Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy)

by Travis Heermann

  Green Tiger visited many times, and Ken’ishi came to feel an immense wash of relief at hearing the master’s voice, because it meant that the pain would stop for a while. Green Tiger admonished the torturer for his cruelty, always warning him not to cause permanent injury.

  Ken’ishi wondered what was meant by “permanent.” His nose was broken, his tongue was a hot, swollen lump after being pierced by the bamboo, and his fingers were searing, bloody messes from bamboo slivers under his nails.

  Green Tiger’s voice would become almost fatherly. “This doesn’t have to go on. You’ve proven your strength. No one has ever withstood it for this long. Our friend is running out of fresh tricks that don’t leave permanent damage. I may come back soon and find you with your hands missing, or your feet, or your eyes. You can make it stop right now, this instant, and take your place at my side.”

  Ken’ishi would say, “Kill me.”

  And then Green Tiger would disappear, and Ken’ishi would fall into the Void once again, whether it was the Void of No-Thought, or the void of unconsciousness, he did not know. But he had a dream once, when his body had been most ravaged, of trying to swim through a lake of thick, molten fire, of his skin and flesh being seared away, layer by layer, one hand already reduced to a blackened stump, until the bones of his remaining hand closed upon something cool and vibrant, a silver rope, and the moment he touched it, a flash of cool liquidity shot through him, soothing the fire, and suddenly his hands had flesh again, and he snatched at the silvery rope with his other hand, now full and alive once more, and he clung to it as the fiery tides lashed over him. The silver rope throbbed in his hand like a vein, and something flowed into him. He felt the fire’s heat, but the pain receded to a dream within a dream. In those moments, he wept with thanks.

  A voice echoed from the edges of his dream. “What is this? Tears! Crying like a baby? Running out of that grit, perhaps?”

  Ken’ishi had no connection to his body. For all he knew, the torturer could be cutting it into small pieces now. Perhaps he was already dead, and this was the afterlife. Perhaps he was simply waiting to be reborn, and these images in his mind were dreams of life, or dreams of dreams of life.

  * * *

  Antoku loved the whisper of bamboo in an autumn breeze, when the air was cool, and the whispers seemed to tell stories meant only for him. Gentian flowers were pretty, such a sharp blue. And yet, they were a symbol of the men coming to kill him.

  His uncle stood beside him, his face pale and drawn, two arrows embedded in his armor or his flesh. His tachi was in his hand. He laid a hand on the boy’s head, and spoke solemn words to the boy’s grandmother. Grandmother nodded solemnly.

  And the ships closed.

  And the battle raged.

  And his grandmother took him up, held him close, and leaped.

  And the sea closed over his head like the cover over the candle flame of his life, rushing into his mouth, and he sank through the empty bodies of the dead samurai, toward the sea bottom. And the spirits of the dead swirled like silken shadows through the dark depths. His uncle sank like a stone with the anchor rope tied around him, silver sword glinting in blue sea. Before the boy’s candle starved of life, he saw the sea bottom alive with crabs, and the anguished spirits of the dead flowed into the crabs, and the crabs rose up to accept the spirits, their pincers raised to meet the blood-trailing feasts sinking toward them.

  And the sword fell to the sea bottom, where it settled among the silt and blood.

  * * *

  A freshet of cool water trickling into his mouth sent his arms thrashing in panic. He was lying on his back, a cloth pillow under his head. His legs lay stretched out. There were no ropes upon him. Jewels of water clung to the ceiling of the cave, glistening with yellow lamplight. The stench of his own blood, sweat, and waste filled his broken nose. His trousers were sodden and full of cold paste. His naked back lay upon cool stone.

  The torturer leaned over him, the expression on his face a strange mix of madness and respect. “Knowing you has taught me that not all men are weak. For that, I thank you.”

  Ken’ishi’s tongue was so hot and swollen that he could manage nothing more than a croak.

  “You are getting your wish. Our time together is coming to an end.” The torturer lifted Ken’ishi’s head and poured more water into his mouth.

  Ken’ishi coughed and gulped, but he swallowed as much as he could.

  The torturer offered another ladle of water. “Yes, good, drink as much as you can. You’re going to need it.”

  Then the torturer slipped a cloth bag over Ken’ishi’s head.

  By flowering pear

  And the lamp of the moon

  She reads her letter

  — Buson

  With the shrine of night sky sliding over the crest of the castle keep above her, and the immense earth and stone edifice of the castle below her, Kazuko slept between earth and sky. Lofted skyward by the light of distant ancestors, anchored by the solidity of the castle’s fortifications, she floated between. Tsunetomo’s quiet snores beside her, his seed drying against her thigh, his breath still in her nose, she floated between. Yearning for her womb to quicken and fulfill her purpose as Tsunetomo’s wife, wishing that the seed belonged to someone else, she floated between.

  A sound popped her bubble of slumber, distant and half-heard.

  She sat up. The gauze of mosquito net whispered with the breeze through the window, a floating web of silver and shadow. In spite of the night’s warmth, she pulled her thin robe tighter around her. Something had left her with a chill across her back, over her breasts. What sound had awakened her? Her mind filled with a strange buzzing.

  A moan rose like a specter, filtering through rice-paper partitions. The faint echo made Kazuko think that the sound had risen from the stairwell. Looking at her husband, she considered waking him. No. She could take care of herself.

  As she slid from under the net, the moan emerged again, not a sound of physical pain, but of deep, deep despair. Hatsumi, whispered through Kazuko’s sleep-fogged mind. But the voice had not sounded like Hatsumi’s. It had been deeper.

  Kazuko padded toward the door, looking back at Tsunetomo. He stirred, but did not wake. If this disturbance was Hatsumi, he might be inclined to send her away. Kazuko would handle this herself. But what kind of creature made such a half-human noise? She opened the door and slipped into the hallway, padding toward the narrow stairwell.

  A guard would be at the bottom of the stairwell. Had he heard the noise?

  The moan rose from the stairwell again, soft but insistent. On the floor below were Hatsumi’s chamber, and Yasutoki’s when he was not absent, and chambers for the lord to entertain guests.

  Kazuko descended into the narrow black box, whispering, “Is someone there?”

  No reply came. Where was the guard? The doorway below was a dim rectangle of light.

  There should be a guard standing just to the side, so she repeated her call.

  Silence.

  Her slippered feet followed the stairwell with practiced ease. The nightingale plank sang under her foot.

  A few dim candles lit the empty hallway below.

  “Hatsumi!” she whispered.

  Silence.

  “Guard!” she said.

  Silence.

  She emerged into the hallway below. There was no guard. The man responsible for leaving his post at the lord and lady’s bedchamber would face the harshest punishment.

  She crept down the hallway toward the door of Hatsumi’s chamber, taking down a candle as she passed a sconce.

  A muffled thump, a shuffling footstep.

  She raised her voice, “Who’s there?”

  Whispers.

  “Hatsumi,” she said.

  She slid the door aside.

  In the darkness she discerned two figures, one hunched on the floor, the other, taller, standing over the other, head bowed.

  She held the candle aloft. “Hatsumi.”


  The figure on the floor looked back, eyes glowing yellow for just an instant in the candlelight, like an animal caught. The figure’s hair was wild and unkempt. Kazuko recognized Hatsumi’s robe. Hatsumi turned, and her mouth opened into another moan, blackened teeth around a stiff, pink tongue.

  Kazuko stepped back.

  The standing figure was the guard, head bowed. The lacquered plates of his armor turned the candlelight into a hundred dim flames, and his sword hung at his hip. He did not move.

  “Guard!” Kazuko said. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The guard’s stance faltered for a moment, and then he shook his head, as if waking from a dream. His eyes widened like unpolished shells. After several long heartbeats, they focused upon her, and a look of horror dawned on his face as his gaze flicked between her and the figure.

  Hatsumi turned away, her moan intensifying. Her claws raked and tore through her hair, tufts coming out between her fingers.

  Kazuko ran to her side. “Hatsumi, it is a nightmare! Wake up!” She took Hatsumi’s shoulders and shook them, but there was a strange strength in them that resisted for a moment. The moaning stopped, Hatsumi’s face turned to Kazuko, eyes wide, fixing upon her, a storm of confusion.

  Hatsumi said, “My lady, what are you doing here? Aren’t you still alive?”

  “I am, dear Hatsumi, wake up! I am alive, and so are you!”

  Hatsumi blinked again, “I’m walking on the roof of hell.”

  Tears streamed down Kazuko’s face at the pain in Hatsumi’s eyes. “What?”

  Hatsumi shook her head. “I am … I was walking … on the roof of hell. And here you were … are.”

  “You were dreaming!”

  Her voice came as if from a dream. “Dreaming.”

  The guard suddenly threw himself prostrate beside her, spewing apologies and tears of shame.

  She turned on him. “Why did you leave your post?”

  He pressed the plate of his armored headband to the floor, his voice halting, confused. “I do not know, my lady! I cannot remember! I heard a noise, I think.… Please accept my apology, my lady. I am disgraced. I will … I will offer my life to my lord tomorrow!”

  Kazuko wiped at her tears and straightened. “There is no need for that. There is no need for my husband to know of this. No need for anyone else to know of this. Anyone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “You may return to your post. Your vigilance is to be commended.”

  “Yes, my lady!” He jumped up and bowed his way out of the room.

  When he was gone, Hatsumi said, “Why are you here?”

  “I heard … a noise. I found you here moaning pitifully.”

  “Moaning. I do not remember.” She held up her hands, and long strands of dark hair trailed from her fingers. Sobs burst out of her.

  “Oh, Kazuko, what is happening to me?” Hatsumi wept, collapsing against Kazuko.

  Kazuko hugged her but bit back her thoughts. Was Hatsumi going mad? Was the person Kazuko had known from childhood falling into darkness? Hatsumi wept against Kazuko’s shoulder, and Kazuko cursed Yasutoki’s callous games for driving her to such bleak, black depths. They were depths that Kazuko knew well from her own heart. How long had she taken to emerge from them herself?

  For a long time, Kazuko held her, until Hatsumi’s tears seeped through Kazuko’s robes. When Hatsumi’s anguish had subsided, Kazuko put her back to bed, feeling the incipient dawn outside. An immense weariness washed over her as she trudged back upstairs.

  As she slid back into bed, Tsunetomo’s voice startled her. “It was Hatsumi, was it not?”

  Something in his voice stirred her belly to dread. “Yes. It was just a nightmare.” She lay on her side, facing away.

  After a moment, his strong hand lay gently on her shoulder. “I know you love her.”

  The tears she had held back while comforting Hatsumi spilled out of her. When she could form words again, she said, “I fear she has gone mad.”

  “She has already all but destroyed her reputation. She should forget any thoughts of marriage. If word of more of this spreads, she will be shunned, or find herself a laughingstock at best. I want you to send her away.”

  A bolt of ice shot through her, directly into the space she had prepared for those words. “Please, Husband. Let me help her.”

  He removed his hand. “I will bow to your wishes for now. But when you find that she cannot be helped, it should be you who sends her away.” Bedcovers flopped over her, and he rolled out of bed, leaving her alone again with her despair.

  Half in a dream

  I become aware

  That the voices of the crickets

  Grow faint with the growing Autumn.

  I mourn for this lonely

  Year that is passing

  And my own being

  Grows fainter and fades away.

  — The Love Poems of Marichiko

  Blackness so empty that Ken’ishi could not distinguish the waking world from the Void. Rough stone cooled his back. He touched his eye with a ravaged fingertip and found it open. The cool, dank air smelled of the sea. His breath caught in his throat for a moment, and the gasp echoed sharply. Water lapped against stone, echoing in a small cavern. Distant surf thundered somewhere.

  Willing his aching limbs to obey, he explored the dimensions of his black confines. One arm reached a rough-hewn stone wall; the other fell against a lattice of bamboo bars. He tried to heave himself into a sitting position and smashed his head against the jagged stone ceiling. Stars exploded in his vision, fresh pain and a trickle of warm blood running over his ear. The ceiling was too low for him to sit up, perhaps an arm’s length above. He could roll, however, or lay on his side.

  His mouth was as dry as an empty gourd. He could not remember the last time he had eaten. He was in too much pain to be hungry, but he knew he needed food. Even the thin millet gruel would be welcome. He could not eat much else. A moment of gratefulness that he still had all his teeth, even though two of them felt loosened.

  For eternities, he lay there on his back, sometimes shifting to his side, endless pain washing through him like surf.

  Then the sounds of the surf intensified. Seawater lapped into his cell. Before long, it began to slosh toward him, and the brine made his fingers, toes, and other wounds burst into searing flame. The incoming tide brought the water higher and higher in the blackness. Blind, he grabbed hold of the bamboo lattice and held his face above the surging seawater, even as it crept closer to the ceiling.

  Animal panic exploded in his chest, bringing fresh strength. He thrashed and tore at the bamboo bars as best he could, weakened as he was, but they remained immobile.

  And the tide rushed in.

  His body floated until it bumped the ceiling of his cell. Seawater splashed into his gasping mouth, and he spat and fought for breath, striving to keep his nose and mouth above the surface. He found a rough-hewn corner of the cell opening with a higher pocket that allowed him to keep his nose above water.

  Amid the rushing water, he caught the sound of coughing, gasping, echoing through the chamber. Another prisoner?

  The jagged stone rubbed rough and cold against one cheek, the hard roundness of bamboo squeezed against the other, black water lapping into his gasping mouth, and he prayed to all the gods and Buddhas that the tide would come no higher.

  More eternities passed in the blackness as the tide’s advance halted, and then eventually withdrew. His hands and arms ached from holding his face above the water.

  Many hours later, he lay upon the wet stone floor of the cell again, exhausted and shivering. His flesh felt burned and tender, wrinkled like a pickled plum, his limbs half-numb from cold.

  A tremulous voice echoed through the cavern. “Is someone there?”

  Ken’ishi opened his mouth to say, “Yes,” but barely a croak issued forth. The seawater burned his tongue, but he licked his cracked lips.

  “I can hear you,” the voice sai
d. “Please tell me someone is there.”

  Ken’ishi coughed and cleared his throat, then tried to speak. It had been so long. “I am here.”

  “Oh, thank all the gods and Buddhas! I have been here alone for so long.”

  “How long?”

  “Twelve tides have come and gone.”

  “Who are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am, does it?” The despair spilled from the disembodied voice.

  Ken’ishi said, “You are not my enemy. It feels good to have another standing with me in this bowel of Hell.”

  A pause, then. “Yes, it does. I am Minamoto no Hirosuke.”

  Ken’ishi vaguely recollected that this was the clan of the Shogun. “Why are you here?”

  A sob echoed. “It doesn’t matter. One’s deeds sometimes overwhelm the man himself. I am … I was a scholar, a chronicler, in Dazaifu. I worked for the Shogun’s government. I was good at what I did! And I am destined to die in a black, forgotten sea cave. Please, tell me of you. Who is my companion on the road to hell?”

  “I am Ken’ishi, a ronin. I refused to submit to Green Tiger’s will.”

  “As did I. I refused his bribes. I would not be his spy in the government’s offices. I am sure that I have since been replaced by someone more pliable.”

  “Won’t your family miss you? The Minamoto are a powerful clan. Won’t they be looking for you?”

  Fits of coughing interrupted the man’s words. “The Shogun’s court considers Kyushu little more than an unruly backwater, populated by fractious samurai lords who resist the bakufu’s edicts. Besides, the Hojo clan holds the balance of power these days.”

  “Your parents? Your wife?”

  “My father is in the old capital. His influence secured a post for me in Dazaifu. My wife is there, too, and my sons. She is a good woman, kind and thoughtful. It was a good match my parents made. If only I could see her again.” His voice fell into despair again. “I will be long dead before they know anything is amiss.”