by Boris Akunin
‘Fire!’
Rapid, crackling salvoes of carbine fire. Masa could hear the bullets thudding into the wooden walls and the squeal of splinters flying out.
Ah, what a disaster! How could he save his master from this hell? The Black Jackets would riddle the first three houses with bullets now, and then they would set about Tamba’s home.
Masa dashed about between the pines in despair and saw that he couldn’t possibly slip through the brightly lit zone and the cordon.
A crunch of branches. A man running with a limp from the direction of the crevice. Black jacket, black hood – he must have fallen behind the others. Masa attacked him from the side, knocked him down with a single blow and then, to make sure, squeezed the fallen man’s neck with his knee and waited for it to crunch. He didn’t have to worry about the noise – all the shooting that was going on was deafening.
He pulled the trousers and jacket off the corpse and put them on. He covered his face with the hood – it was very helpful that the Don’s men had decided to wear such a useful item.
While he was still fiddling about, the shooting stopped. The wooden walls that had been riddled with bullets were covered in black dots, like the poppy-seed bun that Masa had given Netsuko as a treat. It was almost as bright as day, there were so many torches all around.
One by one the gunmen entered the houses, holding their carbines at the ready. Then they came back out – in twos, dragging dead bodies that they laid out on the ground. The commander leaned down, looking into the dead faces.
Masa counted nine big bodies and four little ones. There were two adults missing.
‘Tamba’s not here,’ the commander said loudly. ‘And the gaijin’s not here either. They’re in the house on the edge of the precipice.’
And he walked away, but not far, only a few steps.
Suddenly one of the bodies came to life. The man (Masa recognised affable, talkative Rakuda) arched up like a cat and jumped on to the commander’s back. A knife blade glinted, but the leader of the Black Jackets proved to be very adroit – he jerked his head to dodge the blow, threw himself backwards and started rolling about on the grass. Men dashed to help him from all sides, and a shapeless black octopus with arms and legs sticking out in all directions started writhing on the ground.
Taking advantage of the commotion, another body started moving, this time a little one. It was eight-year-old Yaichi. He rose halfway to his feet, staggered and then shook himself. Two Black Jackets tried to grab the boy, but he wriggled between their outstretched arms and scrambled up a tree in an instant.
‘Catch him! Catch him!’ his pursuers shouted. There was a rumble of shots.
Yaichi flew across to the next tree, and then the one after that. The branch he was holding broke off, smashed by a bullet, but he grabbed another one.
Meanwhile they had finished off Rakuda. Two Black Jackets were left lying on the ground. The others dragged the dead shinobi away and helped their commander to get up. He pushed their willing hands away angrily and pulled the hood off his head. A revolver glinted as he aimed the barrel at the boy skipping though the trees. The barrel described a short arc, spat out a gobbet of flame – and Yaichi came tumbling down like a stone.
Masa froze open-mouthed, astonished by the gunman’s accuracy and the gleam of his smoothly shaved head. He had seen this man before, only a few days earlier! The itinerant monk who had spent the night at the village hotel with Kamata’s ‘construction brigade’, that was who it was!
And everything was finally clear.
Don Tsurumaki was a prudent man. He hadn’t relied on the faithful but dull-witted Kamata. He had attached a spy to the brigade, a man who had watched everything and sniffed everything out without making himself known. He had seen the massacre on the mountain, noted where the entrance to the underground passage was, and the hoist … Neat work, no two ways about it!
The Monk (that was what Masa called the Black Jackets’ commander now) was obviously afraid that another dead ninja would come back to life. He pulled a short sword out of its scabbard and set to work. The blade rose thirteen times and fell thirteen times and a pyramid of severed heads rose up by the wall of the house. The Monk handled the sword deftly, he clearly had a lot of experience.
Before moving on to the concluding stage of the storm, the commander ordered his unit to form up in a line.
‘Our losses are small,’ said the Monk, walking along the line with a springy step. ‘The naked girl killed two, the dead man who came to life killed two more, one was hurt when he fell off the hoist. But the greatest danger lies ahead. We shall proceed strictly according to the plan drawn up by Mr Shirota. It’s a good plan, you’ve seen it. Mr Shirota assumes that the house of the werewolves’ leader is full of traps. And therefore – extreme caution. Not a single step without orders, is that clear?’ Suddenly he stopped, peering into the darkness. ‘Who’s that there? You, Ryuhei?’
Realising he had been spotted, Masa slowly stepped forward. What should he do? Walk over or take to his heels?
‘So you got up after all? Didn’t break any bones? Good man. Get back in line.’
Most of the Black Jackets had followed their commander’s example and taken off the hoods, but a few, Buddha be praised, had left their faces covered, and so no one suspected Masa; only the man next to him in the line squinted at him and nudged him in the side with his elbow – but he thought that must be a kind of greeting.
‘Twenty men cordon off the clearing,’ the Monk ordered. ‘Hold your carbines at the ready, stay awake. If one of the shinobi tries to break through, drop him on the spot. The others come with me, into the house. No crowding, in line, two by two.’
Masa didn’t want to join the cordon. He attached himself to the men who would go into the house, but he couldn’t get into the first row, only the third.
The plan of the storm had clearly been worked out in detail.
The long double column trotted to the clearing with the jonin’s wooden plank house standing on its edge. The twenty-man cordon took up position round the edge of the clearing and stuck torches into the ground.
The others stretched out into a long dark snake and moved forward.
‘Carbines on the ground!’ the commander ordered, keeping his eyes fixed on the house, which was maintaining a sinister silence. ‘Draw your daggers!’
He dropped back a little bit from the men in front and stopped, as if feeling uncertain.
He doesn’t want to stick his own neck out, Masa realised. And he’s right too. Rakuda (whose heroic death had probably raised him to the next level in the cycle of rebirth) had said that when there was danger, Tamba’s house became like a prickly hedgehog – there were some secret levers that had to be pressed for that. The inhabitants of the house had had plenty of time, so there would be lots of surprises in store for the Black Jackets. Masa remembered with a shudder how the floor had tilted under him that night and he had gone tumbling down into darkness.
The Monk was a cautious man, and there was no point in pushing forward too fast.
And then immediately, as if to confirm this idea, it started.
When one of the two men at the front was just a step away from the porch, he disappeared, as if the ground had opened and swallowed him up.
Or rather, there was no ‘as if’ about it – it did swallow him up. Masa had walked across that spot a hundred times, and he had no idea that there was a pit hidden under it.
There was a spine-chilling howl. The Black Jackets first shied away from the gaping hole, then swarmed round it. Masa stood on tiptoe and looked over someone’s shoulder. He saw a body pierced through by sharp stakes, still jerking about.
‘I only just stopped myself, right on the very edge!’ the survivor from the first row said in a trembling voice. ‘The amulet saved me. The goddess Kannon’s amulet!’
The others remained morosely silent.
‘Line up!’ the commander barked.
Skirting round the terrible pit, from
which groans were still emerging, they started walking up on to the porch. The owner of the miraculous amulet held one hand out ahead of him, clutching a dagger, and pulled his head down into his shoulders. He passed the first step, the second, the third. Then he stepped timidly on to the terrace, and at that very instant a heavy section fell out of the thick beam framing the canopy. It smacked the man standing below across the the top of his head with a dull thud and he collapsed face down without even crying out. His hand opened and the amulet in its tiny brocade bag fell out.
The goddess Kannon is good for women and for peaceful occupations, thought Masa. For the affairs of men the god Fudo’s amulet is more appropriate.
‘Well, why have you stopped?’ shouted the Monk. ‘Forward!’
He ran fearlessly up on to the terrace, but stopped there and beckoned with his hand.
‘Come on, come on, don’t be such cowards.’
‘Who’s a coward?’ boomed a great husky fellow, pushing his way forward. Masa stepped aside to let the brave man past. ‘Right, now, let me through!’
He jerked the door open. Masa winced painfully, but nothing terrible happened.
‘Good man, Saburo,’ the commander said to the daredevil. ‘No need to take your shoes off, this isn’t a social call.’
The familiar corridor opened up in front of Masa: three doors on the right, three doors on the left, and one more at the end – with the little bridge into emptiness beyond it.
The hulking brute Saburo stamped his foot on the floor – again nothing happened. He stepped across the threshold, stopped and scratched the back of his head.
‘Where to first?’
‘Try the one on the right,’ ordered the Monk, also entering the corridor. The others followed, crowding together.
Before going in, Masa looked round. A long queue of Black Jackets was lined up on the porch, with their naked swords glittering in the crimson light of the torches. A snake with its head stuck into a tiger’s jaws, Fandorin’s servant thought with a shudder. Of course, he was for the tiger, heart and soul, but he himself was a scale on the body of the snake …
‘Go on!’ said the commander, nudging the valiant (or perhaps simply stupid) Saburo.
The hulk opened the first door on the right and stepped inside. Turning his head this way and that, he took one step, then another. When his foot touched the second tatami, something twanged in the wall. From the corridor Masa couldn’t see what had happened, but Saburo grunted in surprise, clutched at his chest and doubled over.
‘An arrow,’ he gasped in a hoarse voice, turning round.
And there it was, a rod of metal protruding from the centre of his chest.
The Monk aimed his revolver at the wall, but didn’t fire.
‘Mechanical,’ he murmured. ‘A spring under the floor …’
Saburo nodded, as if he was completely satisfied by this explanation, sobbed like a child and tumbled over on to his side.
Stepping over the dying man, the commander rapidly sounded out the walls with the handle of his gun, but didn’t find anything.
‘Move on!’ he shouted. ‘Hey, you! Yes, yes, you! Go!’
The soldier in a hood at whom the Monk was pointing hesitated only for a second before walking up to the next door. Muffled muttering could be heard from under the mask.
‘I entrust myself to the Buddha Amida, I entrust myself to the Buddha Amida …’ Masa heard – it was the invocation used by those who believed in the Way of the Pure Land.
It was a good prayer, just right for a sinful soul thirsting for forgiveness and salvation. But it was really astonishing that in the room which the follower of the Buddha Amida would have to enter there was a scroll hanging on the wall, with a maxim by the great Shinran:3 ‘Even a good man can be resurrected in the Pure Land, even more so a bad man’. What a remarkable coincidence! Perhaps the scroll would recognise one of its own and save him?
It didn’t.
The praying man crossed the room without incident. He read the maxim and bowed respectfully. But then the Monk told him:
‘Take down the scroll! Look to see if there’s some kind of lever hidden behind it!’
There was no lever behind the scroll, but as he fumbled at the wall with his hand, the unfortunate man scratched himself on an invisible nail. He cried out, licked his bleeding palm and a minute later he was writhing on the floor – the nail had been smeared with poison.
Behind the third door was the prayer room. Right, now – what treat would it have in store for visitors? Not staying too close to the Monk (so that he wouldn’t call on him), but not too far away either (otherwise he wouldn’t see anything), Masa craned his neck.
‘Well, who’s next?’ the commander called and, without waiting for volunteers, he grabbed by the scruff of the neck the first man he could reach and pushed him forward. ‘Boldly now!’
Trembling all over, the soldier opened the door. Seeing an altar with a lighted candle, he bowed. He didn’t dare go in wearing his shoes – that would have been blasphemy. He kicked off his straw jori, stepped forward – and started hopping about on one leg, clutching his other foot in both hands.
‘Spikes!’ the Monk gasped.
He burst into the room (he was wearing stout gaijin boots) and dragged the wounded man out into the corridor, but the man was already wheezing and rolling his eyes up into their lids. The commander sounded out the walls in the prayer room himself. He didn’t find any levers or secret springs.
Back out in the corridor he shouted:
‘There are only four more doors! One of them will lead us to Tamba! Perhaps it’s that one!’ He pointed to the door that closed off the end of the corridor. ‘Tsurumaki-dono promised a reward to the first man to enter the old wolf’s den! Who wants to earn the rank of sergeant and a thousand yen into the bargain?’
There was no one who wanted to. An invisible boundary seemed to run across the corridor: in the section farther on there was plenty of space – the commander was standing there all on his lonesome; but in the first section there was a whole crowd of about fifteen men crammed close together, and more were piling in from the porch.
‘Ah, you chicken-hearts! I’ll manage without you!’
The Monk pushed the door aside and held out his hand with the pistol in it. Seeing the blackness, he started back, but immediately took a grip on himself.
He laughed.
‘Look at what you were afraid of! Emptiness! Well, there are only three doors left! Does anyone want to try his luck? No? All right …’
He opened the farthest door on the left. But he didn’t hurry inside; first he squatted down and waved his hand for them to bring him a lamp. He examined the floor. He struck the tatami with his fist and only then stepped on to it. Then he took another step in the same way.
‘A stick!’
Someone handed him a bamboo pole.
The Monk prodded at the ceiling and the wall. When a board in the corner gave out a hollow sound, he immediately opened fire – one, two, three shots roared out.
Three holes appeared in the light yellow surface. At first it seemed to Masa that the commander was being too cautious, but suddenly there was a creak, the wall swayed open and a man in the black costume of a ninja fell out face first.
There was a dark hollow in the wall – a secret cupboard.
Without wasting a second, the Monk switched the revolver to his left hand, pulled out his sword and hacked at the fallen man’s neck. He pulled off the mask and picked up the head by its pigtail.
Gohei’s pockmarked face glared at his killer with furious bulging eyes. Tossing the trophy into the corridor, right at Masa’s feet, the commander wiped a trickle of blood off his elbow and glanced cautiously into the cavity.
‘Aha, there’s something here!’ he announced eagerly.
He gestured impatiently to call over one of the soldiers who had just removed his hood.
‘Shinjo, come here! Take a look at what’s in there. Climb up!’
H
e folded his hands into a stirrup. Shinjo stepped on them with one foot and the upper half of his torso disappeared from view.
They heard a muffled howl: ‘A-a-a-a!’
The Monk quickly jumped aside and Shinjo came tumbling down like a sack. A steel star with sharpened edges was lodged in the bridge of his nose.
‘Excellent!’ said the commander. ‘They’re in the attic! You, you and you, come here! Guard the entrance. Don’t stick your noses in the hole any more, or else they’ll throw another shuriken. The important thing is not to let any shinobi get out this way. The rest of you, follow me! There has to be a way into the basement somewhere here as well.’
Masa knew how to get into the basement. The next room, the second on the right, had a cunning floor – you ended up in the basement before you could even sneeze. Now the man with the shaved head would finally get what he deserved.
But the Monk didn’t blunder here either. He didn’t barge straight in, like Masa, but squatted down again and examined the wooden boards for a long time. He prodded them with his pole, suddenly realised something and gave a grunt of satisfaction. Then he pressed down hard with his fist – and the floor swayed.
‘And there’s the basement!’ The commander chuckled. ‘Three of you stand at the door, and keep your eyes on this!’
The Black Jackets swarmed thickly round the last door. They slid it open and gazed expectantly at their cunning commander.
‘Ri-ight,’ he drawled, running a keen gaze across the bare walls. ‘What do we have here? Aha. I don’t like the look of that projection over there in the corner. What’s it needed for? It’s suspicious. Come on, then.’ Without looking, the Monk reached his hand backwards and grabbed Masa by the sleeve. ‘Go and sound it out.’
Oh, he really didn’t want to go and sound out that suspicious projection! But how could he disobey? And the Monk was egging him on too!
‘What are you hanging about for? Get a move on! Who are you? Ryuhei? Take that hood off, you don’t need it here, it just stops you looking at things properly.’
I’m done for anyway, thought Masa, and pulled off the hood – he was standing with his back to the Black Jackets and their commander.