The bugyō frowned, obviously as confused as the interpreter.
“What about the outlaw, the Takashima girl? You have harboured her as well.”
“The shrine is a holy place. You are well aware we have a right to do that.”
“But she’s a danger to us all!”
“Oh, and what danger can a wounded, orphaned, seventeen-year old girl possibly pose?”
“A girl who carries a sword,” muttered the metsuke, “You have tolerated that family for far too long.”
“Doshin-sama.” The chief magistrate ignored him and turned to Koyata, who looked up in surprise. “Can you tell us the results of your investigation at the Takashima residence?”
So that’s why they brought him here, thought Tokojiro. He was observing the interrogation with increasing discomfort. The two men obviously already knew all they wanted about the priestess’s crimes, why did they continue with this humiliating performance?
The doshin coughed and ran his fingers through thick black sideburns surrounding his round face.
“I… I have concluded that Takashima-sama has performed a series of forbidden experiments that resulted in the demise of himself and his entire household.”
“And…?” prodded the bugyō.
“And that his heir, Takashima Satō, knew about these experiments and was, in all probability, willing to continue them.”
“There you go, Kazuko-hime. You must admit, all this does not look good for you. An outlawed wizard, a runaway Gaikokujin, a mitorashita relic in your shrine… Your close familiarity with one of Black Raven’s students…”
The magistrate nodded towards Tokojiro, and the interpreter froze. Were they trying to incriminate him as well?
“All this points to the highest treason,” the bugyō continued, “but I hope we can cooperate and explain everything in a satisfactory manner.”
Tokojiro felt sorry for the magistrate, who was torn between acting according to the law and trying to save the High Priestess’s life or, failing that, her honour.
Lady Kazuko smiled, but did not respond.
“We know you have sent the boy and the girl away from the city on some kind of errand. What was it?”
The priestess turned her head towards Tokojiro. Her eyes seemed to delve into the deepest recesses of his soul.
“You have the interpreter. He knows everything I told the boy. Why don’t you ask him?”
“We want to hear it from you.”
They trust me less than they trust her.
Lady Kazuko shook her head.
“I have only given them guidance. I don’t know which way they took.”
“But what is their aim? What are they — and you — trying to achieve?”
There was no response. The bugyō sighed. Tokojiro felt somebody’s eyes upon himself — it was the doshin Koyata, observing his reactions carefully. He suspects, the interpreter realised and sweat trickled down his neck.
They had interrogated him, of course — as soon as the three samurai had brought him to Kiyō. He told them the boy and the wizardess were heading straight for Satsuma, to seek help at the Shimazu court. The magistrate believed him, having no other source of information. Besides, it seemed like an obvious path to take for the fugitives: Satsuma was the only place more rebellious and friendly to the foreigners than Kiyō.
He did not know why he had lied; he had no reason to. He cared neither for the Gaikokujin’s fate nor the Takashimas girl’s. The risk, if he had been caught lying, was fatal.
Because you knew what you did was wrong.
“You must see the truth now, chief magistrate,” the metsuke spoke. ‘she is mocking us with her silence. There is treason afoot in the shrine, we’ve known about it for years, treason of the highest order, or did you think we haven’t heard of your precious Prophecy?” he enquired, looking at the priestess, who for the first time stopped smiling.
“Prophecy? What are you on about now?” The bugyō frowned. “Why wasn’t I informed of all these things?”
“It was a plan to overthrow the Taikun, disguised in divinations. Naturally, its existence was a state secret.”
“Is that true?” The chief magistrate turned his glaring eyes towards the priestess. “Does such a Prophecy exist?”
“You have no idea how our divinations work, metsuke-sama,” replied Lady Kazuko, not looking at the bugyō, “these are not the matters of this world. I respond only to the Gods.”
“You’re not denying it, then?”
“There are many prophecies. It’s what we do at the shrine. We heal injuries and foretell the future.”
“And protect criminals and fugitives, it seems,” added the metsuke.
“Kazuko-hime…” the chief magistrate began, rubbing his brow, “you’re putting me in a most difficult position.”
“I am sorry,” was her entire response.
“Not as much as I am. I will have to start treating you like a traitor, not merely like a suspect. May the Gods forgive me…” He stood up and nodded at the guards. “I am tired. We will continue this tomorrow. Take her to the Cage.”
“The Cage, tono?” One of the guards let out a gasp, but quickly composed himself, wary of questioning the orders of his superior. “Understood.”
Tokojiro entered the small square room with walls of plain wood and a dirt floor. In the middle of it stood the Cage, a large box of criss-crossing steel bars. It was not big enough for the person within to stand upright. The priestess was sitting cross-legged on the iron floor, her eyes closed. She opened them when she heard the interpreter enter.
Tokojiro nodded at the guard, who bowed back and left them alone. The interpreter was granted a personal visit to the priestess by the bugyō himself, albeit grudgingly.
“I will try to talk some sense into her,” Tokojiro had pleaded.
“Very well,” the chief magistrate had said, waving his hand, “but don’t forget you’re not completely beyond suspicions yourself. Any tricks and your head will roll.”
Tokojiro knew the bugyō was well aware of how he had tried to cheat him out of the Gaikokujin’s capture, but he was now desperate enough to accept any sort of help. The priestess stubbornly refused to provide any information that could save her life and honour, and the search for the fugitives had stumbled at a dead end. It seemed the next head to roll would be that of the bugyō himself.
“What is it about this boy, Kazuko-hime?” Tokojiro asked, kneeling on the packed dirt before the Cage. “Why are you willing to risk so much to protect him?”
The priestess looked at him with her wise eyes.
“You haven’t told them much yourself.”
“That’s true,” the interpreter admitted, lowering his voice to a whisper.
Neither the Taikun’s nor the magistrate’s men were as yet aware of the Ritual changing the foreigner’s face or the disguises the three fugitives had donned. When they had found him crawling around the forest, they had little patience for his incoherent babbling. Later, when it came to confessing before the magistrate court, he had omitted these details deliberately. Another lie added to a tower of lies.
“I… I wasn’t sure what I should do.”
“And yet you did right.” Lady Kazuko smiled. “In your heart you knew what was proper. You’ve never wanted anybody to get hurt, have you?”
“I only wanted the court to notice me…”
Tokojiro shook his head and touched his scar. His hand reached instinctively to his side, where a sword should be. He still could not understand how the boy could outwit him like that.
“I know,” the priestess said, nodding.
The conversation took an unexpectedly distressing direction. He had come with hope of extracting information from the priestess, but instead began to confess himself. It was as if he himself was a criminal in the Cage, and she his interrogator.
“Sooner or later they will question me again, and I… I don’t understand why I should not tell them all that I know.”
&nbs
p; “Oh, but you won’t. You are not the kind of man who would betray my trust.”
But I already have! He wanted to scream, but the priestess gazed at him with her ancient eyes and the words got stifled in his throat.
She had planned it all. I’m just a pawn in her game.
“They will torture me,” he said quietly.
“Leave the city. They will not bother looking for you in all this chaos. There will be plenty to keep them occupied.”
“You are a traitor,” he said, a sudden understanding dawning on him.
The priestess smiled.
“I have never betrayed my loyalties.”
Loyalties to whom? he thought, and stood up.
“I must leave. It’s too dangerous for me to continue this conversation. I will have to report my failure to the bugyō.”
She bowed politely and he bowed back.
“You have a brilliant mind, Tokojiro-sama,” she added as he was about to leave the room, ‘so use it for good. A career at the court is not worth losing one’s integrity over… especially in these turbulent days.”
He breathed in sharply and slid the door closed behind him.
In the calm sleepy quiet of the night water dripped slowly from the tiled eaves of the magistrate gate into a lazy puddle below. Somewhere in the distance, a cat cried its unfulfilled urges. The wind rang a tranquil melody in the rain-chain gutters.
I should be doing this more often, thought Koyata. I had forgotten how wonderful the nights in this city are. He approached the gate and knocked on it with a handle of his jutte truncheon. A face with a lantern appeared over the wall.
“A — ! Doshin-sama!” the guard recognised him and disappeared.
Wood scraped against iron as the heavy bolt was removed from inside and the thick door lifted open.
“What are you doing here at this time of night?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Koyata lied, “so I thought I’d check up on the security of our prisoner.”
“Kazuko-hime is well guarded, Koyata-sama.”
The guard looked wounded by the doshin’s apparent lack of trust.
“No doubt, no doubt, but you can never be too sure, neh?”
The guard agreed hesitantly.
“How many soldiers do you have here?”
“Eight at the wall, four inside, and there’re Captain Tsukinari’s men, of course.”
“Good, good,” Koyata said, nodding absentmindedly.
He didn’t feel good about the numbers at all. If what the purple-hooded samurai had told him was true, it was nowhere near enough…
The doshin was just about to take his evening bath. He disrobed and started to shave himself, leaving the bathroom door slightly ajar as always. He slid the shaving blade along the sideburns; it was a Western fashion he’d picked up from the Bataavians and something he did not trust the town barbers with.
Through the opening, Koyata spotted soft feet clad in black socks treading softly on the tatami mat. Assassin, he realised immediately without even looking up. Quietly, he turned the blade around the handle so it changed into a dagger. Dealing with gamblers and smugglers had taught him wariness. As the quiet-footed assailant approached within a few feet of the bathroom, Koyata slid open the door and lunged forwards.
His arm grabbed in a firm clasp, the doshin’s feet left the floor, his body flipped in the air and he landed with a damp thud on the tatami.
The stranger let out a hearty laugh.
“Formidable reflexes, doshin-sama!”
Koyata scrambled up, still cautious, and saw a tall muscular samurai standing in the middle of his room, wearing a purple-hooded cloak over a gaudy blue and yellow kimono.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he asked as soapy water dripped down his naked legs in large slow drops.
The samurai turned serious and took something out of the sleeve of his kimono. Koyata tensed, expecting a missile, but it was just a piece of paper, torn off and singed at the edges.
“I believe you have the rest.”
The stranger let the piece of paper fly gently down to the floor between the doshin’s legs. Koyata picked it up and recognised immediately the soft-curved writing of Takashima Shūhan. It was one of the translation pages for the Dragon Book.
“Don’t worry, I’m not here to steal it,” the samurai said calmly. “I just want to discuss something with you — something regarding the security of the city. Please,” he reached out a hand holding the doshin’s own indigo yukata.
“Can you take me to the fire tower?” Koyata asked the guard. “I want to check one more thing.”
“Of course, doshin-sama, but be careful, it’s dark up there…”
The wooden tower rose high above not only the roofs of the magistrate, but above any roofs in the neighbourhood. A brass bell hung from the roof beams, to be used in case of emergency. From this vantage point Koyata could see all the way towards the harbour, the great white ever-burning torch on the top of the wizard spire of the Bataavians and the square island of the Qin, pocked with the tiny red dots of their lanterns. Most of the city slept under the thick familiar cover of the darkness. The deep blue shadow of the holy Tamazono Mountain shrouded the stars to the north, the flat nothingness of the sea spread to the west. He breathed deeply, the salty breeze from the sea tickling his nostrils. Everything seemed as calm and peaceful as it had always been.
Koyata reached into his sleeve and took out a small copper tube enclosed with dark green glass on both sides. He didn’t know what the device was called or how it worked — all he knew was that if he looked through it, he could see everything as bright as day, if slightly tinted green.
It was one of several artefacts he had found buried in the dried-up well in the garden of the Takashima Mansion, along with the Dragon Book. By law, he should’ve reported them all to his superiors, but he knew they would either destroy it all or sell it back to Dejima, and he couldn’t admit to the possession of the devices to anyone else. His situation was already precarious enough after the way he had dealt with the Takashima investigation.
He put one end of the copper tube to his eye and looked down into the narrow streets beyond the stone wall of the magistrate.
A swordsman appeared in the alleyway, crouching, sneaking, and then another. Koyata spied further — they were now coming from all sides, gathering slowly underneath the walls, eight, ten, twelve…
He recognised most of them; petty cut-throats, unemployed household samurai, masterless rōnin. The usual bunch he had to deal with on a daily basis in his capacity as a doshin, but he’d never seen them all gathered together for a purpose. He looked for their leader and found a man clumsily sneaking in front of the first party. For a moment he turned his face straight towards Koyata, easily recognisable due to a great torn scar running halfway through it.
Tokojiro the interpreter… so the doshin’s suspicions were right: all this time the interpreter had been hiding his real role in the recent events from his interrogators. But where did he find the means — and courage — to organise such an assault?
Koyata turned around and reached for the bell, but stopped halfway. There was some other movement in the shadows on the opposite side of the magistrate. He raised the copper tube to his eye again. It was another troop of swordsmen approaching from the forest on the slopes of Tamazono. These he did not recognise. They were all wearing the same uniform kimonos, grey and drab in the darkness. They moved more stealthily than the first group, and in order. The doshin assessed that these new enemies were much more dangerous.
Forgetting about the bell, he half-climbed, half-jumped off the tower and ran towards the guardhouse.
Both assaults started almost at once. Tokojiro’s rag-tag band of cut-throats surged over the wall noisily, running at the guards with naked swords glistening in the light of the torches. As per Koyata’s suggestion, the guards feigned a feeble defence before dispersing in a fake retreat. The attack from the forest was a much more immediate threat. Captain T
sukinari and his samurai hid in the shadows along the northern wall, waiting patiently for the situation to evolve.
The grey-clad swordsmen leapt down from the battlements straight onto Tokojiro’s band. Both groups stared at each other in confused silence. Obviously neither of them had expected the other. A second passed then another, until at last the leader of the grey samurai, a bulbous-eyed, grim-faced young man — they were all young and grim-faced — growled an order.
“Get him,” he said, pointing at Tokojiro, “kill the rest.”
Koyata observed the battle from behind a stack of building materials piled up in the corner of the courtyard. Tokojiro’s swordsmen were more numerous, but they were hardly a match for the grey-clad samurai. Pushed against the wall of the prison, their ranks melted quickly. One by one they were cut down until some of them, having decided death wasn’t worth their mercenary pay, began to dash off into the darkness. Soon only a few remained, with Tokojiro standing valiantly in the prison entrance, scowling and waving a dagger — his sword scabbard dangled empty at his side.
At this moment Captain Tsukinari launched his men into an attack at the rear of the grey samurai group. The guards returned simultaneously, this time armed with naginata halberds and muskets.
“Round them all up!” Tsukinari ordered over the thunderclaps of the firearms. “Leave some alive.”
The commander of the greys turned furiously towards the new threat. He reached for something hanging off his sash and pulled strongly. A round black object, the size of a ripe persimmon, bounced and rolled on the courtyard sand.
“Look out!” Koyata shouted from his hideout, but it was too late.
The grenade exploded with a tremendous flash and bang, shrouding everything and everyone in a thick choking cloud of white smoke.
The few remaining of Tokojiro’s sellswords emerged from the cloud, coughing and gasping for air. They were quickly subdued by the guards. When the smoke had at last cleared, there was no trace of the grey-clad samurai, only a few puddles of blood remained where some of them had been wounded by gunshot. Gone also was Tokojiro, the interpreter.
The Year of the Dragon Omnibus Page 34
