Shōin, Satō, and Takasugi retreated back into the shadows and hid behind a man-sized stone pickling jar.
“What do we do now?” asked Takasugi in a hoarse whisper. “We can’t fight them, and we can’t let them see us.”
“Maybe we can climb over their heads,” proposed Shōin, studying the eaves of the inn under which they crouched.
“I have a better idea,” said Satō. She drew her thunder gun.
“No!” Shōin grabbed it. “It’s too loud!”
“We’ll be gone by the time the others arrive,” she replied, and proceeded to fiddle with the dials, adjusting the power and split of the gun’s discharge.
But the commotion already drew the attention of the three soldiers. The swordsman turned his lantern in their direction. “Who’s there?”
Satō pushed Shōin out of her way, jumped out from behind the stone jar, and squeezed the trigger without aiming. The thunder shattered the silence of the sleepy neighbourhood.
The lightning bolt split into several branches. A couple smashed the thin wooden walls of the houses bounding the alleyway, setting them on fire, but three hit their targets as intended. The spearmen fell on their backs, motionless. The swordsman dropped his lantern: the clay lamp inside smashed, pouring burning oil all over the street; but he seemed to hold out the shot, still standing straight and rigid, the sword raised above his head in a manner which reminded Satō oddly of her own Takashima-school stance.
Takasugi ran past her with his sword drawn, but when he reached the enemy, he stopped and pushed him on the shoulder. The man leaned backwards and joined his companions on the ground.
Shōin and Satō were with him in seconds, and they also halted, as if paralysed.
“Keinosuke?” Satō stared at the boy lying on the ground. He and the other two men were wearing the same light blue coats with white chevrons as the other assailants at the inn. Who are these people? Izumi said Aizu, but…
Keinosuke’s eyes were wide open, and looking straight at her.
Can he see me?
She looked around. More men in white and blue coats appeared at the head of the street. She grabbed Shōin by the kimono sleeve, and pulled him into another dark, narrow alleyway.
The noblemen’s prison wing was packed to the limits. So many Chōfu retainers had been arrested at the Terada-ya that the guards had to cram them two each into a cell. Only one cell remained, at Koyata’s insistence, occupied by a single inhabitant.
It was to this cell that he was now leading his latest quarry.
“Here you are, Izumi-dono,” he said with a bow, showing in the new prisoner. Maki Izumi grunted indignantly and crossed the cell’s threshold.
“This is Miyabe-sama from Kumamoto,” Koyata introduced him to his cellmate. “I thought a pair of Southerners would get along.” He backed out.
As soon as the grate slid shut, he rushed down the corridor and up the stairs into another, secret hallway, hidden from view by a sliding wall, adorned with a painting of a pensive Butsu-sama, standing on the sea shore and putting a conch to his ear.
He shuffled quietly along the dimly lit hallway, to a location he had marked earlier. The hallway floor was pierced with small slits, covered with bits of sawn-off floorboards at measured distances, one per cell; through those slits, Koyata was able to observe and listen in on everything that happened in the rooms below. He lay down and put his ear to the hole.
“…and what were you planning to do with it once you got to Edo?”
That was Master Izumi’s exasperated voice. Koyata smiled to himself — the plan had worked perfectly. And he’d made it just in time to hear the juiciest part of the conversation.
“You know full well what our mission is,” Miyabe replied, snidely. “To free the court from the abominations that control it.”
Abominations?
“Fools,” scoffed Izumi. “Now your men will be captured, and the sword will fall into the Taikun’s hands.”
So it’s a sword…
“And I suppose you’d rather we sat quietly in Kumamoto and did nothing,” said Miyabe. “Let your Master do as he pleased.”
“Shimazu-dono is doing what he believes is best for Yamato.”
Koyata heard one of the men pace this way and that across the narrow confines of the cell. He pressed his eye to the slit — it was Miyabe, jumpy and agitated.
“Well I don’t trust anyone who’s dealing with one of them,” he said. “And don’t think I’d forgive Nariakira for what he did to Hosokawa-dono.”
“Dōraku-sama is different,” replied Izumi. “We would be nowhere without him. Look, Miyabe-dono.” He put his hands together in an entreating gesture. “In the end, we both want the same. A bright, prosperous future for our country, without the Fanged pulling the strings, and without the barbarians ordering us about.”
There’s that word again. Fanged. Koyata had heard this name spoken, always in secret, a few times already during his stay in Heian, but couldn’t figure out what it might mean.
“Nariakira just wants the throne for himself,” scoffed Miyabe.
“He may want to rule, but he’s not after the throne. We remain loyal to the Mikado.”
Loyal to the Mikado, huh. Just as Lord Matsudaira had predicted, the letter sent out by His Majesty Kōmei had been stirring up trouble. The daimyo should be loyal to the Taikun; not to whatever puppet occupied the symbolic throne in Heian’s Imperial Palace. Those were the rules, the rules that had been managing to prevent another Civil War for more than two centuries.
“Same difference,” said Miyabe.
Izumi raised his hands and shrugged. “If that’s what it takes… do you have a better candidate?”
“What about Mori-dono?” asked Miyabe. “I heard his men are in town.”
“Chōfu is a lost cause,” said Izumi. “They tried, and they failed. Half of the retainers were brought into this prison tonight with me. Hear them now, wailing and cursing!”
He banged at the wall of his cell. A Chōfu samurai on the other side yelled at him in response — what, Koyata couldn’t hear.
“Yes! That’s right!” shouted Izumi. “Your little revolution is over before it’s begun!”
The man behind the wall yelled again, but Izumi ignored him and sat by the wall opposite. Miyabe lay down on the floor, with the straw pillow under his head.
“Izumi-dono,” he began, looking at the ceiling. Koyata prayed that he wouldn’t notice the slit; it was right above him. “Do you think we still stand a chance?”
“I don’t know, Miyabe-dono. I do know that Takashima-sama managed to destroy one of them in battle, and lived through it. And she’s only a girl who’s barely come of age. Think of what real men, real warriors could do, with proper planning.”
Takashima! Koyata put a hand to his mouth to stop himself from gasping.
“How did she do that?” asked Miyabe, also surprised.
“I did not get a chance to ask her, before those Aizu thugs took me away,” said Izumi. “I hope they got away safely.”
I’ve heard enough, Koyata decided. He covered the slit with the wooden plank, and headed back to the ground floor.
Koyata held his head in both hands, and rubbed his temples. “This is all giving me a headache,” he said, and took a chunk from the brown powder tablet he carried in a bamboo box at his waist. He had been ordering the medicine from Kiyō — it helped alleviate the stresses of his new job.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, after he finished chewing the medicine. “There’s a conspiracy of demons — living dead — who control the Taikun’s court and want to rule all of Yamato, and one of them was responsible for the abduction of Takashima Shūhan and Tokojiro Namikoshi from Kiyō?”
Tokojiro did mention some monstrous man in a red robe, torturing him, Koyata remembered. He had always assumed it must have been just another Rangakusha, corrupted and maddened by power, dabbling in some dark arts.
Miyabe and Izumi exchanged glances and nodded
. “I don’t know the other name, but if you speak to Takashima Satō-sama,” said Izumi, “she will confirm everything I told you.”
“And this… Dōraku, did you say? What is his role? Is he some other kind of demon?”
“No, no,” said Izumi, “he’s like the others, but — on our side. They call him the Renegade.”
“Or so he says,” added Miyabe, scowling. “All I know is that he used to be Mori-dono’s confidant, and then he betrayed him for Shimazu. I wouldn’t trust him with a blunt chopstick.”
Koyata swiped his hand across his face. “Do you have any proof of this?”
Izumi laughed, Miyabe rolled his eyes. “If we had, we wouldn’t be here,” said Izumi. “You think Shimazu-dono would just sit on a secret like this?”
“I do,” said Miyabe. “The old fox knows far more than he’s letting on.”
It was now Izumi’s turn to roll his eyes. “That may be, but in this case we’re all just following hearsay. The only two Fanged anybody’s ever seen, and lived to tell the tale, are Dōraku-sama and one called the Crimson Robe. The latter is dead — the other in hiding.”
Koyata’s mind raced, as he struggled to connect the many pieces of the puzzle he’d been gathering ever since the first incident in Kiyō. All the rumours, all the random bits of investigation, all the strange events he’d been hearing about… If a conspiracy of demons was the true explanation for everything, it certainly wasn’t the most far-fetched he’d ever come up with.
One thing he couldn’t still figure out.
“Why Heian?” he asked. “How does His Majesty fit into this?”
Miyabe looked at Izumi mockingly. “Yes, Izumi-dono, how does the Divine Mikado fit into Shimazu-dono’s plans?”
Izumi’s eyes darted to the sides, and to the ceiling. He knew, Koyata realised.
“Don’t worry, I made sure we are not being spied on.” He had the two noblemen moved to a separated cell at the far end of the prison wing, and checked twice that nobody would be able to use the floor slit without his permission. He hoped it was enough — though in Heian, everyone spied on everyone else.
“Let me preface this by saying that Nariakira-dono has the best Scryers in Yamato at his service. Even you’d agree on this, wouldn’t you, Miyabe-dono?” asked Izumi.
“I don’t know about best, but I’ve heard they are good,” agreed Miyabe.
“And those Scryers are all clear on one thing: the Mikado must be protected, at all costs. His life is in danger.”
Koyata scratched his head. “I know His Majesty and His Excellency are at loggerheads over the barbarian question, but that’s a bit much. The Taikun would never strike at the Imperial Capital. That would be attacking a God!”
Izumi raised his eye. “Do you forget your history? It happened before, and it will happen again. The Taikun’s army is heading for the city, and, for all we know, so are the barbarians and their monsters. The Aizu are already in control. I fear the Chōfu forces were our last chance at securing the palace.”
Koyata stood up and turned his back at the samurai. He needed to think clearly, and their mocking, annoyed looks were getting on his nerves.
“Is there anything that can yet be done?” he asked.
“You… you would help us?” said Izumi.
“I must not be connected to this,” Koyata replied. “And you would have to stay here, to avoid suspicion.”
“That — that might work,” said Miyabe. “All we’d need is some sort of contact with the outside world.”
“I will let you know.” Koyata opened the grated door. “Tomorrow is the first day of Obon — I’ll be busy. But I will come back as soon as I can.” He stepped outside and shut the door. “I was not here. I heard nothing.”
The two noblemen nodded in unison.
CHAPTER VI
Bran sat down to a map of Yamato with a pencil in one hand and a cup of cha in the other. From what he had seen, he was the only Westerner in Dejima not to drink coffee; a luxury brought in at great cost from the Bataavian colonies south of Qin. Bran had to borrow his cha leaves from the Yamato guard serving in the small gatehouse next to the bridge linking Dejima with the mainland.
He closed his eyes and focused on the traces of Farlink connections zooming through the world around him. Where once there was only him and Emrys, Yamato was now brimming with activity. Detecting the signals was now an easy task — he’d had much training on the prison island; locating them was hard work. There were very few stable landmarks in the Otherworld that could be transcribed to the physical map. The beaming nexuses of the holy mountains, the wizardry tower on Dejima, the Mikado’s Palace… There were more, shining in the red darkness, but Bran did not yet know what they were.
By triangulating the positions of the Gorllewin dragons, he was able to mark the location of their Shimoda base, both in the real world, and that of the spirits. It was the comings and goings of the Black Wings that had kept his attention all this time — but now there were yet more dragons approaching Yamato’s shores.
The two beasts travelling alongside Edern.
Two. Not three. Something must have happened to one of the mounts during the difficult passage through the Winds.
I should probably tell Father about this… He pondered it for a while, but then dismissed the thought. Something still didn’t feel quite right about Dylan, about the whole situation. Who was the other one that Li mentioned? Was he the rider destined for the third dragon?
He flashed back to the lunchtime conversation. It had started with Bran describing, at Dylan’s request, the Gorllewin ships and the Black Wings. In exchange, Bran wanted to know about his stay in Satsuma, and his further plans. It was then that he’d first heard about Edern and his dragons.
The conversation had soon turned into a quarrel. Bran remembered his father’s strangely relieved face once Bran raised his voice to an exasperated shout, protesting the planned alliance with Satsuma. It was as if the situation was at last one he was familiar with. Bran, angry and emotional, and Dylan, the Commodore — when did that happen? — cold and composed, in full control of the argument. The reserves of calm that Bran could tap into were all but exhausted.
“In the end, it doesn’t really matter who gets a dragon and who doesn’t,” Gwen had interjected. It reminded Bran of how Rhian would enter into a quarrel between them, but this was different: this was one officer speaking to another. A professional relationship, rather than a personal one.
“How so?” asked Dylan.
“If those Black Wings are as strong as Bran said, neither the Bataavian ship, nor our dragon will help Lord Shimazu against the Taikun and his allies.”
“She’s right,” admitted Bran. “Even a Silver would have a hard time against one of those beasts.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” Dylan scratched his cheek. “Still, I wonder how far the Gorllewin will go in the pursuit of their alliance. They are no barbarians — a Western nation, bound by treaties — would they dare to attack a Dracalish representative?”
Before the end of the sentence, Dylan already had made a plan to accommodate the new information. Bran could only watch and marvel; in the two weeks since his arrival, Dylan had already learnt enough about Yamato’s politics to forge advanced, detailed diplomatic plans. Or so he thought.
“We are not here as the Dragon Queen’s envoys,” reminded Gwen.
“But they don’t have to know that, do they?” Dylan leaned back and looked to the ceiling. “If only there was a way to tell how much time we have before the dragons get here…”
“That part’s easy,” Bran said. It was Dylan’s time to marvel as he explained his newly acquired talent.
And that’s how he found himself with the map, the pencil, and the cup of cha, marking the Black Wings with a crossed circle, and Edern’s little squadron with a triangle.
He could not sense all the dragons. Two must have been too far away, somewhere beyond Edo; these had already been sent on a mission somewhere. One remaine
d in Shimoda. The remaining four were headed south — for now that was all he was able to say for certain. He detected faint pulses of Farlink somewhere between Edo and Heian… The riders kept quiet, perhaps intuiting somebody was able to track them…?
Timing was crucial to his father’s plan, and Bran agreed to help more out of curiosity and lack of any other occupation on the tiny island, than out of any enthusiasm. He didn’t believe the plan would work, and didn’t want it to. An alliance with Nariakira was the last thing on his mind and he hoped to convince his father to annul it — later, when Dylan’s usual staunch resolve began to falter. And falter it would — of that Bran had no doubt.
For once, he’s way over his head, he thought. Not even he could have grasped all the details of Yamato politics in such a short time. He doesn’t even know about Chōfu and Sato’s little army.
Bran stopped his writing and frowned. What would Dylan do with all this knowledge? He easily imagined his father’s shrewdness taking over and forcing him to side with the player who seemed the strongest at the moment: the Taikun, rather than Nariakira or any of the other daimyos.
It would put him against Satō, he realised. And Nagomi.
He could not let it happen.
Passing unnoticed in Kokura proved easier than Nagomi had thought it would. The harbour town was bursting with crowds trying to squeeze down the main street, too narrow to cope with the sudden influx of pedestrians — mostly young samurai from all over the country, judging by their unfamiliar accents.
A convoy of palanquins, marked with the crests of Ogasawara, Aizu, and several neighbouring domains, tore its way through the throng, the bodyguards almost trampling Nagomi and Koro under their feet.
The priestess felt herself caught by the collar. Torishi helped her up and put the straw hat back on her head.
The Withering Flame (The Year of the Dragon, Book 6) Page 7
