by Ben Stevens
And then there was again just the sound of the wind, blowing in from the stormy night outside.
11
‘What I still don’t understand, master, is how you knew Katamari had been to China,’ I said exactly a fortnight later, as my master and I relaxed in an inn some distance away from the temple we’d finally left two days before.
‘As soon as I suspected the use of the so-called ‘Sticks of Death’, I knew that the murderer must have spent some time in China,’ replied my master. ‘Indeed, I should have suspected that this method of assassination had been used when I happened to hear about the death of the monk Matsuo, some six months before – especially given how his face apparently looked. But that would have seemed too fantastic…
‘Anyway, as I quickly became certain that the murderer was Katamari, I had only to catch him off-guard – that is, with the sudden question concerning how long he’d been in China.
‘Of course, learning that he’d spent time in Chang’an only provided more proof that he’d learnt about the Sticks of Death – as I also did there.’
‘You think he was also a member of this… society you were once in, master?’ I asked quietly.
My master shook his head.
‘No. I am somewhat younger than Katamari was – had he been a member, I would doubtless have been made aware that I was not the first Japanese man to join. But I can guess that Katamari crept around the darker parts of the city in such free time as he had, exhibiting his natural slyness and cunning mixed with, I have to say, a certain, fiendish intelligence…
‘In this way he learnt about these deadly sticks of ‘incense’ – which have been used to conduct any number of assassinations in China, although even the ninja have yet to become aware of them in Japan. Moreover, Katamari was able to get a few of them in his possession…’
Indeed, a close search of Katamari’s room, carried out after he’d committed suicide, had unearthed ten more of these ‘Sticks of Death’. The Jushoku had quickly relapsed into a terrible fever caused by the shock of all that had taken place, and the severe mental strain it had caused him.
This had resulted in my master having to use his considerable knowledge of healing plants and herbs to nurse him closely for several days and nights. At times, it had seemed as though the head priest wouldn’t survive – but then slowly he’d begun to recover.
As for the scrolls we’d discovered in that small, hidden room, what they revealed is by now famous. Using what little time he had – that is, in between nursing the Jushoku back to health and answering the monks’ many questions – my master used his knowledge of Sanskrit to determine that numerous, previously unknown teachings of Buddha had been recorded on the paper stored inside the sealed lengths of bamboo.
It was this knowledge which Gyoja had brought back with him from his travels around India and China, and had then hidden in the temple he’d had constructed, leaving cryptic clues concerning the existence of this knowledge for anyone who could determine the real meaning of his words.
It seemed strange behavior, and I said as much to my master. But he only smiled.
‘Well, maybe he thought that whoever succeeded him should have to earn this knowledge, as he had,’ mused my master. ‘Otherwise he was just giving it away – the recipient getting it for free.
‘No, Gyoja was determined that whoever found all these scrolls would have to do so by their wits. Plus, as I said before, I believe there was a slightly puckish side to this outwardly holy man. However, he of course failed to predict the deception and murder his little game would result in…’
The scrolls were soon taken away to the Imperial City, there to be examined at length by experts. As the reader may already be aware, the information they contained led to major changes in Buddhist thought and theology, both in Japan and abroad, and also resulted in the formation of the now-major ‘Golden Path’ branch of Buddhism.
The story of how the scrolls were found, too, only increased my master’s fame. As they would have made Katamari famous, had his fiendish plan been successful…
‘I can only presume,’ said my master about that man, ‘that after causing our deaths, he would first have blocked access to the Barrel Room on some pretence. He would then have set about hastening the death of the Jushoku – all the while carefully ensuring that this death was made to look entirely ‘natural’.
‘How exactly Katamari would have achieved this, I can’t be certain. But given the Jushoku’s often fragile state of health, it would not have been an overly-difficult task – even without Katamari having to use one of his foul ‘sticks’.
‘In any case,’ continued my master, ‘with the Jushoku dead, Katamari would have had to succeed as ‘acting’ head priest. A period in which he would, quite suddenly, ‘discover’ the priceless scrolls hidden by Gyoja several hundred years before.
‘This discovery would instantly have made him famous; and would, undoubtedly, have seen him become a real head priest – if not at the temple where he’d previously been a senior monk, then at another.
‘This, you see, was Katamari’s ultimate ambition – an ambition he knew he could not possibly realize any other way. For so many years he bit back the frustration and bitterness he felt at being an anonymous senior monk at a remote temple – then, finally, he began to see a way he could possibly get everything he’d ever wanted.
‘More, even…’
Now, at this inn in which we were staying, I ventured to say –
‘Well, so much for Katamari. But, master… The head temple of the Shining Path has its mystery solved for it. The Jushoku can again seek his successor, secure in the knowledge that no more tragedy will strike. The high-ranking Buddhist clergy at the Imperial City have delivered to them a set of scrolls so valuable as to be priceless. And for you, master, who did all the work…?’
‘For me, there remains the promise of another cup of sake, and perhaps a bite to go with it,’ returned my master. ‘You’d care to join me, Kukai? The priest at the temple actually gave me a small token of his appreciation before we left – so we are not so badly off, after all.’
With that he stretched out his hand, to ring the bell and summon the woman serving us.
The Man Who Was Scared of the Wind
1
I am coming
My master and I stared at the writing, flecked with blood, on the torn scrap of rice-paper. My master then handed this scrap back to Utagawa, the wealthy moneylender whose servant had fetched us from the nearby inn where we were staying.
‘Well – what do you make of this?’ demanded Utagawa in a reedy, high-pitched voice.
‘Without seeing the other half of the message,’ returned my master, ‘I am unable to give you any kind of answer.’
‘But this is how the note was delivered – given by an anonymous man to one of the guards I have employed,’ protested the fat moneylender. His voice had a curious accent, of a type I’d not heard before. I wondered what part of Japan he was from originally.
‘So you had already hired these guards – before you received this note?’ questioned my master.
‘I am a man of some… means,’ said Utagawa, his words and manner strangely evasive. ‘I have to be careful that I am not ro– ’
‘Utagawa-san,’ interrupted my master, irritation now sounding in his voice. ‘I assume you sent for me to assist you in some matter. But when certain facts are withheld from me, right from the start, by the very same person who wishes for my help, I can’t help but think that my time and energies would be better employed elsewhere.’
Utagawa’s fleshy cheeks colored with anger.
‘I am not used to being spoken to in this manner, I must say,’ he said tightly. ‘I merely requested that you come here to – ’
‘You’ll forgive me,’ broke in my master again (something which caused Utagawa’s cheeks to redden still further). ‘My servant and I were about to begin our lunch when we were summoned here. With your permission, we shall return to the
inn.’
Utagawa curtly instructed his servant to escort us back to the entrance of his sprawling home. We then walked through the beautiful front garden, which was surrounded by a high wooden fence with a gate set in it. Two ronin – the master-less samurai paid by Utagawa to protect his residence – watched us pass with darkened, dangerous eyes.
Back at the inn, my master ordered lunch, but his manner was distracted as he ate.
Finally, he said –
‘He must come back! He must…’
‘Master?’
My master sighed.
‘Why the pretence?’ he demanded. ‘Why hand me half of a note he had himself torn in two? Why this vagueness and mystery, when he presumably wants my assistance – for why else did he have his servant summon us before?’
It was kind of my master to use the word ‘us’. I had only accompanied him to the moneylender’s home in my humble capacity as manservant, after all.
I turned my attention to the second of my master’s questions –
‘How do you know Utagawa tore the note in half himself, master?’ I asked.
‘Did you not notice the way in which the paper had been torn – and the fact that Utagawa is left-handed?’ returned my master.
Yes, now I visualized the tear below that message – I am coming – it had clearly been made by someone tearing from right to left. As was often the case, once my master had actually explained something, it seemed so simple.
‘Someone who was also left-handed, tore the note in two before giving it to one of these dubious ‘guards’ this moneylender has employed?’ suggested my master scornfully. ‘Such a thing would be highly unlikely, to say the least.
‘No – something else was written below those three words. Of that I’m certain. Something which – for whatever reason – Utagawa does not want me or anyone else to see…’
‘And those tiny drops of blood on the part of the message we saw, master? What do you make of those?’ I asked.
‘The pattern of the blood-drops, it seems to me, is suggestive of – ’
There came a gentle knock on the sliding door which led into the small, tatami-matted room where my master and I were dining. The door opened, and the woman serving gave a low bow before informing us that we had a visitor.
As before, this transpired to be the moneylender’s servant.
‘My master requests that you return to his home,’ began the servant – a little man with a strangely furtive manner. ‘He says he is prepared to talk to you more openly now.’
My master gave a non-committal shrug, and sipping his sake stared at the servant for a few moments. It seemed to me that the servant returned his look with a strange, almost quietly pleading expression.
‘You have something you wish to tell me,’ said my master, his voice low.
The servant opened his mouth as though to speak – and then hesitated. He glanced at the door behind him, which the woman serving had again slid closed upon her departure.
‘You wish to protect your… master,’ declared my master, still in that same calm, controlled voice. I wondered why a strange pause had followed that last word. ‘That much, at least, is obvious. So if you have some information of importance, it is better you tell me. You can rest assured that it will never be transmitted from my lips, or those of my servant.’
The moneylender’s servant nodded.
‘Since receiving this… note,’ began the man uncertainly, ‘my master has refused to leave the house. For some time before the note came, even, he seemed nervous, and reluctant to venture outside. He also employed four ronin – two to patrol around the house during the day, and another two to do the same at night.
‘But now – since receiving this note, I mean – he refuses even to go into his garden. He stays in only a couple of rooms, behind sliding doors and closed windows. At night he insists that every window in the house also be shuttered – something we used only to do when we travelled away somewhere, leaving the house for a few days or weeks. This is a peaceful and prosperous town, after all. There is no crime.
‘And…’
Again, the servant seemed unsure whether or not to speak.
‘What is your name?’ asked my master.
‘Yosa.’
‘Well then, Yosa, you already know – as I did almost immediately upon meeting him – that your master is beside himself with fear. He makes an excellent attempt at disguising this – but I am skilled at seeing past disguises.
‘Still, for whatever reason, he chooses to withhold information from me. Despite this, I and my servant will go with you to see him again. But if you have something else you wish to tell me, you should do so now, in confidence. It may be the very thing which saves your master’s life – for that, I am certain, is what he fears losing.’
The servant nodded, wrinkled his face in thought for a few moments; and then with a sudden burst of passion declared –
‘Ennin-sensei… I don’t know why, and it sounds absurd, but…
‘But…?’
‘My master is scared of the wind!’
2
I will kill you during the next storm – or will it be the one after…?
The other part of the note –which Utagawa was finally showing to my master (and so also to me) – proved to be as mysterious as the first half. It was also similarly flecked with blood. But there seemed to be some sort of strange, vague connection between the words written and what the servant named Yosa had said in confidence, back at the inn, concerning his master being scared of the wind…
‘…I have just told you about how my master stays inside his house, and how since receiving this note he absolutely refuses to venture outside,’ the servant had continued. ‘But twice now, at night, a storm has struck and my master has been almost paralyzed with fear. He sits in one room, his back to the wall facing the closed sliding door, a knife held in his shaking hands.’
The servant paused, his expression briefly appearing almost agonized.
‘Please understand that I don’t wish to appear indiscreet in saying all this,’ he said quietly. ‘I just think that you, Ennin-sensei, should be aware of everything that has – ’
‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ declared my master – his tone a little curter than before. As it doubtless did to my master, it seemed to me that Yosa was declaring his absolute loyalty to Utagawa the moneylender just slightly too often…
Now, in one of the large rooms located towards the rear of Utagawa’s house, my master said –
‘You concealed this part of the message from me before, Utagawa-san – why?’
Again, Utagawa appeared irritated by the direct question. I assumed he was used to people pandering to him, as they pleaded for more time to repay a loan or such. Time the fat little moneylender was perhaps willing to grant – although doubtless at an increased rate of interest.
My master, however, was being rather brusque in his dealings with Utagawa. This (I suspected) was due to the fact that my master had an almost samurai-like distain of money, and of those people who made the pursuit of it their life’s goal.
‘It… Well – what was written shocked me so greatly that I suppose I just… lost my wits slightly,’ claimed Utagawa, his hooded, suspicious eyes surveying my master and me in turn. ‘I ripped the message in half almost immediately, and nearly threw this part away, so distressing was its contents. I’ve not actually looked at it again – since being given it for the first time, I mean – until I showed it to you just now…’
Utagawa suddenly fixed my master with a rather peculiar look. Those hooded, pig-like eyes which had been so well-trained not to betray any emotion; any clue concerning what he was thinking… Those same eyes were now attempting to communicate something to my master – of that I was certain…
‘There have been many… occurrences… in my past,’ declared the moneylender then, his voice somewhat quieter than before.
‘I am sure you will understand,’ he finished, still looking direct
ly at my master. And, bizarrely, his fat lips suddenly twisted into a small, but still distinctly sly-looking smile!
My master’s face was expressionless, his eyes flinty and a little contemptuous as he surveyed the moneylender for several long seconds. I’d no idea what was taking place – but evidently a message communicated by something other than words had just passed between them. I had the strangest impression that some sort of challenge had just been issued – by Utagawa.
‘I accept your case, Utagawa-san – although you are continuing to withhold basic and perhaps even essential information from me,’ declared my master finally.
I felt utterly bewildered by what was taking place. This apparent – to say nothing of bizarre – battle of wits taking place between my master and someone who (for all his surface bravado) was apparently scared almost to death of –
What, exactly?
Or rather – who?
‘I will be going away for a couple of days, starting this afternoon,’ declared my master. This was information which came wholly as a surprise to me. Yet Utagawa gave a slight nod, as though he’d been expecting to hear just such a thing!
‘My servant will stay here with you –’ began my master.
‘Really, that is not necessary,’ interrupted Utagawa hurriedly.
‘I’m afraid I must insist,’ said my master, lowering his voice as his eyes bored into the moneylender’s own. ‘That is, if you wish for me to try and help you.’
‘I do – your servant may stay,’ mumbled Utagawa, looking distinctly less than pleased. If I’d instinctively disliked and distrusted this man right from the beginning, such feelings were only intensifying.
And now I’d to stay here with him, his servant and those dangerous ronin outside, while my master went off on some mysterious errand…?
3
I said goodbye to my master at the inn – where we’d returned to collect our few belongings – and returned with a heavy heart to the moneylender’s house.
