Blood Ninja (12 page)

Then one of the other voices said, “The traitor ninja turned him, Lord Oda.”

“Turned him?” said Oda, horrified
.

“Yes. It’s much harder to kill a vampire child than a human child.”

There was the sound of a person sucking on their teeth, thoughtfully, then a sigh. “Still,” said Oda. “You failed, whether the boy was turned or not. You have shamed your clan, and my family name.” There was a loud slashing sound, then screams, then silence
.

Ito stood for a long time, worrying. He had been summoned; he was expected quickly. And yet Oda was clearly involved in some kind of dispute, perhaps with his retainers. Perhaps it would be best to come back later? No. His presence was requested. Ito swallowed, and found that his throat was constricted and dry. He raised his hand and knocked, lightly, on the door. A small part of his mind hoped that something was wrong, that he would be sent away and told that Oda was not available today. Then he could polish the sword a little more, work on the etching to the hand guard so that it caught the light just so
.

“Come in,” said Lord Oda
.

Ito entered, keeping his eyes low so as not to cause offense
.

“Look up,” said the lord
.

Ito looked up and saw, to his astonishment, that Lord Oda was smiling. The daimyo stood in front of a tall shoji window from which the paper had been ripped, so that he was lit by a shaft of light as sharp and narrow as the sword in Ito’s hands. Several retainers stood against the walls, watching. In the middle of the room was a shaven-headed man who stood with his hands bound behind his back, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. He was trembling
.

Lying on the ground, curled in various attitudes of agony, were a number of men in black clothes, obviously dead, their faces obscured by black silk scarves and hoods. Smoke rose in lazy spirals from their bodies and hung in dark motes in the bright light
.

Ninjas
.

“Don’t look on them,” said Oda. “They are unworthy to be looked on, or remembered. They failed in their duty to me. I trust that will not be true of you. They say you are the best sword smith in the region. That had better be true.” He waved a hand, and retainers began dragging the bodies from the room
.

Oda held out his left hand to Ito, and for a moment the sword smith just stood there, mouth open, staring at the lord’s shriveled right arm, which hung uselessly at his side. Ito saw that the rumors were true: Lord Oda
was
lame. They said he had been struck in the shoulder with a sword while fighting in the glorious rout of Yoshimoto’s larger army. The wound had severed tendons and nerves; now the arm was thinner than the other and Nobunaga couldn’t use it
.

Someone had told Ito that it was a woman who had wounded Lord Oda—a ninja woman, at that. But he tried not even to
think
this idea, so blasphemous was the suggestion that a mere woman could inflict such harm on the great daimyo. Already, he had half-convinced himself that the report had been a dream
.

It was also said—and Ito still remembered this part—that the lord’s private physician had begun the preparations for an amputation, Oda himself being unconscious at the time. When the unfortunate doctor began to cut into the flesh of the damaged arm, Oda had
awoken suddenly and flown into one of his legendary rages. Taking his sword, with which he had killed so many sword masters in so many duels, granting him the title of sword saint, he had chopped off each of the physician’s limbs, leaving only his head and torso. Then he had cauterized the wounds with a brand from the fire, and instructed his servants to bring the doctor back to the castle, there to prop him on a seat behind a curtain and feed and water him whenever required. In this way, said Oda, he would have the perfect physician: one capable of dispensing advice but not action. For action was the preserve of the samurai class, and was only to be entered into on the express orders of the lord
.

After that, Lord Oda had canceled all his activities other than the most essential, such as eating, sleeping, and torturing informants. He had dedicated his waking hours to training his left arm, making it as strong as his right had been. After a month, the great sword fighter Musashi had sought Oda out, thinking the time had come for the greatest of sword saints to be brought low. Oda had disarmed him, then dishonored him by ordering him to remain alive, and refusing him the release of suicide
.

The sword saint had discovered something new: His left hand might be weaker, but it was faster
.

Lord Oda coughed, and Ito, startled, raised his eyes from the wasted arm to the lord’s face. Oda glowered at him, proffering his hand, and Ito understood that the lord wished him to hand over the sword. He unwrapped the soft oiled fabric and took out the sword, giving it to the daimyo
.

“A sword of blood, or a sword of peace?” asked Oda. “Should I find a stream in which to test it?”

Ito thought how to answer. He had trained under the great sword smith Muramasa, who was known for creating bloodthirsty blades. But Muramasa himself had trained under Masamune, known for his peaceful weapons. It was said that one day Muramasa grew too bold and claimed that he was as good as his master. So Masamune took him to a stream in the mountains, next to a forest of great fir trees. He lowered his best sword, Yawakara-Te, or Gentle Hands, into the water,
and bade Muramasa do the same with his own blade, Juuchi Fyu, or Ten Thousand Winters. The pupil’s sword cut everything that flowed toward it. Fish, leaves, twigs were all severed and split asunder. Yet nothing was cut by Gentle Hands—indeed, the leaves and fish simply swished around it, unharmed. Even the air hissed as it glided gently past the blade
.

After a while, Muramasa began to scoff at his master: Surely no one could claim to be a great sword smith, whose swords would cut nothing, not even the air. But just then a monk was passing on the opposite bank. Masamune hailed him, keeping Gentle Hands all the while in the current next to his pupil’s sword
.

When they had exchanged pleasantries, the monk asked Masamune if he knew of a way to cross the stream, for it was very deep in parts and not easily traversed. “I’m afraid not,” said Masamune. “But please, tarry awhile to judge a contest between myself and my apprentice. Which of these swords would you say is greater?” The monk kneeled on the bank and watched as Ten Thousand Winters sliced through frogs, fish, and leaves, and Gentle Hands only stirred up eddies in the water. Threads of blood billowed in the water from Ten Thousand Winters, as if red silk ribbons had been tied to the blade
.

“That sword is greater,” the monk said, pointing at Gentle Hands. “The other is a brutal sword, good only for killing, and indiscriminate. It will cut a butterfly as happily as it will sever a head. But this sword”—he gestured again at Gentle Hands—“is more thoughtful. This is a sword that would hesitate before cutting that which is innocent or undeserving of harsh treatment.”

Muramasa scoffed again and drew Ten Thousand Winters from the stream, sheathing it. “My master has simply made a sword that is blunt,” he said. “Anyone could do that.”

At that, Masamune turned suddenly and whipped Gentle Hands around in a circle. The blade passed through the trunk of a great oak tree behind the pair, as if the trunk—which was as wide as two men standing side by side—were made of water. Masamune sheathed the sword, then walked to the other side of the tree and, very gently, pushed. It fell over the stream with a loud crash, its trunk neatly severed. The
monk bowed, and used the new bridge to cross to the side where the two sword smiths stood, one a little more flushed than the other
.

Lord Oda blinked, and Ito realized that he had taken too long to reply. A sword of peace, or a sword of blood? If he said “peace” he would be true to the legend about his master and his master’s own master, for had not Masamune won the contest with his sword of peace? And had not Muramasa changed his style of construction in the years following, to make his blades more careful? Yet Oda was a fearsome general and known for his martial prowess. He might be insulted to be given a peaceful weapon. Worse, though, would be to call it a blade of blood and risk insulting the lord even more, for as a Zen Buddhist, Oda was supposed not to kill anyone
.

Ito took a deep breath. “It is neither, my lord. That is to say, it is either. Whatever you wish it to be, this sword will become. If you wish it to kill, it will kill. If you wish it to be just, it will be just.” Ito was a craftsman, and saw no point in lying about his skill. “It is the greatest sword I ever made.”

Oda grunted and lifted the blade, examining the whole length of gleaming steel. He hefted it and gave it a tentative spin in his hand. Then, without warning, he turned and decapitated the prisoner standing in the middle of the room. The man’s body crumpled to the ground. His head hit the floor and bounced, surprisingly loudly, to the wall. When it stopped, the eyes were facing Ito. The sword smith saw them blink several times, even with the head separated like that from the body. Blood gushed from the neck. A thin line of drool hung from the lower lip. Then the eyelids froze and the open, staring eyes fixed Ito with a look that was part shock and part acceptance
.

“Sharp enough,” said Oda. “How much do you want for it?”

Ito looked around wildly, yet everywhere he looked the eyes of the severed head seemed to follow him, challenging him to come up with an acceptable reply
.

This was bad
.

The retainer, when he had come, had agreed on a price, of course. This was why Ito was stumped. He had thought the deal was done
.

An architect in Oda’s employ, hired to rebuild a shrine on the Oda
land, had been stabbed to death when he’d requested an insultingly high price. A merchant had been killed for offering Oda a silk kimono for his wife that had previously been offered to Yoshimoto’s concubine
.

If Ito asked for too much, he would be considered grasping, and Oda would consider it his right to demand his life. He was no samurai, either, so could expect no second to take his head. Yet if he asked for too little, he might insult the lord by suggesting that he couldn’t afford the best, by undervaluing the perfect sword that even now was spinning in the daimyo’s hands
.

What to do? There were only two choices, and both were impossible. He had to think of the exact right price, one that would match the quality of the sword but not appear greedy … and one that would please his wife. Ito had it in mind to buy her a beautiful painted fan, of the type that she had admired on their last visit to Edo
.

“You’re wasting my time,” said Oda
.

Ito wasn’t even aware of the sword cutting through his neck, and the first he knew that it had been severed was when he was suddenly looking up from the ground at his headless body, which fell first to its knees, then toppled forward and hit the stone floor with a soft
poof
sound
.

There had been a third choice all along, Ito realized before everything went black. He should have answered more quickly, naming the first price that had entered his head
.

Taro watched through the twin slits as the palanquin turned onto the road for the mountains. Soon they were skirting Nagoya’s hill, the road almost seeming to turn away deferentially from the majesty of the castle, and the formidable reputation of Lord Oda.

After a short distance they crossed a stone bridge over a swift-flowing river. Next to them walked an ox, being jostled along by a peasant in a wide-brimmed hat.

Suddenly they stopped. In front of them were two richly dressed samurai, each heavily armed and bearing the Oda
mon
on their armor.

The checkpoint.

The larger of the two guards spoke in a loud, deep voice. “Halt. State your business.”

Shusaku supported the front end of the palanquin. He bowed as best as he could. “My master bears a message from Lord Oda to the shogun.” He paused for the gravity of this to sink in. “It is
quite
urgent.”

The samurai—his features were long and fine, and he wore a tight topknot that pulled the skin of his face back to accentuate the sharp teeth and thin lips—nodded curtly. “I am quite sure it is. Indeed, we have been expecting you. All the same, we will have to take a look inside and verify that your master is … accounted for.” He looked Shusaku up and down. “I see that your face is marked. We live in dangerous times, you know. There are vicious people about. Disgruntled
ronin
. Angry peasants. Ninjas. For all I know, you could be a man of … limited scruples. You may even have kidnapped Lord Oda, and have him stashed in that palanquin. And it wouldn’t do if I let that pass, would it?” He laughed, to show that he was joking, but his eyes stayed cold and hard.