by Steve Bein
Shichio ran his hand over his iron brow. “The monk vexes me,” he said. “His very existence makes me want to scream.” Then he laid his knife against the largest roll on Mio’s belly and drew it across with exquisite languor.
“How?” Shichio said, ignoring Mio’s gurgling, wordless moans. “The Okumas are the key to reaching the monk, but how can I put an end to the Okumas? No doubt the boy is already plotting to kill me. And can I kill him? No. Hashiba even denied me the use of his assassins. Can you believe it? He favors the boy over me. He said the little Bear Cub has big bear balls. Those were his exact words. How could he say such a thing?”
He looked back at Mio, who spat up a mouthful of blood. “You agree with me, don’t you? I can hardly let the boy live. No doubt the monk told him my secret. And what of his family? The monk is under their protection. How can I allow them to live? You’d do the same, wouldn’t you? If you were in my position, you’d kill them all. Yes, you would.”
He pushed the knife through one of the fat rolls on Mio’s thigh and left it there. The hilt quivered every time the fat man twitched. “I’m going to finish this with my own sword, I think. It seems the more appropriate choice.” He stood over Mio and drew his blade. “It will be no challenge when I decide to take your head, you know. I’ll just chop it off, won’t I? Yes, I will. But how do I decapitate a clan whose head has simply decided to leave it?”
His sword dropped idly toward Mio’s neck. It was more than sharp enough to kill even with only its own weight behind it, but Shichio’s intent was only to nick Mio’s remaining ear. But that wretched Okuma boy had unsettled him even more than he’d thought, for he missed the ear completely. Instead he cut the rope binding Mio’s neck to the table.
The fat man took a deep gulping breath. He made a strangled, gurgling noise, then a horrid red geyser erupted out of his mouth, followed by a desperate gasp. His sputtering sent flecks of blood everywhere. Shichio didn’t dare think of what a mess it made of his kimono.
“Do you see?” he said. “You samurai are no different from the rest of us. You claim to be fearless of death, but when you’re choking on your own blood, you cough it up just like anyone else, neh? Yes. Yes, you do. Samurai, peasants, nobles, outcasts; we’re all the same. Even the Bear Cub will die the same as anyone else, and to hell with all his vaunted nobility.”
Shichio paced around the table, willfully ignoring the blood on the floor. It reeked. Somehow Mio’s blood overwhelmed even the fetid stink of the slaughterhouse, which was just next door. “How to decapitate a clan that has no head? It’s almost a koan, isn’t it? Beheading the headless.”
He looked at his sword. “Who commands the Okumas now? The cub’s deranged mother, I suppose. The poor creature. She lost her husband and her eldest in the space of a year, didn’t she? Yes, she did, and now her youngest son has forsaken her too.”
Like a bolt of lightning, a plan suddenly flashed before Shichio’s eyes. He only caught a glimpse, but the vision of it lingered in his mind. “That’s it, isn’t it, Mio? Yes, it is. She’s unmarried.”
He sliced off another flopping fish, this one from just under Mio’s armpit. “Do you see the brilliance of it? I needn’t decapitate the Okumas; I need only to give them a new head. If I marry the dowager, I become head of the clan.”
The thought of it sent chills down Shichio’s spine. “But do I dare? If I marry her, I become one of you. Samurai. The caste I want most to extinguish. And yet . . . .”
He laid his blade carefully along the length of Mio’s right thigh, poised to cut not one but three of the bulging rolls of flesh. “If I were to do this thing”—he craned his head to meet Mio’s gaze—“I remove that little cub from his house forever. I earn myself name, station, and land. Oh! And when I take the Okuma estate, I also acquire that old traitor’s monastery, and then I can kill him whenever I like. Even you can see the beauty in that, neh? I win three prizes in one stroke.”
With that he let lashed out with his katana, slicing off three fat gobbets in one blow.
Suddenly the table crashed sideways. A fat foot struck Shichio in the chin. Fragments of rope flew through the air, and ribbons of blood too. The back of Shichio’s head bounced hard off the wall, and when he could see through the stars Mio Yasumasa was gone.
There was a huge, blood-streaked hole where the fat man had crashed through the shoji. Some way off there came a wooden, splintering crash—Mio, probably bashing his way through another sliding wall, far enough now that he posed no immediate threat.
Shichio stood. His gore-stained clothes clung to him, making him want to retch. He stepped outside into the cool night air, seeking respite from the coppery stench of the table. Footprints, elephantine and bloody, described a stomping path toward the slaughterhouse. Fitting, Shichio thought. Let him die with the rest of the swine.
It took him a long moment to sort out what had happened. His final cut must have bitten deeper than he’d intended, slicing through rope as well as flesh. He’d inadvertently freed Mio’s right leg.
It was an understandable mistake. Shichio had never been a practiced hand at torture. Up until tonight he’d never been able to stomach it beyond the first few cuts. Somehow the Bear Cub’s blade had changed that: it released some demonic bloodlust latent in the mask, a thirst so intense that it could overwhelm Shichio’s revulsion. And even if Shichio had been an expert, Mio was so bloated that it was impossible to see all of the ropes. Still, it amazed Shichio to think of how much strength the fat man had. Even after losing all that blood, he still had the strength to tip the table, to aim a kick Shichio’s head, to brace his legs firmly enough to burst his remaining bonds.
Shichio stroked the sharp corner of his mask’s broken fang, the one the Bear Cub had nicked. He wondered what to do next. The fat man wouldn’t make it far. He was naked, unarmed, and bleeding horribly. There was nowhere for him to hide; he was simply too noticeable in his current state.
On the other hand, Shichio had indulged his habit of thinking out loud. The fat man had heard everything. If he somehow managed to reach the Bear Cub . . .
No. He had no tongue.
Shichio laughed out loud. It was unthinkable that Mio would find the boy—for that matter, it was hardly imaginable that he hadn’t collapsed already—but if karma allowed Daigoro to find the fat man before Shichio did, it wouldn’t matter; Mio could relay no secrets.
In any case, Daigoro would certainly have to find him before sunrise. No one—not even a mammoth of Mio’s size—could survive more than a few hours with such hideous wounds. What was more, Daigoro had left the Jurakudai three days ago, and he was mounted while Mio was on foot. And of course Mio would not think to run to Daigoro. He would run to Hashiba, where his wounds would be recognized on sight. Hashiba knew the fruits of his table all too well; he’d sentenced dozens of men to this fate.
And that meant Mio would have recognized the table too. Shichio hadn’t thought of that: unlike anyone else who had ever been lashed down to the table, Mio had seen its results before. He must have known what was coming from the moment he came to, yet all he’d shown Shichio was vitriol and spite. Not the slightest trace of fear.
Shichio could not help but marvel at that. Nor did the poetry of the moment escape him. How many times had the samurai been compared to the cherry blossom, beautiful precisely because it died at the height of its beauty? It was worthy of a song: Mio, the most honored of samurai, and Shichio, gaining his first shred of respect for Mio only after he’d killed him.
Hashiba felt otherwise. He’d honored Mio from the start, and that meant his initial reaction would be harsh. There was no way of guessing whether it would be sharp words or sharper swords; Hashiba was nothing if not capricious. Shichio knew he would have to be swift in presenting the evidence he’d fabricated of Mio’s treason, or else risk facing execution himself. But he was a practiced hand at making others believe what he wanted them to believe, and it was not as if Mio Yasumasa could speak in his own defense.
No, there was little to worry about. “But,” Shichio said, alone in the moonlit garden, “you are nothing if not thorough. It wouldn’t do to leave things to chance, would it?” Shichio cleaned the blood from his blade and sheathed it. “No. No, it wouldn’t.”
He sent for Jun and began composing the orders in his mind. Riders would be sent to every gate and bridge in the city, looking for the fat man. And—why not?—for the now-nameless Bear Cub as well. If the boy hadn’t left the city, and if Mio somehow found him . . .
Shichio smiled. “Why, that would be the best of all, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would. Execute the boy for collaborating with a known traitor.”
Suddenly Shichio wished he’d let Mio go on purpose. He couldn’t have laid a better trap, and he was a little disappointed in himself that he hadn’t planned it that way from the start.
39
The Kamo River gurgled at Daigoro’s feet, though he could hardly see the water. Across the river a fierce red glow loomed over the rolling line of the horizon: the sun’s last light above the hilltops, lingering in spite of the stars that had already begun to multiply. They would overwhelm her soon enough. Here and there a bush warbler whistled its melancholic song. To Daigoro they were singing an elegy for the day.
He’d come down to the riverbank three nights in a row, relishing the relative cool after sweltering days, hoping to find beauty somewhere in the world and finding only emptiness. Katsushima had described him as forlorn. And well I should be, Daigoro thought, watching the sun’s last light die out. I haven’t the faintest clue how to draw Shichio out without angering Hideyoshi. If I kill Shichio without Hideyoshi’s leave, I make myself an enemy of the mightiest, most capricious warlord in the empire—and worse yet, Hideyoshi might well extend his vengeance to Akiko, my mother, and the rest of my family. We made our truce over Glorious Victory Unsought, not over me decapitating the regent’s favorite peacock.
Daigoro knew he could not return home until Shichio was dead, but neither could he stay on the outskirts of Kyoto. Katsushima had been right to suggest that they could burrow themselves in the city—there were so many people to hide behind, so many out-of-the-way places—but that ruse would only last for so long. Shichio had hundreds of men at his command, and even if he did not, he had only to offer a few coins for any word of the crippled boy with the enormous odachi. Sooner or later, news of Daigoro’s whereabouts would reach him, and once that happened, the hunt was on.
Daigoro’s only chance was to draw Shichio out somehow, but sheltered as he was in the regent’s shadow, Shichio might as well have been hiding in an iron fortress. Daigoro could not imagine how he might strike Hideyoshi’s top adviser without striking Hideyoshi himself. Katsushima had suggested calling on the Wind, but Daigoro wasn’t desperate enough to resort to that yet.
Footsteps approached through the tall grass behind him and Daigoro whirled around to see who was coming.
“Good news,” Katsushima said. He held up two large sacks, flat on the bottom with rigid, bowl-shaped lumps inside.
“Our armor?” said Daigoro.
“Yes. He finished early.”
Katsushima set one of the sacks right next to Daigoro, then sat down on the other side of it. “Nice night.”
Daigoro grunted something noncommittal and opened the drawstrings. Inside the sack was his Sora breastplate, its russet Okuma lacing removed and replaced with white, the color of death. In fact, everything replaceable had been replaced in white: the silk cording, the leather straps, the padded damask, all of it. Even the steel plating had been relacquered in white. Daigoro’s helmet was in the sack too, nestled inside the breastplate with the sune-ate, the kote, and the rest of the smaller pieces.
“It hardly feels like mine anymore.”
“It’s yours, Daigoro. And it’s far easier to dye if it’s white. We may need to disguise ourselves again.”
Daigoro started laying the pieces out on the grass. “I know,” he said. “And in the meantime, I guess it’s appropriate enough that we’re dressing ourselves in funeral colors.”
“You need to lighten up. I’m telling you, a good sporting woman will have you in fine fettle in no time at all.”
Daigoro shook his head and began to bind his sune-ate to his shins.
“What are you doing?” said Katsushima.
“Standing by my word. I told you already: as long as Shichio lives, I am at war. I may as well dress for the occasion.”
Katsushima smirked. “Fair enough. But armoring yourself now is overmuch, is it not? Tonight we go only to our beds. Do you intend to sleep in your armor?”
“I would if I could.”
“Daigoro—”
“We’re targets, Katsushima. For us the whole countryside is a battlefield.”
“All right, all right. But we’re only going down the road—”
“My father was killed only riding along the road. And he had no enemy so powerful as Shichio. Going unarmored is a luxury I can no longer afford.”
Daigoro slipped his right arm into its kote and tied it fast, examining it as he did so. The ruddy damask padding that lined the inside had been replaced with white, but where the original had silken bears pacing across its surface, the replacement was a simple, unadorned basket weave. That made sense, he supposed; Kyoto’s weavers might take days just to learn the bear pattern, a pattern that Okuma weavers knew from memory. Even so, Daigoro regretted the change. Even in the waning light he could feel the difference, and the problem was not that this coarse fabric was suited for common stock; rather, it was the thought of his family’s bear crest heaped in the rubbish bin of some Nishijin weaving-house.
He donned the second kote, lamenting the fact that even his Sora armor couldn’t protect him as much as he’d like. Wearing his full oyoroi wouldn’t do—it would only serve to call attention to himself—but he had resolved to wear every piece he could reasonably hide under his clothing. That ruled out all the large pieces save the Sora breastplate. It felt strange to be armored only partially, but then everything about his new situation felt strange. He was Daigoro but not Okuma Daigoro. He was married and yet he might never see his wife again. Some not-so-distant day he would become a father, but in all likelihood he would never know when it happened.
Daigoro slipped between the clamshell pieces of his Sora yoroi and pulled the straps until the heavy steel pressed firmly on his chest and his back. Last came his new haori, the overrobe he’d purchased the day before, right after he and Katsushima had left their yoroi with the armorer. With its wide, white, pointed shoulders, the haori made Daigoro feel as if he had wings, and between the haori and the added girth of his armor, he thought perhaps he no longer looked like a little boy. For the first time in his life he actually looked like a samurai. And it would not last long. He’d scarcely gotten used to shaving the top of his head, and now he would have to stop. It was the samurai’s birthright to maintain the caste’s traditional topknot and shaven pate, but Daigoro had given up his birthright when he’d renounced his name. For a few months Okuma Daigoro had been samurai, a man of age, the lord of his house. Now he did not know what he was.
“What do you think?” he said. “How do I look?”
Katsushima inspected him. “You look like a lordly man who will sleep alone tonight.”
“Be serious.”
Katsushima laughed and said, “By the buddhas, the world is not only shadow; there is sunlight too.” Seeing Daigoro’s reaction, he forced a straight face. “Very well. In all seriousness, you do not appear to be armored, and in all seriousness I think you will go to bed tonight without a woman to play your flute.”
Daigoro slung Glorious Victory over his back, thrust his wakizashi back through his belt, and led Katsushima back to their shelter for the evening.
Three nights earlier, when they’d left the Jurakudai, Daigoro had found himself at a loss. He’d never had to hide from anyone before. In fact, in his whole life thus far he’d always been able to get what he wanted simply by ann
ouncing his name. To go abroad without announcing himself was awkward, and to actively deceive people about his identity came as naturally to him as riding horseback came to a fish. He remembered all too well saying, “Goemon, I have no idea what to do or where to go.”
And he remembered all too well the wry smile Katushima had given him in return. “At last,” Katsushima had said, “we come to my territory.”
Hence the brothel.
It embarrassed Daigoro even to cross the threshold. Jasmine perfume and opium smoke had worked their way into the very woodwork, so that Daigoro was overcome by the smell of the place. Girlish giggling was constantly in the background, punctuated now and then by the whistle of a shakuhachi, the humming harmony of a shamisen, or the staccato rhythm of some unseen man grunting like a pig.
Daigoro did not think of himself as a prude. Back when he was at home he’d been well aware that he could have visited any pleasure house in Izu on any night he wished, and the only difference in being married was that as manager of the household finances, Akiko would have been the one who paid the bill. She would have understood as any wife would have understood—and she’d be all the more understanding, Daigoro reminded himself, if he availed himself of the women here, so many ri from home. But the smells and sounds of this house reminded him all too vividly of the pleasure house Ichiro had taken him to visit when they were boys. His cheeks burned as he remembered the embarrassment, the woman’s cold hand slipping down into his hakama, her fingertips finding the wasted tissues of his thigh on their way to what they sought. Her face had been so close to his that he could feel her breath, smell it, taste it. Had she been any farther away, he might not have noticed her wince when her fingers touched his thigh. It was a vanishingly small expression, and she’d recovered instantly, but still he’d noticed. That same embarrassment was reborn in his face even now.
