Spirit of the Ronin

by Travis Heermann

  “I must speak to her.”

  “And what are you going to say?”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “’Tis frightful fire you’re playing with.”

  “Yes, Sensei.”

  “I must think about this. Allow me to finish these delightful onigiri, and I will give you my answer.”

  Ken’ishi sat listening to Hage’s little jaws chomping and licking, the small grunts of satisfaction, filling the saké cup when it was raised, trying to gauge the tanuki’s response from the tenor of his noises.

  Finally, Hage took a deep breath and settled himself. “Very well. I will help you.” He burped again, and his furry jewel sack swelled between his rear legs until it raised him from the earth. He balanced perfectly upon it. “Give me your hand.”

  Ken’ishi extended his hand, and Hage took it in his front paw. A crackle of lightning passed between them, coursing through him from the skin of his fingertips to the deepest bones of his hips and thighs. Ripples washed through the tiny hairs all over him. His skin smoothed and softened. Parts of him plumped and rounded. Others shrank until they disappeared. His hair lengthened and fell around his face, down his back. His robes changed to the coarser weave of a servant’s, but with festive pink camellia blossoms woven into the fabric. His feet and hands became small and dainty.

  “You do make a fine-looking woman.” Hage grinned with satisfaction.

  “Sensei—!” Hage had turned him into a woman once before, but only for a moment. The loss of physical strength, of stature, of power sent his spirit into a brief panic.

  “No arguments this time! You have until sunrise.”

  * * *

  Yasutoki prowled the halls of the castle with a small lamp in hand, as he often did when his mind would not settle. Echoing among the polished wood floors, latticed rice paper walls, heavy wood ceiling beams, the narrow staircases of this great edifice, were sounds of continuing revelry. In their modest chambers, the servants were still drinking and singing to small skin drums and bamboo flutes. Walking allowed his mind to fall still, wherein he could sort and weave threads of information and possibility. The distractions of the servants did not bother him. If he wanted absolute silence, he would descend into the earthen storerooms built into the castle’s foundations.

  Seeing Ken’ishi there at the banquet, all hale and strong again after being tortured and starved into a skeletal shadow of his former self, had pleased Yasutoki. The man had extraordinary powers of recuperation—and the luck of the gods—to be standing there tonight before Lord Tsunetomo and accepting such generous gifts. After everything the ronin had suffered at the ministrations of Goumonshi the torturer, Ken’ishi had been able to recover in time not only to defeat Masoku and steal back Silver Crane, but also to join the battle against the invaders. Extraordinary indeed.

  Green Tiger would never be able to recruit him. Yasutoki knew that now. Ken’ishi would never bend. But could he be recruited by Yasutoki? And the question still remained: how had he first acquired Silver Crane? From his father, he said. But who was Ken’ishi’s father, and how had he come by the sword?

  A furtive step in the hallway ahead of him caught his attention. A servant girl rounded the corner, carrying a tray and a teapot.

  Yasutoki raised an eyebrow. She was strikingly pretty for a lowborn girl, dressed in a fetching kimono woven with delicate pink camellia flowers. She was as pretty as she was familiar, but he could not remember seeing her before. As he occasionally availed himself of the pleasures of the young servant girls, he would have noticed this one.

  Spotting him, the girl started, and turned away.

  “Stop,” he said. “Turn around.”

  “I am sorry, Yasutoki-sama,” she said with a deep bow. “You...you startled me. I must take this special tea to Lady Otomo.”

  “I have not seen you before. What is your name?”

  She hesitated, eyes downcast. “Oiwa, Lord.”

  A stolid, robust peasant woman’s name, and this lithe, pretty thing was none of that. Clearly, her parents had been among the less imaginative. “Come here.”

  Others might not have noticed her steel herself, but Yasutoki had made a life-long study of reading people as if they were calligraphy on a scroll.

  “Is something wrong, Lord?” she said.

  “How long have you worked in the castle?”

  “About a week. My lady added me to the staff in preparation for the New Year celebrations.”

  “Why have I not seen you before? You are very pretty.”

  Her cheeks flamed scarlet, and she tensed. “Begging my lord’s pardon, but I have seen you before. I knew you instantly. Perhaps you have seen me before.”

  “You are indeed so familiar. Have you a brother?”

  “No, Lord.”

  Yasutoki approached her. He would enjoy a bit of feminine distraction tonight.

  He could not visit Tiger Lily tonight. Besides, in the last few days, she had been behaving strangely. He wondered if some aspect of working in the Roasted Acorn disagreed with her. She moved to obey a heartbeat less quickly. After the last two occasions when he bedded her, she had turned sullen and taciturn. In Hakata, she had embraced her life as his flesh puppet, but here, something was changing. Perhaps it was because she did not live in his house. With odious Hatsumi out of the way, his reason for keeping Tiger Lily hidden away had disappeared. Perhaps it was time to bring her into the castle. Would she not make a splendid replacement for Hatsumi? It could be an incredible stroke of fortune for him to replace the hag with one of his most loyal playthings.

  He began to circle Oiwa, admiring her shape and her grace, the curve of her soft neck. He slid a hand up the back of her leg to cup her buttock.

  She gasped and tensed. Her gaze flashed back at him, but it was not with fear. It was anger, quickly squelched by submissiveness. “Please, Lord...” Her voice trembled. “My lady awaits the tea.” Her hands clenched the black lacquered tray.

  He smiled. This one had spirit. He considered how he should respond. Should he break her immediately? Or should he toy with her for a while?

  He stood before her, cupped her chin in his hand, and raised her gaze to meet his. “We must not keep the Lady Otomo waiting. When you have delivered your tea, you will come to my quarters.”

  What happened next was the strangest series of moments he could recall. First of all, her eyes held no fear. He had never encountered any female whose gaze did not betray a number of closely nursed fears. Being the weaker sex and at the mercy of men, none but the most extraordinary women managed to hold any control over their lives. This girl looked at him as a man would, as an equal.

  Second, the moment he lowered the tone of his voice to harness its authoritative power and looked down into her eyes, he saw recognition bloom in them, then a flash of shock, then a blazing roar of suppressed fury.

  He drew back, seized her chin, and studied her face. “Do I know you?”

  At that moment, two castle guards rounded the corner, and froze in deep bows. “Apologies, Yasutoki-sama.”

  Then she twisted her face out of his hand and looked back at her tray, trembling with something that was not fear. “May I go, Yasutoki-sama? I swear on my honor...that I will find you.”

  What a strange thing for a woman to say. “You may go. I will await your return.”

  She bowed. “Yes, Lord.” Her face now was strangely white, with flushed spots on each cheek. Then she hurried away, the tea pot clattering on the tray.

  As he watched her go, her reaction, her recognition of him wormed into his thoughts and lodged there. Some stark realization had struck her in that moment. But how was it then that he could not remember her at all? He would have recalled a girl so comely.

  Were it not for the guards’ presence, he would have halted her. In any case, he would have those answers when she came to his chamber. And if she failed to obey, she would rue that failure.

  Nothing in the world is worth

  One sixteenth pa
rt of the love

  Which sets free our hearts.

  Just as the morning star in

  The dark before dawn

  Lights up the world with its ray,

  So love shines in our hearts and

  Fills us with glory.

  —The Love Poems of Marichiko

  Kazuko held the seashell for a long time, the meticulously painted samurai on the interior of the shell seeming to perform the movements of a dance. The shell’s mother-of-pearl glowed in the lamplight, and her fingers stroked its milky smoothness, so gently sliding over the faint ridges of paint that formed the samurai’s face.

  Lady Yukino cleared her throat. “Which shell do you have?”

  Her three handmaidens shifted in their places around the beautifully woven silk cloth, where lay several other shells face-down. Beside the cloth sat two elegantly lacquered and gilded buckets, both filled with more shells waiting to be drawn.

  Kazuko blinked and wondered how long she had been lost in her own mind. She laid the palm-sized shell on the silk. “A proud, dashing warrior.”

  One of the handmaidens clapped her hands with gentle glee. “Oh! I know where the match is, my lady!”

  Kazuko knew the matching shell to which the handmaiden referred, a painting of a demure, noble maiden, awaiting her lover’s return under sakura branches. Instead, she reached across nearer to where Lady Yukino sat and turned over the image of an oni about to be vanquished. “This one.” The two shells placed side-by-side formed the picture of the samurai facing the fearsome demon in a battle of life and death.

  A handmaiden said, “Forgive me, my lady, but is the proper match for the oni not the Buddha, defeating evil through kindness and compassion?”

  Lady Yukino smiled faintly. “An appropriate match for Lady Kazuko.” The rules of kai-awase allowed the players to form their own associations.

  Everybody knew how Kazuko had been saved from Hakamadare by a ronin who happened along at the critical moment. She had told none of them his name.

  “Of course, my lady,” the handmaiden said, bowing.

  The game went on, with each of them taking turns drawing from the containers and seeking matches from there, or from the shells already in play.

  Kazuko’s hand stroked the shell before her, the image of the fierce, proud samurai, while the other women tittered and chatted.

  The shadow of a servant in the hallway darkened the rice-paper wall. A light knock sounded at the door.

  “Tea, my lady,” came a servant girl’s voice.

  “I did not request any,” she said absently.

  “Oh, but tea would be lovely now,” Lady Yukino said, beaming. “I would love something to warm these old bones.”

  “My lady!” said one of the handmaidens, “You are not old!”

  “Bring the tea,” Kazuko said.

  The servant girl slid the door open and brought in a tray. “I am sorry! I did not know you had guests.”

  “Then who sent the tea?” Kazuko asked. She had never seen this girl before. There was a powerful familiarity in the servant’s face. Kazuko had also never seen a servant dressed in such a pretty robe before, woven with delicate pink camellia blossoms. It was not the kind of fabric within the means of a servant.

  “The servants, my lady. Offering you thanks for being such a good mistress.”

  “Are you new here?” she asked.

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Where do you come from? Your accent is...unique.” Kazuko had heard its like only once before.

  “I am far from home, my lady. Please, the tea. I promise to return with more for your guests.”

  “How did you come into service here? Did Yasutoki find you?” Her voice took on a suspicious edge. As the overseer of the daily workings of the castle, Yasutoki always seemed to hire the prettiest servant girls, regardless of their competence. His motivations had more to do with his carnal pleasures.

  “Yes, my lady. Have I displeased you?”

  Kazuko sighed. “Bring more tea and all will be well.”

  “Yes, my lady.” The girl pressed her forehead to the tatami and departed with peculiar haste.

  Kazuko said, “I will pour for you first, Lady Yukino.”

  “You are too gracious, little sister,” Yukino said with real affection.

  Kazuko took up the teapot and poured a cup of emerald green tea. Tucked between the pot and the cup was a slip of folded paper. She offered the cup to Lady Yukino, then picked up the paper.

  Written on it in charcoal, in a rough hand, was a poem.

  The moon walks too far below

  The Lady of the Stars

  To heed her call.

  He cannot reach her.

  His path is marked.

  Her voice is law.

  The Sanmon Gate is where

  Heaven and Earth might meet

  The next time

  Day and night greet.

  “What is it?” Lady Yukino said, sipping her tea.

  Kazuko’s hand was trembling. “It is...a poem from my husband.”

  A handmaiden clapped her hands and bounced where she sat. “Oh, how romantic! Look how she is overcome with emotion! Oh, my lady, your beauty has inspired him!”

  Kazuko smiled and cleared her throat. “So it seems.” She slipped the paper into her robes. “Well, whose turn is it?” She focused her attention on the shells, avoiding the gentle pressure of Lady Yukino’s gaze.

  * * *

  The most difficult part was the waiting. “Oiwa” would never again appear in the halls of the castle. She would be a ghost, a curiosity, an enigma to which only Ken’ishi would ever know the explanation. He did not dare return to Barrack Six in his womanly guise, so he slipped out of the castle in the midst of the revelries and made his way through town to the temple.

  But he had no coat or blanket and the winter night was cold, so he slipped into the central temple. The golden glow of the Buddha filled the alcove, painted with candlelight. The Buddha’s eyes radiated kindness, and seemed to watch Oiwa as she knelt there and prayed.

  It was a peculiar sensation, having nothing hanging between her thighs, and soft, sensitive mounds on her chest that her arms continually bumped. Damn Hage for the extra-plump bosom.

  Walking across town to the temple had been frightening. Her vulnerability to the crowds of drunken men meandering the town had been a stark fear. Hage had not seen fit to provide Oiwa any weapons. A peasant girl with so much as a dagger would rouse instant suspicion.

  It was the bit of shocking new knowledge, however, that was most perilous. Green Tiger was alive and well, and serving as chamberlain to Ken’ishi’s new master!

  Ken’ishi had never seen anything of Green Tiger’s face except the eyes, but that was enough. There was no question, no mistake. In the eyes, in the voice, in the manner that he had used to try to intimidate Oiwa, Green Tiger had revealed himself. What could be done about it? Yasutoki was a high-ranked member of the Otomo clan, one of Lord Tsunetomo’s most trusted vassals. He could not be accused by a low-ranked samurai, only by someone of comparable or higher rank, and then the testimony of witnesses must be substantial. Of that, Ken’ishi had none. He could attack Yasutoki outright, attempt to kill him, but the most likely outcome, even if he was successful, was that he would forfeit his own life for the murder of a high-ranked Otomo vassal. Would his death be worth it to rid the world of a monster like Green Tiger? Could he stalk Yasutoki on some excursion and kill him when he was vulnerable? Ken’ishi was no assassin. Yasutoki was no warrior who could be challenged to a duel of honor. The difference in their rank meant that Ken’ishi simply could not touch him.

  When his mind had exhausted itself on Green Tiger, it churned onto what he would say if Kazuko appeared. Since their parting, he had had so many conversations with her in his mind, some of them angry, some recriminatory, others because he wanted to show her something, or tell her about something. She had walked his dreams in a hundred different forms. When he had taken up with Kios
é, such thoughts had diminished, but never disappeared. He had often wondered if Kazuko would approve of him, think well of him, or help him if he were in dire need. And so much of the last year had been the direst of need. In his darkest moments, his thoughts had gone to Kazuko, not Kiosé.

  But this was all tiresome, well-trod ground.

  Little Oiwa huddled there before the Buddha on the polished wooden floor of the temple, warming her hands over candles and rubbing warmth back into the rest of her.

  Her eyes felt full of sand by the time the sky began to gray. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, but there would be none of that. Not until after.

  She was tired of admonishments and danger. This all had to end, or she could not go on. Ken’ishi might as well become ronin again and flee to Shikoku or Honshu, where the Otomo clan could not reach. But running away was the most dishonorable of paths. When could he ever stop running then? He had spent too much of his life running.

  It all had to end. Somehow.

  Here in the temple, wearing this female form, Ken’ishi entreated the gods to lift the burden of death from his soul. There were too many deaths haunting him. But had he not done only what he must? He had not been cruel, or vicious, or unjust to the barbarians he had slain. He had done only what men must do in war; he had protected his comrades and fought the enemy.

  In the pre-dawn stillness, monks stirred from their slumber and entered the temple for their morning prayers and chants and meditation. They greeted her with warm smiles and asked if she would like anything to eat. One of them draped a blanket over her shoulders, and it was one of the most welcome kindnesses Ken’ishi could remember. Such kindnesses were few in a world where the currency was strength and prowess. Ken’ishi expected them to ask questions about why they found a woman alone in their temple, but there were none.

  With dawn drawing nigh, Oiwa thanked the monks for their compassion and ventured out to the Sanmon Gate, where she waited, wondering if Kazuko would find a way to come.

  After a time, a gray shadow hurried up the long series of steps, a woman, judging by her shape and gait, not dressed in the rich robes of a lady, but in the threadbare tatters of a desperately poor peasant. Soot besmirched her face and hands.