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

by Ben Stevens

  ‘There is one other door leading to another room of approximately the same size, which was however also locked by the daimyo. Having experienced at least one assassination attempt before, the daimyo was understandably extremely cautious concerning his safety, and as such had turned his bedroom almost into a cell which no one would be able to enter without using force – something which would in turn make considerable noise and also take some time.

  ‘This would naturally serve to awaken him – and I see that he kept several weapons close at hand, which he undoubtedly could use.’

  Yamada the samurai nodded.

  ‘My lord was one of the finest swordsmen I’ve ever seen,’ he declared.

  ‘Quite,’ resumed my master. ‘But in this instance, someone undetected was able to quietly poison the daimyo at some point during the night – the question is, how?’

  The physician had listened to my master’s long surmising with ill-concealed impatience.

  ‘You mean,’ he began, irritably – ‘You mean someone was actually able to gain entry into this room, despite the locked doors, barred windows and so on?’

  My master shook his head, again staring up at the painting on the ceiling.

  ‘I did not say they actually entered into the room,’ he uttered quietly.

  The physician’s expression became very tight, as he said slowly –

  ‘Perhaps, Ennin-sensei, you might care to elaborate on what it is you actually mean…’

  ‘I require some more time in which to think – ’

  The physician shook his head.

  ‘Ennin-sensei, please do not play me for a fool,’ he said brusquely. ‘You are staring up at the ceiling, at the small holes that have been made here and there in the painting, skillfully disguised as such things as fruit hanging on trees, but ultimately intended to provide ventilation to the void that is above the ceiling.’

  Yamada started, staring first at the physician and then at my master.

  ‘Someone could have hidden above the ceiling – in the void there?’ he questioned, his mind turning slowly but surely.

  ‘That being the case, how would this person have managed to poison the daimyo?’ returned my master, only barely concealing the irritation he was clearly feeling towards the bossy, self-important physician.

  ‘You just said yourself that the assassin may not actually have entered the room,’ returned the physician readily. ‘And those holes in the ceiling, half-concealed in the painting directly above where the daimyo lay…’

  The physician briefly paused, almost it seemed to me for effect. Yamada the senior samurai was staring almost entranced at him.

  ‘A ninja, concealed up above the ceiling, could have fired a poisoned dart or something of that sort at the daimyo, through one of the small holes, as he lay sleeping,’ said the physician then, for some reason suddenly lowering his voice.

  ‘An interesting theory,’ returned my master, at the same time as he appeared to suppress a yawn, ‘which is spoilt only by one thing – in fact two things.

  ‘One: there is no dart or ‘something of that sort’ – to borrow your expression – protruding anywhere from the daimyo’s face or head. Which could mean, of course, that the assassin managed to pull it out in some way – except for the fact that I can also see absolutely no puncture mark or ‘something of that sort’ anywhere on the skin. And, please believe me, I am expert at detecting such marks.

  ‘To summarize,’ said my master then, his voice now sounding less irritable and just weary, ‘the poison was not conveyed into the daimyo’s body by means of a dart or anything else like it.’

  The physician stared at my master with drooped eyelids.

  ‘Maybe we should have a look, above the ceiling,’ said the senior samurai then.

  ‘An excellent suggestion!’ declared my master appreciatively. ‘A practical step to perhaps solving this mystery.’

  Yamada tried to hide his feelings of pride, at having just been so complimented by the famous Ennin-sensei.

  To do as the samurai had suggested, however, first required that a skilled carpenter be summoned. The wooden ceiling had been well-constructed, and it took some time for a section to be neatly cut out, so that we could see what lay above.

  As soon as we could, any suggestion that the assassin might have lain up here (never mind all this talk about poisoned darts and the like) was proved to be arrant nonsense. In the first place, the gap between the rafters of the ceiling, and the floor above, was barely even a foot. Secondly, the rafters were long and quite thin, and would not have borne any man’s weight without snapping.

  Thirdly, there was only the narrowest, square-shaped opening (again, barely a foot all round) into this void from those two voids above the rooms either side of it – so to allow for the passage of air, as it were. The void above the ceiling could not possibly have been entered by any man except from inside the room itself – which, as had just been shown, first required a skilled carpenter, as well as a certain amount of general noise and mess…

  The whole theory of any assassin having been hidden above the ceiling was obviously ridiculous.

  The dead daimyo’s body was taken away with all due reverence (it had only been left untouched in the bed so that my master would be able to see it) and we left the room.

  ‘Well, Ennin-sensei,’ said the physician almost happily, as he, my master, the samurai and I walked along a corridor. ‘It seems that even you cannot solve this mystery. Someone managed to get inside a locked room on the sixth floor of the castle, poison the daimyo, and then leave again, without leaving a trace of his presence…’

  “His’…?’ repeated my master quietly. ‘You already know the sex of the assassin?’

  The question caused the physician’s mocking expression to falter slightly.

  ‘No, no – of course not,’ he then said indignantly, as it seemed to me he momentarily looked with scared eyes at the samurai.

  ‘As you like – their presence,’ he finished shortly.

  ‘As I said a short while before, I need some time to think,’ said my master then, turning his attention to Yamada. ‘I like to walk as I do so, preferably out in the open… Perhaps my servant might remain here in this castle, until I return?’

  ‘Of course,’ returned the samurai.

  2

  Yamada escorted me down to a kitchen area that was near to the stables, by the castle’s main entrance. He bade me to sit at a large wooden table, as he fetched a flask of sake, two cups and then sat opposite me. I was about to decline his offer of alcohol (as hospitable as this was, it was still barely mid-morning), when something made me reconsider.

  I couldn’t forget that look which the physician had flashed this burly senior samurai. A look of – fear? Caution? It was hard to tell, exactly; but perhaps with some sake inside of him, Yamada’s tongue might become loosened…

  At first, however, we drank in silence. Numerous other samurai walked past, their faces drawn and serious. Obviously, the mystery surrounding the daimyo’s sudden death was playing on all their minds. How had the man possibly been poisoned by an assassin – in a locked and guarded room?

  Then I almost started – was it not possible that the daimyo had been poisoned before retiring for the night? A ‘slow-acting’ poison having been given to him, so to speak? Indeed, who was to say that he’d not put the poison to his own lips – that is, that he’d not just committed suicide?

  Two theories that came to me as I sat there sipping sake, amidst the hustle and bustle of this large, stone-floored room (any number of wooden barrels stacked against its walls) that was full of samurai. It seemed to me that matters had been made far too complex, what with this examination of the area above the painted ceiling, and the physician’s ludicrous talk of poisoned darts and other such nonsense…

  No, this time possibly even my master was failing to notice, perhaps, some fairly obvious answers to this mystery…

  Immersed in my thoughts, the sake cup held to my li
ps, I at first failed to notice that the noisy hubbub of conversation in this room had suddenly died down. Then I realized that the samurai were inclining their heads towards the entrance, a few even bowing.

  I turned my head to look in that direction. There, dressed in a fine kimono, a toy wooden horse held in one hand, was a lad of about thirteen. I immediately realized that this was the daimyo’s only son, who would now be succeeding his dead father’s position.

  ‘Where is my daddy?’ asked the boy in a curious, breathless, lisping voice. Along with the actual question, it made him sound even younger than he was.

  Yamada – the head-samurai – had already hurriedly risen from the table. Now he got down on one knee (a little unsteadily, it seemed to me – but then he’d already consumed two or three large cups of sake) and said –

  ‘My lord… Forgive me, I thought you knew… Your father is dead…’

  ‘Dead?’ breathed the boy, his eyes rolling curiously in their sockets. There was quite a lot of spittle gathered around his lips. ‘Is that why he’s not here now?’

  I didn’t need to notice the glances being exchanged by the samurai to realize that this lad was a little…

  Well, doubtless you appreciate what I am trying to say.

  Yamada the samurai coughed and said –

  ‘My lord, that is… Well, yes.’

  The boy emitted a high-pitched wail, dropped his toy horse and brought his hands up to his face. He used his palms to wipe away the tears from his eyes, which however then stopped as quickly as they’d started.

  ‘I’m lonely,’ declared the lad then. ‘I want a friend to play with. Someone go and find me one.’

  ‘Err – yes, my lord. Of course.’

  Saying this, Yamada then snapped his fingers at one of the younger, lower-ranking samurai.

  ‘You,’ he said curtly. ‘Go out into the town and find a boy for Ken – our lord to play with. Bring the boy back to the castle.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied the junior samurai.

  But before this samurai could go, the young lad decided that he would leave first, which meant that everyone (myself included) had to bid him farewell with a standing bow.

  ‘Hey,’ grunted Yamada to the young samurai, once the lad had left. ‘Take this’(he produced a small bag of coins from inside his kimono) ‘and give it to the parents – or whoever the guardian is – of the boy you find. Tell whoever’s responsible for the lad that you’ll have him back before nightfall.’

  ‘Sir,’ nodded the samurai, who took the bag of coins before leaving.

  Yamada and I resumed our drinking. I believe he sensed my confusion concerning what had just taken place, for he then broke the rather moody silence at our table by saying –

  ‘Isn’t the first time we’ve had to find a playmate for young Kenko – I mean, ‘my lord’, as I should now call him.’

  ‘Indeed?’ I returned, as airily as I could manage. I wanted the already slightly inebriated samurai to confide more information in me; but I didn’t want to give any actual indication of this interest. As my master had already taught me, nothing made someone clam up quicker than if they thought you were actually digging for information…

  ‘You surely can’t have helped but notice that the boy’s a little… well…’ began Yamada awkwardly.

  ‘I – yes,’ I returned, to spare him any further mumbling concerning the boy’s general strangeness.

  Yamada shrugged.

  ‘This makes it a little… well, difficult to find playmates for him. You might have thought that every boy would want to come to this castle and play with the daimyo’s son – forgive me; I keep forgetting that the boy himself is now a daimyo – yet this is not the case.

  ‘We have already found (from past experience, though we never dared inform the daimyo himself of this) that we have to in fact bribe the parents or guardians of whatever boys are found, to come and play with Kenko. And even then, that these boys soon make themselves scarce, so repelled are they by my little lord’s character…’

  Yamada was drinking steadily, his eyes now smoldering with a sullen light. It was clear that he viewed this having to find a playmate for the young lord as being nothing other than a tiresome chore. He was a warrior, after all. Yet it seemed certain that for the next few years, at least, as senior samurai to the daimyo, he would be little more than a glorified babysitter.

  Not wishing to anger this skilled swordsman who wore his two weapons on one side of his kimono I, of course, made no reference to this.

  Instead, with as nonchalant a shrug as I could muster, I replied –

  ‘I would have thought that the boys would be delighted, to be paid purely for playing with another lad of their own age. Certainly their parents would, anyway, as they’d doubtless find the extra money extremely useful.’

  For a moment, as the samurai’s brow darkened, I feared that I’d overplayed my hand. Although Yamada (for all his undoubted warrior expertise) was obviously not the most intelligent of men, still my allusion to the fact that most of the people living in the outlying town were extremely poor (something which, as my master had informed me, was almost entirely due to the daimyo’s harsh taxation ) had been noted.

  But then, with another deep glug of sake, the bulky samurai merely shrugged.

  ‘Doubtless,’ he said, crudely wiping his mouth with one sleeve. ‘But the fact is that except for one lad – Taro, I can still remember his name – who lasted almost three months as Kenko’s playmate three or so years before now, none of the other boys have lasted anything more than a couple of afternoons.

  ‘Playmates for Kenko,’ declared Yamada then, staring moodily down at the table and slurring his words slightly. ‘That’s right… find playmates like Taro for the boy… and bedmates for my lord…’

  I concealed my surprise at hearing this sudden declaration.

  ‘That boy… Taro… who was here for several months…’ mumbled Yamada, who I now realized had consumed almost the whole flask of sake by himself. ‘I wonder if he got paid any more than his mother did… for just the few nights she spent with my lord, two or so years before her son was brought here…

  ‘But… what a beauty she… Taro’s mother was… and still is…’

  I stared at him, willing him to continue… But his head sagged downwards and a few moments later he emitted a loud snore. Another senior-looking samurai swaggered over, gave me a hard look – and then picking the burly Yamada up as though he weighed nothing more than a feather, swung him over one shoulder and stomped off.

  I suspected that Yamada was being carried off to bed, and considered it prudent to make my own departure from this large room. I stood up, and walked out into a large courtyard. And there I saw my master, talking quietly with another samurai warrior.

  Their conversation finished and the samurai walked hurriedly away as I approached.

  ‘Master,’ I said quickly, ‘I have gathered some information that I think is important. Also, I believe that we are overlooking at least a couple of obvious, and moreover sensible theories concerning the daimyo’s death.

  ‘For example, what if – ’

  ‘It is all right, Kukai,’ said my master, with that exasperating half-smile he often adopted when humoring me. ‘I believe I have solved this mystery. The conversation just now with that samurai named Hanzo – who was on sentry duty last night – served to fill one or two general, and actually not very important gaps in my theory.’

  Barely had he said this, when the sour-faced physician suddenly appeared by our sides.

  ‘Well, Ennin-sensei,’ he began. ‘Have you managed to shed any light on this particular mystery?’

  I concealed my surprise as my master pulled a doubtful face, and shook his head at this question which had been asked in a rather imperious manner.

  ‘It is difficult… very difficult…’ returned my master hesitantly. ‘I have to leave now on other business, but I will try to think of what could have happened to the daimyo, and if anything �
� ’

  ‘Yes, yes – quite,’ interrupted the physician dismissively, not bothering to conceal a smirk of satisfaction.

  ‘Sometimes we must recognize the limits of our abilities, mustn’t we?’ said the physician rhetorically, before walking away.

  ‘Master,’ I said in a hushed voice. ‘That man – he knows something. Of that I’m certain. I saw the look he exchanged with the samurai named Yamada, with whom I have just been talking…’

  ‘That physician is a pompous, slug-witted idiot who couldn’t treat a cold, far less kill someone in the ingenious manner adopted by the daimyo’s assassin,’ declared my master contemptuously. ‘He is just one of those jealous of what little fame, success or whatever you wish to call it that I have accrued, and quite simply desires to see me fail. That is all.

  ‘And yet…’ added my master suddenly. ‘And yet… maybe I do the physician a slight disservice. For his talk of poisoned darts, fired through the decorative holes in the ceiling above the daimyo’s bed, was not completely off the mark…’

  I opened my mouth to speak… And then could do nothing more than shake my head. Yet again, here was my master stating that he’d solved a mystery, while to me everything remained in darkness and confusion.

  ‘Come on, Kukai,’ said my master then. ‘Let’s get our possessions and leave this castle. We’ll take a walk through the town, in the direction of the mountains towards the west…’

  ‘…That daimyo was nothing other than a tyrant and a bully,’ declared my master quietly, as we walked out through the town. ‘This I knew already – and yet I spent some time in some inns and such around this town, after I left the castle earlier, to see if I could obtain any further information.

  ‘The daimyo, it seemed, had an insatiable sexual appetite which he satisfied by cajoling numerous young women around this town into sharing that same bed in which we saw him lying dead – poisoned.