The Ennin Mysteries: Collected Series 1 – 5 (25 Stories) MEGAPACK

by Ben Stevens

  ‘The man who wishes to kill Utagawa – and who will hopefully believe he has done just this, sometime after nightfall – will be unable to see you, Kukai, so long as you remain here and do not move from behind the cover of these bushes. That is extremely important – that you do not reveal yourself.’

  ‘I understand, master,’ I replied, as the wind sighed across the mountainside.

  ‘Excellent. I will go now, and shortly return to the home of that wretched man. I tell you, Kukai – never have I felt less inclined to try and save a life!’

  My master said these words with a rare display of passion. I was utterly confused by everything I was hearing – none of it seemed to make the least bit of sense – but, as I have said already, I knew when to ask questions and when merely to do as instructed.

  From inside his kimono, my master produced a flask of water and a rice-ball, wrapped in seaweed, for me. Then with a final warning not to move even an inch from outside of my hidden spot – no matter what might happen – my master bade me farewell. He walked quickly back along the track, which led from this mountain towards the edge of the town.

  I settled down, crouched behind the rock and surrounded by bushes, my eyes fixed on the rear of the moneylender’s house. At least this was not high-summer, I consoled myself, when the heat and the mosquitoes would have made my wait unbearable.

  7

  It seemed to take forever for it to start to darken. The clouds made me worry that it would rain – and I had no cloak to protect me from the elements – but only a strong wind continued to blow. Soon it howled and sobbed in my ears, and those previous thoughts I’d had concerning deadly ninja hiding out on this lonely mountainside again occurred.

  Indeed, someone was hiding out on this mountainside. That was, if I’d understood what my master was saying correctly. That was about all I had understood, in any case. I’d no idea why my master should apparently be concerned about this mysterious assailant’s health, or why he should be so reluctant to try and save the moneylender’s life…

  Yes, at last it was starting to get dark. But still I could just about see down and across to the back of the moneylender’s house. But what was happening now? Incredible! A figure (I assumed Yosa) was opening the wooden shutters of the room which led out into the garden! This done, he closed the wood and paper sliding doors, although a strong light illuminated them a minute or so later. At least three or four oil lamps must be burning inside that room, I thought.

  And for what possible reason? The room was lit up so brightly it had become a veritable beacon, to me and anyone else who was watching from the mountainside above. And now I could clearly make out the portly figure of Utagawa the moneylender – it could hardly be anyone else – illuminated as he paced around that room!

  Had he lost his wits? Having spent however many weeks skulking inside one of two rooms, demanding the house be shuttered at night and becoming almost insensible with fear every time a strong wind was blowing as it was now – here he was walking around a brightly-lit room, the shutters open, making himself visible to anyone watching from the mountainside which now lay covered in darkness?

  My fascination with what I was seeing had made me forget that I was a little thirsty. I drank some of the water my master had left me.

  I stared at this incredible scene for some time. Any second now, I expected to see a figure darker than the night steal over the high wooden fence surrounding the garden. And then a sudden flash of a sword as it cut through the flimsy sliding doors of wood and paper – before decapitating the moneylender inside.

  But no such assassin presented himself, and the man I was certain was the moneylender continued to pace around.

  Then I was at once distracted by one of the most eerie sounds I have ever heard. It cut through the blustery wind, instantly causing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise.

  It was a sort of keening cry; a wail, perhaps. It’s really impossible to describe it any more precisely. I wondered what could possibly have made such a noise; what creature was capable of emitting it. Certainly no animal I wanted to meet here in the dark on this lonely mountainside, in any case.

  I’d been staring in the direction I thought this strange noise had come from. When I returned my gaze to the lit-up backroom of the moneylender’s house, I could still discern his shape through the wood and paper sliding doors. He now appeared to be kneeling, his back towards the garden outside. Either he’d not heard that unearthly noise – or it was of no concern to him.

  In that second something sang through the darkness to one side of me. I sensed rather than saw it shoot past. Then it had passed through one of the paper sections of one sliding door and buried itself in the back of the kneeling moneylender. As I struggled to restrain a cry of horror, Utagawa toppled over to one side, where he lay quite still. Without a shadow of a doubt, he was dead.

  My master had failed! He, like me, had doubtless anticipated some sort of actual assault eventually being made on the house. But the assailant lurking on the mountainside (with whom, it seemed, my master was already vaguely ‘familiar’) had managed to slay his target from some distance, using a bow and arrow! Indeed, through the inexplicable foolishness of parading around inside a brightly-lit room with the wooden shutters left open, the moneylender had virtually invited his own demise.

  I was in an agony of indecision. I felt as though I should return – run – to the moneylender’s house, although it was certainly too late for any help to be given to Utagawa. I’d previously informed him that my master had never failed any of his clients…

  Well, he certainly had this time.

  But my master had instructed me not to leave the place where I was now – no matter what happened. He’d said this twice. So I had no choice but to remain where I was. There was also the fact that I hardly wanted to ‘reveal’ myself (although I would still be semi-hidden by the darkness) by stepping out from my hiding place – not with someone evidently so skilled at archery also lurking somewhere on this mountainside.

  Time passed with agonizing slowness. When would I even know that I could leave my hiding place? Had I to wait until daybreak? The lamps continued to burn there in that room some distance away from and below me, the moneylender lying dead on the floor.

  I’d instinctively disliked Utagawa from the start (and clearly my master had possessed what basically amounted to a loathing of the man) but still I felt pity for the way in which he’d met his end, and the weeks of mental torture which had preceded it…

  I thought that maybe an hour had passed, since Utagawa had been so violently assassinated. Really, I’d no idea what I should do. And then suddenly I became aware that someone was right behind me. I spun round, and for the second time that day unexpectedly came face-to-face with my master.

  Even in the darkness, I could see the deep lines of exhaustion etched into his face – along with a curious expression of melancholia.

  ‘It is done, Kukai,’ said my master in a low, tired voice. ‘Let us return now to the inn.’

  I thought my master was blaming himself for having failed.

  ‘You couldn’t have known about the assassin being an archer, master,’ I said gently, attempting through my words to console him slightly. ‘Who could have foretold that Utagawa would be killed like – ’

  ‘Utagawa is not dead, and I was fully aware that the young man named Takeda – with whom I have been talking this past hour or so – would make his attempt on the moneylender’s life using a bow and arrow,’ returned my master briskly. ‘Due to his failing health, it was the only option left to him anyway.’

  ‘But… but Utagawa is there, master – lying on the floor,’ I blurted, pointing towards the shape behind the wood and paper doors still illuminated by the burning lamps.

  ‘The moneylender and his servant departed by palanquin – from outside the front of the house, of course – a minute or so after the arrow was fired into a dummy which had been placed in the kneeling position,’ declared my master.<
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  ‘A dummy? But – but I saw it walking around just a few moments before!’ I stammered, absolutely astounded by what I was hearing. ‘This is impossible!’

  ‘Come,’ sighed my master. ‘I am badly in need of something to eat, a bath and a little sake. Once these needs have been addressed, I’ll reveal to you some details concerning what’s proved to be one of the most wretched, but also perhaps saddest of cases I have ever investigated.’

  8

  After my master’s immediate needs had been addressed (back at the inn where we’d been staying earlier), we shared a flask of sake as he spoke –

  ‘The story really begins almost a decade earlier,’ said my master, ‘in a region near the coast that is some six or seven hours’ hard ride on horseback from here. It has a number of prosperous towns not unlike this one – although these towns are somewhat ‘livelier’, you might say. It was governed then, as it still is now, by a daimyo named Ishihara. He possesses an almost ruthless intolerance of any crime taking place in the territory he governs – as the following story will demonstrate.

  ‘Some eight years before, Ishihara’s chief tax official was a man named Matsuyama. It was this Matsuyama who visited well-to-do merchants, traders and such, at their homes, to discuss what they were to pay in tribute to the daimyo. This depended, of course, on how well they were currently faring – it was up to Matsuyama to determine whether or not they were telling the truth, and to set their tax payment accordingly.

  ‘Matsuyama’s job was, naturally, extremely prestigious and well-paid. But still he also had another, far more secretive source of income. Sometime earlier he’d made the acquaintance of three young brothers – aged seventeen to thirty – who ran a small shop selling rice. It had been their parents’ shop, originally; but both parents had died a few years earlier.

  ‘Somehow, Matsuyama discovered what these lads got up to in secret. That is, the dedicated study of ninjutsu – the art of becoming a ninja. I believe that their uncle – a mysterious man who’d also since passed away – had first set them on this path.

  ‘Anyway, they’d already reached an extremely high level of ability, through dedicated practice in the mountains – during each evening and on any work-free days – that were by the sea. Each young man had learned the essential arts of balance, concealment, unarmed combat and so on. They had also each specialized in the study of a certain weapon: the sword, the bo or long staff – and the bow and arrow.

  ‘Exactly how the relationship grew between these three brothers and Matsuyama, I’m still not entirely certain. But at some stage, he presented them with a tempting proposition. For he frequently visited the homes of the wealthy, where valuable treasures such as statues were on open display. He could almost ‘map-out’ these homes, as it were, so that anyone breaking into them for the first time still knew where to go – and also what to look for.

  ‘Matsuyama slyly insinuated that the three brothers could become these expert thieves. This they agreed to, more out of a naïve, youthful desire of adventure than from any genuine wickedness. Except for the oldest brother, however, who was already beginning to turn bad…

  ‘Of course, the brothers hardly broke into a home Matsuyama had visited the very next night, week or even month. It was vital that no link be made between the daimyo’s most trusted tax official, and the strange spate of burglaries that was beginning to plague several, close-lying towns.

  ‘So sometimes it was up to three or four months after Matsuyama had visited once such home – and noticed something ripe for the taking – that the three brothers struck one night. This they only ever did when there was a storm or at the least a heavy wind, which would cover up any noise they might accidentally make.

  ‘Usually they moved from rooftop to rooftop, then stealing down to a window which they could open – even if it was closed and shuttered – using special tools. They then entered, and carefully made their way to wherever Matsuyama had informed them something of value could be found.

  ‘Even if it was several months after Matsuyama had actually seen this item (in the same room in which he was interviewing the merchant or trader, or in another part of the house – having, for example, first asked permission to use the bathroom only to then become conveniently ‘lost’), it was usually in the same place. For how often is an ornament actually moved?

  ‘The brothers later gave the stolen property to Matsuyama, who was able to use a network of secretive contacts to transport it across Japan, where it could be sold without the buyer having the least idea that it was stolen property. Matsuyama’s share of the money was then transferred to him, from which he paid the three brothers.

  ‘For approximately two years, everything went smoothly… But as I said earlier, the oldest brother had the seed of evil in his heart. As quietly as the two other brothers operated – desiring above all else that no one sleeping in the residence they were currently burglarizing should even be aware they were there – the elder brother secretly longed for some servant or such to suddenly show himself. Whereupon, the elder brother would have chance to try some of the combat techniques he’d learned…

  ‘Then one night, what the elder brother hoped for so earnestly actually occurred. He and his two younger brothers were suddenly surprised by a servant. Only, this servant was a woman – and also pregnant. This failed to concern the oldest brother, who dealt her a brutal blow to the neck. She fell to the floor, clearly dead. The brothers fled, and there in their rice shop argued bitterly. The two younger brothers were beside themselves with grief and anger at what their oldest brother had done.

  ‘What had he been thinking? they demanded. They wore masks, dressed entirely in black – they could have just fled from that pregnant woman, back out into the night. No one would have known who they were. But now she – and the child in her belly – were dead. They could not do this anymore. They would part company from their oldest brother. But first, they had to tell Matsuyama exactly what had occurred.

  ‘Meanwhile, the daimyo had learned of the brutal murder of the young servant. This he linked with the string of burglaries that had been troubling his domain. He doubled the already large cash reward for anyone who could supply information leading to the arrest of the shadowy burglars. Or, even better, who could hand over the culprits personally, to face what the daimyo promised would be stern justice.

  ‘Matsuyama took note of this… So that when the middle brother quietly visited him, to explain (with tears in his eyes) what had happened, and to say that they would never again undertake another burglary, Matsuyama said that he understood. He only asked for the three brothers to return later that evening, when he would give them some money he owed that was still outstanding. He refused to take ‘no’ for answer – what was theirs was theirs, he said, and that would be the end of the matter.

  ‘So the three brothers went to Matsuyama’s home later that night, the two youngest now no longer even speaking to their eldest brother. After they’d received whatever was owed to them (and the two youngest brothers hardly even wanted it), they agreed, they would part company.

  ‘Matsuyama let them in – and bade them to go ahead of him, along a corridor to a room at the end. The three brothers started forward – and then the floor caved in. They fell down into what was basically a narrow trench, almost twenty feet in depth. The smooth, sloped walls became progressively narrower the further down they went; so there was no hope of climbing back out, even with their ninja skills. Also, the middle brother had broken his ankle falling.

  ‘It was a typical ninja trap – like that constructed by daimyo who have reason to fear assassination. Matsuyama left them there, blowing out the oil lamps so that they now shouted for help in pitch darkness, and made his way over to where they lived above the rice shop. In this small residence, he placed a number of items that had previously been stolen by the brothers, and thus then given to him, but which he’d not yet been able either to transport or sell…

  ‘When he returned to his opulent
home, he lit a lamp, ‘discovered’ the three brothers down there in that pit – and ran back out into the street, shouting for help.

  ‘Samurai dispatched by the daimyo himself eventually arrived, dragging the three brothers off to the castle dungeons. Matsuyama declared that these were surely the thieves who’d been plaguing several close-lying towns of late – and who’d murdered that poor servant girl to boot. It was just fortunate that he’d had an anti-ninja or burglar trap installed in his residence some time before…

  ‘The fact that the three brothers were – strangely for ninja – dressed in casual clothing was deemed of absolutely no importance. Even less so when the investigating samurai entered their home above the rice shop and discovered the obviously stolen items lying here and there. This was taken as cast-iron proof of their guilt: and they were sentenced accordingly.

  ‘It was an appalling sentence. Not just of death – but of one of the worst deaths it is possible to be given. Ishihara wanted to send a clear message, through these three brothers, that he would not tolerate any crime at all in the area he governed. Ishihara ignored the brothers’ protests that Matsuyama, the most senior tax official, had actually masterminded the entire spate of burglaries. But still, others had their suspicions…

  ‘Upon hearing the sentence of torture followed by death, the eldest brother merely cursed the world, and declared that he was glad he’d killed that pregnant maid. He was by now obviously mad as well as evil. But the middle brother bravely begged that the youngest brother be spared. For he – the youngest brother – was still but sixteen; almost a child.

  ‘Finally the daimyo consented to this, although he declared that the sixteen-year-old boy would still have to serve a ten-year sentence in the castle dungeon – virtually a death-sentence in itself – and would also have to watch the brutal execution of his two older brothers.

  ‘And how horrific this was. In one of the town squares, one scorching summer morning, it began. A crowd had gathered; the youngest brother was forced to watch from a transportable wooden cage. Every time he tried to turn his head away in horror, he was prodded with a spear.