In Darkness, Death

by Dorothy Hoobler

  His voice changed. “So do you know what happened then?” he asked Seikei.

  “They frightened people,” Seikei replied.

  Tatsuno gave a little laugh, sharp as a cough. “That’s true. And the shogun and daimyos, who were, in those times, often at war with each other, came to value us. Because we were so skilled at going where others could not, and killing when others could not. So whenever the shogun and the daimyos—and anyone else—wanted a killer, they knew that they should hire a ninja.”

  Tatsuno grew silent again, riding the horse slowly while Seikei walked alongside. “Do you remember your question?” Tatsuno asked quietly.

  Seikei had nearly forgotten. “Why would a ninja want to kill Lord Inaba?” he asked once more.

  “Because someone paid him to do it,” Tatsuno answered.

  “The farmers?” asked Seikei. “Do you think the farmers did it?”

  “It is clear,” said Tatsuno, “that Lord Inaba—both the old one and the new one—had many enemies.”

  17

  THE BUTTERFLY SOARS

  The sound of approaching hoofbeats interrupted their conversation. Realizing that it must be more of Lord Inaba’s samurai, Tatsuno urged his horse into a copse of trees near the road. Seikei ran after him.

  Tatsuno slid off the horse, his knees buckling as he reached the ground. It was clear that although he didn’t complain, he was still weak from his wound. “Find a tree and hide behind it,” he told Seikei.

  “What about you?” Seikei asked. “They’ll see the horse.”

  “I will make certain they don’t,” said Tatsuno.

  Seikei found a tree whose trunk was broad enough to conceal him. He ducked behind it, but couldn’t resist taking a cautious look as the samurai approached.

  They were coming from the south. There were twenty or more mounted warriors, covered with armor made of leather strips bound together. Most were also wearing war helmets, carved into ferocious figures designed to frighten enemies.

  Seikei shivered. There were no enemies for Lord Inaba’s men to conquer down that road—except some humble farmers armed only with sticks and tools, whose only crime had been to want their families to live.

  Seikei looked over at the place where he had left Tatsuno. He was astonished to see that there was no sign of either him or the horse. Seikei turned and looked all around, but the ninja and the horse had entirely vanished.

  That was just as well, for the samurai would surely have seen him. And although Seikei could only see the samurai from a distance, it looked to him as if one of them was the man whose horse Tatsuno had taken.

  A flash of light shone briefly from the front line of the riders. Seikei had to shield his eyes. As the glare vanished, he saw one of the riders toss something to the ground.

  When they had passed by, disappearing around the next bend in the road, Seikei cautiously stepped from behind the tree. He looked around again. Still no trace of Tatsuno. In fact, the silence in the grove of trees seemed strangely overwhelming. It was as if a cold wind had come through and blown away all sound. Seikei tried to shout, but found that his throat was closed from fear.

  He ran toward the road, preferring the risk of being seen to remaining any longer in the dark, silent forest.

  Just as he stepped into the hoofprints left in the snowy road by the samurais’ horses, he saw the flash of light again. This time it came from the road. Seikei went over and picked up the object that the samurai had thrown away.

  He recognized it. It was the wire frame that held the two crystals Dr. Genko had looked through to examine Seikei’s foot. But the crystals were broken now. Only a few jagged pieces of them were left in the wire frame, which was twisted and ruined.

  “Do you understand what that means?”

  Seikei whirled at the sound of the voice. It was Tatsuno, still leading the horse.

  “Where did you come from?” Seikei asked in a shaky voice. The ninja’s sudden appearance had frightened him.

  “I was in the woods,” Tatsuno replied, “but I was invisible. That doesn’t matter. What do you think the object in your hands means?”

  Seikei bit his lip. “That those samurai have been to the village where Dr. Genko lives. We must go and see if we can help them.”

  “It must be obvious even to you that we are too late,” said Tatsuno. “We must go meet your father now.”

  “It may not be too late,” said Seikei. “Those people trusted us. We have to do something to help them.”

  “Become a warlord and come back to kill Lord Inaba,” said Tatsuno. “As long as you believe in dreams.”

  Seikei was angry. “I could hire a ninja to help me. If there were any brave ones around.”

  “And if you had enough money,” said Tatsuno. “Ninjas are not as brave as they are clever.”

  “You mean greedy,” said Seikei.

  Tatsuno shrugged, mounted the horse, and headed south along the road. Seikei followed. A cold wind blew flakes of snow at their backs. When they came to the fork in the road, Tatsuno turned and asked, “Do you still have that paper butterfly?”

  “Yes,” Seikei replied.

  “Give it to me.”

  Seikei hesitated. “What are you going to do?”

  “Come on, you don’t need it any longer. We know where it came from.”

  Reluctantly Seikei took it from his kimono. To tell the truth, he was glad to be rid of the blood-stained thing. He handed it to Tatsuno.

  Tatsuno spread the butterfly’s wings as wide as they would go. He held it high in the air, resting it on his palm. A gust of wind captured it and blew it toward the south, toward the village where Dr. Genko lived. Straining his eyes in that direction, Seikei thought he saw wisps of smoke in the sky.

  “That is the best we can do for them,” said Tatsuno. He turned and headed west. Seikei watched the butterfly, thinking that it must soon fall to the ground. But, carried by the wind, it went on until it was out of sight.

  Tatsuno was right, Seikei admitted to himself. There was nothing else he could do. Not now at least. But he would make sure Lord Inaba was punished for this.

  The road was bleak and empty of everything but snow. They passed a few farmhouses that seemed to be deserted. Their inhabitants had given up, starved to death, or perhaps gone to try to make a living in a city.

  Seikei and Tatsuno stopped at one of the farmhouses for the night. They had no way to build a fire, for the coals in the hearth had long ago burned out. There was nothing to eat, for either them or the horse. After the sun set, the snow started to fall harder. Tatsuno led the horse inside to shelter it. Seikei realized the house was actually a little warmer with the horse, even if it smelled.

  Seikei still had the writing kit, but it was too dark to write anything. As he lay restlessly on the floor, he tried to think of a poem. Basho had often consoled himself that way when he encountered unexpected hardships.

  But every time Seikei started a poem, it seemed to describe how it felt to sleep with a horse. Had Basho ever done that?

  Fortunately, the next morning they had not traveled far before finding a farmhouse that was occupied. At first, it didn’t seem so lucky. Seeing smoke coming from the chimney, Tatsuno and Seikei approached the house. But a farmer and his son—about the same age as Seikei—emerged. The older man carried an ax; his son, a pitchfork.

  “They think we’re bandits,” said Tatsuno. “They have so little to preserve that they guard it fiercely.” He stepped forward, holding his hands out to show them he meant no harm. Seikei knew by now that Tatsuno’s hands were as dangerous as any weapon—and of course with one of his deadly little shuriken, he could have caused either the man or boy to drop to his knees, screaming.

  Instead he offered them the horse. In return he asked only for two bowls of rice.

  The farmer was very suspicious. He examined the horse closely, starting with the teeth. Then he checked its legs and hooves.

  Seikei thought the man was an idiot. If Seikei had had t
wo bowls of rice, he would have traded Tatsuno for the horse himself, just so he could ride the rest of the way.

  Finally the farmer agreed to the deal. Even then, he wouldn’t allow Tatsuno and Seikei to enter the house, fearing some trick. His son went inside and emerged with two bowls of warm rice—not even particularly generous bowls, Seikei noticed. Although he was glad to eat what there was.

  When they had finished their meal and set out on the road again, Seikei asked, “Why did you make such a poor bargain?”

  “You didn’t think having a full stomach was worth a horse?” asked Tatsuno.

  “A horse is certainly worth more than two bowls of rice,” replied Seikei.

  “Perhaps not, when you’re hungry and have no way to eat the horse,” replied Tatsuno. “Besides, the horse was hungry too. We had nothing to feed him. If he had died, it would have been our responsibility. It was I who took him from a comfortable stable and out of the city. He carried me on his back all day without complaining. I would have been very cruel and ungrateful to let him starve. ”

  Seikei admitted this was so.

  “And besides,” said Tatsuno, “it’s very difficult to make a horse invisible.”

  They continued on the road for several days, stopping overnight at shrines or monasteries whenever they could, sleeping in caves when no other shelter could be found. Turning south, they passed Lake Biwa, where the water along the shore was frozen.

  Seikei had never seen the vast lake before. “I want to stay here until I think of a poem that will do justice to it,” he told Tatsuno.

  “No poem ever will,” Tatsuno replied, “because a great and wonderful kami dwells here. How can you put into words the grandeur of the kami—even a small kami in a stone or a drop of water?”

  “In a poem, you don’t try to completely describe it,” said Seikei. “What you must do is recall a small part of it, and the rest follows.”

  Tatsuno shrugged. “Then you can remember a small part, and write it down later. Come on—your father will wonder what has kept us all this time.”

  “He’s probably solved the case by now and found the killer,” said Seikei. “But I still want to report Lord Inaba’s behavior to him.”

  “Why do you think he’s solved the case?” asked Tatsuno.

  “I thought that as soon as we left the old papermaker,” said Seikei. “He told us that the paper for the butterfly came from O-Miwa Shrine, remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “And O-Miwa Shrine is in Yamato Province.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Which is where we’re going anyway because the judge told us to meet him there.”

  “So you think—”

  “Somehow he knew all along that the murderer would be there. And he’s had days to capture him. The case will be solved by the time we arrive.”

  “I doubt that,” said Tatsuno. “I doubt that very much.”

  He sounded very sure, Seikei thought. There was only one way he could be so sure, but that ... that was impossible.

  18

  A PARTING

  They approached the city of Nara from the north. Soon after entering the outskirts, Seikei saw a mammoth wooden structure that towered above all the other buildings.

  Tatsuno noticed him staring at it, and said, “That’s the Great Buddha Hall of Todai-ji. Shall we pay it a visit?”

  Even though Seikei was eager to report to the judge, his curiosity overcame him. When they reached the temple, he and Tatsuno removed their sandals, leaving them with dozens of other pairs on the steps.

  Though the building was immense, it was nearly as light inside as out. Thousands of candles were burning, set in holders on the walls all the way up to the ceiling. They illuminated a gigantic golden statue of the Buddha that towered over the worshippers who stood in front of it.

  Joining the crowd, Seikei and Tatsuno were gradually swept toward the statue like leaves floating in a stream. The closer they got, the larger the statue seemed to become. Finally, at the very base of it, Seikei bent his head back as far as he could, trying to see the Buddha’s face. From here, all that was visible was his nose.

  “People say,” remarked Tatsuno, “that a bandit once hid in the left nostril of the statue for two years, coming out at night to eat food that people had left as offerings.”

  “Is that all you can think of in such a holy place?” asked Seikei.

  “I thought it was an interesting story,” Tatsuno retorted. “Not a bad place to hide, if one needed a hiding place.”

  “Do you need one?” Seikei asked.

  “No one is looking for me,” said Tatsuno.

  Perhaps they should be, thought Seikei.

  Outside again, Seikei saw that the city streets were filled with Buddhist monks and nuns, as well as Shinto priests. “This is the opposite of Edo,” he said, “where half the people you see are samurai.”

  “There are countless temples and shrines in the city,” Tatsuno told him, “many of them hundreds of years old. They are all that remain from the days when this was the capital of Japan.”

  “Where is the O-Miwa Shrine?”

  “That’s not here,” said Tatsuno. “It’s a day’s ride to the south.”

  “I am eager to see it,” said Seikei.

  “Don’t you remember what the papermaker told you?” asked Tatsuno. “You shouldn’t go there.”

  “But if the judge has not solved the case,” said Seikei, “then I must.”

  “If you do, stay off the mountain.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that is where you will find the murderer.”

  Seikei laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “Then that is what I must do.”

  Tatsuno shook his head. “You think you are brave, but really you are foolhardy. There are times to attack and times to save your own life.”

  “Everyone must die in time,” said Seikei, “so one should prefer honor over life.”

  Tatsuno grunted. “That sounds as if it came from a book,” he said.

  “It did,” admitted Seikei, “but that does not make it any the less true.”

  Tatsuno reached into his kimono and took out a small black object. He handed it to Seikei, who saw that it was a stone. Holding it closer, he saw that veins of green ran through the rough black surface. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Something to take with you if you are foolish enough to go onto the mountain,” said Tatsuno.

  Seikei turned it over in his hand. It was about the size of a duck’s egg. It seemed like an ordinary stone, except for its unusual color.

  “I have no idea why,” said Tatsuno, “but I have decided your life is worth saving.”

  “How will this save my life?” asked Seikei.

  Instead of answering, Tatsuno pointed to a large house just down the street. “That’s the governor’s mansion,” he said. “Your father will be there.”

  Seikei excitedly ran toward it. All of a sudden, however, he realized he didn’t hear Tatsuno’s footsteps following. He turned to see why not.

  Tatsuno was gone. A group of monks in yellow robes walked past the spot where he had been, tolling prayers on their rosary beads. A farmer unloaded an oxcart full of melons. Two boys ran by with a dog.

  Otherwise the street was empty. Seikei put the stone into his kimono and walked toward the governor’s mansion.

  Two samurai guards stood at the mansion’s front door. They eyed Seikei disapprovingly as he approached. He realized how he must look. He picked a piece of straw off his sleeve. It was still clinging there from the stable they’d slept in last night.

  He bowed in front of the guards. “I am Ooka, Seikei,” he said formally, “the son of Judge Ooka Tadesuke, who I believe is a guest here.”

  The guards looked at each other. “We were told to expect you,” one of them said to Seikei, “but your ... perhaps you would like a bath first. The public bath-house is in the next street.”

  “I met with a few mishaps on my journey,” Seikei
explained. “But I must report to the judge as soon as possible.”

  The two samurai shrugged and stood aside for Seikei to enter. One pointed to a hallway that led to the back of the house. “You’ll find them in the garden,” he said.

  As Seikei approached, he heard laughter. Emerging from the doorway, he was struck by the sight of a beautiful stone garden, with raked gravel punctuated by a series of large stones. The stones had obviously been chosen with great care to appear natural and ordinary. An irregular-shaped pool with goldfish swimming in it was at the far end of the garden. There, sitting under a gingko tree, feeding the fish, sat two men who looked almost like twins.

  One of them saw Seikei and beckoned him to come closer. It was the judge, looking pleased.

  Amazingly, the governor (for that must be the other man, Seikei realized) was even fatter than the judge. The two of them looked as if they might never leave this spot, but instead turn into rocks that would become part of the harmonious garden.

  “Ichiro, here is my son Seikei at last,” said the judge. “Seikei, this is the honorable governor of Yamato Province, my friend Kamura Ichiro.”

  Governor Kamura nodded his head gravely. Seikei bowed in return.

  “Would you like something to drink?” said the governor. “Plum wine? Sake? They’ll warm you up.”

  Seikei was actually quite hungry and would have preferred rice and hot tea, but it was impolite to say so. He realized that both the governor and the judge had been drinking for some time, even though it was early in the afternoon.

  The judge’s powers of observation were not dulled, however. He passed a plate of sushi to Seikei and said, “These are quite delicious. The only reason we haven’t finished them is that we’re trying to relive our youth and can only find it in bottles.”

  The governor spoke up with a smile. “We were members of the Six Immortals of the Wine Cup, your father and I,” he said.

  “Well, we needn’t go into the details of that as long as Seikei is here,” the judge said hastily. In a different voice, he added, “I hope I don’t have to remind you, Ichiro, what his arrival means.”