Jade Palace Vendetta (Samurai Mysteries)

by Dale Furutani

  “The whole clan isn’t here, but Elder Grandma, Nagatoki, Sadakatsu, and I, Matsuyama Kaze, are here to help you. But I don’t understand this. Hishigawa claims he loves you. Why would he do this to you?”

  “Because I don’t love him. He could abduct me and violate me, but he couldn’t get me to love him or even to say I love him. Ando thought of this punishment. She has confined me in this cage for many months. Every day they bring the most sumptuous meals they can devise and leave them just outside my reach. Then they give me disgusting things like those boiled rats to eat. They say if I just tell Hishigawa I love him, they will release me, dress me in the robe you see there, groom me, and feed me this elegant food. But I won’t tell him I love him. I’ll never tell him I love him. I’ll die before I tell him I love him!”

  Kaze saw a spark of fire in the dull eyes of Yuchan, and he could tell that she was of the same strong stock as Elder Grandma. He well believed that she would die before bending her will to Hishigawa’s desires, because she was near death now and had obviously not been broken.

  Kaze came across the room and inspected the lock on the cage. It was one he could not force. “Who has the key to this cage?” he asked.

  “Ando. She always carries it with her. Every night she and Hishigawa come to argue with me, trying to get me to say I love the disgusting merchant. Hishigawa seems quite oblivious to my state and acts like I’m still the maiden he first met. He is touched by some evil spirit and crazed. Ando is not touched, but she is a monster, an ogre! I hate her more than Hishigawa. She knows what she’s doing, and I think she quite enjoys it.”

  Kaze digested this declaration and found that he tended to agree that a sane person committing evil was more guilty than someone touched by some evil spirit. Since he could not force the lock, Kaze said, “All right, I’ll have to—”

  Kaze was interrupted by the door to the room sliding open. There were Hishigawa and Ando. Hishigawa seemed shocked at the sight of Kaze. If Ando had shown a similar hesitation, Kaze might have been able to cross the room and eliminate them with two sword strokes. But Ando was too quick and started screaming, “Guards! Guards!” as soon as she saw Kaze.

  There was a scramble of running feet, and Ando and Hishigawa disappeared from the doorway.

  “I’ll be back,” Kaze told Yuchan.

  She reached out and grabbed his arm in a surprisingly fierce grip.

  “Don’t leave me!” she said.

  “I have to for now. The guards will be here in moments, and their companions from the villa will be right behind. I won’t abandon you, I promise. I will be back for you soon!” Kaze gently pried loose the fingers of Yuchan’s hand, afraid he might break the bony appendages if he yanked his arm away violently.

  He ducked out of the doorway and found himself in a dark passageway. He didn’t know the direction in which Ando and Hishigawa had disappeared, so he chose one at random and started running. He guessed wrong.

  He came to a doorway and opened it. It was some kind of store-room, with merchandise piled high. He was at a dead end. Kaze turned and looked down the passage, hearing the clatter of running feet and seeing five guards rushing toward him. He stood and prepared to cut his way out of the trap he found himself in.

  Seeing the intruder calmly standing in the door of the storeroom, his sword in the point-at-the-eye position and apparently ready for a fight, the guards slowed down. They looked at each other, unsure about how to rush the ronin when only one at a time could enter the door to the storeroom. Finally, the bravest of the guards rushed into the storeroom with a yell.

  Kaze caught the attacker’s blade and, in one smooth motion, went from the defense to the offense, slashing the man’s side and letting the dying man’s momentum carry him through the doorway. The man landed on the wooden floor of the storeroom, which did not have tatami mats, and lay there groaning, his lifeblood rapidly leaking out of the large cut in his side. Kaze looked at the remaining four calmly.

  “Get out of the way,” Ando ordered.

  The four guards were eager to obey any order that would delay an attack on the samurai. They parted cleanly, moving to the walls of the passageway.

  Ando advanced toward the door. In front of her, she held Yuchan by the hair. She had taken her out of the cage. Yuchan was struggling, but her emaciated state and weakness made it easy for Ando to control her. In Ando’s other hand she had a dagger. She stopped and held the dagger to Yuchan’s throat. “Surrender,” she said, “or I’ll cut her throat.”

  “If you kill Yuchan, Hishigawa will be angry,” Kaze pointed out.

  “I’ll tell him you killed her,” Ando said. “He’s already mad with jealousy. He thinks you wanted to steal Yuchan from him for yourself. He’ll believe you killed Yuchan out of jealousy when you couldn’t have her. This insolent girl has been enough of a bother as it is. It will be good to be rid of her so quickly.”

  Kaze looked in Yuchan’s eyes, and he thought he saw in them a look of defiance, encouraging Kaze to fight on, even if it meant her death. But Kaze could not bring himself to cause the death of this pitiful creature. He threw his sword down.

  The guards rushed him and roughly dragged him out of the store-room. They quickly bound him with rope as Ando looked on in triumph, a crying Yuchan still in her grasp. Kaze noted with approval that Yuchan didn’t start crying until the crisis was over. He couldn’t say if she was crying for him or for herself—perhaps a bit of both.

  When Kaze was securely bound, Ando approached him and slapped him across the cheek. Touching a samurai’s face was the ultimate insult, but Kaze simply winced at the slap and gave no other indication that he felt Ando’s blow.

  “Beat him,” Ando said. “Do it thoroughly, but don’t kill him. I’m sure Hishigawa-san will want to deal personally with the man he thinks tried to steal Yuchan from him.”

  The men rushed Kaze and started kicking the bound ronin. They wore straw sandals, causing bruising but not broken bones. Kaze simply ducked his head to try to protect his face and gave no other indication that the four men were beating him.

  One of the men left and returned with a spear. He brought the butt of the spear down into Kaze’s side, bringing a grunt of pain from him. He pointed to the dead body in the storeroom, the first guard that Kaze had killed. “This is for Ichiro!” the guard with the spear said. He brought the spear butt down on Kaze’s head, making him see blackness for a brief moment. Kaze fought to keep consciousness, telling himself it was foolish to do so because it wasn’t likely that there would be a chance to escape and kill his tormentors in his current circumstances. Eventually, as the fist, feet, and spear butt fell on him, Kaze’s effort to remain conscious proved futile.

  CHAPTER 24

  The pain of good-bye

  lingers far longer than the

  parting of our souls.

  Kaze thought he was being held by a demon of enormous size. The demon was an angry red color and had bulging eyes and two curled, yellowing tusks protruding from its mouth. He held Kaze suspended high in the air with one hand. The hand was so large that the demon could hold Kaze with two fingers. With the other hand, he had Kaze’s two arms pinned back behind him and he was pulling on them, trying to rip them out from Kaze’s shoulders the way wanton boys will pull the wings off a dragonfly.

  The pain was excruciating, and Kaze felt an agony like the pain of fire. He looked in the demon’s face and saw an idle curiosity. The pain in his arms and shoulders built and built and built. Kaze closed his eyes tightly and grit his teeth to help him bear it.

  Finally, when the pain was unbearable, Kaze popped his eyes open, ready to shout his defiance to the demon, telling the creature to pluck off his arms if he must.

  Instead of seeing a demon, however, Kaze discovered he was in an eight-mat room in Hishigawa’s villa. His hands were tied behind him. A rope bound his wrists and looped through a hook in a ceiling joist. Kaze had been hauled into the air by the rope. He was dangling above the mats from his arms, and the we
ight of his body was causing the pain.

  He twisted his wrists, but the ropes binding them were too tight. He was trapped.

  Kaze closed his eyes and gathered his strength. He felt the tearing pain in his shoulders, but he tried to ignore it. His face and body were bruised, but he dismissed the beating as the work of amateurs. Instead of worrying about the pain, he tried to take his mind to another time and place. He thought briefly of his first view of Kamakura when he arrived a few days before. The green of the foliage, the blues from the sea and sky and some of the tile roofs, the brown of the earth, and the tiny splashes of color from flowers and birds helped settle his mind. He still felt the pain, but now he regarded his position as just an annoyance.

  He wondered if the Lady had been able to take her mind to another place when she was captured. She had endured the same thing, and more.

  The rain was drumming down with a steady beat on the day that Kaze had tried to save the Lady. He had been crouching under a large bush, smeared in mud as camouflage, watching Okubo’s encampment.

  The encampment was a large enclosure at the top of a hill. Poles were set in a rectangle, with ropes strung between them. Hanging from the ropes were large pieces of black cloth, to shield the encampment from wind, prying eyes, and an easy shot by a sniper with a musket or bow. On the cloth was the Okubo crest, looking like a large, malevolent spider.

  Frightened peasants told Kaze that the Lady had been captured. Okubo had used the ruse that he was making a courtesy call before joining the main battle force arrayed against the Tokugawas. The Lady and her daughter had opened the doors of the castle and come out to greet him. He had seized them and pressed an attack, surprising the garrison and overwhelming them with his superior force. Now the castle was destroyed, and no one quite knew where the Lady and her daughter were.

  Kaze had watched Okubo’s enclosure all day. Messengers arrived constantly, and the camp seemed to be in a state of intense excitement. If they still lived, Kaze thought the Lady and her daughter would most likely be held prisoner in the encampment. In the late afternoon this suspicion was confirmed in a horrible way.

  Activity outside the enclosure seemed at a lull, and Kaze could not see what was happening inside. But he could hear. From inside Okubo’s enclosure came a woman’s scream. It was a scream of pain, torn from her throat. Kaze wasn’t sure if it was the Lady, but even if it was, he told himself to be still and be patient. The second scream almost galvanized him to action, but he knew that attacking the enclosure now would be suicide. Kaze wasn’t afraid to die, but he knew he would not save the Lady by making a senseless attack. So he waited. More screams came from the enclosure. He waited some more, his heart tearing with every scream that long, wet afternoon.

  Finally, after hours of the sounds of suffering, Okubo and a strong guard left the enclosure. After Okubo left, two guards came from inside the enclosure and made the rounds of the guards posted outside the fabric barrier. They handed them jugs of sakè, and, with Okubo gone, Kaze could see the guards visibly relaxing and celebrating their victory.

  Because of the rainy sky, Kaze did not see the sun go down, but by the sudden descent of darkness, he knew it was night. Still he waited.

  Finally, in the small hours of the morning, Kaze moved. He carefully made his way to one side of the enclosure, where a single guard was on duty. The guard was wearing a straw rain cape and stood holding his spear with his head bent under his conical metal helmet to shelter his face from the rain. The guard wasn’t drunk, but in that pose his field of vision was restricted to just a few feet in front of him. Kaze used that fact.

  The guard was bored by the sentry duty and fighting to stay awake. He had given up trying to stay warm in the rain hours before and had settled into a state of patient acceptance when he heard the sound of running feet. Startled, he looked up just in time to see a samurai descending on him. He opened his mouth to sound the alarm, but before he could shout his throat was cut by the samurai’s katana.

  Kaze took the guard and leaned him up against one of the poles holding the fabric barrier. If someone spotted him, it would look like he was asleep. It would buy Kaze a few moments before they realized the guard was dead.

  Kaze cut one of the cords holding the bottom of a fabric panel to a pole and slipped under the panel. Inside the enclosure Kaze saw a couple of tents and another closed-off area. Unsure of where the woman’s screams came from, he decided to try the closed-off area first.

  Slipping like a shadow against the background of the black cloth, Kaze went to the small area and entered it. Three long poles had been set up to form a tripod. Hanging from the tripod was the Lady. Her arms were tied behind her and she was hoisted up by those arms. Her kimono was open and hung wet on her body. Her head was bent forward, and she was so still that Kaze thought she might be dead. The cruel rain made her long black hair hang down in front of her face like the hair of a ghost.

  Kaze approached her and whispered, “My Lady?”

  She moaned and raised her head slightly. Her wet hair still obscured her vision, but she said weakly, “You!”

  “Yes. Stay strong. I’ll have you down in a minute.” Kaze placed one arm around her, and as he drew her close his nose was assaulted by the smell of burnt hair. He reached up with his sword hand and cut the rope suspending her. He stopped her from falling to the earth, but she gave a moan of pain when the rope was cut.

  Kaze cut the ties on her wrists and laid her on the ground.

  “Can you cover me?” she asked. “I’m afraid my arms are dislocated, so I can’t do it myself. I’m sorry.”

  Kaze wrapped her kimono around her body and as he did so, the cause of the smell of burnt hair became apparent. Her privates had been burned with fire or hot irons.

  “My daughter …” she said.

  “Do you know where she is?” Kaze asked. “I’ll get her, too.”

  “No. They took her yesterday. Okubo told me he was going to sell her. He wouldn’t tell me where. He said it was punishment for my husband and me always thinking we were better than him. It’s true. We always did think we were better. Now I know we are. But the revenge he took because of that…” Her voice trailed off. Then she said, “I think he did this to me because he liked it. He liked it very much.”

  “My Lady, it’s best if you don’t talk now. We still have to get out of here, and as soon as they find out you’re gone, they’ll come looking for us.” Kaze picked her up in his arms. He kept his sword in his hand and carefully made his way out of the enclosure. He was halfway to the opening in the outer enclosure when a samurai in armor and a helmet came out of one of the tents.

  He saw Kaze and drew his sword. “Alarm! Intruders!” he shouted, and started running toward Kaze.

  Kaze took a few seconds to put the Lady down, instead of dropping her, and those few seconds almost cost him his life.

  Kaze took the first sword blow while he was still bent. The best he could do was to parry the samurai’s blow. A man in armor was hard to kill, because there were only a few vulnerable spots. Even if the armor didn’t completely stop a blow, it could lessen its effectiveness, leaving a man with a cut instead of a mortal wound.

  Using all his strength, Kaze pushed the man away. He knew he had to end this duel quickly, because he could hear the camp stirring. Reinforcements would be arriving any moment. His katana was made for slashing, not thrusting, but he knew there was one vulnerable spot on the armored man that would end the contest quickly. He stepped back and dropped his guard.

  Seeing his chance, the armored samurai attacked, slashing at Kaze with an over-the-head blow. At the ready, Kaze narrowly dodged the blow and lunged forward, the point of his katana aimed at the man’s neck, right below the chin. Kaze caught the man in this unarmored spot and shoved his sword home. The man dropped his sword and grabbed at Kaze’s blade, now stuck in his neck. Kaze withdrew his sword with a sideways motion, slashing the man’s throat. The man collapsed.

  Kaze took a second cut at the ma
n’s throat, not to deliver another death blow, but to cut the ties that held the man’s helmet. He scooped the man’s helmet off his head and placed it on his own head just as the troops, roused from a drunken victory stupor, started rushing out of the tents, holding their weapons.

  Kaze looked up with the helmet on his head and shouted, “I’ve killed two of them!” He pointed to the body of the dead samurai and the Lady, who was moaning softly from pain. “Quickly! They’ve gone into the enclosed area and rescued the Lady! Hurry! There’s a dozen of them!” Kaze pointed to the enclosure where he had found the Lady. “They’re in there! Hurry! Get them!”

  In the dark, with an Okubo helmet on, the troops took Kaze for an officer and immediately rushed to obey. They ran past in a frenzy, bumping into one another in their confusion and bewilderment. As soon as they were past, Kaze scooped up the Lady and made a dash for the place in the compound barrier where he had entered.

  CHAPTER 25

  Things man does to man.

  Human tears would fill Edo

  Bay, if gathered there.

  The Lady wasn’t heavy, but by midday Kaze was weary of carrying her. He had not slept or rested for several days, ever since learning of Okubo’s treachery. Kaze had taken to the mountains immediately. He knew that if he stayed on level ground the Okubo troops would soon hunt them down on horseback. In the mountains Kaze had an advantage, because Okubo’s troops would have to proceed on foot and Kaze could stretch his meager head start as the troops tried to track him.

  The rain had not abated, and the dreary wet weather matched Kaze’s mood. His children were dead. His wife was dead. The fate of his Lord was unknown. The Lady’s daughter had been kidnapped and presumably sold. The Lady had been tortured and dishonored. In his arms, she made an infrequent moan of pain but never complained as Kaze took her deeper into the mountains to get away from Okubo’s men.