’s not normally so thick. See?” She traced the wood, and Taro could see where the width of the grip gave way to the gentler curve of the bow itself—the grip standing proud of the single piece of wood that had been shaved into the shape of the bow. He had never noticed before. It was almost as if …
Shusaku cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but we really should be going.”
Taro caught his eye and then looked away from the girl, blushing again, because he could see amusement in the ninja’s expression—a wordless commentary on his obvious infatuation with the lady.
“Well,” she said. “I shall let you go. Thank you again for saving me.” She turned to go, but then hesitated, looking at Taro. “Your … protector would not accept my gift. But perhaps you will?” She proffered the ring. “Consider it a gift. And a token of my regard.”
Taro glanced at Shusaku, who shook his head. “Thank you,” said Taro, “but you’re too generous.”
“Please?” she said, and her beautiful forehead creased in a frown. “My father will never notice. But I would not forgive myself if I did not do this one small thing.” She pressed the ring into Taro’s hand, and he looked at Shusaku again, who shrugged.
Taro bowed. “You do me honor.”
“No. You did me honor by coming to my rescue.”
With a little wave she hurried into the village. Taro looked down at the ring in his hand, a twisted band of gold and silver. It looked more valuable than anything he had seen before. He slipped it onto his little finger.
It fit perfectly.
“Well,” said Shusaku. “What a day. You’re to be shogun, it seems, and you’ve already claimed the heart of a lady.”
Taro punched him on the arm. “Very funny.”
But the heat on his face didn’t come just from Shusaku’s joke. It came from hoping that the ninja was right.
Shusaku cocked his head, gesturing for Taro and Hiro to follow him. “We should cover our traces,” he said. “See to that merchant.”
“You want to kill him?” said Taro, shocked.
Shusaku tutted. “I don’t kill everyone I meet,” he said in a hurt tone.
They returned to the clearing. The merchant who had swallowed the jewel was breathing regularly, though he still didn’t wake. Shusaku and Hiro carried him to the edge of the village, and laid him down where the peasants would find him as soon as they went to their fields.
Then they returned to the woods and dug shallow graves in the undergrowth. They buried the corpses of the ronin, but not before Shusaku and Taro had drunk of their blood.
No one said the Amida Butsu prayer over the dead men. They assumed that these ronin would be sent straight to the realm of hungry ghosts, and the idea didn’t bother any of them.
It was as Taro was patting down the earth with a branch that the sound of a twig cracking made him whirl around to face the darkness of the forest, and then a familiar figure stepped out into the clearing, followed by another that was equally known to Taro—shorter, more muscular, less elegant.
“Didn’t take you long to get into trouble, did it?” said Yukiko.
CHAPTER 27
Lady Hana returned to her inn alone, where she told her retinue what had befallen her, only omitting to mention her rescuers—at their request. “You must have been very brave to defeat those men,” said her chief guard. “You should be proud. Only a true samurai could be so brave.”
Hana smiled. Once, she had believed it—that honor and bravery were the sole preserve of samurai, just as lines and nets were the preserve of fishermen.
But she believed it no longer.
CHAPTER 28
They weren’t far from the mountain, according to Shusaku, but they hadn’t left the abbess’s house until far into the night, and now pale sunlight was beginning to filter through the leaves.
Shusaku led the way through the trees to a stream, then up the stream to a deep cave in a rock cliff face.
“We’ll be safe from the sun here,” he said, moving through the clammy, cold entrance and into the darker, warmer recess behind. As he began to build a fire, he watched Heiko and Yukiko, who were looking around uneasily for somewhere to sit, wary of their expensive silk kimonos.
“So she just sent you away?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Yukiko. “We were about to eat. Fish,” she added, irrelevantly. “Her eyes went, and then when they came back again, she told us to leave right away. We didn’t want to, but …”
“She can be very persuasive,” said Shusaku. Heiko nodded, then wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.
“Do you think anything’s happened to her?” asked Yukiko.
Shusaku sighed. “I don’t know. But if it has, then she has kept you safe. You should be proud of that.”
Yukiko sniffed, nodding stiffly.
“How did you find us, anyway?” asked Shusaku.
“We followed his tracks,” said Yukiko, pointing at Hiro. “He’s like a buffalo on two legs.”
“Hey!” said Hiro.
“It’s true,” said Heiko. “You weren’t very hard to track.”
“Hmmm,” said Shusaku. “It’s a good job we’re close to the mountain.” He paused. “But to be safe, I’m going to do a perimeter search. The sunlight is not yet bright enough to harm me.” He wrapped his scarves around his face and went to the cave entrance. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Taro nodded, absently. He sat down on a rock and took his bow from his shoulder. He twanged the string experimentally, then ran his fingers down the belly of the bow. No warping. That was good. The first arrow he had shot at the ronin had veered marginally to the left, and he had been worried that the bow itself might have been damaged by the water. Putting the bow aside, he removed from his quiver the arrows that he had recovered from the men’s bodies. He had already cleaned them on the grass, but now he checked the flights and the arrowheads, assuring himself that they would fly true. Picking up the bow again, he stringed one of the arrows and sighted down its length.
Good.
He put down the bow and began to slide the arrows into the quiver. From the corner of his eye he saw Heiko sit down beside him, absorbed in looking at his bow, no longer worried about the damp rock against her clothes. Yukiko and Hiro were wrestling at the mouth of the cave, each trying to throw the other into the stream.
“I wish they wouldn’t do that,” said H
eiko. “Someone could get hurt.”
“Yes,” said Taro. “It’s not really fair to fight with someone so much weaker. You should really tell your sister to go easy on him.”
Heiko laughed. “She wouldn’t listen.”
“No. Nor would he. That’s the problem.”
Heiko turned away from the two wrestlers. She was examining the bow, admiringly.
“This is beautiful craftsmanship,” she said.
“Thank you. My father made it.”
Satisfied that the arrows would fly true, Taro put the quiver aside. But when he turned to Heiko, she was looking at the inside of the bow’s arc, frowning.
“What is it?” Taro asked.
“That symbol …”
She was looking at the little emblem carved into the bow’s inside arc, the circle of hollyhock leaves.
“You know what it is?” said Taro, his eager voice betraying his own curiosity. “I asked my mother, but she—”
Heiko put a hand on his arm and frowned, pensive. “Taro. It is the mon of the Tokugawa lords.”
CHAPTER 29
Taro shook his head. “It can’t be. My father made that bow.” But something itched at the back of his mind. It felt like a mouse was turning restlessly inside his skull. For the first time Taro allowed himself to think a thought that he had always repressed: What if he didn’t make that bow at all?
There was something else too—his bow was not the only thing that bore the symbol. Shusaku’s sword, too, was marked with it.
Did Shusaku work for Lord Tokugawa? Or had he only stolen the sword?
“Perhaps your father did make it,” said Heiko, consolingly. She pursed her lips, looking unconvinced. “Or perhaps … he stole it?”
“My father isn’t a thief! I mean, he wasn’t a thief.”
Heiko looked stricken. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot he was—I didn’t mean …” She looked down at the ground. Taro started to stammer an apology of his own, but she put her hands on his shoulders. “I am truly sorry. I know what it is like to lose one’s parents.”
Taro smiled. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t offended, not really. It was a reasonable question.”
Heiko turned the bow over in her hands. “This must have belonged to one of the Tokugawa lords, or one of their samurai at least,” Heiko said, as she examined the bow. “I wonder how your father got hold of it. Perhaps he served Lord Tokugawa?”
Taro thought of what he had heard behind the screen at the abbess’s house, the story of Lord Tokugawa’s assassination attempt on Lord Oda. He shook his head vigorously. “No. We were vassals of Lord Oda’s. It’s not possible.”
“Your parents worked for Lord Oda?”
“Well, not directly. But they lived on his land. We lived on his land.”
“Your mother was an ama, right?” said Heiko. “The abbess said the son of an ama would be shogun.”
“Yes. She dived for abalone, pearls, that kind of thing.”
“And your father?”
“Just a fisherman.”
Heiko frowned. “It is peculiar. How would a fisherman living in the Kanto of Lord Oda end up with a bow belonging to Oda’s worst enemy?”
Taro blinked. As far as anyone knew, Lord Oda and Lord Tokugawa were the greatest of allies, not enemies. As far as he had known too, until he’d heard the ninja’s conversation with the old woman. What did Heiko know?
“You think Lord Oda and Lord Tokugawa are enemies?” asked Taro.
Heiko laughed. “You don’t?”
“No. I mean, yes, but only because I overheard something and …”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Ah, Taro. Such innocence.” Her eyes had taken on a mocking light.
Taro pulled away. “What? Tell me!”
“I forget that you didn’t grow up with a ninja for a foster mother. The fact is, Oda and Tokugawa hate each other.”
Taro looked down at the bow in his hand, at the elegant mon of Tokugawa. All his life he had believed in the things symbolized by designs such as this—honor, respect, the friendship of samurai for samurai.
Now a curtain had been drawn, and he looked on a Noh theater in which the actors had stripped off their masks, to show the corrupted human faces beneath. Shusaku—and now this girl—referred to daimyos dismissively by their names, not bothering to honor them with their title of lord. And they spoke of murder and intrigue as if it were commonplace.
“But they’re allies,” he said. He knew even as he said it that he sounded like a child, petulant and foolish.
“Of course they’re not. Before he died, Shogun Hideyoshi appointed six lords to watch over his son, the new shogun. Any one of them would love to kill the boy and take his place. That is the battle Oda and Tokugawa fight every day, even if no one sees it.”
“Six lords,” said Taro. “So they should all be enemies. What makes Lord Oda and Lord Tokugawa so different?”
Heiko shook her head. “No. Oda and Tokugawa were clever. They secured the allegiance of the more minor lords. They bribed, they murdered, they married off sisters and cousins, until four of the daimyos on the council of six were little more than vassals. And so now there are two poles of power in the country: Lord Oda and Lord Tokugawa. The other four lords are divided more or less equally between them. It’s never possible to say for sure which side anyone is on, Oda’s or Tokugawa’s, from one day to the next. But what is certain is that either Oda or Tokugawa will be shogun one day. It remains only to be seen who will destroy the other.”
“Someone told Shusaku …,” began Taro.
“Yes?”
“That Lord Tokugawa tried to have Lord Oda killed.” He placed a slight emphasis on the word “lord.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. Either would love to wipe the other out. The problem is they’re both so powerful. All-out war would practically annihilate their armies and leave them in a precarious position. So they pretend to be friends. It’s like a game of Shogi.”
“Lord Tokugawa blamed it on his own son. And killed him for it.” Taro waited for the girl to burst out laughing, to say that this was ridiculous, that a samurai would never do such a thing.
She didn’t.
“Clever,” she said.
“Clever? He cut his son’s head off! It’s … despicable, that’s what it is. It’s not Bushido. It’s not samurai.”
Heiko rolled her eyes. “Samurai commit seppuku, no? If called upon by their lord?”
“Well, yes, but that’s if they fail or … something. Not when they are falsely accused!”
“Falsely accused, yes, but not without reason,” said Heiko. “Tokugawa had to kill his son.”
“Why would he—”
“Think: Now Oda and Tokugawa are at peace again, the murderer has been punished, everyone is happy. Tokugawa has sent his message. He is prepared to honor his alliance with Oda even so far as to kill his own beloved son in support of it.”
“But Lord Oda knows that it was really Lord Tokugawa.”
“Yes, well. Tokugawa has sent a private message also. That he is so ruthless in his pursuit of power that he is willing to sacrifice his family in order to preserve his position.”
Taro felt dizzy. This was not the honorable samurai life of which he had heard tell in stories. “Why would Tokugawa’s …” He corrected himself. “Why would Lord Tokugawa’s son die like that? Why not refuse?”
“He was samurai,” said Heiko simply. “He knew his death would further his father’s aims, bring him closer to one day being shogun. Total loyalty to one’s lord and one’s father is one of the basic precepts of samurai life. That is why samurai are idiots.”
Taro’s mouth dropped open. He had never imagined that anyone—least of all a girl!—could so openly criticize the ruling classes.
“Sorry,” said Heiko sarcastically. “I forget that samurai are sacred to you. I should have remembered. After all, you come from such a high-placed family. You must have come to know and respect many samurai when you lived in that little seaside
village.”
“Oh, very funny,” said Taro distantly. But he was thinking about what she had said, even if she had meant it as a joke. Because that would be one reason why he would have such a bow, wouldn’t it? And a good reason for ninja to want to kill him too. The old woman had said he would one day be shogun.
There was a natural conclusion, but it was so absurd that his mind could only grasp the edge of it, as if it were a structure so colossal the eye could not take in the entirety of its bulk.
What if he wasn’t a peasant? What if he really was a samurai?
Heiko too had fallen silent, thinking. Now she turned to him. “So a simple fisherman’s son has a Tokugawa bow. One day ninja arrive, trying to kill him, and he is rescued by a ninja loyal to Lord Tokugawa—”
Taro cut her off. “Shusaku works for Lord Tokugawa?”
“Didn’t you know?”
Taro shook his head. “No. But just then, when you said what the mon was … I remembered that Shusaku has the same emblem on his sword.”
“He must have kept it from when he was a samurai,” said Heiko.
“You mean … he was one of Lord Tokugawa’s samurai? And now he’s a ninja?”
Heiko nodded.
Taro was astonished. As a child the world had been so simple: There were samurai, who were principled and loyal; there were ronin, who were not; and there were ghosts and evil spirits, who were to be avoided. Now it seemed that there were samurai who could become evil spirits, and yet still retain their loyalty, their principles.
This thought, though, bumped against his own enormous and ludicrous suspicion, and Taro began to feel that it was not even an edge of the structure he was grasping—it was the merest corner of a window, a cornice, a stone lying by the building’s wall.
Heiko frowned. “What is it?”
“I was just thinking … I mean, it’s ridiculous … but those ninja must have come for me for a reason. What if … I mean, what if I wasn’t really a peasant? What if I was samurai? Why else would the ninja want to kill me?” He could see in her expression that she was coming to the same insane thought as him. “What if,” he almost whispered, “I was really someone important to Lord Tokugawa?”