“That’s him!” Satō exclaimed in the high-pitched voice he would sometimes get when excited. “That’s exactly what he looked like!”
His sudden cry awoke somebody within the residence. They could hear the shuffling of feet on the wooden floor, and guards shouting.
“We must go,” said Satō, “we have stayed here far too long.”
“It’s all right, we got what we came for,” Bran replied, folding the scroll and putting it back on the shelf.
They crept through the fog back towards the lodging house. Suddenly the apprentice halted and stared into the dark mist.
“What is it?”
“There is something... approaching.”
“The Crimson Robe?”
The apprentice shook her head.
“I don’t think so… It feels like something ancient, stirred from a deep sleep.”
“For once, I agree with the apprentice,” a voice spoke in Bran’s head, “there is something in those mists that even I wouldn’t like to meet.”
They hurried back to the lodgings. One of the monks, Itsunen, his face grey in the faint light of the stone lanterns, stood in front of the building.
“Noble guests,” he said, bowing, “I believe you should leave the temple tonight.”
“Why? What’s going on?” asked Nagomi.
Bran looked around nervously — the fog was creeping down from the hillside, growing ever denser.
“The hills are restless,” Ingen said, emerging from the shadows, “the mist grows thick.”
“It’s not safe here anymore,” added Itsunen, “please hurry.”
CHAPTER VIII
The Itō residence at the top of the Sōfukuji Hill was empty. The windows boarded, the doors closed. Sakuma Zōzan watched silently as an old servant, his silver head wrapped in a bandage, locked the outer gate shut and rolled up the noren cloth with the Itō crest. There was a sad determination in the way he went about his business.
“A!” the servant exclaimed, turning around. “Sakuma-dono!”
The scholar nodded politely.
“Where is everybody? What happened here?”
“Ine-sama sold the house and is moving to her folk in Nagoya.”
“Sold the house… Wasn’t there a younger daughter too, the red-haired one?”
“Oh, Nagomi-sama is an apprentice now. She lives at Suwa.”
“What a pity.” Zōzan stroke his pointed beard in thought. More bad news. “The Itō were good doctors. There are not many like them left in Kiyō.”
The old servant nodded and corrected the bandage that had slipped from his forehead.
“By your leave — I have to deliver these to the harbour,” he said, referring to the rolled-up noren and a bundle of a few other household items under his arm. Zōzan let him pass and stood for a while yet, watching the abandoned building, trying to think of his next move.
“You seek a doctor?”
A man emerged from under the eaves of the Itō house, his face hidden in a shadow of a dark-purple hooded robe. Sakuma Zōzan stretched his black and white kimono and coughed nervously. He had always felt distraught near strangers.
“Why do you ask?”
“I may be able to help.”
“You don’t look like a physician.”
Zōzan noticed the two sword hilts showing from under the purple robe.
“It is not a physician that your son needs, Sakuma-dono.”
The scholar breathed in sharply.
“Who are you?”
The stranger cast down the hood of his robe, revealing a calm young face adorned with fine whiskers and a thin beard. His dark, slightly popping eyes seemed to pierce through Zōzan’s soul.
“Your last hope, scholar.”
Keinosuke lay on a thick silk futon in a small room on the top floor of the Sakuma Mansion. He would seem to be sleeping peacefully, if it wasn’t for a scowl twisting his face.
The stranger leaned over the boy.
“Tell me what happened.”
“A deer hunter found him on the slopes of Inasa.”
“And he’s been like this since?”
“Not a sound.”
The samurai touched Keinosuke’s forehead and winced. He looked around the room.
“I need to see your library.”
Zōzan was taken aback.
“Nobody has access to my library, samurai… I don’t even know your name.”
“My name is not easily given,” the stranger said, “and if you want your son to ever wake again, you’ll be doing exactly what I tell you.”
The scholar grunted uneasily. It’d been six days since the servants brought Keinosuke home. The boy was dying before his eyes. No physician or priest in Kiyō could help, but what they all agreed on was that he wouldn’t last long.
“Follow me,” he said, standing up and straightening the creases on his kimono.
The door to his library was locked with a complicated Bataavian lock of brass and steel. Zōzan put the heavy key in and turned. The gears whirred, the bolts moved, the mistfire mechanism hissed and the door slid open.
The stranger entered the room, closed his eyes and stretched his neck out, like a sniffing hound.
“What’s in there?”
He pointed to a large locked chest under the wall opposite the entrance.
“That’s…” Zōzan hesitated, “that’s where I keep my most precious scrolls.”
“Open it.”
“What — no! That’s going too far. What does my chest have to do with Keinosuke’s state?”
The samurai gave the scholar an impatient look.
“When they found him, was there a lake or a pond nearby?”
“He was found by the White Stag Pool,” Zōzan replied, nodding.
“Your son has dabbled in something very dangerous, scholar. I believe he found it inside this chest.”
“Preposterous. He wouldn’t even be able to open it.”
“When was the last time you checked that lock?”
Zōzan approached the chest and touched the padlock.
“It’s broken,” he stated, astonished. “How…? Why?”
“Show me what’s inside.” The samurai stood beside him. “Careful.”
The scholar lifted the heavy lid with trepidation, but the inside of the chest looked exactly the same as he had remembered it — old scrolls and musty books gathered in a great pile. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, but the strange samurai reached into the pile and pulled out one of the scrolls, a folded length of paper, darkened with age, with red lettering all over it. It smelled of blood and death.
“What’s that?” asked Zōzan.
The samurai put a finger to his lips.
“Listen.”
Zōzan scoffed, but then heard something. A faint whisper at first, it grew into a voice, annoyed, angry, mean, deep inside the scholar’s head.
“Is that you, Keinosuke? You’ve awakened already? I should’ve punished you harder. They’ve managed to take the foreigner away thanks to your fiasco.”
“Who…” the scholar started, but the samurai shook his head.
“Well, do you have something to report?” the sinister voice continued. “I don’t have time for this. If you want to be useful, find out what’s happened to your sensei. She should be in the shrine…”
The voice paused and Zōzan felt a penetrating presence in his mind.
“Wait — is there someone else with you? I sense two minds… Sakuma-dono, I’m honoured to meet you at last, and the other one — oh, it’s you,” the voice seethed.
The samurai crushed the scroll in his hands and the paper burst into flames briefly.
“What was that?”
Master Sakuma stared at the pile of ash on the study floor. He was terrified, but a part of him was also fascinated by the immense power he had sensed in the voice. What magic was this? Why didn’t he discover the old scroll first?
“Bad news,” replied the samurai curtly, “what did he me
an by your sensei?”
“It’s… Keinosuke’s magic teacher, the Takashima girl. She disappeared after the accident. The police are searching for her.”
The samurai looked up sharply.
“The accident?”
He’s not from around here. Where did he come from?
“One of Takashima-sama’s experiments went awry. The house was destroyed, everyone inside perished. A terrible tragedy.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five days.”
“So a day after they found your son?”
“Yes… You don’t think —”
“I think I need to visit the Takashima residence,” the samurai said distractedly. Zōzan could see his mind was already elsewhere.
“But what about Keinosuke?”
The machine-servant pressed a piece of moist cotton wool to Keinosuke’s lips until all the water had dripped into the boy’s mouth. It then whirred another arm, wiped his face with a damp cloth then returned to a standby position, announcing it with a bell.
Master Sakuma reached for the key at the back and wound the automaton up again. There were more of these machines — karakuri — than human servants at his household. He trusted in their reliability and tirelessness. A well-oiled karakuri could care for his son all day and night, without respite.
Another automaton arrived on its tiny legs with a cup of tea on a lacquer tray. Zōzan sipped it, observing the strange samurai kneeling over his son, holding Keinosuke’s head on his lap, focused in silence.
There was a static snapping sound, like an elekiter spark. The familiar smell of ozone spread throughout the room. The samurai opened his eyes and nodded with satisfaction.
Keinosuke stirred and woke up.
“No, stop!” he cried out. “I can help…” He looked around astonished. “Where am I…?”
“You’re home, son.” Zōzan couldn’t hold back his emotions. “You’re safe.”
“He’s not safe here — and neither are you,” the samurai announced, standing up. “I suggest you move as far away from the city as you can. This isn’t your true home, is it?” He assessed the room. “An aristocrat like you…”
“I have an estate in Chūbu, where the boy’s mother lives. I only brought him here to study at the Takashima school — but now, with them gone…”
The samurai nodded.
“Chūbu sounds good. And keep him away from mirrors and stagnant water for the time being.”
“Will you not tell me what happened to my son? What power was in that scroll?”
“If I told you, would you promise not to seek it for yourself?”
There was something in the samurai’s eyes that made Zōzan cower. Unable to lie, the scholar bowed his head in shamed silence.
The interrogation chamber of the magistrate prison was damp and badly lit.
They made it deliberately so, realised Tokojiro, so the faces of the criminals seemed even more menacing in the murk.
The guard guided Lady Kazuko in, her hands bound with a single length of knotless rope, more out of fear of some witchcraft than to prevent her escaping. Despite the gloom, her face seemed illuminated with some internal radiance, still proud and gentle despite her precarious situation.
Tokojiro’s cheek and eye twitched nervously. The scar on his face, covered with ugly scabs, blisters and painful inflammation, refused to heal since he had crawled away from the Mogi Temple through the dirt and soil of the pine forest, blind and mad with rage and shame. He kept scratching it, which only increased the irritation.
He was sitting along the wall with several witnesses who were to take part in the cross-examination of the priestess. Two of the samurai who had found him in the forest were also present to confess, the third one, Hibiki, still recovering from his injuries, ironically — at the Suwa Shrine.
I never wanted any harm to come to her, he thought, but another part of his mind mocked him: You should’ve thought about it before you betrayed her trust, then.
He never imagined the authorities getting desperate enough to harass the shrine, much less — arrest Lady Kazuko This was unthinkable. How important was this foreigner exactly?
The priestess sat down on the cold floor in front of the panel made of a chief of local police, the bugyō himself and a representative of the Taikun’s secret service, the metsuke, who had arrived from Edo just the night before. The respect with which each of them was treating the priestess depended on their rank — the poor local doshin, Koyata, noticeably out of place among the noblemen with his plain grey coat and flushed jovial face, was all bows and apologetic smiles; the bugyō seemed decidedly uneasy, unsure whether to treat her as a prisoner or a friendly guest, while the Edo notable looked at her with the simple disdain he reserved for all traitors. It was obvious he had witnessed many such interrogations in his career.
“I can smell a traitor,” he scoffed at the beginning of the proceedings, pointing at his nose, “and it sure stinks here.”
The doshin frowned discreetly, but said nothing. The bugyō smiled politely, trying to keep his face a professionally neutral mask, but his discomfort with the metsuke’s presence was easily discernible. He started the interrogation as politely as he could, but the metsuke interrupted him quickly with a snarl.
“No need to belittle yourself before this traitor, dear magistrate-sama. We know all about you in Edo.” He turned to the priestess. “We’ve been watching you for a long time, waiting for something like this to come up.”
“What do you mean?” the bugyō questioned, raising his eyebrows. “This trial deals only with the matter of harbouring a fugitive foreigner.”
“Oh, there’s far more going on here than that,” the metsuke said with a snigger.
The priestess remained quiet, smiling serenely all the time. Her smile unnerved Tokojiro greatly. Doesn’t she know that her life is in danger?
“By your leave.”
The Taikun’s spy bowed before bugyō, with a slightly mocking attitude, pointing to one of the men sitting under the wall. The chief magistrate nodded grudgingly. The man, whom Tokojiro recognised as one of the lesser acolytes of Suwa, stood up in a half-bow, approached the middle of the room holding a large heavy bundle and unravelled it before the astonished eyes of the bugyō.
“We found this hidden inside the inner sanctum of the Morisaki kami,” said the metsuke triumphantly.
“You dared to enter the sanctum…?”
Doshin Koyata gasped, but the magistrate silenced him with an annoyed grunt.
“What is this? I don’t see that well.”
The man brought the item closer. It was some kind of wooden statue, roughly hewn. Tokojiro could not see the details from where he was sitting.
“I would be surprised if you recognised it, dear magistrate, as it would mean you’re not beyond suspicion yourself.” The metsuke grinned. “It’s one of the false Gods of the Heretics, the Lion-Headed One.”
Tokojiro gasped, as did everyone in the room except the metsuke, his servant and the High Priestess herself.
“Kazuko-hime… Did you know of this?”
“Of course she did,” the metsuke barked, “you don’t think she-”
“Let her speak,” the chief magistrate ordered, cutting him off curtly.
The High Priestess smiled and nodded.
“But… Why? This is much worse than harbouring a Westerner.”
“It’s obvious, that entire shrine is-” the metsuke started again.
“I said, let her speak!” the bugyō shouted and the other man fell silent at last.
“Mizuno-dono…” The priestess spoke, her gentle voice resonating in the room for the first time. “I remember when you first came to this city two years ago. You may not know everything about the complicated situation of Kiyō. There are tangled webs of connections, relationships, interests, debts of gratitude and vendettas going back as far as — ”
“I have been thoroughly briefed on my arrival,” the chief magistrate said, rais
ing his hand, “and two years is plenty of time to learn what more there was to learn. I implore you, please tell me the meaning of this statue.”
“It is no secret. The Suwa Shrine thrives on its kindness. Most of the city is in our debt, one way or another. The safekeeping of this statue was one such favour, going back to the times of the Shimabara Rebellion. A small act of goodwill, compared with what we did for others at the time. It was a decision made by one of my predecessors hundreds of years ago, so who am I to question it?”
The bugyō pondered this answer, scratching the back of his neck.
“And you swear you are not, in fact, a secret follower of the Forbidden Faith?”
“Magistrate!” The metsuke rose up indignantly. “You can’t believe the word of this traitor!”
“You will behave in my presence, o-metsuke-dono!” The chief magistrate stood up to full height and glowered at the other man. “You may be the Taikun’s representative for the case, but I am his hatamoto retainer, and still your superior!”
The metsuke sat down, scowling in stifled anger. He bowed an abrupt apology.
“My powers, of which you are, I’m certain, aware, come from the kami,” replied the High Priestess serenely, ignoring the outburst. “The false Gods of the Heretics are impotent in this land.”
“Western witchcraft,” mumbled the Taikun’s spy.
“I see,” replied the bugyō, “I shall deal with this later. This is a new matter that I must consider carefully. Now, back to more recent events, I trust your answers will be as prompt, Kazuko-hime, and we will be able to go home before nightfall.”
The priestess nodded gently.
“You have failed to report the Gaikokujin to the authorities. Was this another one of your favours?”
“Rather, an old woman’s fancy,” Lady Kazuko replied.
“Kazuko-hime, the seriousness of your charges…”
“I understand. No, this had nothing to do with the shrine.”
“Why then?”
“Even if I could tell you, you would not understand.”
Does she want to die? Tokojiro struggled to understand. The High Priestess seemed thoroughly resigned to whatever fate held for her. Is this all part of some greater plan?
The Year of the Dragon Omnibus Page 33
