Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy)

by Travis Heermann

  The sailor stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. “Pusan is … always Pusan. We fish, and we make ships.”

  “Yes, a wonderful, industrious city. And Koryo ships are so much better than Japanese ships, more suitable to the open sea.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Better able to carry cargo, lots of it.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Cargo, and men.”

  “Yes, Lord.” The sailor squirmed.

  “Is Pusan very busy these days?”

  “Oh, yes, Lord, very busy. But almost finished.”

  “And relations with your horse-loving neighbors have bloomed like a field of chrysanthemums these days. The Koryo prince even married one of the Emperor’s daughters, yes? So good to see your people getting on well with the Emperor of China and lands beyond. Bloodshed is a terrible thing, but necessary sometimes. Trade is so much better than war. Tell me, my friend, how many trading ships have you and your brethren built in the last year?”

  The sailor hesitated. “I do not know.”

  “A hundred? Two hundred? Five hundred?” Yasutoki watched the man’s eyes carefully. “A thousand?” The merest flicker in the sailor’s eye, the faintest twitch in his lips, gave Yasutoki the answer he wanted.

  “I do not know,” the sailor said. “Maybe one hundred.”

  “I am sure they are all fine vessels,” Yasutoki said smoothly, restraining the lightning in his veins. A thousand ships! “I am sorry for my rudeness, but the hour is late. I must retire. Fang Shi will show you out.”

  The sailor bowed, and Fang Shi escorted him out.

  Moments later, Tiger Lily appeared, sidling up next to him, allowed her robe to fall open just enough to expose a supple breast and a tantalizing curve of throat.

  “Ah, my little swallow, you bring me joy.” Never before had he taken a young girl as a slave to prepare her for the life of a whore, and then kept her for himself. His efforts to mold her to his will had succeeded beyond his expectations. The difficult part for him, now that he had allowed her to behave more like a concubine than a slave, was that she knew both of his identities. She shared that knowledge with only two other people, Fang Shi and Masoku. It would be some time before she gained enough of his trust, but she gave every indication that she relished her new life of luxury and carnal pleasure. Of course, she knew full well the terrible price if she ever betrayed him. To lend mortar and foundation to her loyalty, he would have to make her complicit in his dealings, make sure that she had as much to lose as he did.

  She purred in his ear. “I already see the joy in your face, Master. You have good news.”

  “Good news, indeed.” The thought of a thousand ships filling Hakata Bay, all crammed with Mongol barbarians and their horses, thrilled Yasutoki, but also filled him with trepidation. He would have to withdraw to Lord Tsunetomo’s estate or he would face the brunt of the invasion, along with the rest of Hakata. The barbarians would not care to distinguish friend from foe in that initial onslaught. He began considering plans to transfer, discreetly of course, many of his records and possessions. He would perhaps entreat Tsunetomo for a large house near the castle, rather than staying within the castle itself, which was far too close to Hatsumi.

  “Lie back, Master, and let my lips and tongue give you more joy.”

  He did so, couching his head on his arm and looking up into the rafters, feeling her tugging at his robe. He stroked the back of her head and sighed as she took him into her mouth, imagining how he might take her with him to Tsunetomo’s estate. He would have to find quarters for her in town, and conceal her existence from Hatsumi for as long as he could. Hatsumi’s bitter jealousy would sour even the heavens if given free rein. Of course, if Hatsumi gave him too much trouble, she might encounter some sort of accident, and a welcome one for the entire household, to be sure.

  He stroked Tiger Lily’s hair, imagining Silver Crane in his hand and a string of Minamoto and Hojo heads lined up reverently before him, and allowed her mouth to lead him to bliss.

  Patting my empty belly

  full of worms,

  the clouds billow

  — Issa

  A cool cloth on Ken’ishi’s face and the familiar scent of her hair in his nostrils as it brushed his cheek, her warmth hovering over him as the cup of fish broth touched his lips. A tingling wave of yearning for her caught up his hand and tried to raise it, to touch her, embrace her, but he was too weak. She hummed over him, a quiet lullaby in a dark room. He wanted the sun. He had not seen it in so long. The warm saltiness awakened his mouth and sent a trickle of life down into his stomach.

  “Kiosé.”

  “Shh, drink. Then rest.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Right here, all along.”

  “You remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “That’s good.”

  He drank.

  He slept.

  * * *

  He awoke to sunlight, creeping across the floor from an open window toward his face. The brilliant orange-gold light tore a hole in his emotions, and he wept.

  Junko came in later with a bowl of rice porridge.

  He said, “Where is Kiosé?”

  “Who?”

  “She was here.”

  Junko sat beside him and spooned a bit of porridge for him. “Who is Kiosé?”

  A spike of bitterness drove through him. He took the spoon. “I can feed myself.”

  * * *

  After a few days of broth, runny porridge and water, Ken’ishi’s stomach was finally able to hold some fish and then a rice ball. It felt so alien, and yet so wonderful, simply to sit upright and hold himself with some decorum, however unsteady. And to eat. How many times had he licked and sucked every morsel and drop of that awful millet gruel from the stone floor of his tiny cell, sometimes mixed with detritus swept in with the tide? Or worse things.

  Junko often told him with a wink, “Yes, those hollows around your eyes are going away. You’ll be your old hale and virile self again in no time.”

  His first attempts at walking ended with waves of nausea and dizziness that turned the floor upside down and sent him crashing into it. His head was too far from the floor. His body felt so light, as if much of it was now missing, his limbs as weak and unsteady as the legs of a naked hatchling.

  Hage had warned Shirohige, “You let that young man eat as much as he wants, after a few days. He’ll need to eat like a herd of oxen to regain all the strength he’s lost. Any complaining from you, and I’ll turn every drop of your saké as rancid as two-week old fish, and your tea will be filled with maggots.”

  Shirohige grumbled, but Junko bought great quantities of rice, vegetables, and fish. With the coming of autumn, pears and persimmons were coming ripe. The fall crop of beans, onions, and daikon radish had come, and Junko delightedly filled Ken’ishi’s belly with fish and vegetable stews, boiled eggs, pork ramen, rice cakes, Chinese buns, pickled plums, and great bowls of steaming rice.

  The sharp remembrance of his hunger made each bite a moment of grateful heaven. Even when he was not eating, his thoughts wandered often toward food, and he wondered if that would ever cease.

  Dreams of silvery streams and moonlit ocean foam coursed through his sleep, infusing his body with strength he had not had the day before. Nightmares of cold savagery, blood and sliced flesh and chopped bone and whimpering pleas for mercy destroyed his sleep, filling him with more rage than he had felt the day before.

  The rope of his trousers wrapped further around him now, but as soon as he could walk steadily, he found a piece of timber of roughly appropriate size and began to practice his sword drills. His arms felt like a child’s, weak and quivering. He took his bow and meager supply of arrows into the alley behind the house and set up a straw target to practice.

  Curving the bow forward around his leg to string it, his hands trembled at the effort to bring the loop of bowstring over the tip of the bow. Frustration seared through him. “Vengeance,”
he whispered, sweat beading his brow, but he finally managed it.

  Junko hovered nearby. “Shirohige wanted to sell your things. He didn’t think you’d be coming back. I told him I would cut his balls off if he did.”

  “Thank you, Madam Junko. You are very good to me,” Ken’ishi said. “And I am sorry that I lost the armor you gave me. It saved my life.”

  “Then it served its purpose. Tell me. Why are you out here so soon? You certainly don’t intend to go after Green Tiger again, do you?”

  Ken’ishi nocked an arrow and sighted down it toward the target.

  Junko watched him for a long moment, then sighed and left him to his practice. In the silence, snippets of conversation flowed around him from nearby houses, from the street. The neighborhood today felt alive, buzzing with activity.

  He shot through his supply of arrows, retrieved them, shot them again. His arms grew shaky far too soon, but he kept going until his fingers bled and his forearm bore an angry red welt from the chafe of the bowstring.

  Pon-Pon chewed placidly, watching over the top rail of his pen.

  A small voice turned Ken’ishi’s head. “I see you’re up and about and ready to charge once again toward death, eh, old sot?” The tanuki watched him from the crawl space under a nearby house.

  Ken’ishi took a deep breath, drew and fired another arrow. The trembling of his arm sent the arrow skittering down the alley, wide of the target. He sighed at having to retrieve it. “Not yet. My strength is far from recovered. But soon. And thank you for saving my life. I am forever in your debt.”

  “Since you owe your life to me, perhaps I should forbid you from spending it foolishly. But I don’t suppose that would matter.”

  Ken’ishi fired another arrow.

  Hage said, “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to rebuild my strength. Then I’m going to kill his men, one by one. And then I’m going after Green Tiger himself. I know how to find them now.” And even now, in the daylight, a tiny silver thread tugged at his mind, toward the west, away from central Hakata.

  “And I don’t suppose you can be dissuaded.”

  Ken’ishi frowned as another arrow went astray.

  “Then perhaps you should ask me what I found in those weeks of looking for you.”

  Ken’ishi lowered his bow and looked down at the little furry face, a face that somehow resembled Hage’s human countenance. The tanuki’s expressions and mannerisms were instantly recognizable.

  Nearby, two shrill voices rose into a staccato quarrel, two women arguing over the trappings of their houses.

  “What did you find?”

  “I found several places frequented by Green Tiger’s men—his gambling dens, his whorehouses, even a couple of moneychangers who skim the profits for him.”

  “So you’ll help me find them all, and kill them.”

  “I didn’t say that. If someone starts picking off Green Tiger’s men, he’ll likely disappear into a burrow where you’ll never find him. You might make it harder to reach the sword.”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Care to share it?”

  “Not just yet.”

  Hage sniffed. “What are you going to fight with, naked bravado? Arrows are weapons of war and bandits. If you go around shooting arrows into people, the constables are likely to take notice. In fact, if any of the neighbors see you out here, they might report it to the constables. You’ll end up tortured and executed in somebody else’s prison.”

  “I’ll be careful to avoid capture.”

  The tanuki snickered, a light, wheezing chitter. “So you’re a shadow warrior now as well! Let me tell you, this Green Tiger knows such people.”

  “I have faced them before.”

  “So you have said. But some of them may not be simply men. The shadows they manipulate may in turn come to manipulate them. It is said that Green Tiger himself possesses power over shadow. There are hidden schools in distant provinces where such things are taught, so I have heard.”

  Ken’ishi fired another arrow. “An arrow through the eye-hole of his basket hat will kill even a rumor dead enough.”

  “It may not be all rumor. I thought once that I had found him, Green Tiger himself. I thought I had caught him leaving one of his haunts, so I hurried to catch up. I was sure that I had him, but he melded into some shadows as if he were a hungry ghost. He disappeared.”

  “Perhaps you were … imagining things.”

  “Of course, I was imagining things! I imagine everything all the time! That’s how my magic works, dolt! Don’t try to deceive a deceiver! But I saw what I saw.”

  Ken’ishi said, “I grow tired of everyone’s assumption that I am no match for him. Green Tiger will die at my hands, and Silver Crane will be mine again.”

  The nearby quarrel between the two women rose to a strident fury. One accused the other of stealing the best thatch. The other screamed about the first’s brood of young ones whose voices had interrupted her afternoon naps all through the previous spring.

  Pon-Pon chewed contentedly, watching Ken’ishi’s conversation with mild interest.

  Hage said, “It’s truly worth all this suffering? Perhaps you should just forget about it and enjoy life.”

  Ken’ishi turned on him. “Where does your magic come from, your power? Does it come from your jewels?”

  “It comes from the earth, and the air, and fire and water, gathered in my jewels, yes. Waiting to be brought to life like seed in a womb.”

  “And how are those powers replenished? Have they a limit?”

  Hage’s whiskers twitched. “Same as yours. I eat. I drink. I pay homage to the kami, whose powers flow through me like water through a fish’s gills. Some of that I get to keep, and use. But I cannot remain in human form too long, or else I become too attached to the human world, human thoughts. The longer I hold human form, the more I begin to think like a human, and my powers cease to replenish.”

  “What would happen if you were castrated? What would you become?”

  The tanuki’s body suddenly shrank to the size of a fox, a distressed expression striking his features. His voice was smaller now, higher. “I would rather die.”

  Ken’ishi nocked another arrow, raised the bow. “Exactly.” His weak fingers slipped prematurely, and the arrow thudded into the thatch of Shirohige’s roof, burying itself up to the feathers. His frown deepened.

  “You’re not concentrating,” Hage said.

  Another voice said, “Perhaps you should meditate first. Clear your mind, and your hindquarters will follow.”

  Ken’ishi looked around, wondering who had spoken. The voice had not belonged to Hage.

  “One step at a time. One hoof in front of the other. Choices are simpler that way,” Pon-Pon said, his mouth full of cud.

  Ken’ishi’s mouth fell open, and his bow dropped to his side.

  Pon-Pon swallowed his cud and continued, “Needless complications are just complications. One task, one first step, then a second step. It is no good to get lost worrying about every blade of grass in the field. Better to think about just the field and your place in it.”

  “You can speak!” Ken’ishi said.

  “Of course, I can speak. Forgive me for interrupting your conversation with Master Hage.”

  Ken’ishi could not find words. Tears burst from his eyes.

  Hage said, “Master Ox here could speak all along. You just couldn’t hear him. Too much noise in your mind, the noise of the human world.” The tanuki waved a paw as if swatting at a swarm of flies. “You were raised outside the human world. In the human world, your mind became too concerned with human worries, human suffering, the endless wants that men subject themselves to. Perhaps you found a way to forget the noise.”

  Just then, Ken’ishi realized that the quarrel he had been hearing was not between two women at all, but between two small birds arguing over the quality of their nests. The two female birds abruptly spun away from each other with hmphs of disgust and flew
away.

  How long had he been consumed with thoughts that distracted him from his path? The suffering he had seen, the suffering he had experienced, his love for Kazuko and the agony therefrom, his denial of love for Kiosé, his fears, his yearning. And because of it all, he had stopped listening to the moments, to the flow of the kami; he had grown too attached to the past and the future.

  His imprisonment and torture had been an endless series of black moments, but they were over now, and his mind felt clear. His path was clear.

  Pon-Pon swished his tail at some flies. “And you are dropping your elbow. That’s why your shots pull toward the right.”

  The sound of Junko approaching emanated from the house. “Who are you talking to out there?” she said.

  “I am speaking to Hage-sensei,” Ken’ishi said.

  “Shirohige just returned. You should talk to him. He says he has bad news.”

  While you yet live, become a dead person. Then do as you like.

  — Bunan

  “Something terrible is going to happen,” Shirohige said. Ken’ishi and Hage, taking his human form, sat with them while Junko made tea. Shirohige’s hands trembled as he stroked his beard.

  “All the world is calamity,” Hage said wryly. “Explain.”

  “I have been expecting a shipment of … goods from Pusan, and I went to the docks again today looking for the ship. I have looked for the last week. The shipment is long, long overdue. If I have to wait much longer, Junko will have to go back to whoring.” He clapped his hands together to pray. “And Jizo prevent such a calamity.”

  Junko shuffled toward him and kicked him in the back.

  Shirohige cried out in pain. “A jest, foul hag! In any case, we won’t be able to feed our warrior so lavishly for much longer.”

  Ken’ishi bowed. “I apologize for all the trouble.”

  Shirohige waved it away. “It’s not just that. I started asking questions. Rumors abound that the Koryo have been building ships, whole fleets of them. The trade ships seem to have disappeared. Very few are coming into port now. I’ve never seen the docks so empty. There is no real news from Pusan. The docks are full of speculation that the Mongols are keeping the ships for an invasion fleet. They have been threatening to invade Kyushu for years.”