Yamada Monogatari: The War God's Son

by Richard Parks

  I turned to Akimasa. “Please report what we have found to Lord Yoshiie. Also, have the walls of the nunnery searched. There should be at least one such ladder there. You two,” I said to the other bushi, “are to come with me.”

  “Where are you going, in case Lord Yoshiie asks?”

  “Where our would-be assassins intended to go, once they had your master’s head.”

  I reached for the nearest rope ladder and clambered down the far side of the wall, and the other bushi quickly followed. After a moment of apparent uncertainty, Akimasa climbed back down into the compound to do as I had asked. Unlike the rope ladders meant to be lowered into the compound side, these had been anchored to the ground with spikes and were thus much easier to negotiate. Doubtless they had planned to leave them in place, as they could not be seen from within, simply pulling up the part hanging down into the compound, just as we had discovered them now.

  We stood at the mouth of a deep ravine running through the hills surrounding the compound on the northwest side. We found sleeping blankets and food, and judging from the original size of casks and their remnants, it was clear the assassins had been in place for several days. A quick glance up left and right showed hillsides choked with trees and undergrowth with no paths visible—there was essentially no chance at all someone could have stumbled upon the assassin’s encampment by accident.

  I had assumed the assassins had planned to descend into the ravine after hiding their ladders again to throw off searchers and, while the Minamoto were still trying to figure out where the attackers could possibly have escaped to, been well on their way to the Mutsu barrier before the Minamoto had the presence of mind to send a force to cover the border. Yet the defile on the northeast side was nearly impassable, and even if the assassins could scale it, chances are they would have emerged into the open too close to the temple to avoid detection.

  It’s clear they did have a plan to escape, but in order to do so they would have to follow the ravine for some distance, and it’s going the wrong way.

  The ravine snaked through the trees, following the lines of the hills behind the temple, and that way lead to the northwest, away from the safety of the border. I wanted to know if the ravine changed direction farther on, and there was one quick way to find out.

  “We’re going hunting,” I said to the two bushi accompanying me. “Be on your guard—we don’t know if any of the assassins escaped the battle.”

  Not that I considered this likely. If any assassins had managed to escape the carnage, the sensible thing for them to do would have been to throw the bamboo poles back over the wall into the ravine once they had used them to retrieve the ladders. The poles wouldn’t have been needed again, and removing them would have been the work of a moment or two at most and would have helped cover their escape. Granted, such a fine detail might have been missed in the heat of the moment by men running for their lives, so it was still best to be on guard.

  I led the way along the ravine, looking for any signs of prior travel. I didn’t have to look long. Runoff from the surrounding hills left the ravine muddy in some spots and sandy in others, and there were the prints of sandals in many places, all heading toward the temple, but none heading in the opposite direction. We kept moving, but neither the ravine’s direction nor the difficulty of scaling its sides changed much, except possibly in the latter’s case to become even more difficult, as the ravine began to deepen as we moved through it. Nor had the footprints ceased or shown a point of origin other than the way we were traveling. I became more and more convinced climbing out of the ravine this close to the temple had not been their plan. All that remained was to find where the ravine led and, more to the point, what we might discover there.

  In time the wall on the northwest side of the ravine began to slant rather than dropping straight down. It would have been easy for the assassins to climb out now, but they would be on the wrong side of the temple and have to double back across the main road—far too risky an endeavor in such numbers. The trail of footprints we followed still pointed to an origin farther along in the ravine.

  The younger of the two bushi stopped, sniffing the air like a deer. “Do you smell that, Yamada-sama?”

  I did. And of all the things I might have expected to smell in this particular situation, this scent was not one of them. “That’s the ocean.”

  The northwest coast of Echigo, famous in poetry and legend—I had not realized we were so close. We had not gone more than a bowshot farther before we could hear the muffled roar of the waves breaking on sand. Now the assassins’ escape plan was suddenly clear. What wasn’t clear was if there was anything else to gain from this knowledge.

  “Stay here,” I said. I went forward alone. The floor of the defile had already started to rise, and I could have climbed out to either side now, but I kept following the footprints. The defile ended on a high bluff overlooking the beach. I slipped forward carefully and kept hidden as best I could as I peered out toward the water. Below me I could see a steep but negotiable path down to the sand. Anchored about three bowshots offshore was a ship in the Chinese style, bearing no mon or other markers. On the beach itself, there were five boats, fishing skiffs by the look of them, beached but only enough to keep them from being carried out by a falling tide. It would take the work of only a few moments to get them underway, I estimated.

  The sun was getting low in the sky. I heard voices, but at first I saw no one. Then I realized the voices were coming from almost directly below me. Two men, fishermen from the look of them, had made camp under the lee of the bluff. I breathed a silent prayer of gratitude that I had heard them before they had spotted me, but apparently they had been gathering firewood from farther up the beach. They were an older and a younger man, possibly father and son from the resemblance. Their voices drifted up to me, and I listened.

  “ . . . how much longer?” said the younger.

  “As long as it may take,” said his companion. “Have some patience. There’s no more reward if we leave without them.”

  “We should have heard something by now. And I do not trust those pirates,” the younger man said, nodding at the ship.

  “Perhaps there was a delay. As for the pirates, there’s no need. They won’t come ashore, and all we need do is see their boats safely launched once those men return. What happens to the fools then is not our concern.”

  “Likely they’ll drown—you saw them when we brought them from the ship, there’s not one among them who knows how to handle a skiff. We already have their gold for arranging the boats. I say we leave now and save our heads.”

  “They promised us double, son. So your father says we will wait, and that’s an end to it.”

  So that man is your father. Well, you are wiser than he is, for all the good it would have done you. I do not think those men would have left either of you alive if they had returned.

  I carefully pulled myself away from the edge of the bluff and made my way back to where the two bushi were waiting. “Gentlemen, bring your bows. Quietly, if you please.”

  We slipped back to the edge of the bluff. I considered the matter for a moment, then had one of the bushi fire an arrow which struck within inches of the older man’s feet. Startled, the two immediately glanced up, to find me and my two companions, one of whom already had his second arrow nocked.

  “Gentlemen, you may not believe me when I tell you this, but as of now, you are both potentially lucky men. And in case you were thinking of running, I would advise against it. As you’ve seen, these men are very good archers,” I said clearly. “Kindly wait for me.”

  I made my way down the trail, followed by one of the archers. The second bushi remained on the bluff, his bow ready in case the men decided to test us. That proved unnecessary. The two fishermen had immediately kneeled and placed their faces to the sand. The bushi with me now had an arrow ready as well.

  “Sit up,” I said. “I can’t talk to you if you’re buried in the sand like crabs.”

&nb
sp; Blinking, they obeyed, and the terror in their eyes would have been proof enough of their fear, even if they were not shaking so. I didn’t mind. Fear was sometimes a useful tool, and I fully intended to make use of it now.

  “As I see matters, you two have a problem,” I said. “If I take you back with me to the temple, the only question in regards to your fate is whether Lord Yoshiie or the Chief of the Shibata Clan or the governor of Echigo will have the privilege of ordering your torture and execution. Any delay would only last as long as it took those three to agree on the matter.”

  The older man could barely speak. “But . . . my lord, we have done nothing!”

  “You mean other than assisting in an attempted assassination of the Minamoto Clan chief’s son and the slaughter of priests and nuns in holy orders? You were hired to land those men and then see them safely back to their pirate transport, were you not? If you deny it again, this conversation is at an end.”

  I was not bluffing about delivering the pair of them to Yoshiie. Distasteful as such an action would be, the slaughter I had witnessed at the Yahiko temple and the near-loss of my own sister had put me in the right frame of mind to carry it out.

  “My lord,” said the younger man, “What did you say about Yahiko temple . . . ?”

  “Slaughter,” I repeated, being very careful to enunciate each syllable. “Almost everyone who had resided at the temple is now dead. Murdered by your friends.”

  “They were not our friends!” the old man said. “We were hired—” he stopped.

  I smiled then. “No, please continue.”

  The old man took a long, slow breath, apparently trying to calm himself. “It’s true, we were hired to get several men ashore here, but we did not know who they were or what they intended.”

  “We had no idea they meant to attack the temple!” the young man said. “We didn’t know . . . ”

  “You land a heavily armed group of men at the back door of a temple with few defenses. What did you think was going to happen? Or were you thinking only of the gold?”

  Their silence was answer enough. I was not entirely without sympathy, since I understood what desperation mixed with greed could make a man do. I had only one more question. “The ravine in this bluff isn’t visible from the sea. Did you tell them about it? Did you hand them the lives of those innocents?”

  “We barely spoke to them, or they to us. They seemed to know exactly where they were going, and they made straight for the path up to the ravine,” the younger man said. “Only one man returned, but he ordered us to wait for the rest, which we were doing. My lord, I swear this is true.”

  “What about the man who returned?”

  “He was well-dressed, and thin . . . a bit hawkish about the face. He appeared to be in command. We rowed him back to the ship. I don’t remember much else about him, except I had the impression he might have been ill. He seemed a bit feverish.”

  The possible illness was interesting enough, and the man he was describing certainly sounded like Lord Tenshin, but this was hardly proof. I had clearly learned everything I was going to learn from the fisherman. The only thing I had now to consider was whether I believed him. I decided I did. It would have been easy enough to miss one man’s track returning to the sea among so many going the other direction.

  In order for the attempt to work, they had to already know about the ravine. All their planning depended upon it.

  “Get out of my sight,” I said. “If I see either of you again, ever, I will make you wish I’d handed you over to Lord Yoshiie. Do you understand me?”

  Apparently they did. They took to their heels and had soon disappeared toward the north. The younger of the two archers frowned. “My lord, was it wise to let them go?”

  “Perhaps not,” I said, “but killing them would have gained us nothing. We have greater prey to hunt.”

  Out on the water, the pirate ship was unfurling its sails. If the ones who had planned the attack did not yet know it had failed, they soon would. For the moment there was little to do save to find out if Lord Yoshiie’s diplomatic skills were as well honed as the ones he used for fighting the enemies of the Emperor. We made our way back to the temple wall and climbed over the wall to find Akimasa waiting for us.

  “I was about to go after you when I heard you returning. Did you find anything, my lord?”

  “Just a pair of foolish fishermen and the boats the assassins had planned to escape in. And a Chinese pirate ship.”

  Akimasa put his hand on his sword hilt as if the pirates were coming up the ladder behind us. “Pirates?!”

  “So I surmise, but they were leaving, so of no concern. Have you completed your search of the nunnery walls?”

  Akimasa relaxed a little, but he still seemed somewhat nervous. “Yes, my lord. We even had some of our more nimble companions scale the walls and examine every inch of them from the roof itself.”

  “How many ladders did you find there?”

  “There were no ladders, my lord,” Akimasa said.

  “None? You’re certain?”

  “Yes, Lord Yamada. As I said, we were very thorough.”

  That was curious. I had expected the attacker who had opened the gate to the nunnery had used the same method to gain entry as his companions, but apparently this was not the case. Still, the trees did grow close to the wall there. It was entirely possible one had simply climbed over. Most likely it wasn’t important, in the scope of things, but it was something which didn’t quite make sense, and such things worried me like a splinter one could feel but not quite locate.

  “I believe I need to take another look at the gate to the nunnery,” I said.

  “Forgive me, my lord, but the mention of the pirates distracted me. The reason I was going to follow you is Lord Yoshiie wants to see you.”

  “Then obviously I must answer his summons before I do anything else.” I bowed to all three men. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  I made my way to the lecture hall as quickly as I could, since I knew Lord Yoshiie was not a man who liked to be kept waiting. On the way there I saw a flash of white in the trees, no more, but I knew, when my immediate business with Lord Yoshiie was done, there was yet another person requiring my presence, but I considered it fortunate. I had questions for Lady Kuzunoha as well, and this way it would not be necessary for me to go looking for her. I just hoped the answers were ones we could both live with.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lord Yoshiie awaited me in the lecture hall, and as I expected, he was not alone. I had already seen bushi bearing the Shibata mon on the grounds assisting Lord Yoshiie’s men with the bodies, though there was little left for them to do save stand watch. I got a glimpse of Kenji, but didn’t attempt to speak to him. Unless there was another in Lord Yoshiie’s levy I didn’t know about, Kenji was the only living priest now available, so it would fall to him to see the proper funeral rites were observed until more clerics could be summoned.

  Lord Yoshiie and his visitor sat on cushions on the dais, where the former abbot or higher ranking priests would recite the sutras or lecture in happier times. I found a cushion on the floor in front of them, kneeled, and bowed low.

  “Lord Shibata no Marumasa, may I present my counselor, Lord Yamada.”

  I almost smiled. Counselor? Well, I had to admit it was a far better designation than “unwanted baggage the royal family forced on me,” and perhaps indicative of my improved standing in Lord Yoshiie’s estimation. I hoped I wasn’t about to make him doubt his judgment.

  “It is an honor,” I said.

  The chief of the Shibata Clan was a youthful-seeming man whom I knew to be in his middle fifties. He had managed to keep the Shibata uninvolved with the struggles against the Abe Clan until now, but I had the feeling the situation was about to change and indeed already had.

  “Lord Yamada,” he said. “I have heard of you.”

  I could only imagine what he had heard and how much of it was true. Judging from his expression, very little
of it, true or not, appeared to be in my favor.

  “Akimasa reported the ladders. Did you find anything else?”

  I told them about our trek through the ravine, the boats, and the—likely—pirate vessel in the Echigo coastal waters. “I believe their plan was to skirt the coast past the northern border of Dewa. They could have returned to Mutsu on its northern coast. Or . . . ”

  Lord Shibata frowned. “Or?”

  “Or just as likely the pirates would have murdered the lot of them and claimed any reward for themselves. As the assassins failed in their mission, it is a moot point.”

  I deemed it prudent not to mention the fishermen. If Lord Yoshiie needed a target for his anger, it was best directed toward his actual enemies.

  “Not everyone knew about the ravine,” Lord Muramasa said. “Nor was the normal sort of pilgrim who came to the temple likely to discover it. There had been a small gate placed there, but it had been sealed over for many years.”

  This was something I had not known. “If you will forgive my asking, why was it sealed?”

  The older man smiled then. “In my grandfather’s time it was planned as a means of escape in case the temple was attacked by bandits or the Emishi, who raided much farther south in those days. Yet the abbot discovered it was mostly being used by priests who wished to avoid their dietary restrictions by buying fish from the locals . . . or for even less appropriate meetings. He had the gate removed and the gap sealed.”

  “So whoever ordered the attack on Lord Yoshiie had to know about the ravine beforehand. It was a crucial part of their plan.”

  Lord Muramasa raised an eyebrow. “What are you implying?”

  I bowed again. “My lord, no one would either consider or believe for a moment your clan would have any part of an attack on its own holy temple. I merely meant Lord Yoshiie’s movements have been precisely tracked, and however this is being accomplished, our enemies were also supplied with the layout of the temple, including the best means of sudden and secret entry.”