Gloria Oliver

by In Service Of Samurai

  The circle of guards walked with them, half-jumping down to the deck below to cover him as he descended.

  Toshi felt awkward at all the attention, but a part of him was greatly relieved by it. He watched with detached interest as two of the crew entered the small hallway and inspected it top to bottom. It seemed ludicrous for them to go to such pains for him, a mere peasant. If only Master Shun could have seen this.

  Only after they’d thoroughly checked the hallway and his room was he allowed to go inside.

  Mitsuo and Miko spread his blankets out on his futon and then helped wrap them about him. He huddled inside, feeling colder than normal. Mitsuo bowed to him and then left. Miko lifted the table and set it in front of him before serving him more tea.

  “I thought I was dead.” His voice was raspy and sounded strange to his ears. “If not for you and Mitsuo-san, I would’ve been…”

  Miko glanced up at him. Her eyes glowed for a moment and then dimmed. “You saved yourself, Toshi-kun. If you hadn’t pounded on the wall, none of us would have realized anything was going on until it was too late.”

  He blushed. “Yes, I know that, but you could have chosen not to come,” he argued. “Thank you for saving my life.” He bowed to the floor, his throat constricted with pain and emotion. He’d never been important enough to anyone to save before. He wasn’t sure if he could deal with it. When he sat back up, he noticed Miko’s eyes were sparkling.

  “More tea?” she asked.

  He nodded and then looked away.

  “Your breakfast is very likely ruined, and it will take me a while to make more. I do have some rice cakes left over from yesterday, though,” she said. “They might appease your young man’s appetite until I can ready something a little more appropriate.”

  “You don’t have to go through all the trouble, Miko-san. Rice cakes alone would be fine.” He saw Miko’s head tilt in doubt. “Honest, Miko-san.”

  “Keep warm, then. I’ll only be a moment.” As she stood, there was a knock at the door. He held his breath as it opened. Asaka walked into the room, and Toshi instantly bowed to the floor. Sitting back up, he saw Mitsuo glance into the room before closing the door again.

  “I’ve been advised an incident occurred here today,” Asaka stated. The demon mask’s eye slits filled with green as his voice echoed in the room.

  “That is so, Lord,” Miko answered.

  Asaka stared at the geisha for a moment before riveting his attention back in Toshi’s direction. “Explain.”

  “I was attacked by a—a ninja, Asaka-sama.” Toshi kept his nervous gaze attached to the floor.

  “Why aren’t you dead?”

  He looked up, caught offguard by the question. He felt a chill run down his spine as it occurred to him that perhaps Asaka was disappointed.

  “Miko-san and Mitsuo-san disturbed him before he was able to…” He stared at the floor again as the samurai grunted in acknowledgment.

  Hearing Asaka move, he looked up. To his surprise, the samurai sat down, armor and all, on the room’s cold floor. Silence hung heavily in the room as Toshi waited for him to speak.

  “A number of things have been revealed by the attack upon your person,” he said. “The first and most important of these is the fact we’ve been under constant surveillance and efforts of sabotage by one of our own. This clears up many things. But, don’t concern yourself with it—steps shall be taken to insure your continued safety.”

  Toshi bit his lip, realizing the samurai believed there might be more attacks. The feeling of a cold, undead hand clutching his throat played in his mind. He could smell his own fear.

  “As the search for the proper island continues, four men will be posted to your side whenever you are above,” Asaka said. “Furthermore, you will also be given instruction on the proper use of a sword.” He paused for a moment. “We can’t afford to lose you, so quick proficiency will be expected.”

  Toshi’s gaze rose, his face full of amazement. “But Lord, I’m not—”

  “Samurai?” Asaka made a dismissing gesture with his hand. “That is irrelevant. Your safety must be maintained, and the best way to assure that is by making sure you are capable of defending yourself to some degree, at least until help might arrive. In any case, you won’t be given a true sword, but a boken .

  However, do not make the mistake of underestimating it solely because it isn’t made of steel. When wielded by skilled hands, a boken can prove as deadly as the sharpest katana.”

  Toshi diverted his worried gaze from the samurai’s fierce mask. “Yes, Lord.”

  “Your lessons are to begin immediately. Take care to learn well all that will be shown to you.”

  “Hai.” He bowed to the floor as Asaka stood. He didn’t raise his head until he heard the door close.

  “You have been greatly honored, Toshi-kun,” Miko said.

  He wondered how what she said could possibly be true.

  “Our lord is trusting you to learn, trusting you with the responsibility of helping to protect yourself instead of wrapping you up in a blanket of guards like a helpless concubine.”

  “You truly think so?” He wasn’t so sure he should believe her.

  Her tone was serious when she answered him. “Well, you would make a rather homely concubine.” Her sleeve rose to hide her mask’s mouth.

  Though he tried to, he could do nothing to stop the hot flush settling lightly on his cheeks.

  “Let me go and get your breakfast so you can eat. I’m sure you’ll be very busy soon.”

  Miko was only gone for a few minutes before she returned with the promised rice cakes and a fresh pot of tea. As he forced the last of them down his aching throat, there was a knock. Miko stood up to answer the door. She opened it a crack and looked to see who was there before opening it the rest of the way.

  Mitsuo stood framed by the doorway and bowed to them both. A hint of white light flashed in his dark eye sockets.

  “I have been asked to begin your lessons now.” He stepped inside, and Miko closed the door.

  “I had hoped it would be you, Mitsuo-san,” Miko said. Bright blue light filled her eyes as she turned toward Toshi. “Though he will never admit it, Mitsuo is a superbly skilled swordsman. Many have come from far away just to try to convince him to teach them his Wind Slicing technique.”

  Toshi stared at Mitsuo’s stooped form and tried to picture him as the great man Miko professed him to be. He remembered, then, the visage of the old man who’d rescued him from the ninja.

  Mitsuo bowed slightly in Miko’s direction, acknowledging her flattery but making no comment.

  Toshi stood up as Miko carried what few objects he had in his room to the far corners of it. Without preamble, Mitsuo approached him and held out a curving piece of carved wood.

  “This is now yours,” he said. “You will keep it with you at all times, under all circumstances, even while you sleep.”

  Trying not to hesitate, Toshi took the offered boken.

  “Some will tell you this is just a stick, a toy sword, but they’re wrong. As of this moment, you’ll work at making that boken a part of you, an extension of yourself. You must work at making its use as natural to you as it is for you to use your legs for walking.”

  From where his katana normally hung, Mitsuo drew a boken of his own. Its scarred surface spoke of years of use, of an uncountable number of battles. Mitsuo’s gaze never strayed from Toshi’s face, even as he began to whirl the wooden blade. With dazzling speed, the stooped samurai spun it before Toshi’s widening eyes. A white flash in Mitsuo’s eyes drew his attention even as he felt a soft tap on each of his shoulders. He’d never even seen the blade as it had thrust out to touch him.

  Mitsuo said nothing as he stopped what he’d been doing and took a step back. Miko clapped happily from the corner in which she’d chosen to sit. Before long, she was laughing as well at the continued expression of wonder etched on Toshi’s face.

  “Miko-san, if you would take these?” Mitsuo
pointed to Toshi’s blankets.

  Still too amazed to protest, Toshi didn’t stop the geisha as she took all of his blankets and pulled the futon to the side. He scrambled to put on his sandals, already shivering from his lack of protection from the cold. With prickles of excitement, he emulated the position Mitsuo showed him.

  The old samurai had him repeat the patterns he taught over and over again. The seemingly simple maneuvers worked muscles in his arms and legs he’d never used before. Each movement demanded his absolute concentration. Mitsuo insisted he mimic him perfectly.

  By the time they stopped for lunch a thin sheen of sweat covered Toshi from head to toe. Shivering beneath his returned covers, he tried hard to dispel the cold that had seeped into him despite his exertions. He praised the gods for the warmth of well-made tea.

  After lunch, he repeated the maneuvers he’d learned that morning. He followed through each of them, frustrated by his lack of grace and skill. He felt like a monkey trying to pretend he was a crane. Miko encouraged him and sometimes outright embarrassed him. Mitsuo didn’t dissuade her from doing so, or ever complain when he fumbled the routines. Instead, he would smack Toshi’s arms and legs into their correct positions with his boken. He had him do the routines over and over, smacking him without a word to correct his movements and then changing to another pattern without warning.

  By dinnertime, Toshi felt thoroughly achy and sore. Mitsuo left him then, pausing at the door to tell him he had done tolerably well.

  The praise barely registered in his brain, though a part of him was pleased by it. Mostly, he wanted nothing more than to give in to his aching weariness.

  “Your bath water should be almost ready,” Miko said. “I’ll go get it for you. I’ll only be a moment.”

  “Hai.” He took the subtle hint and began undressing. Once she returned with the water, he felt her gaze on him throughout the entire bath. It made him feel flattered and embarrassed all at the same time.

  As he dressed, Miko placed a fresh cup of tea on the table. Gratefully drinking it down, he sat still as she stepped around him to comb out his hair. “Miko-san?”

  “We’ll be exploring a second island tonight,” she said. “What we sought wasn’t to be found on the first.”

  Though he tried to fight against it, his curiosity overcame him. “Does everyone know what we’re looking for?”

  Miko sighed. “Yes and no. We know what it is, but not why it’s important. Our mission was solely to find the object and deliver it, not actually understand what it is for. We heard many rumors of strange things going on when we arrived to receive our mission, but it is hard to say if the two are related. You see, the Daimyo , the great lord of the area, had vanished months before. Many said he had been killed, while others thought he had purposely disappeared as a test to see what his three main vassals would do in his absence. We weren’t there long enough to learn much more than that, though. And only Asaka-sama was allowed to see the missing Daimyo’s main vassal. I believe Asaka-sama was told what purpose the object holds; but even after all this time he has never spoken of it, though it has already resulted in more spilled blood than any item should ever be worth.”

  He searched for some way to ask what it looked like without seeming to. He’d come no closer to finding a way to do so when he felt the telltale sensation announcing the surfacing of the ship.

  “Come. We’ll want to get you above before they’re ready to leave.”

  He put on his sandals as Miko took charge of his blankets. Feeling a little awkward, he still made sure to bring his boken along.

  Toshi followed Miko out of the room and said nothing as Mitsuo joined them. Toward the end of the small hallway, they were met by three of the crew. They surrounded him as they all exited into the starry darkness outside.

  Nervous and a little tense from both the guards’ presence and the boken in his hands, he climbed up onto the higher deck. All of them bowed to Asaka, who was seated; and he acknowledged them with a small nod.

  The skiff was already being brought up from below even as the rest of the crew readied themselves to go to shore. As he waited for Miko to set out his blankets, Toshi turned to look past two of his guards to try to catch a glimpse of the island before them. He couldn’t make out much about it in the darkness, but he doubted it would amount to much in daylight. This brought a suddenly disquieting thought to him. How long had it been since he’d seen the sun? How long had it been since he’d felt its warming rays on his skin? How much longer might it be before he would do so again, if ever?

  He slumped down onto his blankets, looking at no one. Surely, he only felt like this because he was so tired. Yet, what he’d give to sit for an hour under an open sunlit sky. He would be free soon; his time would come. He just had to remember that. He told himself this over and over until he started to believe it. At least he’d be able to sleep under an open sky. It would have to do for now.

  Lying down, he couldn’t help but notice when Miko left him to have some quiet words with Asaka. His ears burned with curiosity, but he couldn’t even catch a hint of what was being said. Their conversation didn’t last long. She returned to his side, and the samurai stood to go to the deck below.

  Chapter 11

  Toshi stood up, his muscles protesting, and took a deep lungful of the pre-dawn air. He stared for a moment toward the east, knowing he was about to miss another sunrise. “Miko-san?”

  “Yes?”

  Her eyes flashed toward him making him wonder if she already sensed this would be one of his uncomfortable questions.

  “Why don’t you stay up during the day?” He’d asked her this once before but hoped this time she would choose to answer.

  Miko didn’t reply immediately, but instead busied herself for a few moments with the folding of his blankets.

  “That’s a little hard to explain. You see, we don’t know if it’s possible for us to withstand the touch of the sun. None of us has ever tried it. We’ve always instinctively felt it would be bad for us, somehow. How and why, I do not know. But an inner dread against doing it has been in all of us from the very beginning.

  We were made in darkness, and it’s to darkness we belong.”

  He felt a chill run down his spine.

  “So, since we don’t want to test the mercy of the gods,” she added. “Let’s get you below before we push our luck too far.”

  How could Miko and the others stand to live that way? He hoped the gods would have mercy on him and not allow him to become one of them.

  He, Miko and the guards had just descended to the lower deck when the last of the crew returned from the third island. Asaka was the last to board, his twisted mask scanning the horizon as if looking for something only he would be able to see.

  Toshi followed the geisha into the ship’s interior. Mitsuo led the way, while the other three guards stayed by the entrance to the hallway.

  “Go on ahead without me, Toshi-kun,” Miko said. “I’ll join you in a few minutes with some breakfast.”

  “Hai.” After watching her disappear into the room next to his, he followed Mitsuo to his own quarters.

  Mitsuo double-checked his room and then left him alone. Hurrying to his futon, he piled his blankets about him. He wondered about the type of life that had been forced on all those here, not only by their duty but also by their lord. One was supposed to give his life, if necessary, for his lord, but to be expected to serve him even after death? He wished he could understand all this better.

  As he drank the miso soup Miko brought for him, he realized with a chill the number of times he’d come close to joining the ship’s crew on a permanent basis. If the ninja had killed him, would he have been trapped here as well? Or did his death have to be by Asaka’s hand so that the samurai’s strong will would keep him from going on? And which would he prefer?

  From these questions rose another, one he’d not yet had a chance to ask. Finishing his soup, he stared at his empty bowl in apprehension as he tried to figure
out the answer for himself. Eventually, he gave up, knowing he couldn’t.

  “Miko-san?”

  “You have a question, Toshi-kun?” She looked over at him, a teasing tone lacing her words.

  He hesitated. He decided rather than blurt out his question as he usually did he’d try to work gradually up to it.

  “There’s something I don’t quite understand. I’ve tried to figure it out, but I can’t. I was hoping you might be able to help me with it.”

  “No. You can forget it,” she said. “I won’t divulge my age to you. I have a reputation to protect.”

  He stared at the geisha in open-faced confusion. “What?”

  Miko began to laugh. “I’m sorry, Toshi-kun. I just couldn’t help myself. You looked so serious I just couldn’t resist. Though, in reality it doesn’t seem like I’ve brought about much of an improvement—that is, unless you were thinking of going out and catching flies.”

  He realized his mouth was hanging open. He snapped it closed. He felt his face redden as he sat beneath her amused stare.

  “Go ahead, Toshi-chan,” she prompted. “You can ask me your serious question now. I promise to behave myself.”

  It took him several seconds to gather his scattered wits. He didn’t miss her use of the personal endearment on his name. He decided to stop trying to work up to what he wanted.

  “Miko-san, why would the ninja decide to try to kill me once we’d reached the islands? Why didn’t he try before, when I was still sleeping here? He could have done it easily then. He could have done it when he stole the map, but he didn’t. Why? There was no reason to wait, was there? Even without me here, I’m sure the steersman could have probably gotten you all back. Why try now?” He held his breath, waiting to see what the geisha would say.

  “That’s more than one question.”

  “Miko-san!”

  Her laughter filled the room, her soft bells ringing as her body quivered with merriment. Though her laughter eventually subsided, he didn’t hold much hope his questions would be answered. He was wrong.

  “I have pondered these very questions for some time myself,” she said seriously. “To be honest, I had expected you to ask me about them before now.” There was a tinge of amusement mixed with mischief in her voice. “Why he didn’t try to kill you before is something I can only speculate about. No one ever truly knows the mind of the ninja.