by Steve Bein
Daigoro did not bother to see them out.
18
By sundown the next day, the Okuma coop was populated with pigeons again. They came one by one, nearly all of them from the north, since the Okuma compound lay on the southern reaches of the Izu Peninsula. They had all been raised here, trained carefully from their youth, then delivered in delicate cages to the coops of distant lords. They returned home unerringly, always with a tiny scroll case bound to one leg. Every time they came home, they were caged again and sent back to the coops of the distant daimyo. It never seemed to trouble them much, but this time their homecoming had them spooked. The lingering scent of fox still hung on the air.
“Here comes another,” Aki said. They heard it before they saw it: a noisy fluttering on the ledge just outside the little octagonal window. Then came the bobbing gray head, daring a furtive glance inside before deciding in its tiny brain that there were no longer any foxes about. At last a full-breasted male came into view, big enough that he had to squeeze himself through the window into the coop.
Daigoro and Aki stood arm in arm watching the bird. The pigeon coop was in the dark and dingy attic of the Okuma stables. The horses and birds took shelter in the same structure, which made it a malodorous place, nowhere more so than in the attic right next to the coop. It was not a place the lord and lady of the house would ordinarily find themselves. But Daigoro was no longer a lord, and in any case he could not allow any gossip to escape this attic. Thus far the birds only brought bad news and worse news, and though the pigeon keeper had been hired specifically for his discretion, any man’s tongue might waggle if the troubles on the horizon loomed large enough.
First came the news that Aki’s father had no intention of bailing the Okumas out of their current predicament. He said a ship that could not right itself might well deserve to sink. It did not seem to trouble him that his daughter was aboard that ship. If he thought she would come swimming back to him after House Okuma foundered, he did not know his daughter very well.
It was a good thing Aki had built her own net of spies, because it was no easy thing to communicate without pigeons. The Inoues were easy enough to reach, as they were close neighbors; a swift rider could reach them in a day. The Green Cliff was just a half-day’s ride, but no help would come from there. Lord Yasuda had been sick for months, and after his most recent turn for the worse, his healers kept him perpetually asleep. They said the aging lord needed all his strength to fight off the devil that beset his lungs; a steady diet of poppy’s tears allowed his body to marshal its forces for its final battle. Daigoro could not wake him in good conscience.
Aki was not quite so scrupulous. “How do you know this isn’t Kenbei’s work?” she’d said. “It serves his best interests to keep his father asleep.” When Daigoro had no response to that, she sent Old Yagyu and a handful of aides to the Green Cliff. Even Kenbei could not conscionably turn away the man who kept Daigoro’s brother Ichiro alive even after he’d nearly lost his head. While Old Yagyu ministered to Lord Yasuda, one of the aides slipped into the pigeon coop and used Kenbei’s own birds to deliver Daigoro’s missives.
Old Yagyu would stay at Lord Yasuda’s side, ostensibly to heal him, but his primary purpose was to defend the old daimyo from patricide. Kenbei could not be trusted. His brothers were of no greater help. Jinbei’s elder sons had replied with birds of their own, conveying their regrets. Kenbei’s behavior was disgraceful, they said, but as their father had formally given him charge of House Yasuda’s day-to-day affairs, they had no say in how he managed the ledgers.
The next pigeon had come from Lord Mifune Izu-no-kami Hiroyuki, daimyo of House Mifune and Lord Protector of Izu. Lord Mifune’s idea of help was simply not to call in his own debts. He thought it best to stand clear of this disagreement, lest he show favoritism—or so he said. It was almost true. No carrion feeder wanted a say in how other animals fought and died. His role was to wait on the sidelines and grow fat on the scraps of whatever was left.
The newest bird had come from Sora Izu-no-kami Nobushige. The scroll case lashed to its leg was lacquered blood red, which reminded Daigoro of Lord Sora’s bright red cheeks. Sora’s hands were perpetually red as well, some kind of skin condition in all likelihood, but he looked as if he’d just come from the smithy where he’d established his name. He talked that way too; all those years of hammering had left him half deaf, so he did not speak so much as shout. Between that, his arrogance, and his tendency to bluster on, Daigoro much preferred to converse with him via pigeon.
In a refreshing change from Lord Mifune and the Yasuda sons, Lord Sora was honest. Brutally so. In this case his message was simple: Kenbei had offered him the Green Cliff. In exchange, Sora would call in all his favors from House Okuma. Once Daigoro’s wife and mother were penniless, Kenbei would cast them out, seize the Okuma compound for himself, and turn over ownership of the most formidable holdfast in Izu.
It was a tempting offer, and not because a clan’s wealth was measured by its holdings. Sora Nobushige was obsessed with defense. Like Lord Inoue, he was cautious to a fault, but where Inoue relied on spies to keep him safe, Sora placed his faith in steel. His forge produced some of the finest armor in the empire. He tested his breastplates with a matchlock pistol at point-blank range. Daigoro could vouch for that; he’d put his own Sora yoroi to the test more times than he cared to count. Nothing could please Sora more than sleeping the rest of his nights behind the mighty moss-covered wall of the Green Cliff.
And yet there was that last line, the one that called the rest of the message into question. Make me a better offer. I want Streaming Dawn.
“Streaming Dawn?” Aki said. “I thought that was a myth.”
“It’s not. At least, I don’t think so. But wherever it is, it’s lost now.”
Some said Streaming Dawn was an Inazuma blade. Others said Master Inazuma was never so wicked as to forge a weapon like that. Whatever the legends said—and there were many of them—all of them centered around a knife and a beautiful woman. In some of the stories she was Inazuma’s daughter, or the daughter of whoever the true sword smith was. In others, she was wife, daughter, or sister to a great daimyo. In one version, she was a sword smith herself, the only woman ever to be ordained by the Shinto priest-smiths of Seki. Whoever she was, her fate was dark and cruel.
The details of her attack varied with the telling, but all agreed it was a samurai who killed her, and all agreed she suffered terribly before the end. Her killer was ordered to commit seppuku, and as the first rays of dawn streamed in, he plunged Streaming Dawn into his belly. He wailed long and loud, for there was no fate more gruesome than self-disembowelment. That was why a samurai nominated a second, a kaishakunin, to behead him if he should disgrace himself by crying out. But this man’s kaishakunin refused to carry out his duty, and somehow the doomed man did not die. For three days he suffered, and for three days he did not bleed.
Still the kaishakunin would not end it. Because his appointment had been affirmed by the daimyo’s court, he insisted that no one else had the right to take the killer’s life. That duty was his and his alone.
Three days became thirty. Thirty became three hundred. With every breath the knife shifted in the killer’s gut, so his every moment was sheer agony. He gnashed his teeth down to nubs. His fingernails gouged ruts in his palms, ghastly and bloodless. When he tried to remove Streaming Dawn, he found his own body defied him. His abdominal muscles clenched down tight on the blade. Even his viscera seemed to hold it fast.
The identity of the kaishakunin varied from story to story. Sometimes he was the murdered girl’s husband, sometimes her father. In Daigoro’s favorite version, the kaishakunin was her ghost, its dead ghastly white face hidden by helmet and mempo. That was the version that terrified Daigoro most as a child. In every telling, Streaming Dawn was said to be the cruelest blade of all, for it cut without killing. Daigoro’s mother told the story as a cautionary tale, warning her sons that someday, when they had wives and d
aughters of their own, they should never be cruel. His father saw a different moral in the story: death is nothing to be feared, for to cling to life is to cling to suffering.
Sora Nobushige had taken quite a different lesson. He seemed to believe the blade could do what even the best armor could not. It promised eternal life. That wasn’t a far cry from how the stories ended: when the kaishakunin was old and gray, still the doomed man lingered with Streaming Dawn in his belly. By then he was a quivering, withered husk. It was only after the kaishakunin died of old age that someone took mercy and beheaded the long-suffering murderer.
“‘Seventy-Seven Years of Seppuku,’” Aki said. “That was the name of the song a minstrel sang for us in my father’s court.”
“I think I know it. That’s the one where the killer is twenty-two when he commits seppuku, neh? His kaishakunin was the same age, and they both lived to the ripe old age of ninety-nine.”
“Yes. When I was little, it frightened me so much that I couldn’t sleep. But it’s a ghost story, Daigoro. A fable. Lord Sora will not pass up the Green Cliff in favor of a knife from a fairy tale.”
“My father always spoke of it as if it were real. He said he saw it once.”
“Saw it. Once. Unless he took it home and left it in your armory, what use is that to you?”
Daigoro threw his hands up. “Aki, what choice do I have? Sora believes it exists. If I can find it, I take away Yasuda Kenbei’s leverage. Your father isn’t backing him; he’s simply staying out of the fray. The same goes for Lord Mifune in the north, and even for Kenbei’s own brothers. He’s alone. Alone, you and Mother can deal with him. But united with the Soras? No. We’re in no position to take on two at once.”
“I don’t like it. Your plan hinges on a mythical, magical knife, and on the goodwill of an arrogant windbag who is old enough to remember when our grandfathers were children. Suppose Sora keels over dead. Then where would you be?”
Even as she said it, an ill omen made its entrance. A jet-black bird alighted on the windowsill. It was the rarest of specimens, a black pigeon, and yet it was a near twin to the bird that arrived earlier that afternoon. Only Inoue Shigekazu was mistrustful enough to dye his carrier pigeons black. Only he would worry about enemy arrows finding them in the dark.
“Another message from my father?” Aki beguiled the new arrival with a sprig of millet, then untied the tiny leather thongs binding the slender cylinder to its foreleg. “What could he want?”
“Probably to tell you to find a better husband.”
Aki’s fingers were much more adroit than Daigoro’s when it came to uncapping a scroll case as thin as a chopstick. When she unrolled the slip of paper inside, she said, “Oh.”
“What?”
She didn’t answer; she just handed it over. She looked like she might be sick.
Daigoro unfurled the scroll and squinted to read it in the half-light of the attic. Whispers spreading: Lady in the North seeks audience with Daigoro. Says Shichio is mutual enemy. Osezaki Shrine. Two nights hence, moonrise.
“Tell me you won’t go,” Aki said.
“What? I … I haven’t had time to give it any thought.”
“I’ve had all the time I need. It’s a trap, Daigoro.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You told me yourself: Lady Nene is Shichio’s enemy. Now Nene confirms it.”
“If Nene is the one responsible for these whispers. What if Shichio knows you’re aware of his rivalry with Nene? What if this is one of his ploys?”
Daigoro had to grant her the possibility. “Maybe. But still—”
“Have you forgotten your Sun Tzu? ‘To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.’ Don’t provide your enemy the means to defeat you, Daigoro. Don’t walk into this trap.”
“We don’t know it’s a trap. And Sun Tzu would tell me to gather intelligence before leaping to conclusions.”
Aki’s face grew dark. “Do you know Osezaki?”
“No. I’ve never been there.”
“It is a long, thin spit stretching out into Suruga Bay. In the middle it’s so narrow that I could throw a rock from the western shore to the eastern.”
“And I have seen you throw,” Daigoro said with a laugh. He tried to take her hand, but Aki snatched it away.
“The shrine is at the northern tip,” she said, “totally exposed to attack by land or sea. Mount Daruma overlooks every road leading to Osezaki, down to the last goat path. There is nowhere to hide.”
“Then an ambush will be easy enough to spot.” Finally she allowed him to catch her hand. “Akiko-chan. Did you marry a fool?”
She made him wait while she thought about it. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“My adoring wife.” He squeezed her fingers and she squeezed back. “My father raised me to be fearless, not suicidal. I love you. I love our child. I will not throw away my life for nothing. But you told me yourself: if I am to defeat Shichio, it will be through statesmanship, not swordsmanship. And in statecraft there are no better weapons than high-ranking allies. Neh?”
She nodded. They had discussed the matter many times—usually because Daigoro was too thickheaded to understand her the first time through.
“Well, who outranks Hideyoshi’s wife?”
“Precisely. This is bait, Daigoro. It’s too good to be true.”
“And yet it makes sense. Imagine if Shichio was my advisor. As my wife, wouldn’t you want him dead?”
“Yes. But Shichio knows that.” She clutched his hand hard enough to make him grateful that she held his left hand, not the right with its still-mending fingers. “I am your wife. I don’t care what pact you signed with the regent; I am still your wife.”
“Aki—”
“Listen to me. So long as you are my husband, it is my duty to obey you. You tell me how you can be certain—certain—that this is Nene’s work, not Shichio’s, and you have my support.”
She wasn’t wrong. Daigoro knew that. For a woman raised by a spymaster, certainty took on a particular meaning. She allowed no room for doubt.
The daughter of a spymaster. That was it.
Daigoro held up the letter—more a curled paper ribbon than a letter, really—as if presenting her with a new piece of evidence. “This is your father’s hand, neh?”
“Yes.” It was well known within House Inoue that the lord was so paranoid that he wrote all his messages himself.
“And he says this is Nene’s will, not Shichio’s.”
“Yes.”
“Then the question is, can we trust him? Did he write this idly, without proof that this is not Shichio’s doing? Or did he corroborate with his spies first, and confirm it was Nene before taking up his brush? If he holds true to his promise, then he cannot knowingly send me into enemy hands. If his promise is empty, then we can only speculate on who waits for me at Osezaki Shrine.”
“Knowingly,” Aki echoed. She looked not at Daigoro but at the black pigeon. Perhaps she hoped it would tell her something of her father’s mood. “That’s the riddle. If he knows Shichio has set a trap for you, then he breaks his faith by sending you there. But if he simply chooses not to find out …”
He clasped her shoulder with his right hand. The smooth, cold feel of silk felt good against his palm. He hugged her close and kissed her forehead. “Believe me, Aki, I want certainty as much as you do. But I have no time to visit your father and read him for myself. I must speak to Lord Sora immediately, before Kenbei hears anything of Streaming Dawn. From there, on a fast horse, with no Toyotomi patrols on the road, I might make it to Osezaki in time.”
“All the more reason for doubt. Two days is not enough time. Your only option is to rush in headlong.”
That is often what bushido demands, Daigoro thought. He knew Katsushima would agree with him. But Katsushima would have another word for him too: patience.
To Aki he said, “That means everything hangs on this question: d
oes your father mean to maintain his honor, or only a thin veneer of it?”
He was afraid he already knew the answer.
19
Osezaki Shrine was a little frightening in the middle of the night.
It was not quiet. The moon was a white sliver; behind its veil of clouds, it illuminated almost nothing, but there was still much to be heard. Low waves lapped invisibly on all sides. The first of the autumn crickets had come to sing. After Izu’s extended drought, most of the leaves were dry and brittle; the wind made them sound like clacking teeth of the ghosts of a thousand children. The night before, sailors’ voices would have been audible, but this morning Hideyoshi had sailed back to Kyoto with the fleet.
It was chilly this close to the water. Nene was surrounded by trees, but their foliage wasn’t dense enough to serve as a windbreak. Nene nestled her hands deeper into their opposite sleeves, snugging her arms a little closer to her chest. Her long hair was heavy enough to keep the cold off the back of her neck, but the salt wind off the bay chilled her cheeks.
She would have preferred to wait in the shrine itself, out of the wind, but that was the only place where her bodyguards could remain completely invisible. Four would guard her directly and four more were hidden within the oratory, whose lattice windows afforded arcs of fire over the entire grounds. The tactical benefit was coincidental; the shrine was not built to shelter armed men. Nor were its pristine floors intended for filthy, booted feet, but Nene’s bodyguards had not troubled themselves to remove their boots.
Nevertheless, Nene was not one to argue with experts about how to carry out their own duties. The captain of her guard positioned her just in front of the shrine, by a stone bench she found much too cold to sit on. Two foreboding lion-dogs looked down on the bench from their pedestals, their stone teeth bared to ward off evil spirits. Nene had a guard at each pedestal, a third directly by her side, and a fourth standing at the torii overarching the footpath leading up to the shrine. That was the captain. His station was the coldest, and the farthest from Nene’s side, but it provided the best view of the path running from the peninsula to the shrine. He wanted to be the one to spot the Bear Cub first.