by Rokuro Inui
Following the procession soundlessly from a safe distance, Jinnai counted the torches. It would not do to overlook anyone during his slaughter.
Eventually they came to a crossroads with good visibility from all sides. Just as planned, the torches at the front of the procession began to gutter and shake.
Chokichi’s men fell upon the group without even offering parley.
Drawing the short, straight shinobi sword at his waist, Jinnai closed the distance rapidly.
Although the procession’s guards had been armed, Chokichi’s men were cutting them down before they could even draw their swords from the magnificent scabbards that hung from their belts on embroidered cords. Jinnai saw one trying to scramble away on all fours without drawing his sword at all.
So much for palace security. Chokichi’s men could probably handle this one on their own.
And then a figure leapt out of the palanquin itself, and the head of one of Chokichi’s men went flying toward the moon.
What?
Jinnai reversed course at once, diving diagonally backward to take cover behind a row of half a dozen roadside statues—a sixfold Jizo, protector of children and travelers.
Chokichi’s men bellowed with anger, and the shadowy figure ran between them with simian agility.
Another head flew through the air.
The figure did not seem to have a sword drawn. What it was using for a weapon was unclear, but it did not move like a warrior. A shinobi, then, or something of that nature.
Had this been a setup?
Jinnai considered the possibility for a split second.
If so, either his informant had betrayed him or their plan had leaked from somewhere else.
As Jinnai’s mind raced, the shadowy figure continued to eliminate Chokichi’s men with methodical precision. Soon there was no one else alive and moving at the crossroads, which had become a charnel house strewn with the corpses of the palanquin guards and Chokichi’s men.
Jinnai had heard rumors that the imperial household had maintained a shinobi tradition of its own since ancient times. Could that be what he was seeing?
After some deliberation, he decided to confront the figure. The plan could not be aborted in any case.
He detached the empty scabbard from his waist and threw it into a stand of trees across the intersection.
The shadowy figure looked up from checking the pulses of its victims and stared in the direction the sound had come from. Jinnai remained absolutely motionless, waiting to see what the figure would do.
With careful tread, the figure began walking toward the stand of trees.
His ruse had worked.
But when Jinnai rose to hurl a throwing spike at the figure’s back, it spun as if it had been waiting, sweeping its arm in a throwing gesture.
Jinnai leapt backward and flattened himself to the ground just in time. He saw a flash of reflected moonlight, and the heads of the six Jizo statues he had been hiding behind thudded to the ground one by one.
Wire.
The figure was using a thin wire with a honed edge and weights at the end. Wrapped around a neck and pulled tight, it could lop off the head like cutting through tofu.
Jinnai had never faced an opponent with this kind of trick up its sleeve before.
Realizing that he would be killed if he stayed in one place too long, he sprang up and streaked diagonally across the intersection.
The figure ran after him.
Turning back, Jinnai crouched deeply, then leapt at his pursuer, flying so low that he almost scraped the ground.
As the wire sliced the wind above his head, Jinnai slashed at the figure’s shins with his sword but only succeeded in nicking its distinctive tattsuke-bakama trousers, loose around the thigh but close-fitting from the knee down.
But now he was within striking distance.
He doubted the figure’s wire tricks were effective at such close range.
Propelling himself up from the ground, Jinnai headbutted the figure’s chin from below.
The figure grunted.
But it was Jinnai who was shocked.
The figure’s voice was unmistakably female.
Seizing her by the front fold of her clothing as she staggered back, Jinnai used his full strength to swing them both around and throw her over his hip onto the ground. Without pausing for breath, he straddled and immobilized her. He pressed his elbow to her throat and kept it there until her struggling subsided.
Jinnai rose unsteadily to his feet and surveyed the carnage.
The torches dropped by the palace guards as they fell were still burning here and there on the ground.
Jinnai picked one up and used it to illuminate the palanquin, which sat alone and forgotten at the center of the intersection.
It was a sturdy and well-made vehicle. Its black lacquer finish was perhaps for stealth.
The woman who had killed Chokichi’s men had emerged from the palanquin. If this procession had been a decoy, the palanquin was probably empty now, but he had to check.
Its doors still hung open.
Jinnai crouched to peer inside.
Inside, a girl shrank against the far corner in fear.
“Are you Kasuga?” He whispered so that his voice would not carry.
He brought the torch closer to see the girl’s face. She gave the faintest of nods, terror in her eyes.
So the other woman had been riding with her in the palanquin. To make sure she did not escape?
His informant had told him nothing of Kasuga’s appearance, but she was more slightly built than he had expected.
“Take off your clothes,” he said, his tone making it clear that it was an order.
The corpse that Chokichi had procured for him was hidden in a barn not far from the intersection. Its face had already been rendered unrecognizable and its hair burned off. All that remained was to dress it in the girl’s clothes to make it seem that she had died.
But, perhaps misunderstanding Jinnai’s intentions, the girl in the palanquin shook her head, opening and closing her mouth without quite managing to speak.
Irritated, Jinnai threw the torch to one side, reached into the palanquin to seize the girl’s ankles, and dragged her out in one swift motion.
She screamed and struggled, using all four limbs in an attempt to push him away. He slapped her face two or three times to silence her, then grabbed the obi at her waist and tore her clothes off.
The girl’s unblemished white skin seemed to glow in the moonlit dark.
Now stripped to her underwear, the girl hurriedly concealed her breasts with her arms. Jinnai pulled off his own black shirt and pulled it over her head, then hoisted her over one shoulder and headed for the storehouse where the corpse was hidden.
Perhaps too petrified by now, the girl did not resist or scream as he bound her securely to a pillar and set off, again carrying the corpse, for the intersection.
He stuffed the body into the palanquin and then used another torch to set the wooden litter ablaze.
Turning his back on the flames, he returned to the barn, loosened the rough ropes binding the girl to the pillar, and gave her a kosode and obi in drab colors.
It would be dangerous to hide her too close to the palace, or anywhere people might recognize her. They would have to make the journey of a few days back to Tempu and then put into action the second phase of the plan, which Chokichi should be preparing for at that moment—to stash her in the Thirteen Floors. Her interrogation and the like could be carried out there. The master of the Conch and Taiko could even visit her in person if necessary.
Once his preparations for the journey were complete, Jinnai looked up and saw that the girl had put her sleeves through the kosode but had not tied the obi around herself. She looked at him helplessly, holding it in her hands.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I do not know how to tie it,” she said.
“What?” His voice was louder than he had intended.
Everyone who served at the palace, right down to the lowliest servant, was a scion of some noble family or other. Jinnai had heard that their daily clothing was still the same as it had been since ancient times, but to someone of his upbringing, not even being able to tie an obi was unthinkable.
“Give it here,” he said.
He had her raise her arms so that he could align the lapels of her kosode, then reached around her waist to wrap the obi around her and tie it in place. He felt like her manservant. She looked used to the treatment. It made for a strange scene.
“What about trousers?” the girl asked, trying to pull down the hem of the kosode.
“There aren’t any,” Jinnai said shortly.
The women of the palace must still wear those vermillion hakama of old. If she was of noble birth, she might never have even seen the way the women of Tempu dressed today, with no hakama over their kosode.
Then he got down to business.
“I hear that you were expelled from the innermost sanctum for carelessness,” Jinnai said. “Can you think of anything specific?”
The girl, who had been fidgeting with her knees together in embarrassment, sent a sharp glare his way.
“Specific?”
“For example, accidentally learning something the empress wanted kept secret. That sort of thing,” Jinnai said with careful vagueness. If the girl didn’t tell him what she knew in her own words, the exercise was pointless.
She didn’t stop glaring at him, but she did seem to be thinking. Probably still trying to decide who he was and why he had abducted her.
“They were going to kill you,” he said, holding her gaze. “Several other women who seemed to be former ladies of the innermost sanctum have met with the same end in the past. It’s hard to believe that the palace would go so far to punish simple mistakes.”
The girl was silent. He sensed she was hiding something.
“Fine. I’ll have you in the mood to talk soon enough.”
Alarm filled the girl’s eyes at this ominous prediction. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you that. But if you tell me the truth, we can offer you protection. I’d rather not make this unpleasant for either of us.”
There was no room for sentiment in intelligence work, but even Jinnai was not enthusiastic about the prospect of torturing a mere girl.
“It’ll take a few days to reach Tempu,” he said. “Think it over on the way. I will say this—your life here is over. Returning to the palace or your family home is not an option.”
The girl’s eyes were already widening. “We’re going to Tempu?” she said.
IV
“So. Tell me about this Kasuga.”
“Surprisingly docile. Does as we tell her, without complaint,” Jinnai said, refilling the cup of Lord Haga, governor of Hanyu, master of the Conch and Taiko. “As for the matter we discussed, however …”
Haga nodded. His face was flat and square, like a crab. He had beady eyes that tended to cross and a bulbous black mole at the center of his forehead like the third eye on the Great Buddha. To strangers he might have looked harmless, even lovable.
“We must seize this opportunity to stop an abdication,” he said now. “If the shogunate absorbs the imperial family before we lay the groundwork, we’ll be left with no room to maneuver. Where’s Kyuzo, by the way?” He glanced sideways at a tray of refreshments that was still untouched, its sake cup inverted.
Kyuzo Kugimiya had been summoned to their meeting too, but an hour after the appointed time he had yet to show himself. For a mere tinkerer of automata to keep the master of the Conch and Taiko waiting was unheard of, but Kyuzo had little interest in protocol. Like Jinnai, he was an agent of sorts for the Conch and Taiko, but theirs was not a relationship built on trust between master and servant. Perhaps even drinking together was a distasteful idea to him.
Jinnai had been planning to call in the entertainment after Kyuzo arrived, but with Haga’s mood darkening he was left with no choice but to move things along.
Haga’s favorite courtesan entered the room with her entourage of trainees. She greeted her two guests effusively. The bowed strains of a tiqin filled the air, but Haga and Jinnai were not watching the dancer and her fan and hand cloth. They were looking at the youngest trainee, who sat at the very end of the line.
It was the girl Jinnai had abducted from the palanquin.
She may not have been accustomed to kneeling; in any case, she kept shifting with obvious discomfort. Once she noticed Jinnai in the room, she began stealing furtive glances his way.
She cleaned up surprisingly well with a change of wardrobe. Her chestnut hair had been cut in the style prescribed for the youngest trainees, the kamuro, and had apparently been straightened through careful brushing. In her white face powder and dab of red lipstick, she made a charming impression.
Jinnai had entrusted her to Haga’s favorite courtesan after bringing her to Tempu. Not directly, of course; Chokichi had provided a middleman who claimed to have gotten her from a trafficker.
A kamuro in the Thirteen Floors was never alone. From the senior lady of pleasure she served to the other trainees, there was always someone nearby. Overseers and other staff also kept close watch on their charges.
Not even the magistrates could just barge into the Thirteen Floors whenever they pleased, and no one kept secrets better than the courtesans on its highest floors, where secret negotiations and exchanges were common. Having placed the girl here as a kamuro with hints of an awkward situation, they could rest assured that she would be safe.
The Thirteen Floors was the natural home of misfits and outcasts. Even if the girl spoke of her service at the palace, no one would take her seriously.
It was the ideal place to hide a girl you had kidnaped from the imperial palace.
When Kyuzo arrived and the revelries ended, they would have to find some excuse to call the girl into another room alone, Jinnai thought.
And then the Thirteen Floors shook with a tremendous explosion.
The women in the room screamed. The music ended abruptly.
Jinnai sprang to his feet, slid aside a black-framed paper screen, and stepped onto the gallery that opened to the outside. Leaning over the railing, he saw black smoke rising from under the tiled eaves of the floor below.
He quickly reentered the room to find that the guards Haga had stationed outside its door had already burst in to protect him. Men working for the Thirteen Floors were trying to get both visitors and employees out of the room.
“What is this?” demanded Haga, noticeably paler than before.
“An explosion on the floor below, it seems,” said Jinnai. “You must get out quickly. I …”
“You what?”
Then the master of the Conch and Taiko noticed what Jinnai just had.
The girl was gone.
Haga gave Jinnai a look that said, Go!
Perhaps she had just been ushered to safety already by the men of the Thirteen Floors. But Jinnai found it difficult to imagine them putting a kamuro ahead of customers and senior courtesans.
He had a bad feeling about this.
What if the explosion had been engineered so that the girl could be stolen back?
Damage to the Thirteen Floors from suspicious fires was not unheard of, but the use of gunpowder was unthinkable.
The upper floors of the building were frequented by shogunate officials and emissaries from the provincial domains. The lower floors were where the masters of Tempu’s underworld of thugs, gamblers, and criminals gathered. Disturbing the peace at the Thirteen Floors attracted attention from both high and low places, and that meant trouble. This was why even the m
agistrates had to exercise circumspection. Arson and bombings were utterly beyond the pale.
Whoever had done this either did not know these things or knew them and did not care. It must be someone with no connection to the Thirteen Floors at all.
The imperial household? But Tempu was a long way from Kamigata. How could they have traced the girl to here?
Jinnai ran into the inner corridor. The flames had yet to reach there, but the entire floor had descended into panic.
There were two wide staircases, but one of them billowed with the same black smoke he had seen outside. The other was crowded far beyond capacity with people who shoved and shouted at each other in their desperation to escape.
Jinnai dove into a room across the corridor from the one he and Haga had been in. He crossed the tatami mats in an instant, dodging tableware and sake bottles, and kicked down the paper screen on the far side to get to the gallery.
The fire had not reached this side of the building yet.
He vaulted the railing. Landing on the eaves of the floor below, he let himself slide down the steep tiles until he reached the edge. He caught hold of the gutter and used his momentum to change direction and hurl himself into the gallery directly below the one he had just been in.
Noticing that black smoke already filled the room behind it, he raced around the gallery, which ringed the floor, to get back to the original side of the building, where the explosion had gone off.
There.
He saw the girl. She was hoisted over the shoulder of someone who must have leapt over the gallery railing just moments earlier and was now heading for the canal far below. A figure in indigo work clothes.
The figure, he realized in a flash of intuition, that he had encountered at the crossroads near the palace.
In all the confusion of that night, he had forgotten to make sure that she had actually died. Sloppy.
She appeared to notice Jinnai as well, but ignored him and ran toward the canal.