The Diamond Chariot

by Boris Akunin

  But the vice-consul had a long account to settle with the Momochi clan.

  ‘You killed my friends! Asagawa, Lockston, Twigs! Did you really think I would forget about them?’

  Tamba shrugged at that and said sadly:

  ‘I hoped you would understand. My genins were doing their job. They did not kill your friends out of hate, but because it was their duty. Each one of them was killed quickly, respectfully and without suffering. But if you wish to take revenge for them, that is your right. Tamba does nothing by halves.’

  He thrust his hand under the low table, pressed something, and a dark square opened up in the ceiling above Fandorin’s head.

  The jonin gave a brief order and the vice-consul’s Herstal dropped on to the rice mats in front of him with a dull thud.

  ‘Take your revenge on me,’ said the shinobi. ‘But do not hold any grievance against Midori. She is not guilty of offending you in any way.’

  Erast Petrovich slowly picked up the weapon and flicked open the cylinder. He saw one spent cartridge and six fresh ones. Could the old man really be serious?

  He raised the revolver and aimed it at Tamba’s forehead. The old man didn’t look away, he merely closed his eyelids. ‘He could probably mesmerise me, or hypnotise me, or whatever they call it, but he doesn’t want to,’ Fandorin realised.

  Midori looked at him briefly, and he thought he saw entreaty in her eyes. Or did he imagine it? A woman like that wouldn’t plead with anyone for anything, not even to save her father.

  As if in confirmation of this thought, she lowered her head again.

  The titular counsellor forced himself to remember the faces of his dead friends; Lockston, as true and dependable as steel; Asagawa, the knight of justice; Dr Twigs, the father of two girls with a heart defect.

  It is impossible to shoot at a man who is not trying to protect himself, but the pain that had welled up in Fandorin’s soul demanded an outlet – he had cramp in his finger from the irresistible desire to press the trigger

  There are things that cannot be forgiven, or the balance of the world will be shattered, Erast Petrovich told himself.

  He jerked his wrist slightly to one side and fired.

  The thunderous crash deafened him.

  Midori threw her hands up to her temples, but she didn’t raise her face.

  Tamba himself didn’t move a single muscle. There was a crimson stripe burned across his temple.

  ‘There now,’ he said peaceably. ‘Your enemy Tamba is dead. Only your friend Tamba is left.’

  Today we rejoice,

  Our enemies are destroyed.

  Such great loneliness!

  THE LOVE OF TWO MOLES

  There was a dull rumbling sound from somewhere above them.

  Erast Petrovich raised his head. A thunderstorm?

  Another peal, but this time the rumbling was accompanied by a crackling sound.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Fandorin, jumping to his feet.

  ‘It is Kamata starting to fire his cannon,’ said Tamba, also getting up, but without hurrying. ‘He didn’t wait until dawn. He must have realised that you and your servant are here with us.’

  So the jonin knew all about Kamata’s plan!

  ‘You know everything? How?’

  ‘These are my mountains. Every tree has ears and every blade of grass has eyes. Let us go, before these stupid people hit one of the houses by accident.’

  Tamba stood under the hatch, squatted down on his haunches and then sprang up into the air – so high that he landed sitting on the edge of the opening. There was a flash of white socks and the old man was already upstairs.

  Fandorin looked round for Midori and started – the next room was empty. When had she managed to disappear?

  Tamba leaned down out of the opening in the ceiling.

  ‘Give me your hand!’

  But the titular counsellor didn’t give him his hand – it would have been humiliating. He pulled himself up clumsily, banging his elbow against a plank in the process. The jonin was wearing black trousers and a loose black shirt. Darting out on to the veranda, he put on black leather stockings, pulled a mask over his face, and became almost invisible. In the darkness a pillar of fire soared up into the air and stones and clods of earth went flying in all directions.

  Tamba was no longer anywhere close, he had dissolved into the darkness. A black shadow jumped down from somewhere (was it off the roof?), touched the ground silently with its feet, performed a forward roll, tumbled aside, got up weightlessly and a second later disappeared. The titular counsellor noticed the air trembling in several other places as well and caught a few brief glimpses of dark silhouettes.

  Shells were exploding as often as if an entire artillery battery was bombarding the forest. The rapid-firing Krupps gun had a rate of three shots a minute, recalled Fandorin, a veteran of the Turkish War. Judging from the sound, the Black Jackets must have taken up a position on the summit of the mountain. Watching the intervals closely, the vice-consul understood Kamata’s tactics. His gunner was laying down the shells in a chessboard pattern, at intervals of two or three sazhens. He obviously intended to plough up the entire forest island. Sooner or later he would hit the houses too. And one of the pines had already caught fire – a bright crimson flower blossomed in the darkness.

  What should he do, where should he run?

  One of the shadows stopped beside the titular counsellor, grabbed his hand and dragged him after it.

  They had already run to the middle of the wood when a shell struck a tree close by. The trunk gave a crack, splinters went flying and they both fell to the ground. Following the pattern, the next explosion tore up the ground ten steps away, and the eyes in the ninja’s black face flared up – long and moist, full of light.

  It was her!

  Midori half-rose and took Erast Petrovich’s hand again, in order to run on, but he didn’t yield – he pulled her back to him.

  The next explosion roared on the other side of them and Fandorin saw her eyes again, very close – so beautiful and full of life.

  ‘Do you really love me?’ he asked.

  A thunderous rush drowned out his words.

  ‘Do you love me?’ Erast Petrovich roared.

  Instead of answering, she pulled off her mask, took his face between her hands and kissed him.

  And he forgot about the rapid-firing cannon, about death’s whistling and rumbling, about everything in the world.

  The pine tree blazed brighter and brighter, red shadows flickered across the trunks of trees and the ground. Panting, the titular counsellor tore the clothes from his beloved’s shoulders and her body changed from black to white.

  Midori made no attempt at all to stop him. Her breathing was as fast as his, her hands were tearing off his shirt.

  Around them the flames blazed, the earth split open, the trees groaned and Fandorin felt as if Night itself, wild and hot, were making love to him.

  Pine needles pricked his back and his elbows by turns – the grappling lovers were rolling across the ground. Once a piece of shrapnel buried itself in the earth where their bodies had been just a second earlier, but neither of them noticed it.

  It all ended suddenly. Midori pushed her beloved off with a jerk and darted in the opposite direction.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he exclaimed indignantly – and saw a burning branch falling between them, showering out sparks.

  Only then did Erast Petrovich come to his senses.

  There was no more artillery fire, just blazing trees crackling in two or three places.

  ‘What is this called in your jojutsu?’ he asked hoarsely, gesturing round at the forest.

  Midori was tying her tangled hair in a knot.

  ‘There’s never been anything like this in jojutsu. But there will be now. I’ll call it “Fire and Thunder”.’

  She was already pulling on her black costume, turning from white to black.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ asked Fandorin, hastily putti
ng his own clothing in order. ‘Why is it quiet?’

  ‘Let’s go!’ she called, and ran on in front.

  Half a minute later they were at the fissure – in the very spot where the vice-consul and his servant had thrown the lasso across. The dead tree was still there, but Erast Petrovich couldn’t see any sign of the rope.

  ‘Where to now?’ he shouted

  She pointed across to the other side, then went down on all fours and suddenly disappeared over the edge of the cliff. Fandorin dashed after her and saw a cable woven from dry plant stems hanging down. It was thick and strong enough to hold any weight, so the young man followed Midori without hesitation.

  She moved on a long way ahead of him, slithering down easily and confidently. But he found the descent difficult.

  ‘Quickly, quickly, we’ll be late!’ Midori urged him on from down below.

  Erast Petrovich tried his very best, but she still had to wait for quite a long time.

  The moment he jumped down on to the grass-covered ground, his guide dragged him on into dense, prickly undergrowth.

  There, between two boulders, he saw a black crevice in the sheer wall. The titular counsellor squeezed into it with great difficulty, but after that the passage widened out.

  ‘Please, please, quickly!’ he heard Midori’s voice pleading out of the darkness.

  He dashed towards her – and almost fell when he stumbled over a root or a rock. There was a strong draught blowing from somewhere above him.

  ‘I can’t see a thing!’

  A glowing thread appeared in the darkness, emittting a weak, trembling glow.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Fandorin, enchanted.

  ‘A yoshitsune,’ Midori replied impatiently. ‘A falcon’s feather, it has mercury in it. It doesn’t go out in the rain and wind. Come on! I’ll die of shame if I’m late!’

  Now, with the light, it became clear that the underground passage had been equipped very thoroughly: the ceiling and walls were reinforced with bamboo, and there were wooden steps underfoot.

  Struggling to keep up with Midori, Erast Petrovich barely looked around at all, but he did notice that every now and then there were branches running off the passage in both directions. It was an entire labyrinth. His guide ran on, turning several corners without slowing down for a moment. The titular counsellor was starting to feel exhausted from the long, steep uphill climb, but the slim figure ahead of him seemed incapable of tiring.

  Eventually the steps came to an end and the passage narrowed again. The light went out, something creaked in the darkness and a grey rectangle opened up ahead, admitting the damp, fresh breath of the dawn.

  Midori jumped down on to the ground. Following her example, Erast Petrovich discovered that he was clambering out of the trunk of an old, gnarled oak tree.

  The secret door closed, and the vice-consul saw that it was absolutely impossible to make out its edges on the rough, moss-covered bark.

  ‘I’m too late!’ Midori exclaimed despairingly. ‘It’s all your fault!’

  She darted forward into an open meadow where black silhouettes were moving about slowly. There was a smell of gunpowder and blood. Something long glinted in the morning twilight.

  The barrel of the gun, Fandorin realised, looking more closely and then turning his head in all directions.

  The underground passage led to the summit of the mountain. The ideal spot for a bombardment – Kamata must have chosen it in advance.

  The skirmish was already over. And from the looks of things, it hadn’t lasted long. Pouring out of the passage, the shinobi had taken the Black Jackets by surprise, from behind.

  Tamba was sitting on a stump in the middle of the clearing, smoking his pipe. The other ninja were bringing the dead to him. It was an eerie sight, like something out of the afterlife: silent shadows gliding in pairs above the mist that was creeping across the ground, lifting up the dead men (also black, but with white faces) by their arms and legs and laying them out in rows in front of their leader.

  The titular counsellor counted: four rows with eight bodies in each, and another body started moving, this time a little one – no doubt the old bandit Kamata. Not one had escaped. Don Tsurumaki would never know what had happened to his brigade …

  Shaken by this grim picture, Fandorin didn’t notice that Midori had come back to him. Her husky voice whispered right in his ear.

  ‘I was late anyway, and we hadn’t finished.’

  A lithe arm slipped round his waist and pulled him back towards the entrance of the underground passage.

  ‘I shall go down in the history of jojutsu as a great pioneer,’ Midori whispered, pushing the titular counsellor into the hollow of the tree. ‘I’ve just had an idea for a very interesting composition. I shall call it “The Love of Two Moles”.’

  Even lovelier

  Than two flamingos’ loving –

  The love of two moles.

  THE NOCTURNAL MELDING OF THE WORLD

  Tamba said:

  ‘I know a lot about you, you know little about me. From this there arises mistrust, mistrust produces misunderstanding, misunderstanding leads to mistakes. Ask me everything you wish to know, and I will answer.’

  The two of them were sitting in the open clearing in front of the house and watching the sun rising from behind the plain, filling the world with a rosy glow. Tamba was smoking his little pipe, every now and then stuffing it with a new pinch of tobacco. Fandorin would gladly have smoked a cigar with him, but the box of excellent manilas had been left behind with the baggage, on the side of the crevice that divided the shinobi village from the rest of the world.

  ‘How many of you are there?’ the titular counsellor asked. ‘Only eleven?’

  He had seen eleven people at the site of the massacre. When the earth-stained lovers crawled out of their underground burrow, the shinobi had already concluded their sombre task. The dead had been counted, tipped into a pit and covered over with rocks. Tamba’s people took off their masks and Fandorin saw ordinary Japanese faces – seven male and four female.

  ‘There are four children too. And Satoko, Gohei’s wife. She wasn’t in the battle, because she is due to give birth soon. And three young people, out in the big wide world.’

  ‘Spying for someone?’ asked Erast Petrovich. If the jonin wanted a straight-talking conversation, then to hell with ceremony.

  ‘Studying. One in Tokyo University, studying to be a doctor. One in America, studying to be a mechanical engineer. One in London, studying to be an electrical engineer. We can’t get by without European science nowadays. The great Tamba said: “Be ahead of everyone else, know more than everyone else”. We have been following that precept for three hundred years. And he also said: “The ninja of the Land of Iga are dead, now they are immortal”.’

  ‘But surely Tamba the First was killed together with the others? I was told that their enemies wiped them out to the l-last man.’

  ‘No, Tamba got away, and he took his best pupils with him. He had sons, but he didn’t take them, and they were killed, because Tamba was truly great, his heart was as hard as diamond. The final jonin of the land of Iga chose the worthiest, so that they could revive the Momochi clan.’

  ‘How did they manage to escape from the besieged temple?’

  ‘When the shrine of the goddess Kannon was already burning, the last of the ninja wanted to take their own lives, but Tamba ordered them to hold out until dawn. The day before, one of his eyes had been put out by an arrow and all his men were also covered in wounds, but such is the power of the jonin that the shinobi did not dare to disobey. At dawn Tamba released three black ravens into the sky and left through an underground passage with his two chosen companions. But the others took their own lives, cutting off their faces at the last moment.’

  ‘If there was an underground passage, then why didn’t they all leave?’

  ‘Because then Nobunaga’s warriors would have pursued them.’

  ‘And why was it absolutely necess
ary to wait until dawn?’

  ‘So that the enemy would see the three ravens.’

  Erast Petrovich shook his head, totally bamboozled by this exotic oriental reasoning.

  ‘What have the three ravens got to do with it? What were they n-needed for?’

  ‘Their enemies knew how many warriors were ensconced in the temple – seventy-eight men. Afterwards they would be certain to count the corpses. If three were missing, Nobunaga would have guessed that Tamba had got away and ordered a search for him throughout the empire. But this way the samurai decided that Tamba and two of his deputies had turned into ravens. The besieging forces were prepared for every kind of magic, they brought with them dogs, trained to kill rodents, lizards and snakes. They had hunting falcons with them as well. The falcons pecked the ravens to death. One raven had a wound instead of its right eye and so the ninjas’ enemies, knowing of Tamba’s wound, stopped worrying. The dead raven was displayed at a point where eight roads met and a sign was nailed up: “The Wizard Momochi Tamba, defeated by the Ruler of the West and the East, Protector of the Imperial Throne, Prince Nobunaga”. Less than a year later, Nobunaga was killed, but no one ever discovered that it was Tamba who did it. The Momochi clan was transformed into a ghost, that is, it became invisible. For three hundred years we have preserved and developed the art of ninjutsu. Tamba the First would be pleased with us.’

  ‘And none of the three lines has been interrupted?’

  ‘No, because the head of the family is obliged to select a successor in good time.’

  ‘What does “select” mean?’

  ‘Choose. And not necessarily his own son. The boy must have the necessary abilities.’

  ‘Wait,’ Fandorin exclaimed in disappointment. ‘So you are not a direct descendant of Tamba the First?’

  The old man was surprised.

  ‘By blood? Of course not. What difference does that make? Here in Japan, kinship and succession are based on the spirit. A man’s son is the one into whom his soul has migrated. I, for instance, have no sons, only a daughter. I do have nephews, though, and cousins, once removed and twice removed. But the spirit of the great Tamba does not dwell in them, it dwells in eight-year-old Yaichi. I chose him five years ago, in a village of untouchables. In his grubby little face I saw signs that I thought looked promising. And it seems that I was not mistaken. If Yaichi continues to make the same kind of progress, after me he will become Tamba the Twelfth.’