“Men were drunk at Sanjuro House,” Yazu said.
“Amazing news,” scoffed the detective.
“Where your woman works, good master.”
“Is this your information? Reach some point.” He felt sweat beading around his ears. Was getting irritable.
“Samurai were overheard. Talk about a prostitute who’d been killed and one said there would soon be another. Something to do with the slaying of Lord Hideo’s unfortunate child.”
“How did they know these things? Who are they? Meanwhile, you say they were drunks.”
“What a drunken man says, though he slurs it, need not be false, master.”
“What wisdom is before me. Sensei Yazu, enlighten me still more.”
“You mock me, master. Yet one was heard to say that he had the commission to do the work.”
Takezo stood up, scowling. Yazu prudently scuttled back a little in his almost permanent bowing position, fetching up partly under a berry bush full of flowers and bees. He scuttled a little forward, again, batting at the insects. His coolie hat fell behind him. He twisted his face from the sun, dividing it with a deep shadow.
“Ai!” he yipped, still slapping.
Takezo shook his head, grinning. Then scowled, again.
“Good work, killing women,” he grunted. “Yet, what does this have to do with Lady Osan?”
“This was – ai!” Struck at a bee. “This was not explained.” Scrambled back closer to the porch.
“Go listen some more,” Takezo suggested, heading back inside to get his pack. He’d borrow a horse; stop at Sanjuro; ride the 50-odd miles to the seaside inn. Maybe ninja could walk 75 miles a day, but a horse was better.
Eleven
At the temple
It was hot but pleasant in the yard. The slanting sun divided the bamboo and clay tile roof, pebble paths and neatly swept earth.
The three fugitives faced about a dozen monks in dark robes. uMubaya loved the rich green and flower smells flowing in from the surrounding forest.
The abbot, a big, round man with thick lips and an easy, open smile, bowed and stepped forward.
“We seek help and protection, holy one” Nori said.
“Ah,” responded the soft-looking holy one. “The clans wish to capture you for the killing. So much needless violence.”
“Yes. How did you learn of these things?”
“Word can be swift.”
Nori got it: the Yamabushi’s close ties to the threatened ninja clans. The ninja’s had the fastest communications network in the country. He had to assume they might have been shadowed.
“Yes, holy one.”
“You are welcome.”
Colin was scowling as the abbot came closer. The sun gleamed on his totally shaved head. The holy one said:
“You are the infatuate lover of the dead girl.”
“I… we … ”
“You are welcome here until the matter can be clarified.”
“Not wish to stay here,” he said in his still uncomfortable Japanese.
“Are you not free to do as you please?”
“No. He’s not,” interjected Nori. “He is a fool who would reject a kind offer.”
Like, thought uMubaya, the hyena whose mate brings him good scavenged meat and he says: ‘No, I crave fresh’ and tries to steal from the hunting lions… Wondered if he could translate it into Japanese.
“Want go back… say my innocence,” Colin affirmed, stolid and stubborn.
The Abbot smiled and nodded. Rubbed the top of his head, softly.
“Are you certain to convince them?” he wondered.
“Then fight and die as man.”
“You’ll die,” put in Nori. “And Izu will be forced to kill himself. Wasteful and wrong.”
“Perhaps we can help you,” stated the Abbot. “Lord Izu has been a friend to us.”
Then he went to uMubaya, who hadn’t removed his head covering yet. He’d been wondering if it were poor manners on his part to remain with covered face.
One thing he liked about these Japanese was their politeness. It was something he missed about home. There, the joke was, if you went to a hut for help getting a spear out of your back, you must first ask the occupants how they slept, were they and their family well…
“We do not fear your face,” said the Abbot. “Though we have learned it is remarkable.”
The black man showed himself and the monks took an interest.
“Greetings,” uMubaya said. “I hope you are in good condition.”
“You mean health?” the Abbot said, smiling, wider. “Your flesh shines like polished wood. I am fairly well. I hope you are well, too.”
“Lately I’ve had … ” Touched his belly. “Gripping … ”
“Cramps?”
“Is that the word?”
“Some food, maybe, you are not used to. We have a good tea for that. We’ll serve you some.”
uMubaya bowed thanks.
“What does your religion teach?”
“That there are spirits and powers all around us that bring good or ill. That men must cleanse themselves of evil.”
“So they must,” said the prelate, smiling. “We will speak more of these things. And see how you practice the art of arms. We will be delighted to learn from you.”
Nori was amused for the first time in uMubaya’s recollection. Something to think about, he concluded.
Twelve
Now
Takezo was at the seaside resort of Mora. The day was clear and the oppressive humidity eased by the steady, onshore breeze. It was quiet at the inn at the end of the road where the murder had happened. He could see people swimming in the moderate surf; beyond, in the offing, frail-looking paper-sailed fishing boats, tilted and rocked.
Beautiful world, he thought, again. But for the people in it… Ah, I am getting too bitter…
He left the road and went into a cool alley where he put on clothes that suggested a well-to-do merchant. Hitched the horse and walked back to the main street where he found the bailiff, a sour-faced man who scowled for a smile. Mean, distrustful, petty type, Takezo decided. He’d left his swords wrapped-up in a bolt of cloth.
My life has been like a toothache, lately, he said to himself.
Standing in the hot sun he faced the stocky bailiff who was in the shade of the overhanging roof of his small, official building. The pony was nuzzling a bucket of water a few doors down. Some peasants were doing small-town things; a bony dog was chasing another.
A barefoot man with wide shoulders, high cheekbones and a face that belonged on a carved mask was sitting on a barrel in nondescript, gray and white commoner tunic and hatachi – a kind of apron-like garment. He struck the ronin as the causelessly hostile type... vaguely familiar, somehow…
“An exciting town,” he told the bailiff who tugged his face as if he meant to extend his chin – maybe, Takezo decided, he believed the gesture made him look thoughtful. He had a cloth loosely wrapped like a turban over his narrow head.
“Ha,” said the official. Often these men were expert in unusual weapons like the trident-like jittu used to disarm drunken swordsmen. This skill gave them a kind of petulant arrogance. “You think this?”
“Dull?”
“Ha. So you say.”
Some days everyone you meet might be stupid, our spy thought, and then you wonder about yourself…
“I am looking for a place to come with my lady. Peaceful place.”
“With your lady?”
Takezo sighed. It definitely was looking like one of those days when everyone you met was stupid.
“And my favorite goat.”
“Goats in the inn? Ha, ha.”
“It’s a shirabyoshi goat. I dress it in fine silks.”
“Shirabyoshi goat?”
That referred to a high-level courtesan with artistic skills, beauty and talent.
“It entertains me. You should hear it sing the ‘moonrise,’ song.”
“You
dress a goat in silk?” He turned around to look at the man on the barrel behind him. “You’re weak in the head, I think.”
The wiry man on the barrel just stared, expressionless.
“I heard a woman was murdered here,” said Takezo.
“Maybe it was a goat.”
“Look, I’d like to know this is a safe place to visit,” said Takezo, the seeming merchant.
The bailiff looked up at the hazy sky; looked down and then spat a gob into the yellow dust and watched it roll into a dry lump.
“Go back where you came from,” he said, judiciously, glancing back again. “You and your goat.”
“You don’t need visitors?” Takezo asked. “Business booms here?” He looked around. “Seems quiet.”
“Quieter if you go.”
“Did you kill all your guests?”
“Not too funny. Go away.”
As Takezo had hoped, the wide-shouldered seated man got up and padded out of the deep shade over to them, standing on the boards a foot above the road so that the two of them looked slightly down at the ronin. The sun angle hollowed his face, under his high, deepcut cheekbones, into a skull effect. A slash had taken away part of one ear.
“Some left,” the newcomer said, flat, expressionless. His face was abstractly hostile. “Some didn’t.”
“Do you own the inn?”
The man just stared. Takezo was sure he was dangerous. He had the blunt-eyed indifference, the impersonality of an executioner. There was a strange, almost familiar quality though nothing came to mind. He knew he didn’t like him.
“Go away,” he said, without heat. “The inn is closed.”
“In summer?”
They both looked at him. The bailiff seemed to gain arrogance from the other whom he clearly deferred to.
“You heard him,” the bailiff affirmed, with scorn. “Closed. Everything closed.” Made a shooing motion with his hands. “Repairs. Come with your whore goats next year.”
Takezo looked steadily into the remote eyes of the other man. He didn’t like them, either.
“Did I ask the wrong question?” he asked.
After a long, narrow-eyed look, the wiry man turned and went back to his barrel in the shade. He sat and said:
“Farewell, goat-man.”
“Have we met before, sitting-on-barrel-san?”
“I can’t wait to forget you,” was the retort. “Sayonara.”
If he’d had any doubts about the possible guilt of the foreigner this little interaction pretty much dispelled them. He recalled the saying: The guilty conceal what no one is looking for…
As he walked back to his horse, he half-expected a suriken or dart to come zinging at the back of his head; except he was just a merchant. A slightly crazy merchant. And it hadn’t gone that far, yet. If he went back down the street to the inn, now, and asked questions… no point, one of these two would go ahead of him and say it was closed. It had looked a little too quiet in the first place.
He mounted and headed past them, still in the same positions on the porch boards: the bailiff, standing, giving a false impression of thinking; the other, relaxed, head tilted forward, hands on knees: position of readiness, the unconscious mark of a samurai, maybe.
About a quarter of a mile down the road he stopped a one-eyed farmer carrying two big yellow jugs on a yoke across his shoulders, heading towards the village. The man wore a kind of head rag, was very bony and kept sucking at his gums.
“What are you selling?” Takezo asked.
“Not for sale to you. For the inn.” Started to walk, again.
“Wait. I heard the inn is closed.”
“Closed. Ha. Who said that? The village fool?” Twisted his face, bird-like. The scarred lid drooped over the missing eye. Takezo thought it might have been put out in a fight or for a crime. Maybe this town was run by a criminal clan. Something to look into. “Too busy to talk to you.”
“Maybe the girl’s ghost is haunting it?”
The reaction was consistent. The man squinted up at him, pausing, not-quite-hostile.
“Eh? What girl?”
“The one whose head wasn’t cut off,” said the facetious Takezo.
But the reaction to that was excessive and left the ninja detective taken aback and puzzled. Because the fellow darted away, yoke rocking across his skinny shoulders, raising a dust with his flapping feet, as if he’d seen a ghost at that.
“No more talk,” the man said, almost fleeing. “Busy today.”
He sat the pony and frowned, watching the fellow recede into the dusty, humid day towards the haze of the village.
Maybe there is something in the water, he pondered, so all their brains are shrunken or askew… Wished he had a jug of something strong. He’d stop at the next collection of huts and buy some. Most families brewed their own. I’ll have to come back here… and not for the charming company… with their back to a wall they look over their shoulders…
At the next collection of huts he bought a jug of shochu and discovered four men, including a monk, had passed through heading northwest. He vaguely remembered there was a Yamabushi stronghold in that direction; confirmed it and went on the same way…
Thirteen
At House Sanjuro
Miou kept seeing the blood spatters that criss-crossed the rose-pale, silk-covered walls as if it were a mad attempt to shape calligraphic characters in wild “grass-writing” style, a message of death across the screen portraits of the women working there, her own image spotted from face to breasts.
She kept staring at the nude, slashed-open woman her mind had refused to identify, at first. The blood had fountained and misted everywhere.
She’d come to work and had to press and twist her way through the panicked, weeping girls and tense, curious male patrons, hearing the shrill voice of the number one woman repeating:
“An angry samurai struck her down… aiii… the beast… the beast … ”
“Where has he gone?” asked a male voice.
She half-heard these things as she’d plunged into the charnel chamber.
“Fled. Ran like a coward,” a girl cried out.
“I struck at him,” another man’s slurred voice. “Thus he fled.”
Miou, staring at the starfished body, lying on its side, that seemed to be frozen, fixed while running, one arm outflung as if she had thrown the blood ahead of her in some unreadable attempt to scrawl a message.
Why? She asked herself, sick and angry. Tanba knows… he must know…
And then already turning, half-running through and around the others, down the corridor and back out into the sultry, oppressive night under stars swollen by the humid air.
Outside the gate she got into one of the closed palanquins that were carried by two sweaty men, tattooed, almost naked, with long poles over their shoulders. She climbed inside, gave an address and they started off at a slight trot, reminding her of the way a coffin barrel was carried. As they went she dropped the bamboo blinds on both sides and sat, thoughtful, as the cab swayed along the street, then turned up a steeper way.
She was thinking about the time when she’d first met Takezo. She’d been told to get involved with him. Though Takezo rarely said much about this sort of thing she eventually found out he’d tracked down and killed a member of a rogue ninja clan that had turned to outright crime - not uncommon during the civil wars that still went on in outlying provinces.
So, her job was to find out if the reputed ninja, Takezo, might be in the pay of some rival criminal organization, doing the work for the dead man’s own clan or possibly a high-ranking criminal member, himself, advancing his own agenda. Her boss and lover, Tanba no Kami (Sandayu Momoichi) had instructed her in the stone and pebble garden of his Edo house on the hillside one cold, damp, gray autumn afternoon where they’d drunk hot tea, sitting on a cold stone bench. He wore light clothes, they said, even in the winter and though his house was luxurious, liked to alternate comfort with discomfort for himself and his associates:
a kind of ninja moral principle.
‘Learn what you can,’ he’d instructed, sitting beside her, looking at the pale gray tile wall that enclosed this plantless garden. ‘He may be of no importance but we can never know enough about others.’
‘Who spies on the spies?’ she’d wondered, thinking about all the police and samurai, ninjas, informers that commoners said: “stayed close enough to help you wipe your behind.”
‘We do,’ he’d said, amused, getting up, graceful, wiry, catlike and padding several steps over to the single, ten-foot, round pool in the center, full of lotus and lily, the only growing things in that barren retreat.
She didn’t get up. Looked at him: slight, relaxed and deadly in his gray and black robe.
‘Am I supposed to kill him?’ she’d asked, showing nothing.
‘I doubt that you could, from what I hear.’ He’d stared down at the water where his reflection blended in blurry fragments among the green pads, fronds and flowers. ‘You are, anyway, a reluctant assassin. Just find out what you can. I am told he is quite good-looking.’
‘Ah. A love-match.’
‘It’s your duty,’ he’d pointed out, looking down as if trying to focus on his elusive form and feature, blended away by the shadowy water and featureless sky reflection. ‘No sense being bitter.’
‘Am I bitter?’
‘Find out what you can, beautiful one,’ he’d concluded.
She’d stared at the blank gray wall. Then shut her eyes. Said nothing.
She’d waited for Jiro Takezo (one cold, wet autumn evening) near the cheap “rooming house” where he had one window overlooking a muddy canal in a tough district. It was full of gamblers, sake taverns, cheap restaurants, next door to a coffin maker and cooper whose hammering and sawing replaced, Takezo thought, the morning birds…
Miou purposely got soaked in the light, chilly rain, one tabi off, headdress askew, kimono torn. When he showed up in the deepening gray dark on the semi-deserted market street (that had shut down an hour before) she was ready.
He noticed her as he was walking close to the buildings under the overhang to keep out of the rain. He had a leather cape over his shoulders and wore loose, thick breeches and a buttonless shirt.
Dead Blossoms: The Third Geisha Page 8