Winter Raven

by Adam Baker

  The samurai shook his head. ‘She must accompany me on the mission,’ he insisted.

  ‘She’s not even your daughter.’

  ‘Saracen must have described my condition,’ said the samurai.

  ‘He says you’re sick.’

  ‘I’m dying. I can complete the mission but I’ll need someone to help me, someone I can trust.’

  ‘There isn’t time to fetch her from Kyoto.’

  ‘It’s a short journey. A rider could make it there and back before sunrise.’

  ‘Think hard,’ said the captain. ‘Think about her safety.’

  ‘I’ve known her long time. Watched her grow. She doesn’t care about safety. She cares about freedom. Send one of your men. Ask if she wishes to accompany me on this journey. Give her the choice.’

  The captain thought it over. The samurai was a criminal. Negotiations should be out of the question, but the captain found himself compelled to treat the man as an equal.

  ‘All right. I’ll send a man. But whatever answer she gives, you leave at dawn, understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Dawn. Mist hung over the surface of the Freshwater Sea. The boat raised sail. Slack canvas rippled as the boat caught a weak air current and pulled away from the jetty. The samurai looked back at farmland grid-scored with irrigation trenches and the ruined mansion part-overwhelmed by vines.

  The captain stood on the bank and watched the boat depart. He wrapped a cloak around himself against the morning cold. He looked sombre as if he were weighing the samurai’s odds of success. His life was in the hands of degenerate criminals and a dying warrior.

  The samurai glanced round at his companions. The men sat huddled in furs. Plumes of breath fogged the air. Their faces didn’t register much emotion. They were tired, hung-over and just wanted to sleep.

  The samurai stood at the prow and listened to lapping water as the sails caught a breeze and the boat gained speed. The girl stood beside him. She leaned from the prow and contemplated her reflection in the slate-grey surface of the lake.

  ‘Don’t fall in,’ warned the samurai. ‘You would freeze and sink before we had time to turn the boat around and reach you.’

  She nodded and straightened up.

  ‘Can you swim?’ she asked.

  ‘Not any more.’

  He looked up at the sky. Grey nothing. It was impossible to locate the sun and gauge the time of day. It was like they had dropped out of time and space and were marooned in a colourless netherworld.

  ‘When do you plan to tell us the details of this mission?’ asked Tameyo, joining them at the prow.

  The samurai thought it over. They would be sitting in the boat all day. They might as well make use of the time. ‘Fetch the others,’ he said.

  The group assembled at the prow. The skipper and his crewman stayed at the stern and guided the rudder. They made sure not to overhear any details of the mission. They were paid to make the journey and mind their own business.

  The samurai unfolded a crude chart and smoothed it on a bench-beam. The men gathered round as he traced the proposed route with his finger.

  ‘We travel the length of the Freshwater Sea then journey overland through Wakasa, Echizen and Hida until we reach the mountains of Etchū. We’ll move cross-country avoiding roads and habitation. Our object is Nakatomi Castle, currently the seat of General Motohide.’

  ‘The Dragons Lair,’ said Masaie, touching a talisman hung round his neck.

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘Heard of it. Never set eyes on it myself. They say it’s an impregnable fortress built on a mountainside. So high that half the time it’s lost in cloud.’

  The samurai nodded. ‘That’s our destination,’ he confirmed.

  ‘And what are we supposed to do when we reach the castle?’

  ‘Help me get inside.’

  ‘Why? What’s the background to all this?’

  ‘The less you know the better. You have your instructions from the captain. Escort me to my objective. Help me accomplish my mission. Then, if you make it back alive, your death sentences will be revoked, all crimes forgiven.’

  ‘Do you have an actual plan?’ asked Tameyo. ‘Once we reach this fortress do you know how you’ll get inside?’

  ‘I have a rough scheme. I’ll work out the details when we have sight of our goal.’

  ‘What are the odds of us making it back alive from this expedition?’ asked Masaie. ‘Be honest.’

  ‘Negligible.’

  The men shifted uneasily.

  ‘You gentlemen have short memories,’ said the samurai. ‘Yesterday you were condemned men fated to be paraded through the city in a basket then executed in the market square. Today you have embarked on a dangerous mission but at least your life is in your own hands. You control your destiny. Act like soldiers and maybe, just maybe, you’ll come back heroes.’

  * * *

  They made a breakfast of dumplings left over from the previous night’s feast.

  The girl sat next to Tameyo and ate. They sat with their backs to the mast.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

  ‘Nowhere,’ said the girl.

  ‘You must have a birthplace. A clan.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘You’re from nobility. The way you speak. The way you carry yourself.’

  ‘All I have are these rags.’

  ‘Turbulent times. The poor raised up. The high-born brought low. Hard to tell a bandit from a lord these days.’

  ‘Chaos.’

  ‘Chaos can be good,’ said Tameyo. ‘Chaos can be a gift. Look at all it has brought you. You’ve travelled province to province. You’ve walked the corridors of the Imperial Palace. Most folk never journey further than the village in which they are born.’

  The girl looked at mist-shrouded trees on the distant shoreline. Birds plumped their feathers against the winter cold.

  ‘I’ve always liked ravens,’ she said. ‘If I had a family crest, I would put a raven at its centre.’

  ‘Bad augury. Harbingers of death.’

  ‘Still. I like them.’

  ‘So. Tengu. Crow-daemon. Is that what we should call you?’

  Tameyo split his last dumpling and shared it with her. She watched him as they ate. She observed the direction of his gaze. He made an instinctive appraisal of the roped cargo, the purse hanging from the skipper’s belt and the locked box that contained the crewman’s supplies for the journey.

  ‘You’re a thief,’ she said.

  ‘And?’

  I’m curious to know how you came to be in the stockade.’

  Tameyo mulled his reply. There was no point evading the question.

  ‘I broke into a moneylender’s house near the southern market and tried to prize a strong box full of coins.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s going to be a long day and we need to pass the time.’

  ‘The lender was one of the richest men in Kyoto. I staked out his house for days. Sat and begged near the entrance of his mansion so I could keep watch. Merchants came and went in fancy palanquins. A fortune hidden somewhere within the house. Enough treasure to keep a person housed and well-fed for the rest of their life. Never be hungry, never be cold.’

  ‘Did you get inside?’

  ‘I climbed the wall at midnight and levered a window. A servant on night-watch caught me chiselling the strongbox. I jumped through a window, climbed the wall and fled down the street. Turns out, I’d cut my leg. Didn’t feel it at the time but I left a trail of blood. They found me half a mile away in a cooper’s yard, hiding in a barrel.’

  ‘A death sentence? Seems harsh.’

  ‘The bailiff wanted to cut off my nose and ears but I was already wanted for stealing from a barley warehouse so the sentenced was upped to death.’

  ‘Can I ask you another question?’

  ‘Can’t promise I’ll answer,’ said Tameyo.

  ‘
When you steal something, when you snatch someone’s money, do you feel guilt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t think about your victim? They might need money for food, for medicine. A family might go hungry.’

  ‘And what if I starve? What if my wife needs a physician?’

  ‘I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t steal.’

  ‘Honour,’ snorted Tameyo. He spat over the side of the boat. ‘What good does it do on a cold, hard day? Can you eat it? Will it keep your warm?’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘Survival. That’s the true face of nature.’

  ‘No. There’s more.’

  ‘Order? Harmony? That nonsense the monks try to sell? Take my advice. Draw a line around the people you care about. Husband, children, whoever it turns out to be. Everyone else is an enemy. Remember that.’

  ‘And you? Are you my enemy?’

  ‘If it comes down to it, maybe.’

  The girl sat next to the samurai.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked, gesturing to his missing arm. Her usual mask of indifference was broken by anguish as she looked at the maimed man.

  ‘My missing hand has a constant itch. The ghost of my thumb. One of those little torments that can drive a man insane if he lets it dominate his thoughts.’

  ‘Is the wound healed?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘How often do you need to dress it?’

  ‘Morning and night.’

  ‘I’ll help.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please. Let me help.’

  The samurai reluctantly shrugged off his fur. His sword master used to say: In the course of your military career you will face many frustrations. As you progress through the ranks some of your superiors will treat you unjustly. They will take credit for your achievements and pin the blame for their failures on you. And your personal life will also present you with moments of anguish. Loneliness. Illness. Bereavement. They visit us all. So remember, whenever you face these moments of adversity, ask yourself: What lesson are the gods trying to teach me? What aspect of myself, what vice, are they asking me to overcome?

  ‘I was too proud,’ said the samurai, as he took off his quilted vest.

  ‘Proud?’ asked the girl.

  ‘I thought of myself as a great warrior. I thought I was better than other men.’

  He loosened his kimono and exposed the stump at his right shoulder. The girl gave a sharp intake of breath at her first glimpse of maimed flesh, at the flap of skin that had been folded to seal the stump. The creases and punctures left by newly removed stitches. Winter cold had turned the samurai’s skin marble white. His chest was prickled with gooseflesh.

  ‘Here.’

  The samurai handed her his leather bag. She rummaged inside and found a pot of honey. She twisted the cork stopper and dipped her fingers. She smeared honey on the raw suture marks. The samurai craned his head to look down at the stump.

  ‘Strange creatures, aren’t we?’ he murmured. ‘Meat. Meat animated by a spirit. Meat that can think and feel. Meat that knows it is meat. It’s a wonder. Maybe I will get my arm back in the afterlife. Maybe it’s waiting for me somewhere in the world beyond death.’

  ‘You will have your arm. And I will be reunited with my parents. We will all be whole again.’

  ‘The captain said you had been given a role at the Imperial Palace.’

  ‘You met Saracen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was assigned to his quarters. I would have been his cook, his maid. They would have kept me prisoner the rest of my life. A favoured prisoner. A well-fed, well-housed captive.’

  ‘There are worse fates.’

  ‘They asked me to sweep with a broom. They wanted me to get down on my knees and scrub. I don’t mind domestic duties. I could have lived with the shame. But every waking minute would have been dictated by others. I would have been half alive.’

  ‘I insisted you accompany me on this mission so I could get you out of Kyoto. I wanted to get you away from the Imperial Guard. You are free to choose your own path. But when this boat drops us on the northern shore it will turn round and sail back, it might be best if you were on it. You would live a long life in the palace. A good life. Don’t dismiss it out of hand.’

  ‘My place is here, with you.’

  ‘But I’ll be dead soon. What will you do when I’m gone? How will you survive?’

  ‘If I go back to Kyoto I’ll be a slave. And if I go somewhere else? A village someplace? Be a wife and mother? Each day would be the same as the last. Washing laundry on a river bank. Fetching water with a child roped to my back. A different kind of slavery. I choose something else. I choose the sword.’

  She finished dressing the samurai’s wounds and helped him re-tie his kimono. She helped wrap furs round his shoulders. He hated to be treated as an invalid but that’s exactly what he was so he let her help him dress.

  * * *

  Noon.

  Weak sun slowly burned off the mist. The boat hugged the coast. They slowly passed a massive bronze Buddha three times the height of a man. The Buddha was overwhelmed by vines.

  ‘There used to be a temple,’ explained the skipper. ‘The statue stood in the meditation hall. Then the temple burned down and now only the statue remains.’

  The Buddha listed to one side. The massive tonnage was subsiding into the soil. The figure’s blank-eyed smile was partly veiled by a thicket of dense bamboo. The passengers stood and watched in silence as the ruined god passed by and receded in the mist.

  * * *

  Mid-afternoon. The boat made stately progress. The girl sat in the prow with the samurai and watched the wooded shoreline pass by.

  ‘Did he lay his hands on you?’ asked the samurai.

  ‘Saracen? No. He’s an honourable man. He didn’t come near me.’

  ‘A barbarian.’

  ‘He spends his days locked in a library with the wisdom of the world arrayed around him. Thousands of books and scrolls, more than a man could ever read. He’ll be in that room until the day he dies, more or less, reading by candlelight. A peculiar fate.’

  She watched the skipper ride the rudder and his mate adjust clew lines.

  ‘Have you ever sailed overseas?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Saracen told me stories. He showed me pictures. Strange lands. Strange cities. One day I would like to see them.’

  ‘I knew a soldier,’ said the samurai. ‘He was sent on a diplomatic mission to China. There was a storm. He found himself shipwrecked on an alien shore, lost and alone. He crossed deserts. Met strange tribes and worshipped their vengeful deities. He didn’t return home a wise and well-travelled man. He was broken by what he saw. When he returned to Honchu it seemed a little place. All its wisdom, all its traditions, seemed parochial and silly. He didn’t know what to believe. He didn’t know who he was.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He lived his life as a normal man. What else could he do? But he felt distant and empty like an actor performing a role. That is the danger of the life we lead. Searching for an ultimate truth. Trying to see to the heart of things. It’s like staring at the sun. It can burn out your eyes. It can drive you insane.’

  The deluge continued all afternoon and into the evening. Rain made the surface of the sea dance with spray. The crew unfolded a couple of tarps and gave them to their passengers to use as shelter. Tameyo and Masaie huddled together beneath a hood of oiled canvas while the samurai and the girl sat beneath their own sheet of canvas and listened to rain crackle against the greased fabric above their heads. Ariyo sat alone at the prow. He glanced at his companions cowering from the downpour like children. He regarded them with contempt. How could they hope to defy an army and breach a castle if they didn’t have the strength to endure a little moisture? He slicked back his hair and let the rain play on his face.

  A flicker of lightning. The girl counted to five. A thumping, rumbling peel of thunder shook the ship’
s timbers. The wind began to rise. The crew lowered and folded the sail.

  ‘The gods have set their face against us,’ said Masaie, shouting to be heard over the rain.

  ‘I doubt the gods care about us,’ said the samurai. ‘Throw a cup of rice over the side. Call on Dōsojin, if it will make you feel better.’

  ‘Hope we don’t get driven onshore,’ said the girl. ‘If we run aground with these explosives aboard there’ll be nothing left of the boat. Nothing but a few charred planks bobbing in the water.’

  ‘I better check the powder,’ said the samurai. He got to his feet, relinquished the shelter of the oiled canvas and checked the cargo lashed amidships. Water slopped at the bottom of the boat but the pack of explosives was high in the cargo stack, secure and dry.

  Rain was so heavy they couldn’t see beyond the boat. They couldn’t see the shoreline and they couldn’t see the sky. There was no way to tell which direction they were drifting. It felt like the boat was at a standstill. Ariyo sat by the side of the boat and continued to ignore the rain like he was inured to physical hardship. He took a coil of fishing line from his bag, plucked a strand of hair from his head, knotted it and used it to bait the hook. He hung the hook over the side of the boat and waited patiently for a twitch of the line. The girl watched him from beneath the tented canvas. His perpetual scowl implied hard times had turned him into a distrustful survivor, an unassailable fortress, an army of one. He caught the girl staring at him.

  ‘I’m not in the mood to talk.’

  The line bobbed. He pulled a trout from the lake. The fish squirmed in his hand. He hit it against the side of the boat.

  ‘Your dinner?’ asked the girl.

  Ariyo didn’t reply.

  ‘You fish, you fish for all of us,’ said the samurai. ‘You hunt, we all get a piece, understand?’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘I’ll cut you in half, tip your remains over the side and the captain back in Kyoto will do whatever he pleases with your mother.’