by Susan Spann
Questions flooded Hiro’s mind, making him realize just how little he knew about Father Mateo. He had never considered the priest as anything more, or less, than his current self.
“We were speaking of Yuji,” the Jesuit said.
“Not anymore. What changed your mind about acting?”
Father Mateo shrugged. “Things happened, and I chose another path.” His tone suggested he had no intention of answering further questions. “Now, about Yuji.”
Hiro put the Jesuit’s past aside for the moment. “I agree that he had a motive to murder Emi. However, that answer seems too simple.”
“Murder doesn’t have to be complicated,” Father Mateo said.
“It usually isn’t,” Hiro agreed, “but your solution doesn’t account for the mask or the coin. Even a simple explanation must incorporate all of the relevant facts.”
“Unless the coin and mask are not connected to the crime,” the Jesuit said.
“True.” Hiro nodded. “We’re missing too many facts to know for certain.”
“What if Emi saw the samurai leave the Yutoku-za with the mask, and he saw her too, and followed her to the river. When she ran into Jiro, the samurai waited until the boy fell asleep and then approached her.”
“She wouldn’t have gone with him,” Hiro said. “Why would she walk away from Jiro with someone she didn’t trust? Especially if she saw him taking something of value from her home?”
“Maybe she knew him,” Father Mateo suggested.
“Actors’ daughters do not follow samurai so quickly. Also, Emi would have gone with the killer only if she knew that Jiro wouldn’t object to seeing them together. Otherwise, she would not risk him waking . . .”
“Those facts point to Yuji as the killer,” Father Mateo said. “She knew him, and Jiro could hardly object to Emi speaking with her sister’s betrothed.”
“Those facts condemn the entire Yutoku-za—except for Haru, who lacked the physical strength to kill his sister,” Hiro said.
“We can eliminate the women, also.” Father Mateo seemed annoyed.
“Perhaps the older ones,” Hiro said. “But all of this means nothing. We must leave the city—now—before the yoriki learns about the dōshin’s disappearance and before that merchant comes to replace Luis.”
“Satsu is family.” Father Mateo sounded disappointed. “How can you turn your back on his distress?”
“He released us,” Hiro said, “and even if he hadn’t, duty supersedes a family obligation. As you so recently pointed out, I swore an oath to keep you alive, and I hold it just as sacred as you hold the vows you make to your god.”
Father Mateo had drawn a breath, but released it without speaking.
Hiro pressed his advantage. “Would your god have sent me to guard you if he wanted you to die? Strategic retreat is not surrender. Sometimes it offers the only path to victory.”
“Yes, but—”
Hiro raised a hand for silence. With the other, he pointed down the darkened road.
Across the street from the Jesuit’s home, the neighbor’s Akita barked with a fury far too great for wind or shadows.
Father Mateo whispered, “Is something wrong?”
“The dog started barking when we made the turn from the river road.” Hiro strained his eyes, but saw no movement in the shadows. “It hasn’t stopped.”
“Most likely just the wind and fallen leaves,” Father Mateo said.
“That doesn’t explain it barking so intensely for so long.” Hiro stopped walking. “We should turn back.”
“It’s probably nothing,” the Jesuit said, “and if it’s not, we can’t abandon Ana and Luis.”
Luis, I could leave, Hiro thought. Aloud, he added, “I cannot let you walk into danger.”
“I am neither an invalid nor a child,” Father Mateo said, “and only a coward runs away from danger.”
Hiro scowled. “If you were any other man, that insult would have cost your life.”
“If you were any other man, I would have held my tongue.” Father Mateo took a step forward. “I’m going to check on Ana. You can come with me, or not, as it suits you.”
He continued toward home at a rapid walk.
Hiro followed with an angry sigh. As he caught up, he laid a hand on the Jesuit’s arm. “Please stop.”
To his surprise, Father Mateo obeyed.
Hiro drew his katana and handed the longsword to the priest. “Take this. It seems you’ve forgotten to bring your own.”
“Keep it,” Father Mateo said.
“Only a child or an invalid goes into a fight unarmed.” Hiro drew his wakizashi. “I can defend myself well enough with the shorter one.” Along with the weapons in my sleeve—though Hiro kept the last part to himself.
Father Mateo held the sword with an awkward, double-handed grip.
Hiro shook his head. “Try not to stab yourself—or me.”
“No promises.”
As they approached the house, the Akita released another stream of furious, snarling barks.
“He’s barking at us,” the Jesuit whispered.
“Quiet,” Hiro whispered back. “If we’re attacked, keep your back to mine. Don’t let them separate us or get behind you.”
Father Mateo nodded.
Hiro pushed the front door open and paused to listen. He heard no movement and smelled no foreign scents. Orange light glowed through the paneled walls between the entry and the common room—a fire still burned in the Jesuit’s hearth.
Hiro crossed the entry using a special step that silenced his movements on the wooden floor. He slipped his free hand into his sleeve and retrieved a hidden shuriken. He hoped he wouldn’t need it, but felt better with a weapon in each hand.
When he reached the doorway, Hiro drew a breath and peered into the common room.
CHAPTER 35
Gato lay on her side by the hearth, enjoying the warmth of the dying fire. Otherwise, the room looked empty.
Hiro stepped through the doorway and gestured for Father Mateo to follow. They paused by the hearth. Hiro raised a finger for silence. Father Mateo nodded.
The paper panels that led to the rooms belonging to Hiro, Father Mateo, and Luis were dark, but pale light flickered on the opposite side of the kitchen door.
Hiro started toward the kitchen, motioning for the priest to stay behind him.
Father Mateo touched Hiro’s arm and pointed to Luis’s room. The shinobi shook his head. If the merchant was home, he was sleeping . . . or dead. Not worth disturbing, either way.
As they reached the kitchen door, they heard a rustling from the other side. A shadow flickered across the panels. It grew in size and clarity as the figure approached the door.
The shadowed person wielded a staff.
Hiro drew a breath to calm his heart.
On the other side of the sliding door, a shadowed hand reached for the paneled frame.
Hiro raised his sword as the door slid open—and jumped away with a startled noise.
Ana stood before him with a poker in her hands.
The metal pole had cast a shadow like a fighting staff.
The housekeeper shrieked and swung the poker. Hiro ducked, avoiding the strike by inches.
“Ana!” Father Mateo called. “It’s us—just me and Hiro!”
“Ai!” Ana shrieked. “Why are you sneaking around like a pair of thieves?” She glared at Father Mateo and then at Hiro, fury etched in every wrinkle of her face.
“The neighbor’s dog was barking,” Father Mateo said.
“It barks at everything . . . and nothing.” Ana scowled. “I might have killed you.”
“But you didn’t,” the Jesuit said.
Hiro straightened and looked around, half expecting a real attack. A good assassin took advantage of the enemy’s confusion.
“Why were you prowling around like a pair of shinobi?” Ana demanded.
“We wanted to save you.” Father Mateo sounded like a child caught with forbidden sweets.
“Hm. Only thing I need saving from is you.” Ana waggled the poker at Hiro. “This was probably your idea.”
Hiro felt his cheeks grow warm. Ana blamed him for everything, but this time it was warranted.
The housekeeper turned toward the stove and lowered the poker. “Wait by the hearth. I’ll bring you a meal.” She glanced at Hiro. “You too, though you don’t deserve it.”
After eating, Hiro returned to his room and changed into a dark-colored tunic and trousers. He slid the veranda door open and knelt in the doorway, enjoying the cool air as he prepared for his evening meditation.
Gato gave a happy trill and trotted past him into the night.
Hiro closed his eyes and attuned his senses to the sounds and scents around him. A breeze rustled the dying leaves of the cherry tree near the garden wall. The koi made sucking sounds and little splashes in the pond. Wood smoke gave the air a heavy quality, enhanced by the underlying odors of decaying leaves and dying grasses.
The murmur of Father Mateo’s prayers rose and fell in the next room over.
The neighbor’s Akita barked, and continued barking.
Hiro opened his eyes and listened for hooves or footsteps, but heard only the furious snarling of the dog. He stood up and closed the door behind him. Grasping the edge of an eave, he pulled himself onto the sloping roof and crawled up the thatch on his hands and knees, staying low to avoid detection. When he reached the long, thick beam that formed the ridge of the roof, he threw a leg across it and shimmied forward until he saw the street below.
The waning moon had not yet risen, leaving the road in shadow. Across the way, the dog kept barking. Hiro scanned the street for movement, wishing his eyes could penetrate the darkness like a dog’s.
The Akita’s barking slowed. It flopped to the ground with a malcontented thump.
The dog had no sooner settled than hoofbeats echoed on the road. A horse appeared from the shadows, lit by the tiny metal lantern the rider held. The faint light caught the horseman’s face, and Hiro recognized Luis Álvares.
The Akita’s barking resumed with a vengeance, as if the dog took special umbrage at the merchant’s appearance.
Hiro felt a spark of compassion for the canine on that point.
The horse turned off the road and trotted along the side of the house to the stable.
Hiro wondered what had kept Luis so late. The merchant normally closed his warehouse down at dusk, like most Kyoto shops. Luis did not like Japanese food and had no friends in Kyoto, so he didn’t stay out late to socialize.
Hiro kept his gaze on the street. He wondered what had upset the dog before the merchant arrived. Father Mateo and Ana might think the Akita barked at leaves and wind, but Hiro believed that something else explained the beast’s unusual agitation.
East of the house, shadows moved in the street. The Akita leaped to its feet, still barking, but now with a strangled edge, as the massive dog lunged at the end of its tether. Hiro wished the rope would break, as it had the previous summer. A dog wouldn’t stop a trained assassin, but Hiro wanted to know if he faced a shinobi or a common thief.
The shadows moved closer, and Hiro’s heartbeat quickened as he realized two people angled toward the Jesuit’s home.
He reached up his sleeve and retrieved a pair of shuriken. Ranged attacks were not his strength, but flying metal stars would buy him time to reach the ground.
Across the street, a door swung open.
“Who’s out there?” The neighbor appeared on his porch with a lantern.
Light spilled into the road, illuminating a young man with a woman by his side. Shadows hid their faces, but the youth wore a commoner’s striped kimono, the girl the pale robes of a temple maiden. They flinched and ducked their heads as if ashamed to face the light.
The man put a protective arm around the woman’s shoulders. She flinched away, then changed her mind and accepted the shelter of his embrace.
“Go home before the samurai catch you,” the neighbor called. “It’s dangerous on the street this time of night.”
The youth and the maiden hurried off toward Okazaki Shrine. Given the samurai guards on the bridge, the couple couldn’t have crossed the river after dark. The boy must live in the neighborhood, and the girl resembled a temple maiden from the shrine. The couple had either lost track of time or wanted the privacy darkness offered. Either way, their presence explained the barking dog, both now and earlier in the evening.
Hiro thought of Emi and Jiro walking by the river. Like this couple, and so many others, they needed the darkness and quiet streets to hide the emotions society’s rules forbade them from expressing. Young people thought they knew the truth, yet youth and the heart made unreliable compasses.
Hiro straightened with the shock of sudden realization. He’d focused too much on the older suspects and not enough on the younger people’s words. Despite the danger, it might not be too late to find the killer after all.
He could not risk the Jesuit’s life by staying in the capital much longer. Even so, Hiro wanted to learn the truth before they left the city. Father Mateo considered the murder important because of Hiro’s family ties, but Hiro suspected his uncle might be playing them for fools. The more he reflected on Satsu’s behavior, the more he believed that Satsu had something else at stake in addition to finding Emi’s killer. As a shinobi, that was almost certainly true.
Hiro intended to discover Satsu’s real motivation for requesting—and then stopping—the investigation. If he learned that his uncle had murdered Emi, for any reason, not even their common blood would protect the actor from Hiro’s wrath. It wasn’t the killing that bothered him most, though he certainly didn’t approve of murdering family. What angered Hiro enough to require vengeance was the thought that Satsu might have murdered his own child and preyed on Hiro’s trust to escape from justice.
CHAPTER 36
The neighbor’s Akita fell silent as the couple disappeared up the street. A few minutes later, Luis emerged from the stable and entered the house. The dog barked as he passed, but not for long. The earlier excitement had worn it out.
Hiro remained on the roof for several hours. No one passed on the road, and the Akita didn’t bark again. A crispness in the air suggested colder days approaching.
Midnight arrived. The waning moon appeared on the horizon. Hiro started down from the roof. He wondered whether Father Mateo might agree to visit Iga—assuming Hiro could obtain permission for a foreigner to enter the shinobi stronghold. To Hiro’s knowledge, Hattori Hanzo had never allowed a foreign person visit Iga village. Not many Japanese had seen it, either.
Hiro decided to risk the request. Few places in Japan were safer than Iga—at least for those who entered with permission. If Hanzo refused, they would head to the Portuguese settlement at Yokoseura. Hiro didn’t like the thought of living among foreigners, especially if most of them behaved like Luis Álvares, but he would make that sacrifice to save his charge—and friend—from mortal danger.
At dawn Hiro rose and dressed in his gray kimono.
Father Mateo’s rhythmic prayers floated over the open rafters from the adjacent room. Hiro decided not to interrupt. He didn’t believe that any god would answer human prayers, but also knew that Father Mateo would not leave Kyoto without time to ask his deity’s direction.
Hiro left the house through the garden. At the gate he heard a voice, and also horses, in the road. He peered through an opening in the fence.
A glossy black stallion stood in the street outside the Jesuit’s home. It wore a leather saddle and a bridle of foreign make, and it dwarfed the Japanese horse and robe-clad acolyte beside it.
Hiro knew the stallion. It belonged to Father Vilela, the priest who ran the Jesuit mission and its church within Kyoto proper. The Jesuits’ primary mission focused on the samurai, who would have disapproved of Father Mateo’s work among the common classes. For that reason, Father Mateo had special permission to live and work apart from the other priests. The s
enior Jesuit rarely visited Father Mateo’s home. In fact, he had done so only once before.
That visit had not brought good news.
Hiro doubted this one would be better.
He returned to the house just as Ana led the senior Jesuit into the common room.
Father Vilela dressed, and wore his hair, in samurai style. Japanese swords hung from his obi, and even his beard and mustache were carefully trimmed. Except for his foreign features and the wooden cross around his neck, Father Vilela could easily pass for samurai.
Hiro bowed to the foreign priest. In truth, he outranked the Jesuit, but like everyone else, Father Vilela believed that Hiro was merely a humble ronin.
Father Vilela nodded to Hiro and bowed to Father Mateo, who had just emerged from his room.
“Good morning,” Father Mateo said. “I am honored by your visit. Would you like tea?”
“Regrettably, I cannot stay for refreshments.” Father Vilela crossed to the hearth and knelt in the place reserved for guests.
Hiro stood beside his door as Father Mateo joined the senior Jesuit by the fire. Custom did not permit a ronin translator to act as his master’s equal.
“Does your congregation keep you busy, Mateo?” Father Vilela asked.
The innocuous question put Hiro on alert. Samurai often opened unpleasant conversations with innocent inquiries.
Father Mateo smiled. “Japan has become my home, and the Japanese people, my people. Attending to their needs is not a burden.”
“Indeed.” Father Vilela nodded. “Yet I wonder, perhaps, if you have become a bit too attached to these people.”
“No more than the Lord whose example I follow,” Father Mateo said. “He commanded us to love without reservation.”
“And also to respect authority,” Father Vilela added.
“Who have I offended this time?” Father Mateo’s question shattered the subtle Japanese tone of the conversation.
Though Portuguese by birth, Father Vilela showed a samurai’s discomfort at the question. “Mateo . . .”
“You said you had no time for a social visit,” Father Mateo said. “With respect, let’s drop the charade and get to the point. You come here only when someone complains. I simply wish to know whose dog I kicked.”