the Rose & the Crane

by Clint Dohmen

  The plan was to flood the rice fields around the village, which had already begun, and bottle up the cavalry on the one major and two minor roads leading into town. The steep, wooded mountains south of the town were impenetrable to cavalry, and the mountains north of town, where the temple was, were nearly so. They could be defended with a small contingent. Simon had an idea to further even out the numerical odds. As the discussion wound down, Simon looked at Aldo and shrugged.

  Aldo saw Simon’s shrug and knew what it meant. The Inglese had a talent for trivializing matters of importance through gesture, and it looked like he’d just made up his mind to stay and help the Nihon-jin. Aldo wanted to help them as well, but he couldn’t see how chancing the deaths of any more of his crew or – bless the Lord for his mercy – even himself, could possibly improve his profits.

  Aldo caught Simon’s stare and forced himself to ponder their situation more deeply. Realistically, he knew the voyage would have ended in death without the villagers’ help. He had seen the symptoms in his crew of a mysterious and deadly sailor’s disease, one that only seemed to take hold on long voyages without fresh food: weakness, muscle pain, bleeding from the gums, and those symptoms had been exacerbated in his own crew by hunger. They would have started dying from that disease, and soon.

  No, he still had a chance, albeit slim, to make some money on this voyage (and to return to Venice alive) and he owed it all to the people of Kannoura. A thought occurred to him. If I fight alongside these people and we win, I may be able to create a monopoly trading for that enameled pottery or that wonderful sake. Once the merchant side of his character reconciled itself with his innate desire to do the right thing, Aldo made up his mind: he would fight. He nodded back at Simon.

  Simon looked at the table and spoke to make sure he understood the plan. He spoke in a mixture of English and Japanese, and both Aldo and Kojiro helped out when his Japanese failed him.

  “You have assigned Taro to hold the northern ridge with a small contingent.” Simon paused to make sure his Japanese was working. Seeing no confused faces, he continued on. “You are stationing the rest of your men in front of the village, from tree line to tree line, with heavy concentrations of spear-armed peasants on the three roads leading into town.” He looked around again, and again his Japanese seemed adequate to the task. “This use of interior defensive lines will allow you to shift your resources where you are pressed most heavily. Behind the spears are your sword-armed samurai and behind them your archers.”

  “That is all correct,” Inotogo responded.

  “The range is too great for our ship’s cannons to help you from the bay, so we will offload four cannons tonight and place them on your roads,” Simon said, with consent from Aldo. “We will place two on the widest road, the one that leads straight into town, and one each on the northern and southern roads at the edges of the rice fields. We only have the manpower left to man four cannons, and we’re going to need your spears and swords to protect them. A barricade across the roads will help disguise our weapons and also provide some additional protection to our sailors.”

  Lord Arai had heard of these “cannons” and the damage they had inflicted upon the Ouchi at sea. He did not hesitate to accept the help. He bowed to Simon and Aldo. “Domo, arigatou gozaimasu.” Aldo left the house and called for his sailors, causing him to miss the furor that ensued shortly afterwards over a word that Simon didn’t understand: makibishi.

  Strangely, Lord Arai remained quiet while his heretofore-leading lieutenant debated loudly with a man that Simon had not really noticed was in the room. This other man had stood quietly behind Lord Arai’s other lieutenants and not said a word up until this point. Now he was constantly bowing, and using Simon’s go-to moves of throwing ‘desu’ and ‘kudasai’ around as much as possible. Although he was arguing with the utmost humility, he was clearly not backing down from his point of view.

  It was then that Simon noticed how sun-darkened his face was, as well as his plain kimono. Another remarkable feature about the man was his height; next to Simon, he was the tallest man in the room. Simon had learned firsthand on the Ouchi ship that this nation took its caste system seriously, and nothing he’d seen in Kannoura had caused him to question this judgment. Nothing until now, that was. Taro moved next to Simon and pulled him out of the circle of men around the map.

  “The man speaking now is Maeda. The name Maeda means ‘in front of the rice field,’ and he is first amongst our farmers.”

  “But he is a peasant!” Simon blurted out the obvious. In England a peasant’s rank in the food chain was hardly different than it was here, and there were certainly no peasants who had ever spoken at his father’s councils of war.

  “I can see that your time spent with us has not been a complete waste,” Taro smiled. “So you are shocked that a peasant speaks in our council of war.” He said it as a statement, not a question.

  “It’s, uh, not what I would have expected.” Simon surprised himself yet again by speaking diplomatically.

  “It is very unusual, of course, but my father is not a usual man. We do not have enough samurai to defeat the Kono, even perhaps with the help of your ‘cannon,’ so our lives will depend on the performance of our farmers and fishermen. It is not an enviable position to be in, but nonetheless, that is where we are. Maeda is the backbone of the village during peacetime, and he will be the backbone of the villagers in battle. That is why my father invited him to this meeting. If he falls, the villagers will collapse and run. I don’t need to tell you where that will leave us.”

  Simon thought about the stories he’d heard regarding the wholesale butchery of Lancastrians after the Battle of Towton, where his father died. “No, you don’t. But what are they arguing about? What are mackiebitches?”

  Taro smirked. “Makibishi are sharp iron spikes that are meant to injure an enemy’s foot. In this case, my father’s top advisor has proposed seeding the rice fields with them to stop enemy cavalry. Maeda-san has argued against it, citing the crippling injuries that the farmers will face once the battle is over.”

  “We call them caltrops, and they are damn effective against cavalry. I can see both sides. Also, you called him Maeda-san, but he is a peasant, I thought you only used san for your betters or your equals.”

  “He is a peasant, but he has earned my respect. I choose to call him san. You may address him as you wish.”

  “Does he have a first name?”

  “No, he does not. Commoners are not entitled to a first name.”

  “So, no first name, but you call him ‘san.’”

  “That is correct, but my father simply calls him Maeda. I respect that he is older than me as well as his work ethic, so I choose to use ‘san.’ No one will care what you call him.”

  “Because I’m a dumbass.”

  “Is that a question?” Taro smiled again.

  Simon moved on from the Japanese titling conundrum. “So what is your father going to do?” The argument, if you could call it that, had finished and Maeda had returned to the outside of the circle with his head held down, his back still straight. Inotogo’s first lieutenant stood with his back just as straight, but also with his head held high.

  Inotogo spoke. “Diagram the rice fields and choose the ones that Kono cavalry are most likely to enter. Of course the fields next to the roads must be included. Then count the number of makibishi you put in each field and document the location as nearly as possible. Use a pattern so we will know where they lie in every field. After the battle, we will recover the makibishi. If we fail to find all the makibishi in a particular field, I trust the villagers will be cautioned to wear thick-soled footwear in that field.” Inotogo then resummoned his stout farmer. “Maeda!”

  “Hai!” Maeda made his way back to the interior of the circle with a face considerably less dour than it had been a minute earlier.

  “Since the aftermath of this action will affect you the most, I task you with selecting a person to draw the diagrams.”r />
  “Hai, wakarimasu,” Maeda answered enthusiastically.

  “Ebitani,” Inotogo addressed his top lieutenant, “since it is your idea, and you are the most experienced in battle, I entrust you with choosing the locations for the makibishi.”

  “Hai, wakarimasu,” Ebitani answered obediently.

  Taro explained the resolution to Simon. Simon came to the same conclusion as Ebitani and Maeda: Inotogo Arai is a clever man.

  Simon headed towards the Tigre to prepare his armor. I guess all that time spent learning the weak points in a samurai’s armor from Kojiro may not go to waste after all.

  Chapter 9

  The Following Morning

  Lord Kono’s Army

  THE FOREST PARTED suddenly, offering a sweeping view of the village of Kannoura and the harbor beyond it. Lord Kono and his lead cavalry elements were struck silent by the sight of a colossal ship anchored in the tiny harbor.

  “Whose ship is that?” Lord Kono spit the last word at his second in command, a grizzled old campaigner who had seen most of what war had to offer.

  “Hosokawa?”

  “My spies assured me they would send no reinforcements of significance.”

  “Maybe the spies were wrong.”

  “I know you have no use for spies, my good lieutenant, but they ferreted out the Arai spy in my court, and I see very few men and even fewer Hosokawa banners before us.” Both men looked down at the village, and indeed, the Hosokawa sashimono were noticeable in their near absence. The Arai banner stood tall in the center and at both flanks of their lines, but the men below those banners looked to be less than half the Kono numbers. Nevertheless, the ship in the harbor troubled Lord Kono because it was unexpected. Unexpected was never good.

  Lord Kono studied the terrain once again. He’d seen it for himself a year ago while disguised as a lowly merchant. The main road before them branched when it reached the western edge of the rice fields, and two lesser roads circumscribed the fields and led into town. The main road continued on as a raised levee straight into the center of the village. All three of the roads ended at a jumbled blockade of carts, barrels, and logs that appeared to be hastily thrown together by the Arai clan.

  Lord Kono patted his horse’s neck. “You’ll make short work of that little obstruction, won’t you?” His horse snorted twice, and by all appearances he seemed to be answering his master.

  “Mountain column, forward!” Lord Kono barked. His trusted lieutenant’s war fan flashed. His smallest column of horses left the road and began their climb through the woods onto the hilly ridge flanking the town’s north side. Lord Kono did not have much hope that a flanking maneuver through the mountainous woods would be successful, but he had to explore the alternative. And if there are men from that ship waiting to ambush us, those hills are the only place they could be hiding. We’ll soon see, he thought to himself.

  “Do you see the glint from their iron and steel?”

  “Hai,” the old samurai lieutenant answered as he surveyed the village below. He could see that a line of spears covered the length of the rice fields’ eastern border; thick at the three roads, much thinner in between. The grizzled old campaigner gripped his war fan in preparation for what was to come.

  “It is too thin between the roads; they will die badly.”

  “But the fields are flooded, my lord.”

  “I will be on the center road, of course, but many of the men’s mounts are sufficiently trained to maintain their charge through the muck.”

  The lieutenant was not convinced of this, since he did not know how long the fields had been flooded and how deep the mud would be under the water, but now was not the time to show any hesitation. To show anything but the utmost confidence in their plan could plant the seed of doubt in others’ minds. Doubt was a killer in combat. “Hai!” he bellowed out with more sureness than he felt.

  After giving his mountain column a twenty-minute head start, Lord Kono looked up at the noonday sun. It was time. “Advance,” he said firmly. The old samurai, who had fought alongside his lord more often than either of them wanted to remember, waved his war fan.

  Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! The deep rumble of wooden mallets on stretched cowhide erupted behind the Kono lines and reverberated across the valley. The taiko drums beat out a marching pace, and Lord Kono tapped Kuro’s flanks lightly. They moved down the hill at the head of the vast column of horses: Lord Kono always led from the front.

  Kuro loved the drums, and the drums walked forward with the column, beating out their pace: Boom! two, three, four, five, Boom! two, three, four, five. Kuro knew the drum commands: a slow five-second beat for walking, an increase to three seconds for a trot, and finally a trio of three-beat sequences for a charge. He could assemble, rally, or retreat with drumbeat commands alone, though he had yet to experience retreat. Kuro pranced to the beat, raising his knees up high in an exaggerated motion to keep time with the drums. His master patted him on the shoulder and spoke softly to him.

  “Only the best pears for you as we feast our victory tonight.”

  The sound of his master’s voice always put him at ease, but he wasn’t nervous. He was excited.

  The formidable army advanced slowly toward the village. At the western edge of the rice fields, where the road split into three, Lord Kono gave his commands. “Column right! Column left!” his deep voice growled. “Center column to me!”

  The war fan fluttered, the taiko drums pounded, and the columns of horses flowed like three streams onto their designated roads. Lord Kono directed his strongest horses and most experienced samurai onto the hard dirt levee that led straight into the center of town. The column paused briefly and drew up to five horses abreast – the maximum that the levee’s width allowed.

  When the left and right columns had done the same on their perimeter roads, Lord Kono ordered the advance. “Walking pace!” The columns moved along their respective roads to the sound of the drums: Boom! two, three, four, five, Boom! two, three, four, five.

  “Move to trot,” Lord Kono ordered, as they continued to move along the levee unmolested.

  Boom! two, three, Boom! two, three, the drums beat out the pattern.

  Lord Kono glanced to his right and then his left. The other two columns of horsemen skirted the edges of the rice fields, all headed east toward the village. With the drumbeats unifying their movements, all three columns moved as one. The meagerly armed peasants occupied little of Lord Kono’s thought or consideration as they trailed behind his awe-inducing host, breathing in the dust kicked up by the horses. We won’t be needing the peasants today, Lord Kono judged as he looked at the half-assed barricade thrown across the road.

  At three hundred yards, the arrows began to fall: high, arching, unaimed arrows that would have done little damage except that the column was so densely packed due to the constraints of the road. Horses and men began to fall behind him.

  “Steady,” Lord Kono said as Kuro strained at the bit.

  “Patience, Kuro, patience,” he whispered into his horse’s ear. “I know you have the energy for a charge at full gallop from this distance, but other horses do not.”

  The arrows peppered the air again, and more horses dropped. At two hundred yards, Lord Kono first took notice of the two large, open iron tubes pointed at him, but they did not register as a threat. “Charge!” he roared, and the war fan waved. The drummers responded in turn.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Lord Kono dug his heels into Kuro’s flanks, and the steed broke instantly into a gallop. Lord Kono dropped his lance next to the right side of Kuro’s neck, and held on as Kuro broke away from the column.

  “Kono!” Lord Kono bellowed.

  “Kono!” his men echoed behind him, and the answering cry came from the roads on the right and left.

  Breathtaking, Kojiro thought as he watched the Kono horses thundering toward him. Beautiful animals, colorful riders, and nak
ed steel; if they weren’t coming to kill me, I would cheer.

  Kuro worked his leg muscles like no other horse in the army could, pulling his rider far in front of the rest of the column. His master did not try to slow him down. At this stage, he never did. Arrows whistled past his ear, but Kuro paid them no mind.

  Then suddenly, Kuro’s world erupted. A belch of fire issued from the round tube in front of him, and a swirling rush of wind passed next to his left ear. Kuro reared up and turned in time to see horses and men behind him disintegrate into shattered bones and horseflesh. Then another tube erupted at the second low point he had spotted in the barricade, and an eddy of air passed to his right this time. He had never heard such screams, cries, and whinnies of pain and distress, but the weight of his master was still in the saddle, and his master’s lance still rested by his neck, right where it should be. Kuro pinned his ears back and made straight for the fire-breathing iron tubes.

  Kojiro observed carefully as Neno ran the two gun crews at the center barricade. The guns had jumped high and shot backwards with such force on their improvised carriage wheels that Kojiro was surprised the restraining ropes tied to the barricade stopped their rearward trajectories. And there was that smell; it was the smell of hot springs, accompanied by thick clouds of white smoke that stung his eyes. Kojiro moved away from the acrid smoke, but the stink of sulfur wouldn’t leave his nostrils.

  “Get it swabbed, pezzo di merda, or those barbarians are going to spit you on their pretty little lances like a lamb at Easter!” Neno yelled at his sailors.

  Kojiro heard the big gaijin shouting, but to him it appeared the foreign sailors didn’t need the motivation. Their teamwork was impeccable.

  “Solid shot, load.”

  “Si,” came the reply of his men. In a swift, practiced motion, one sailor shoved a wet mop into the barrel of the cannon, a second crewmember followed with a powder charge, then a third crewman loaded a cannonball, after which he jumped sprightly to the side.