by Steve Bein
“Release me! I’m Mio Yasumasa, damn you! I demand that you release me this instant!”
“Oh, you’re not in a position to demand anything, are you? No. No, you’re not.”
Shichio laid the base of the blade gingerly on the roll of flesh just above Mio’s left knee. He drew the blade slowly across, penetrating deeper just a hairsbreadth at a time, so that only when the very tip of the sword passed through did he sever the last ribbon of skin. The roll of flesh flopped to the floor like a butchered fish. Mio roared louder than ever.
“You see?” said Shichio. “That’s what I was looking for.”
The blood streamed toward Mio’s groin, for Shichio’s table sloped downward at a slight angle and Mio’s head was lowermost. “You don’t think much of me as a fighter, do you, Mio? No, I think not. But unlike you, I appreciate martial art as art. Precision. Patience. Exactitude. Hallmarks of my brand of swordsmanship, though not so much of yours, I think.”
Through gritted teeth Mio said, “Cut my bonds and we’ll see who’s the better swordsman.”
This time Shichio laid the blade on Mio’s shoulder, drawing it across the skin slowly and deliberately. Mio growled like a rabid animal. “You would expect more blood from a cut this large, neh? It’s the ropes; they slow the bleeding considerably.”
Shichio lifted the blade and whipped it past Mio’s face. Warm red droplets flew from the steel, spattering the fat man’s cheeks and eyes like rain. “Ah,” Shichio said. “Figured out to stop talking, have you? That’s all right. This was always meant to be a one-sided conversation anyway, wasn’t it? Yes, it was. Yes, it was.”
This time he laid the katana’s razor edge against two rolls of flesh, these on the top of Mio’s left foot. “I suppose you’re wondering now whether you should have sided with the Okuma boy, neh? Maybe you’re also wondering whether Hideyoshi will allow me to kill the boy once you’re no longer at court.”
Mio twitched and cursed and struggled. “Oh, now look what you’ve done,” Shichio said. I nicked the rope, you fat oaf; you’ve gone and spoiled my cut.”
A mighty kick from the fat man freed his left leg, but only from the shin down. Shichio shuddered at the sight of it. “Idiot! You’ll only bleed faster now. It’s a good thing I didn’t tie you with your head upward, neh? You’d lose consciousness in no time. And where would be the justice in that?”
Mio bellowed so loud that it shook the walls. Shichio lost patience with him and stuffed a silken scarf in Mio’s mouth. “You’ve already spoiled my chance to kill the boy,” he said. “You and Hashiba both. And I can’t punish Hashiba, can I? No. But you? You deserve it. All samurai deserve it.” And with that he sliced off a nipple.
The fat man writhed and raged, but he only succeeded in chafing himself on the ropes. “Isn’t it ironic?” Shichio said. “From the very beginning, my mask awakened thoughts of swords in me—but only thoughts. I always found bloodshed repugnant, but then the boy marred my beautiful mask. Now I find it’s not enough merely to think of blades; I must put them to use. Your bleeding still sickens me. Yes, it does. I despise it, and yet the mask awakens this need in me. Do you see the irony? It’s because of the boy that I’m going to kill you, and you were the boy’s last remaining defender.”
At last Mio managed to spit out the silk. “You forget your precious ‘Hashiba,’” he said. “Let him take his cock out of your mouth long enough to think straight and he’ll remember that treaty you signed. Then you’ll be the next one strapped to this table.”
“I am growing tired of that tongue of yours,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I tired of it a long time ago. I had all but convinced Hashiba to push the Okumas into the sea, and you talked him out of it, didn’t you? Yes, you did. Well, how much longer did you think I was going to put up with that?”
“If you kill me, he’ll kill you next.”
“I think not. Oh, but I’ve forgotten to tell you, haven’t I? I’ve made you an enemy of the throne.”
“What?”
“They will find the first evidence of your treason in the morning. You’ve been corresponding with Tokugawa Ieyasu, I’m afraid, conspiring to unseat the lord regent. I don’t know all the details. It’s Jun who wrote the letters on your behalf—at my command, of course, but I allowed him a free hand when it came to their actual content. It wouldn’t do for me to accidentally implicate myself, would it? Not when I’m so close to ridding myself of you and the Bear Cub.”
“You son of a whore! I’m no traitor!” Mio pulled so hard against the ropes that Shichio could hear the fibers stetching. “You’re deranged! I’ll see you burned at the stake for this.”
“Now what did I tell you about that tongue?” Shichio tied another bond, this one across Mio’s lower jaw, pulling Mio’s chin back so he could not bite down. Then Shichio tossed Mio’s huge katana aside, drew his knife, and stuck it in Mio’s mouth.
“You see? Look what good struggling does you. I didn’t mean to cut your lip, did I? I didn’t mean to cut the roof of your mouth. But you won’t take your punishment, will you? No, you won’t.”
The tongue was warm and sticky in his fingers, utterly repulsive. Shichio flicked it on the floor. “Now, how am I going to destroy the Okumas if I can’t attack them? Hm? Answer me that. And how long do I have until Hashiba starts getting serious about the monk? Thus far I’ve been able to distract him, but if he ever presses for the truth in earnest, I am not long for this world. And we can’t have that, can we? No. No, we can’t.”
Shichio ran his hand over his iron brow. “The monk vexes me,” he said. “His very existence makes me want to scream.” Then he laid his knife against the largest roll on Mio’s belly and drew it across with exquisite languor.
“How?” Shichio said, ignoring Mio’s gurgling, wordless moans. “The Okumas are the key to reaching the monk, but how can I put an end to the Okumas? No doubt the boy is already plotting to kill me. And can I kill him? No. Hashiba even denied me the use of his assassins. Can you believe it? He favors the boy over me. He said the little Bear Cub has big bear balls. Those were his exact words. How could he say such a thing?”
He looked back at Mio, who spat up a mouthful of blood. “You agree with me, don’t you? I can hardly let the boy live. No doubt the monk told him my secret. And what of his family? The monk is under their protection. How can I allow them to live? You’d do the same, wouldn’t you? If you were in my position, you’d kill them all. Yes, you would.”
He pushed the knife through one of the fat rolls on Mio’s thigh and left it there. The hilt quivered every time the fat man twitched. “I’m going to finish this with my own sword, I think. It seems the more appropriate choice.” He stood over Mio and drew his blade. “It will be no challenge when I decide to take your head, you know. I’ll just chop it off, won’t I? Yes, I will. But how do I decapitate a clan whose head has simply decided to leave it?”
His sword dropped idly toward Mio’s neck. It was more than sharp enough to kill even with only its own weight behind it, but Shichio’s intent was only to nick Mio’s remaining ear. But that wretched Okuma boy had unsettled him even more than he’d thought, for he missed the ear completely. Instead he cut the rope binding Mio’s neck to the table.
The fat man took a deep gulping breath. He made a strangled, gurgling noise, then a horrid red geyser erupted out of his mouth, followed by a desperate gasp. His sputtering sent flecks of blood everywhere. Shichio didn’t dare think of what a mess it made of his kimono.
“Do you see?” he said. “You samurai are no different from the rest of us. You claim to be fearless of death, but when you’re choking on your own blood, you cough it up just like anyone else, neh? Yes. Yes, you do. Samurai, peasants, nobles, outcasts; we’re all the same. Even the Bear Cub will die the same as anyone else, and to hell with all his vaunted nobility.”
Shichio paced around the table, willfully ignoring the blood on the floor. It reeked. Somehow Mio’s blood overwhelmed even the fetid stink of the slaughte
rhouse, which was just next door. “How to decapitate a clan that has no head? It’s almost a koan, isn’t it? Beheading the headless.”
He looked at his sword. “Who commands the Okumas now? The cub’s deranged mother, I suppose. The poor creature. She lost her husband and her eldest in the space of a year, didn’t she? Yes, she did, and now her youngest son has forsaken her too.”
Like a bolt of lightning, a plan suddenly flashed before Shichio’s eyes. He only caught a glimpse, but the vision of it lingered in his mind. “That’s it, isn’t it, Mio? Yes, it is. She’s unmarried.”
He sliced off another flopping fish, this one from just under Mio’s armpit. “Do you see the brilliance of it? I needn’t decapitate the Okumas; I need only to give them a new head. If I marry the dowager, I become head of the clan.”
The thought of it sent chills down Shichio’s spine. “But do I dare? If I marry her, I become one of you. Samurai. The caste I want most to extinguish. And yet . . . .”
He laid his blade carefully along the length of Mio’s right thigh, poised to cut not one but three of the bulging rolls of flesh. “If I were to do this thing”—he craned his head to meet Mio’s gaze—“I remove that little cub from his house forever. I earn myself name, station, and land. Oh! And when I take the Okuma estate, I also acquire that old traitor’s monastery, and then I can kill him whenever I like. Even you can see the beauty in that, neh? I win three prizes in one stroke.”
With that he let lashed out with his katana, slicing off three fat gobbets in one blow.
Suddenly the table crashed sideways. A fat foot struck Shichio in the chin. Fragments of rope flew through the air, and ribbons of blood too. The back of Shichio’s head bounced hard off the wall, and when he could see through the stars Mio Yasumasa was gone.
There was a huge, blood-streaked hole where the fat man had crashed through the shoji. Some way off there came a wooden, splintering crash—Mio, probably bashing his way through another sliding wall, far enough now that he posed no immediate threat.
Shichio stood. His gore-stained clothes clung to him, making him want to retch. He stepped outside into the cool night air, seeking respite from the coppery stench of the table. Footprints, elephantine and bloody, described a stomping path toward the slaughterhouse. Fitting, Shichio thought. Let him die with the rest of the swine.
It took him a long moment to sort out what had happened. His final cut must have bitten deeper than he’d intended, slicing through rope as well as flesh. He’d inadvertently freed Mio’s right leg.
It was an understandable mistake. Shichio had never been a practiced hand at torture. Up until tonight he’d never been able to stomach it beyond the first few cuts. Somehow the Bear Cub’s blade had changed that: it released some demonic bloodlust latent in the mask, a thirst so intense that it could overwhelm Shichio’s revulsion. And even if Shichio had been an expert, Mio was so bloated that it was impossible to see all of the ropes. Still, it amazed Shichio to think of how much strength the fat man had. Even after losing all that blood, he still had the strength to tip the table, to aim a kick Shichio’s head, to brace his legs firmly enough to burst his remaining bonds.
Shichio stroked the sharp corner of his mask’s broken fang, the one the Bear Cub had nicked. He wondered what to do next. The fat man wouldn’t make it far. He was naked, unarmed, and bleeding horribly. There was nowhere for him to hide; he was simply too noticeable in his current state.
On the other hand, Shichio had indulged his habit of thinking out loud. The fat man had heard everything. If he somehow managed to reach the Bear Cub . . .
No. He had no tongue.
Shichio laughed out loud. It was unthinkable that Mio would find the boy—for that matter, it was hardly imaginable that he hadn’t collapsed already—but if karma allowed Daigoro to find the fat man before Shichio did, it wouldn’t matter; Mio could relay no secrets.
In any case, Daigoro would certainly have to find him before sunrise. No one—not even a mammoth of Mio’s size—could survive more than a few hours with such hideous wounds. What was more, Daigoro had left the Jurakudai three days ago, and he was mounted while Mio was on foot. And of course Mio would not think to run to Daigoro. He would run to Hashiba, where his wounds would be recognized on sight. Hashiba knew the fruits of his table all too well; he’d sentenced dozens of men to this fate.
And that meant Mio would have recognized the table too. Shichio hadn’t thought of that: unlike anyone else who had ever been lashed down to the table, Mio had seen its results before. He must have known what was coming from the moment he came to, yet all he’d shown Shichio was vitriol and spite. Not the slightest trace of fear.
Shichio could not help but marvel at that. Nor did the poetry of the moment escape him. How many times had the samurai been compared to the cherry blossom, beautiful precisely because it died at the height of its beauty? It was worthy of a song: Mio, the most honored of samurai, and Shichio, gaining his first shred of respect for Mio only after he’d killed him.
Hashiba felt otherwise. He’d honored Mio from the start, and that meant his initial reaction would be harsh. There was no way of guessing whether it would be sharp words or sharper swords; Hashiba was nothing if not capricious. Shichio knew he would have to be swift in presenting the evidence he’d fabricated of Mio’s treason, or else risk facing execution himself. But he was a practiced hand at making others believe what he wanted them to believe, and it was not as if Mio Yasumasa could speak in his own defense.
No, there was little to worry about. “But,” Shichio said, alone in the moonlit garden, “you are nothing if not thorough. It wouldn’t do to leave things to chance, would it?” Shichio cleaned the blood from his blade and sheathed it. “No. No, it wouldn’t.”
He sent for Jun and began composing the orders in his mind. Riders would be sent to every gate and bridge in the city, looking for the fat man. And—why not?—for the now-nameless Bear Cub as well. If the boy hadn’t left the city, and if Mio somehow found him . . .
Shichio smiled. “Why, that would be the best of all, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would. Execute the boy for collaborating with a known traitor.”
Suddenly Shichio wished he’d let Mio go on purpose. He couldn’t have laid a better trap, and he was a little disappointed in himself that he hadn’t planned it that way from the start.
39
The Kamo River gurgled at Daigoro’s feet, though he could hardly see the water. Across the river a fierce red glow loomed over the rolling line of the horizon: the sun’s last light above the hilltops, lingering in spite of the stars that had already begun to multiply. They would overwhelm her soon enough. Here and there a bush warbler whistled its melancholic song. To Daigoro they were singing an elegy for the day.
He’d come down to the riverbank three nights in a row, relishing the relative cool after sweltering days, hoping to find beauty somewhere in the world and finding only emptiness. Katsushima had described him as forlorn. And well I should be, Daigoro thought, watching the sun’s last light die out. I haven’t the faintest clue how to draw Shichio out without angering Hideyoshi. If I kill Shichio without Hideyoshi’s leave, I make myself an enemy of the mightiest, most capricious warlord in the empire—and worse yet, Hideyoshi might well extend his vengeance to Akiko, my mother, and the rest of my family. We made our truce over Glorious Victory Unsought, not over me decapitating the regent’s favorite peacock.
Daigoro knew he could not return home until Shichio was dead, but neither could he stay on the outskirts of Kyoto. Katsushima had been right to suggest that they could burrow themselves in the city—there were so many people to hide behind, so many out-of-the-way places—but that ruse would only last for so long. Shichio had hundreds of men at his command, and even if he did not, he had only to offer a few coins for any word of the crippled boy with the enormous odachi. Sooner or later, news of Daigoro’s whereabouts would reach him, and once that happened, the hunt was on.
Daigoro’s only chance was to draw Shic
hio out somehow, but sheltered as he was in the regent’s shadow, Shichio might as well have been hiding in an iron fortress. Daigoro could not imagine how he might strike Hideyoshi’s top adviser without striking Hideyoshi himself. Katsushima had suggested calling on the Wind, but Daigoro wasn’t desperate enough to resort to that yet.
Footsteps approached through the tall grass behind him and Daigoro whirled around to see who was coming.
“Good news,” Katsushima said. He held up two large sacks, flat on the bottom with rigid, bowl-shaped lumps inside.
“Our armor?” said Daigoro.
“Yes. He finished early.”
Katsushima set one of the sacks right next to Daigoro, then sat down on the other side of it. “Nice night.”
Daigoro grunted something noncommittal and opened the drawstrings. Inside the sack was his Sora breastplate, its russet Okuma lacing removed and replaced with white, the color of death. In fact, everything replaceable had been replaced in white: the silk cording, the leather straps, the padded damask, all of it. Even the steel plating had been relacquered in white. Daigoro’s helmet was in the sack too, nestled inside the breastplate with the sune-ate, the kote, and the rest of the smaller pieces.
“It hardly feels like mine anymore.”
“It’s yours, Daigoro. And it’s far easier to dye if it’s white. We may need to disguise ourselves again.”
Daigoro started laying the pieces out on the grass. “I know,” he said. “And in the meantime, I guess it’s appropriate enough that we’re dressing ourselves in funeral colors.”
“You need to lighten up. I’m telling you, a good sporting woman will have you in fine fettle in no time at all.”