Winter Raven

by Adam Baker

  The captain inspected his prisoner. The samurai sat cross-legged with his ankle bound by chain. His wounded bicep had been bandaged with torn linen, but blood had soaked through the cloth and the arm hung limp. The samurai tried to sit with his back straight and proud but his head kept lolling like he was fighting sleep. He blinked and tried to clear his vision. The cell lurched like it was the cabin of a storm-tossed ship.

  The captain stepped to one side as the jailer put a bowl of rice on the floor in front of the prisoner. There were no hashi. They might be used as a weapon. He would have to eat with his fingers.

  ‘So. Who are you?’ asked the captain.

  The samurai didn’t reply. He stared at the bowl of rice as if his mind were so fogged he couldn’t identify the object.

  ‘You have plenty of scars. You’ve clearly seen combat. Where was it? Diamotsu? Shiokowa no gawara? Tatenawate? What is your clan? Whom did you serve?

  The samurai didn’t reply. The captain paced the cell.

  ‘Why did you come to Kyoto? Why did you try to kill the Emperor? To avenge your lord? Tell me. Tell me your story. There will be no reprisals for your family.’

  The statement earned a contemptuous stare from the samurai. The captain, a military man supposedly wedded to a code of honour, was speaking an obvious untruth. An attempt on the Emperor’s life was certain to earn a slow and torturous death while the perpetrator’s family would be rounded up and executed. There would be no question of clemency. Their houses and possessions would be burned. The graves of their relatives would be smashed and their bones disinterred and scattered. The would-be assassin’s entire lineage would be erased. Priests would be ordered to pursue him and his family beyond death beseeching the gods to pile torment upon torment upon the conspirator as he languished in hell

  ‘You could claim the right of seppuku,’ said the captain. ‘If you are of noble lineage, it could count in your favour. The Emperor’s court is composed of reasonable men. They are not vindictive, not motivated by rage. If you wish to die with what little honour remains to you, they will hear your petition. But you will need to cooperate. You will need to throw yourself upon their mercy.’

  More lies.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the captain, pausing for emphasis, ‘if you are a man of rank, a man to be treated with respect, they might let you challenge the Emperor’s champion to a duel. A rare occurrence, but it’s been known to happen.’

  Another transparent ruse. If the samurai picked up a katana and engaged in combat an educated observer would immediately know where he had been schooled. His signature style of swordcraft would betray his origins as precisely as a birth sheet detailing his ancestral line.

  The samurai said nothing while the captain shifted foot to foot, anxious and impatient. Evidently this was no casual line of questioning. He had been charged with interrogating the prisoner and would be expected to report back with detailed information regarding the scale of the conspiracy against the Emperor. Had the assassination plot been the work of one vengeful man or was it a clandestine power-play by the Shōgun? He didn’t expect immediate answers. He was assessing the resilience of his prisoner, planning the increasingly harsh interrogations to come.

  ‘Did you pray?’ asked the captain. ‘As you crouched in that pipe like a rat counting down the minutes to your death did you pray to the gods? Did you ask Hachiman for his blessing? His protection? Did you ask him to grant success? Because you’ve received his answer.’ The captain gestured to the squalid cell. ‘Fate has delivered a judgement. You set out to kill the Emperor, the divinity. You set out to topple the settled order of the world. Madness. You were like a lunatic firing arrows to shoot the sun from the sky. Accept your failure.’

  ‘Where’s the girl?’ asked the samurai.

  ‘Is she your daughter?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘The other side of that wall. You need to understand that your intransigence will have consequences for her, as well as yourself.’

  The captain crouched beside the samurai and inspected the man’s wounded shoulder.

  ‘I’ll fetch a physician. Can’t let you succumb to illness. That would be too easy.’

  He leaned close and looked the samurai in the eye. ‘Tell me one thing. Were you trying to kill the Emperor, or were you trying to kill his mother?’

  The samurai didn’t reply. The captain straightened up.

  ‘The nun has something special in mind for you. If you won’t talk, if you won’t provide information, then she will use your death to deter others who may harbour a grudge against the Imperial household. Think of the enormity of your crime. If they execute back-alley coiners, cut them in half with a saw, what do you think they will do to you? Your punishment will be the stuff of legend.’

  * * *

  The Samurai lay on his cot and slept a while. He heard a bolt clack and looked up as an apparition entered the room. A man with coal-black skin like he had been burned in a fire. The samurai recoiled in fear. He slid from his cot. He crawled to the corner of the room and chanted an incantation to ward off evil.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said the black man. ‘I’m not Death. I’m not here to drag you to the underworld.’ He rapped his knuckles on the cell wall. ‘See? Flesh and blood, just like you. I’m from a country far away. They call me Saracen.’

  The samurai sat trembling against the wall, lost in a hellish delirium. His eyes rolled.

  ‘You have a fever, don’t you?’ said Saracen. ‘I’m a physician. I’ve been instructed to keep you alive. Can I examine your arm?’

  The samurai nodded consent. Saracen helped the man to his feet and led him across the cell sitting him on the edge of the crude wooden cot. He sat beside the samurai and helped unlace his ragged kimono, gently releasing the bandages to expose the weeping wound. A puncture in the upper bicep just below the shoulder joint. He probed raw flesh. The samurai stared up at the ceiling of the cell, impassive despite the pain.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Saracen. ‘This wound should have been treated earlier. Much earlier.’

  * * *

  The captain and a couple of guards waited in the passageway outside the cell. ‘So? Can you save him?’ asked the captain

  ‘This is beyond herbs and needles,’ said Saracen. ‘He is very sick. He will require radical treatment if he is to live.’

  ‘I need him alive and lucid, whatever it takes, understand? I forbid you to let him die.’

  ‘I shall consult my books.’

  The Emperor entered a stateroom of the Imperial Palace. The screens silently slid closed behind him. Every screen in the palace slid on waxed runners so that, as the Emperor moved around the palace, no unnatural sound might disturb his peace. Mute servants operated the screens as he approached and kept out of sight. It was like living among ghosts.

  Courtiers prostrated themselves as the Emperor entered the room, pressing their foreheads to the floor before quickly getting to their feet. They retreated, still bent in a full bow, their sandals whispering as they shuffled backward on polished floorboards. They pulled the screens closed behind them and left the Emperor alone with the nun.

  The nun knelt at the end of the room, a tiny figure beside a wide table. She smiled and patted a cushion. The Emperor knelt beside her.

  They sat facing a large scroll of paper mounted on silk. The provinces of Japan rendered as a series of pictograms drawn from the recollections of a hundred Imperial couriers. Elegant depictions of Fujiyama, Seto Naikai, The Freshwater Sea. The landmarks of each province were marked by castles, harbours, pagodas.

  The nun had placed a wooden toy soldier on each region to represent regional Daimyō. Each figure was a piece in the great game played between the Emperor and the Shōgun as they manoeuvred for supremacy.

  The Emperor clenched his hands in his lap. He was The Son of Heaven, a living deity. He could if he wished ride through Kyoto, point at random townsfolk from the comfort of his palanquin and have them executed on a whim. The men at his co
mmand wouldn’t question his orders. Power of life and death. Power of a god. But here, next to the nun, the Emperor was a child again, anxious for her approval. The same anxiety he felt every night when, at his mother’s insistence, he sat opposite Master Nagamoto, Kyoto’s foremost master of Go. The Emperor would dig into a bowl of white counters and begin the opening moves of a game which would, inevitably, see him lose hard. The games were intended to hone his mind, help teach him strategic skill. Instead they left him filled with impotent rage.

  The nun pointed to a province to the north, her finger resting on a drawing of a castle among mountains. A dragon coiled around the bailey. She had placed the little wooden figure of a cavalryman on the province, horse rearing, sword raised.

  ‘General Akitane. We supported him in his campaign to pacify Etchū earlier this year. It would have been a very useful alliance. It would have given us some northern ports and direct access to China. We assumed he could count on the aid of his brother, Motohide, a samurai of high repute. Apparently not. Motohide deposed his brother and took his place as Daimyō.’

  ‘Is it really our concern?’

  ‘Motohide affects to be unaligned, but our spies confirm he is a vassal of the Shōgunate. He has a son, and will use him to secure his alliance with the Shōgun by marriage. So it seems the Shōgun has successfully displaced one of our men with one of his own. We can’t let this stand. You are the rightful ruler of this land. Remember: There can be no two suns in the sky. We will not share power. We will eclipse the Shōgun and ensure we are the sun that shines.’

  ‘Surely there is nothing to be done,’ said the Emperor. ‘We can’t muster an army and march. We can barely feed the palace guard. We simply don’t have the strength to oppose the Shōgun. We lost this skirmish. We should bide our time, wait for a fresh opportunity to present itself.’

  ‘That is your advice? Do nothing?’

  ‘In essence, yes. Precipitous action won’t help our position.’

  ‘You are passive and helpless, and you tell yourself it is a virtue.’

  ‘There is no point turning the battle for Honshu into a cock fight. The Shōgunate and the Imperial House would tear themselves to pieces. No one would win.’

  ‘You are content to be an impotent figurehead? To live and die within these walls? You paint. You plan gardens. You fly your hawk. Is this how you intend to fritter away your days? Dalliance? Poetry? Flowers? Is this your legacy? One day you will have a son. What will you leave him? Nothing. Nothing at all.’

  ‘I didn’t bring the Imperial House to its knees. I inherited these ruins.’

  ‘You think this is a ruin? You’re too young to remember how things were. Every building had been touched by fire. Not a single structure escaped the flames. The palace grounds were overrun by commoners, peasants stole timber for firewood. Commoners crowded round the windows of the Pavilion and tried to catch a glimpse of the Emperor.

  ‘You told me. Many times.’

  ‘When your grandfather, Go-Tsuchimikado, died there was no money for a funeral. We kept his body in a storeroom for a month until we sold enough furniture to afford to bury him. Your father was Emperor for twenty years before we had enough money for a coronation. I’ve brought this family back from near-extinction. Thanks to me, we now have an intelligence network and a trickle of revenue. It’s a seed that could blossom into greatness. It hurts me to see you throw it all away. It makes me despair.’

  ‘You always treat me like a child. I’m not a child. I intend to rule.’

  ‘Then tell me. As ruler. What should we do?’

  The Emperor studied the chart.

  ‘Motohide is vulnerable. His men just fought a war and his province is ripe for attack. Sooner or later, adjacent provinces will advance on his territory. Why not wait? Let our enemies wipe each other out?’

  ‘Good,’ said the nun, adopting the tone of encouraging approval she always used when he gave the wrong answer. ‘But maybe we can do better.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘We need to take active steps to replace General Motohide with someone more favourable to our cause. We will make outward gestures of friendship. Send emissaries to discuss trade and military affairs. We will put him at his ease and, in the meantime, ensure his death in a manner that cannot be attributed to us.’

  ‘Is there a traitor in his household? Someone who might be able to administer poison?’

  ‘No. But the gods smile on us. We now have a skilled man under our roof. A man no one will believe is following Imperial orders.’

  The nun picked up a samurai figure standing on the margins of the chart and turned the toy in her hand.

  ‘You can’t mean the assassin chained in the cells,’ said the Emperor.

  ‘Who better?’ said the nun.

  ‘We should dispatch the captain of the guard to trawl the taverns near the Rajōmon Gate. I’m sure he could find a half-dozen cut-throats willing to undertake this mission for a few coins.’

  The nun shook her head.

  ‘No mercenaries. We need absolute commitment.’

  ‘Petition the ninja schools in Kōga. Request one of their adepts.’

  ‘Too political. Too many strings. This kind of undertaking needs to be contained.’

  ‘Why would the traitor agree?’ asked the Emperor. ‘He wants us dead.’

  ‘We will compel him to swear an oath. He is a man of honour. He lives a life of foolish simplicity. It makes him easy to bend to our will.’

  ‘He should be taken to the market place and eviscerated.’

  ‘What would Master Nagamoto say if he were here now, facing you across the goban? There is nothing but the next move.’

  The nun placed the samurai figure on Etchū, positioning the figure so its sword clashed with the cavalryman. The nun and the Emperor sat contemplating the chart – Honshu, the surrounding ocean, the coastlines of barbarian lands. The Emperor was fleetingly tempted to sweep the chart clear of figures and tear it to pieces but he calmed himself. Someday soon he would summon Master Nagamoto to the throne room. He would have the old man swallow his Go counters one by one then compel him to commit seppuku to see if any of the polished stones skittered from his ruptured abdomen. And someday soon he would order his mother’s death. It was a long-cherished plan. He liked, during dull ceremonies, to picture his mother’s horror as she woke to feel a knife drawn across her throat. But lately he had been plagued by an uneasy thought: the suspicion his mother wouldn’t react to a slit windpipe with terror and gurgling screams. Instead she would smile in triumph, as if her death marked the culmination of her life’s work, final proof she had shaped her son in her own image.

  The girl lay in her cell two days without food. She heard the jailer walking to and fro but he never answered her calls. She had been left with a small bucket of water and at first she drank deep but, when she came to realise she had been abandoned, she conserved the remaining water, restricting herself to lip-moistening sips. She timed the interval between each modest drink by the patch on sunlight on the cell floor. Each time the sun shifted position and the beam of light shafting through the window moved to a different floorboard she took a drink. She was parched and so preoccupied with preserving her remaining supply she kept the bucket in shadow to minimise evaporation. She wanted the weather to turn bad so she could push her arm between the bars and catch palmfuls of rain.

  At first she thought it was a deliberate policy of torture but, she reminded herself, she was just a girl. In the eyes of her jailers she was only fractionally more culpable than the ox that hauled gunpowder to Kyoto. She had been forgotten. Maybe she would die of thirst before anyone thought to enquire about her fate. She broke nails trying to prise up one of the floorboards and dig her way out.

  On the afternoon of the second day the cell door swung open and the jailer entered the room. He put a bowl of rice and a jug of water on the floor.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘What is to become of me?’

  The jailer pre
tended he hadn’t heard her, left and bolted the door. She drank the water and ignored the rice. Later he fetched a bucket so she could wash, and a comb for her hair. He laid a dress on the cot.

  ‘Put this on. They will be coming for you soon.’

  * * *

  The girl was led across the courtyard and escorted to a building on the other side of the square. She was brought to a wide room. Two sentries flanked the screen door. The captain of the guard knelt at a table and gestured for her to sit beside him. She knelt. A maid poured tea into simple Iga-ware cups.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded the captain.

  The girl didn’t reply. She tried to get the measure of the man. The captain possessed a keen intelligence, judging by the quality of his gaze. And a self-assurance which suggested he occupied a more senior rank in the court hierarchy than his military title would suggest.

  ‘I searched through old intelligence reports to see if there were any traces of you or your master. It seems a girl and a samurai were recently detained near Kyusha but refused to give their names. They were held briefly, then released. Was that you? A pilgrimage to the shrine at Usa Hachimangū? Praying for the success of some great venture? Answer me.’

  The girl remained silent so the captain softened his approach, giving a discrete signal to the maid.

  ‘You’re from nobility. That much is obvious from your bearing. The daughter of a Daimyō, perhaps. Daughter of a fallen warlord.’

  The maid brought a plate of manjū pastries and put them in front of the girl.

  ‘I recollect a story told about the aftermath of Katsuragawa. Following his defeat, one of the generals returned to his home and committed suicide. So did most of his retinue. Then his house burned around him. Plenty of bones among the ashes. Impossible to tell who lived and who died. Which, I suspect, was his intention. Two sons. Three daughters. We are supposed to believe they died in the fire. But perhaps they survived.’