by Ben Stevens
I could no longer help myself –
‘And yet you say that we are to deliver these scrolls to him personally, master…’
‘Yes, that is exactly what we will do. He has no intention of destroying them, as he claims, and yet destroy them he will, entirely through his own foolishness. And we will watch him do this – after he has first laughed at and mocked us – and then he will pay us the rest of what he owes. For on this occasion, at least, I am determined to receive the whole of my usual fee.’
Nothing had been made any clearer, of course. But again deciding just to ignore this, I said –
‘And these scrolls, master… How do you intend to find them, may I ask?’
‘I don’t,’ returned my master easily. ‘That I leave to you.’
‘Master?’
‘We will discuss this matter further back at the inn, Kukai, over a little sake and a bite to eat. But, very basically, everything depends upon Kimura’s favorite pastime – that is, talking about himself…’
3
My dear lord Kimura,
I hope you will forgive this communication. Please permit me to humbly introduce myself. I am Kukai, servant to the renowned investigator of unusual matters named Ennin. It is possible you have heard my master’s name. Perhaps you – one of the most educated of all men – have read one or two of his adventures. I blush with immodesty to state that such adventures have been written by my own hand (I who have shared all of them to date); and this brings me to the reason for this letter.
I would like to write some accounts of other remarkable men, besides my master, starting if you were agreeable with yourself, my lord. With your gracious permission, I would be able to conduct all necessary interviews within your castle. (It will certainly take several meetings for me to obtain all the information I require, so to accurately describe such a remarkable life as yours – and may Buddha permit that this life last many more years to come.)
I have had this letter delivered by courier, my lord, and I leave a contact address at the top, should you be amenable to my most impertinent proposal.
I am your most humble servant,
Kukai.
A reply came quickly –
Kukai,
I have certainly heard your master’s name – and so also yours. I have not actually read any of your adventures together; but of the one concerning that terrible pestilence which so recently afflicted Japan (I believe you may have entitled it ‘The Black Death’- ?) I am more than aware. Who, after all, could not be?
Yes, I can well understand that you would wish to interview a person such as myself. And I am amenable to such a suggestion. Would a full week be sufficient? I assume you wish to know everything, from my very earliest memories (I was born here at the same castle I inhabit now) right through to the present. To this end, it would probably be most convenient for all parties concerned if you were to stay here at this castle. Of course, if your master wishes to stay also, he would be most welcome!
I have some free time over the next week following this one, and so it would be most convenient if you could come then. Simply present yourself at the guardhouse Monday morning, and we shall take matters from there.
Kimura.
‘Excellent,’ said my master, as together we read the letter. ‘The weekend to prepare yourself for the task ahead, Kukai; and then, early on Monday morning, you can travel by horse to Kimura’s territory and thus his castle. It is not so far away, in any case. Of course, I have not the slightest intention of staying there myself – you will be travelling alone.’
‘Master,’ I said hopelessly. ‘I have not the slightest clue how to proceed, once I get there…’
‘Nonsense, Kukai! Show an interest – ask lots of questions! Appeal to the man’s copious vanity and keep him talking. Nod your head a lot, whilst at the same time taking voluminous notes. Believe me, the time will fly!’
Again, my master was being facetious.
‘I am unaware, master,’ I said tightly, ‘as to just how all this subterfuge will enable us to locate these so-called ‘Dark Scrolls’.’
‘Ah yes,’ returned my master. ‘This matter of you becoming biographer had quite made me forget about that. But this is what you must do…’
As he talked further, my master’s amused ‘mask’ vanished abruptly. His face was now serious, the pupils of his eyes like pinpricks. And I learnt just what I had to do; this purpose masked by what I had, quite correctly, termed ‘subterfuge’...
4
‘So you’re Kukai, eh?’ greeted the daimyo named Kimura, following my arrival at the guardhouse within his castle. He was a large, ruddy-faced man, whose rather pitted nose betrayed the fact that he was prone to heavy drinking.
‘Thank you for agreeing to these interviews, my lord. I hope – ’
‘Yes, yes, quite so,’ said Kimura, cutting across my formal greeting. ‘You’ll be shown to the room where you’ll be staying, allowed to freshen up and so on, and then brought to me so that we might begin.’
Kimura hesitated, and then said almost cautiously–
‘Your… your master was unable to be here?’
‘He is involved with a most urgent case, my lord,’ I replied.
‘I see – well, we’ll begin shortly.’
With that, a samurai asked me to follow him, and we walked away from the guardhouse, along a number of corridors and up several flights of stairs. I was shown into the room where I would be staying, a futon already laid out upon the floor. There was a jug of water, a towel, a bowl of fruit and such nearby. I put down the bag I had with me (containing nothing more really than a spare kimono) and taking the paper and writing materials I had brought with me, made ready for the forthcoming interview.
Another samurai came to fetch me a little while later. Again, as I was led along more corridors, and up further flights of stairs, I attempted to memorize the route, so that I could later begin trying to ‘map out’ this castle. Such had been one of the instructions I’d received from my master – presumably so that he knew where to go in order to retrieve these mysterious scrolls, if I was able to discover where they were being hidden in the first place.
He’d also given me precise instructions concerning just how I could do that – but would this mysterious technique of his actually prove to be of any use…?
‘It is fitting that we should begin this interview in my own personal chambers,’ declared Kimura grandly, as I sat facing him across a splendid, ornately-carved wooden table. ‘For it was in the very room that is next to this one – the door currently closed, but it serves as my bedroom – that I was born fifty-two years ago.
‘Indeed, my father always told me that the moon seemed much brighter – indeed, bigger – than usual that evening, and that there was also a strange abundance of shooting stars…’
Kimura paused, shooting me a look which clearly informed me that I should begin writing. Of course, I had pen, ink and my favorite thin and slender brush on the table before me. And so I began to write, as this bizarrely fanciful history of Kimura’s poured forth.
I mean these last two words almost literally. I had by now had much practice at writing (what with the various adventures I’d described concerning my master and me), and yet it was all I could do to keep up with the sheer volume of words emerging from out of Kimura’s mouth.
He could read and write by the age of three… it was obvious he was a master of archery at the age of five… aged seven he could beat the head of his father’s samurai bodyguard at swordsmanship… Really, if Kimura had claimed that Buddha had personally appeared before him, to inform him that he was destined to become a god, I would not have been surprised.
Needless to say, I had hardly any need to ask any of the numerous questions I’d prepared. All I had to do was to sit, listen and write. But this meant that I had no chance to try this trick my master had taught me – the one intended to find out where the scrolls were hidden, which was, after all, the whole point of this exercise th
at was fast numbing my wits as well as my right hand…
But then, an hour or so later, Kimura declared ‘…it was about this time that my father gave me a sword specially-made; a full-sized object, beautifully crafted…’
And then he was forced to draw breath.
‘Surely the most precious and important object that has ever come into your possession, my lord,’ I said quickly, seizing my opportunity.
No reaction from Kimura; for I observed him as closely as I dared, looking for one of those tell-tale reactions my master had taught me to recognize.
No, there was nothing. The somewhat corpulent daimyo merely nodded, returning ‘It was certainly the first object I truly treasured, for all my youth…’ before then continuing to talk in his customary rapid and, moreover, expansive manner.
By the time he had decided that we had finished – some three or four long hours later – I was both physically and mentally exhausted. And I had another six days of this torture to endure!
Only as I was dismissed, a samurai waiting to escort me back down to my room and what I hoped would prove to be a large meal accompanied by sake, did Kimura (albeit entirely unwittingly) provide me with the slightest ray of hope.
‘We will conduct tomorrow’s interview in a different room – I think in the Shoin, where I so quickly developed an expert knowledge of various Buddhist scriptures,’ declared the daimyo. ‘We will move around various rooms and areas of this castle in general as we talk, as the different and various surroundings will undoubtedly assist my recollections, concerning all those important areas of my life.’
And maybe (thought I) you’ll take me somewhere these scrolls are hidden (for I was certain they weren’t up here in his personal chambers) – and then, with a little prompting from myself, inadvertently give away their location…
Day followed tedious day – and as Kimura discoursed at length upon his favorite topic (himself), I was still no closer to discovering the location of the Dark Scrolls. If they even were in Kimura’s possession – something I was starting to doubt, regardless of what Yoichi had claimed.
And then, on the very final day, now sat in a room near the guardhouse where I had first met the daimyo, Kimura became drunk. There was a large flask of sake, from which he drank freely – he offered me to do the same, except I sipped only sparingly.
This state of intoxication served only to increase Kimura’s earnest desire to brag about himself and his accomplishments. As was almost continually the case, I was frantically trying just to keep up with his claimed list of achievements – to record this seemingly inexhaustible torrent onto paper.
‘But in a while… Yes, in a while… I will prove myself to be even… greater… than I have been before,’ he said at once.
I felt the hairs rise up on the back of my neck. Somehow, I knew that this slurred comment was a veiled reference to his ownership of the Dark Scrolls. And in this room… A stout wooden door the only way in, only one small window set in a stone wall, so that the room was rather dark, and thus needed to be lit by a lantern even in the middle of a beautiful spring day… The floors, also of stone, the walls buttressed in three places…
I was at once certain that the scrolls were hidden somewhere within this room. And seizing my opportunity as Kimura hiccupped, I said jovially –
‘It must be something incredible indeed to make you greater, my lord!’
Reading this, you may well consider that I rather overplayed my hand; that I said too much. I can only say that I had already realized that Kimura’s susceptibility to flattery was immense. Indeed, I should almost have classed it as a weakness.
And then, there – his eyes cut momentarily to one of the stone buttresses, and specifically the large block of stone at its very base. That is, the one resting on the floor…
‘Yes…’ he said slowly, nodding his head. ‘But I shall say… say no more about… about this…’
You don’t have to say anything more, my lord I considered. I had learnt from my master to observe Kimura’s body movements – and especially his eyes – whenever I had chance to utter one of my ‘suggestive’ comments. And now I believed that I knew where the scrolls were hidden; and, moreover, could accurately inform my master of how to get to this room inside the castle – for I had no doubt that he would be the one to sneak in late one night, and escape carrying these scrolls.
But as for now… it was imperative that I not ‘rush’ this meeting to a close, or do anything that would later attract suspicion – once the daimyo discovered that the scrolls were missing, I mean.
Even though it was the last day of these set of interviews, I had to seem meticulous in checking that I had everything I ‘needed’, for this detailed account concerning Kimura’s life so far…
Except then, hurriedly dragging my thoughts back into the present, I realized that the daimyo had fallen into an intoxicated sleep…
5
‘Excellent, Kukai,’ praised my master, once I had returned to the inn where we were staying. I carried with me all the sheets of paper (in rolls) I had accumulated while ‘interviewing’ the daimyo named Kimura.
‘You have done well indeed – I have every reason to believe that you’ve discovered where the Dark Scrolls are hidden. Doubtless the large block pulls out to reveal a cavity behind, where the several scrolls – contained in a wooden box or something similar – are stored.
‘Whether that braggart of a daimyo truly does desire to use the information they contain to conquer other territory… Quite possibly. But despite his penchant for excessive self-praise, he is a smarter man than Yoichi. For he has realized just why these ‘Dark Scrolls’ are so named – a fact which Yoichi will understand only when it is too late…’
Again, my master was talking in riddles. Ignoring this, I said –
‘If I may ask, master…When do you plan to… get these scrolls?’
‘I don’t,’ returned my master casually. ‘I am using the fee given to me in advance by Yoichi to pay another person to get them for me. The person we identified as the culprit in the case you entitled The Ninja. If you will remember, this individual left us a mark of their loyalty – furthermore, of their respect and obligation.
‘Besides which, the services of this type of person are always for hire. So you’ll excuse me, Kukai, while I send a message, plus the fee, by horseman to them.’
My master gone, I reflected that this course of action made sense. As the adventure I had entitled The Ninja had proved, this person was indeed an expert at their trade. Entering that castle, retrieving the Dark Scrolls and bringing them to my master would not present them with any problem. Plus, we already had a cast-iron guarantee of absolute loyalty. Furthermore, the region described in The Ninja lay barely a couple of days’ hard-ride away. And our shadowy, hired thief would begin the assignment immediately – once they had all the necessary details.
A few more days passed. My master made no further reference to the Dark Scrolls, and so I mentioned them neither. I only noted that he was largely absent from our room at the inn for some five days, leaving early in the morning and then returning in time for a little supper before turning in for the night. He did not say where he’d been and I, of course, did not ask him. I noted only that he seemed tired, but content, his eyes shining as he ate his evening meal. And a number of times he opened and closed his right hand, as though it was suffering from cramp.
Then, one morning, he said quite suddenly –
‘It is time to go and see Yoichi, Kukai.’
‘Yes, master,’ I returned.
We left the inn – and then cut into a small forest of trees and bamboo groves. And it was in one such grove that I saw a small hut, of the type my master had built before. He entered inside it, and there I saw him use a flat piece of wood to dig up the loose soil ‘floor’. He quickly exposed an old wooden chest, which he dragged out into the open.
‘The Dark Scrolls, master?’ I asked quietly.
‘Indeed,’ he returned. ‘
Obtained for us by our hired thief, so discreetly – so professionally – that I believe Kimura still has no idea they’re even gone. There was indeed a cavity behind that stone block, where the scrolls were kept in this same wooden chest.’
‘It’s much… smaller than I imagined, master,’ I observed, almost doubtfully.
‘The writing on the scrolls is indeed miniscule – almost impossible to see with the naked eye,’ returned my master, his voice as curiously awestruck as ever I’d heard it. ‘That it could possibly have been written by a human or humans, no matter how much time (if we are to disregard the famous legend) may have been taken…’
My master shook his head.
‘It seems unreal. But whatever – all we must do now is to simply present these scrolls to Yoichi…’
The daimyo received us, in his castle and in the same room as before, with an evil glint to his eye. And that sneer – which I thought I’d seen just for a fraction of a second during our previous meeting – was now definitely in place.
‘Ennin-sensei…’ began Yoichi, his voice adopting a curious tone of ‘mock-disappointment’. ‘Did you really believe that I would have these manuscripts destroyed? That I did not rather desire to use the information they contain to increase my own power? Really – I can’t help but think that these stories concerning your ‘abilities’ have been rather exaggerated!’
And he laughed, stood there on the opposite side of the long, low table, behind him two large windows through which flooded in the bright spring sunshine.
‘What are you saying?’ asked my master, his voice low and strangely confused.
‘I have my samurai bodyguard stood just outside, in case you try making any sudden moves,’ returned the daimyo. ‘But now this room will become my study, these scrolls opened out on this table so that I may peruse the information they contain at my leisure. But only I will read it – hence the two illiterate laborers I have hired from the village outside, who will assist me while understanding absolutely nothing of what they see.’
