by Adam Baker
The captain of the guard stood beside the nun. There were plenty of senior officers in the courtyard who dared not approach the woman. Like any noble house, the formal hierarchy hid a shadow power structure in which favoured underlings could wield more influence than their nominal superiors.
‘The boat made landfall,’ said the captain. ‘The cargo was unloaded. It must have been intercepted soon afterward.’
‘What do the locals say?’
‘They insist they saw nothing.’
‘Have your men prompt their memories. I understand a father’s powers of recall can undergo a miraculous transformation when he sees a knife at his child’s throat.’
The captain was reminded that the smallest, most innocuous snakes often possess the strongest venom. He nervously cleared his throat.
‘The procession should be postponed.’
‘Nonsense,’ said the nun. ‘The Emperor makes this journey to honour his ancestors every year. It would be a shameful declaration of weakness if we were to postpone.’
‘Bandits would know better than to attack men engaged on Imperial business. Even ronin at the point of starvation would know better than to risk reprisals. And if they did kill the guards and found themselves in possession of a cargo of gunpowder, where would they sell it? Nobody trades that kind of materiel without an Imperial license. They would abandon the cart, put as much distance between themselves and the consignment as they could. No. Someone was tipped off. Someone seized that cargo with a purpose. They didn’t intend to sell it. They intended to use it.’
‘I still see no reason to cancel the procession.’
‘If someone was determined to assassinate yourself or the Emperor, explosives would be the perfect way to assure success. You’re guarded night and day. What better way to break through a cordon of highly trained soldiers? Simply vaporise them. Your movements are secret, known only to a handful of men. But today, this one day of the year, everyone in Kyoto knows exactly where you and the Emperor will be.’
‘What about our informants?’ asked the nun. ‘Is there any word from them?’
‘This is a merchant city. Thousands of people come and go. We can’t watch them all. The explosives could already be here, in position.’
‘You have men checking the route?’
‘They’ve been out since dawn scouring every building, every alley. I also have men checking stables. Plenty of empty carts have been stored in the past couple of days. We’re working through the list, tracking down owners.’
‘You seem to have the matter well in hand.’
The captain knew that if anything were to happen to the Emperor or his mother the consequences for himself would be horrific. There would be no leniency for a man whose incompetence led to the death of The Son of Heaven. His years of service would not protect him. He would not be granted seppuku; the chance to put his affairs in order and leave the world at his own hand. He would be put in chains then executed in a market square in the most protracted method that could be devised. If the Emperor or his mother sustained any kind of injury the captain resolved to immediately snatch the tantō from his belt and cut his own throat before the knife could be snatched from his hand.
‘There isn’t time to complete the search,’ he said. ‘I cannot guarantee your safety.’
‘Then we must trust the gods.’
The nun walked across the square and took her place in the procession. Footmen held back the silk curtain of her palanquin as she climbed inside and sat on the cushion. There was a gauze screen at the front of the curtained compartment. She could see out, but no one could see in.
The captain watched footmen lower and secure the side-curtain. He caught a last glimpse of the nun. She had a look of detached serenity on her face. Time spent meditating upon the doctrines of Tendai in austere monastic seclusion seemed to have refined her contempt for the world to a flawless, crystalline cruelty. Disregard of everyone and everything, including herself.
The doors of the Emperor’s residence were pulled wide. Attendants and soldiers threw themselves to the ground. The captain knelt and pressed his forehead to the flagstones. He heard the quiet scuff of the Emperor’s sandals as the Son of Heaven descended the steps, a faint creak as the Emperor took his seat in the litter. He had served the Emperor for ten years, yet never laid eyes on him. He experienced the presence of the godhead as whispering footsteps, as a flicker in the periphery of his visions as he knelt in obeisance.
The captain remained prostrate as bearers lifted the twin palanquins and braced the poles against their shoulders. He heard a quiet clatter of armour and naginatas as the soldiers got to their feet. The courtyard gates were hauled open and the procession set out.
The samurai lowered himself into the water conduit. He crouched on all fours in the narrow pipe and pushed a keg ahead of him, his hands and knees splashing in the stagnant water. His shoulders brushed the edge of the pipe as his grunts of exertion echoed in the tunnel-dark.
The barrel had been sealed with tar to stop rainwater and sea-spray from soaking into the powder during transit. The seals kept the powder dry as he pushed it along the pipe. He rolled the keg with his left hand and held a lantern in his right. The weak candle flame lit clay walls slimed with algae. He tried not to let his mind dwell on the outcome if the keg were to split and powder reach the flame. He wouldn’t know much about it. One moment he’d be squirming along the pipe, next moment he would be nothing at all.
A long length of string tied with a hundred and twenty-eight knots helped put him directly beneath the wide boulevard of Suzaku Ōji.
He had sawn sections of floorboard and jammed them across the pipe to form a series of shelves on which he could stack the kegs and keep them out of the water. He lifted the keg, an awkward manoeuvre in the tight space, and pushed it against the stack.
It was hard to picture the force of the explosion. When he and the girl tested the gunpowder in the forest, a flask-full had been enough to blast a man to pulp. If the entire consignment were triggered at once the effect would be volcanic. Soil and cobbles would be hurled into the sky. The detonation would reverberate round the surrounding hills like a clap of thunder. A cloud of smoke and dust would mushroom over the city.
He heard a splash behind him. He turned in the tight space. The girl crawled towards him holding a lamp.
‘I wanted to see,’ she said.
‘See what?’
‘You. The barrels. The final place. I need to see it with my own eyes.’
He nodded. ‘Always hoped to die under a blue sky. It seems I won’t even have a grave. Still. No matter.’
‘How will you know when the procession is overhead?’ she asked.
‘Listen. Can you hear it? That rumble? Carts passing to and fro on the avenue. In an hour or two the palace guard will block the street in preparation for the procession. Then there will be silence. I’ll sit here a while and listen. When I hear the vanguard pass overhead, I’ll detonate the gunpowder.’
‘You could set a fuse. Give yourself time to get clear.’
He shook his head. ‘The explosion needs to be timed to the second. The Emperor’s mother must die. I don’t want to kill a hoard of soldiers and leave the nun unscathed.
‘My only regret,’ said the samurai, ‘is that I won’t have a chance to declare myself before the blow is struck. She won’t see my face, look me in the eye. That’s why you must live. I need you to tell my story. Let them know back in Etchū. I kept my oath. I served my master to the end.’
‘I will.’
‘And pray for me, now and again. Light some incense if you find yourself near a temple.’
‘I will pray for you every day.’
He nodded gratitude.
‘I shall miss you, Sensei,’ she said.
‘Wherever I find myself beyond death, I shall miss you too.’
‘Come up top. Just for a little while.’
The samurai thought it over, trying to calculate the time remaining to him.
Maybe he should stay exactly where he was, ready to detonate the gunpowder. Or perhaps he could snatch one last glimpse of daylight.
‘All right. Just for a few moments.’
They turned and crawled back down the pipe.
* * *
When the girl squirmed from the conduit up into the empty store she was grabbed by soldiers, hauled aside and a hand clapped over her mouth. She struggled. She tried to shout a warning.
When the samurai emerged from the hole he was confronted by three archers, bowstrings pulled taut ready to cut him down. He looked around at the men and smiled wryly at this latest, capricious turn of fate.
‘Remain very still,’ said the captain. ‘I’d prefer to take you alive.’
The samurai ducked and rolled, snatching his sword from the floor. He threw the saya aside. The draw turned to an arcing slash which splintered an archer’s bow and sliced open his throat. The man fell to the floor and choked.
He hurled himself aside as the second archer loosed an arrow. The arrow embedded in a shutter, splintering the wood.
The third arrow pierced the samurai’s bicep and nailed him to the wall. He barked in pain. The girl cried out in sympathy. He was pinned semi-crucified. The sword fell from his immobilised arm and clattered on the ground.
The samurai groped for his belt knife, determined to fight, determined to provoke an honourable death. He was white with shock. The captain punched him insensible before he could draw the blade from its sheath. The samurai hung from the arrow a moment then the shaft snapped and he crumpled to the floor.
‘Tie him up,’ said the captain as he stood over the unconscious man. ‘Tie him tight.’
Four soldiers marched the girl down the dungeon passageway, her wrists bound with rope. They steered her by gripping the collar of her kimono.
The jailer pulled back the bolts of a heavy pine door. They pushed her inside and she fell to the floor and sprawled on planks covered in straw. They bolted a manacle round her ankle and tethered her to the wall by a length of heavy chain before cutting her hands free. They slammed and bolted the door.
The girl rubbed the rope burns round her wrists and let her eyes adjust to the gloom. Weak sunlight shafted through a high barred window. The dungeon was within the grounds of the Imperial Palace. The palace had burned down many times during its history. Every few generations an untended flame had sparked a conflagration which razed the elegant chambers and staterooms and reduced the Emperor’s magnificent residence to acres of smouldering timbers. The palace had been repeatedly refashioned, each iteration more extravagant than the last. The current structure had been built piecemeal following the Ōnin War. Some of the buildings were so new they still smelled of fresh timber, but the subterranean cells were part of a much older structure. The ancient, weathered bulwarks suggested a Heian stockade which stood on the site before the rise of the samurai class and the domination of the shōgunate.
There was a second prisoner in the cell. She assumed he was some kind of petty criminal and guessed he was in his forties. A good age for a toothless street scavenger. Poverty aged people fast. Hard years quickly etched deep lines in their faces. The manacle clamped around his ankle had rubbed his flesh raw. The girl wondered what the man had done to deserve a place in the Imperial dungeon. He looked too weak, too timid to have committed a violent or audacious crime – maybe he oversaw a counterfeiting operation and spent his days in a back room somewhere stamping imitations of Chinese copper currency. Devaluation of the money supply was tantamount to treason. An ordinary thief might expect to lose a tongue, an ear, a hand. A coiner could expect far more draconian punishment. An example had to be set.
The old man looked at her a while. He smiled like he was trying to ingratiate himself with his pretty new cellmate. She glimpsed diseased gums.
She ignored him. She tried to compose herself and banish panic. She studied the walls, the barred window and heavy door, for any chance of escape. The cell had been constructed from massive oak bulwarks. There were bloody scratches down the walls where successive prisoners had tried to claw their way out. The window bars were thick as a man’s wrist and the door was three layers of pine bolted together by iron studs. Her only opportunity of escape would be to overpower the guards but she would have to break her ankle so she could pull it free of the manacle. Then somehow, despite a broken foot, rush the jailer as he opened the cell door to bring food. It was a fantasy, of course. She would be efficiently dispatched if she made any attempt to flee. She would never reach daylight. She would never make it out the cell. But at least she would die quick, die fighting.
‘What’s your name?’ asked the old man.
She ignored him.
‘I’m Genta. What did you do? Why are you here?’
She got to her feet and crossed to the window, dragging the heavy ankle chain behind her. The window gave her a ground-level view of a gravel courtyard, an open half-acre with a couple of trees in opposing corners.
‘That’s where I’ll die tomorrow,’ said the old man, his voice quavering with fear.
There was a frame staked in the centre of the courtyard. Iron shackles hung from a high bar.
‘They’ll come for me at dawn. And in a few days they will come for you too.’
* * *
The girl was shocked awake by the sound of heavy bolts drawn back. She was curled on the floor. Dawn light shafted through the window as the jailer kicked open the cell door. The girl got to her feet but the old man remained knelt on the floor racked by sobs. His eyes were rheumy like he’d been awake all night fretting his final hours, praying the sun wouldn’t rise.
‘Get up,’ said the jailer.
The old man didn’t move but hung his head and panted with terror. Guards grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet. He whimpered. Urine spattered on the straw-dusted floor. He offered no resistance as they unshackled his ankle and dragged him from the cell.
The girl stood at the window and saw a mob of townsfolk congregated in the square, a couple of infantrymen keeping them in line. The execution must have been announced in advance. Notices had been posted in the city’s two main market places. Spectators had queued, curious to watch a man die. Guards had ushered them through a gate into one of the outer courtyards of the Imperial compound. Evidently it had been decided that the old man’s execution would have no deterrent effect if it took place unseen. Townsfolk had to be present to witness the event and besides, it was part of the torture. There was no better way to make a condemned man feel broken and alone than to put him at the centre of a crowd.
Guards pushed a path through onlookers and led the old man to the scaffold. His face was locked in a rictus of fear, his mouth downturned in an almost simian grimace. They tore away his clothes and stripped him down to his loincloth. They forced him to sit. They locked manacles round each ankle then pulled chains hoisting the man’s legs until he hung upside down from the scaffold.
If the old man had family to intervene on his behalf, they might have bribed one of the executioners to make it quick. A few coins might have persuaded them to nick an artery to make sure he didn’t suffer. But an indigent thief couldn’t buy mercy. He had to face the full horror of his punishment.
One of the executioners held up a large band saw for the crowd to see. Silence fell. There was no sound but the old man snivelling:
‘Please … please … please …’
The old man’s cries turned to a whinnying scream as the executioners stepped up and prepared to cut.
They set the band saw between his legs and gripped the handles. Then, with slow ceremony, they began to pull back and forth. The old man howled in pain and mortal terror. It was an inhuman scream, the kind of animal shriek emitted by a pig as a farmer drew his knife across its neck. Genta squirmed and thrashed. Iron teeth shredded his perineum, tore through his genitals and ripped open his bowels.
The guards continued to saw, cutting deep into his abdomen. Blood washed down his body, down his face. The old ma
n’s inverted position boosted circulation to his head keeping him conscious until his body had been bisected almost to his ribcage. The saw continued its inexorable downward progress, slicing through major organs. Genta, mercifully, died.
They sawed through his upper torso and neck before the mess of spilt offal precluded any further work. One of the soldiers completed the bisection by slicing the old man’s head in two with a stroke of a sword, like butchers splitting a side of beef as it hung from a hook. The soldiers stood back and admired their work. Genta hung in two halves, the interior of his body presented in cross-section.
The crowd parted as the executioners crossed the courtyard to where buckets stood waiting, stripped naked and washed themselves. Servants, outcastes charged with the disposal of human remains, unlatched the dead man’s legs and lowered the two halves of his body to the ground. They knelt on the cobbles and scooped the slippery, intestinal slurry into baskets. When the last flesh basket was removed, the servants sprinkled sawdust to soak pooled blood. The performance was concluded. The crowd was herded towards the compound gate.
The girl put her back to the cell wall and slid to the floor, strength sapped by cold dread.
The samurai heard footsteps outside the cell. Bolts were drawn back and the door pushed open. The captain of the guard stood in the doorway backed by two sentries looking wary and confused. They had each been told they were about to enter the presence of a fearsome warrior and had best remain alert. Each kept a hand on the tsuka of their swords ready to draw at a moment’s notice and tried to reconcile the warning they had received with the wretched man sitting on the floor of the cell.