Claws of the Cat (17 page)

It was Akechi Hidetaro, and he wasn’t limping.

Hiro waited until the samurai passed the near end of the abbot’s house and then whispered, “That’s Hidetaro. I’m going to follow him.”

“Why?” Kazu asked. “It’s clear the merchant killed Hideyoshi.”

“Never rely on assumptions,” Hiro said. “The last one always kills you.”

“Follow him if you want to,” Kazu said, “but please try to get the priest to leave. Nobuhide isn’t reasonable, and he will kill the Jesuit if he can.”

Hiro had started toward the path, but he turned back at Kazu’s comment. “I thought you didn’t know Hideyoshi’s son?”

Kazu straightened. “The shogun has a record on Nobuhide too. He tried to join the shogunate but the reviewing general called him too stupid and shortsighted for command.”

“The record says that?” Hiro’s right eyebrow crept up just enough to show disbelief.

“The official report reads ‘best suited for duty as a
yoriki
.’ Read between the lines. No competent man is appointed to the police. It’s a service of last resort. The explanatory comments say Nobuhide refuses to accept direction or admit mistakes. If he decides the priest should die, you won’t dissuade him.”

Hiro started after Hidetaro. “Then I’ll just have to persuade him that someone else deserves it more.”

Chapter 24

Hiro reached the gravel path just as Hidetaro disappeared around the far end of the abbot’s residence. Hiro followed but didn’t hurry. A large, open yard lay beyond and he had no desire for Hidetaro to notice him at once.

Whitewashed brick and wooden walls surrounded the distinguished gardens that lay on all sides of the abbot’s house. Hiro left the path and walked beside the wall to minimize his visibility as he rounded the end of the building.

The square open yard had crushed gravel on the ground. The long wall of the abbot’s southern garden formed the northern boundary of the yard. At the eastern end of the white-painted wall stood the
kuri,
the temple kitchen. The building stood at least four stories high at the peak of its sloping roof, but most of the height was attributable to the giant eaves that ran from the ridge of the roof to the top of the ground floor wall. A gentle, concave curve ensured that snow would not gather on the roof.

On the ground floor, a pair of swinging entrance doors sat directly in the middle of the western wall. Three wide wooden steps led up to the doors from the ground. The
kuri
had no other windows or entrances that Hiro could see from his end of the yard, and he didn’t waste any time looking. Hidetaro was just disappearing around the far corner of the
kuri,
on the path that led to the lesser temple of Ryogin-an.

Hiro waited until Hidetaro disappeared from view before crossing the wide gravel yard. Ryogin-an lay across a short covered bridge that spanned the same ravine as Tsuten-kyo, though the little canyon was shallower here and not as wide.

Wooden walls and tall trees surrounded the temple and its gardens. The path provided the only way in or out.

Hiro took his time crossing the wooden bridge. Birds chirped and squawked in the maples and a squirrel chattered in the ravine. The air was filled with the pleasant smells of new growth and drying leaves, scents that reminded Hiro of Iga, of home.

At the far end of the bridge an elderly monk cleared leaves from the path with a wooden rake. Hiro approached him and bowed.

The monk bowed politely in return. “May I help you?”

“I thought I saw my friend from across the yard. His name is Akechi Hidetaro.”

Hiro didn’t expect the monk to know the name. Thousands of samurai visited the temple and meditated in its various gardens.

To his surprise, the man nodded. “Hidetaro just went by a minute ago.”

He pointed a wrinkled finger at the wooden wall that surrounded the temple building and its gardens.

Hiro bowed in thanks and continued along the short gravel path. He spied Hidetaro kneeling before a dry garden on the eastern side of the temple.

Like many Zen landscapes, the eastern garden consisted of a gravel bed studded with small rocks and boulders of various shapes and sizes. Some stood upright but most were placed at angles to the ground. The gravel was clear of debris and freshly raked into geometric patterns. Straight lines ran the length of the bed, broken by circles surrounding the larger stones.

Hidetaro’s gaze focused on a slanting stone that sat near the center of the garden. He didn’t look up when Hiro arrived. Hiro didn’t expect him to. Zen Buddhism taught a form of meditation that shut out the world and focused on an object, space, or thought. The rest of the world existed only when the practitioner decided it could return to his consciousness.

Hiro knelt to Hidetaro’s left and practiced his own meditation, opening himself and his thoughts to the surroundings that other forms of meditation tried so hard to ignore. His eyes and ears found each bird that sang in the maple trees. A falling leaf tapped against the garden wall and scratched the wood with its points as it fell to earth. When he ran out of new sounds, Hiro considered the spaces between the stones. In that, his shinobi training overlapped with the principles of Zen, though Hiro’s study of negative space focused on discovering usefulness rather than mere understanding of their existence.

As Hidetaro returned from his meditative peace, he looked to his left and startled. Hiro kept his gaze on the garden and pretended not to notice. Hidetaro stood up and turned to leave.

“Good morning,” Hiro said.

Hidetaro turned back. “Good morning. I apologize if I interrupted your meditation.”

Hiro gestured for the other man to sit and then turned to look at the stones. “Actually, I came to talk with you.”

Hidetaro knelt beside the shinobi and faced the garden. “Has the foreign priest found my brother’s killer?”

“Perhaps.”

Both men studied the rocks again. Without Father Mateo to feign ignorance, Hiro had to comply with the samurai social conventions that forbade a direct approach.

“This is a peaceful garden,” Hiro said. “Do you meditate here often?”

“Do you like it?” Hidetaro’s wistful smile suggested a familiarity with polite but not heartfelt compliments. “Many people do not appreciate these dry landscapes, but then, few people really understand Zen meditation.”

“Have you studied long?” Hiro asked.

Hidetaro’s gaze flickered across the stones. “I wanted to become a monk.”

An unusual ambition for a samurai’s son.

“Your father did not agree?” Hiro guessed.

“He naturally expected his eldest son to become a warrior, not a priest.”

“So you did.”

“Of course. I followed him into the service of the Ashikaga clan and practiced Zen on my own, mostly here at Tofuku-ji. I preferred this subtemple—Ryogin-an—because few people come here. Less chance of anyone telling my father that I had not abandoned my spiritual life.”

A thin smile crept over Hidetaro’s face, suggesting an unpleasant memory.

Hiro took a guess. “Your father found out anyway.”

Hidetaro didn’t seem surprised. “Yes, and he disinherited me, though I did not know he had done it until he died.”

“Yet you did not become a monk.” Etiquette wouldn’t let Hiro ask the reason, but it didn’t prevent him from pointing out the obvious.

“Not for want of effort. I requested release from the shogun, renounced my stipend, but the monastery refused to let me join the order.” The thin smile flickered away. “The abbot believed the shogun sent me to spy on the monks’ activities.”

“How strange,” Hiro said. It didn’t really seem strange at all, given Hidetaro’s training and the monks’ tendency to riot when displeased with the shogunate.

“To this day the abbot refuses to let me take the vows, though I have permission to meditate here as often as I wish.”

Hidetaro told the story without emotion, like a man recounting cities he had lived in or the food he ate for lunch. Hiro couldn’t help contrasting the current detachment with the previous day’s concern. Unfortunately, he didn’t know Hidetaro well enough to judge which persona was truthful and which a mask. He decided to find out.

“By the way,” Hiro said, “your limp seems much better this morning.”

Chapter 25

Hiro watched Hidetaro. Hidetaro watched the rocks. The samurai’s right hand clenched into a fist and then gradually relaxed, but otherwise he did not move.

After almost two minutes, he turned his face to Hiro and said, “The limp was an act, put on to make you believe I did not murder my brother.”

Hiro narrowed his eyes. “Why would you need a limp for that?”

“A dragging foot leaves different prints from one that lifts normally,” Hidetaro said.

Hiro wondered how he knew about the footprints if he hadn’t seen Sayuri, but decided to take an indirect path to the answer.

“What made you consider yourself a suspect?”

“I am the older brother, but Hideyoshi had more success. I depended upon his goodwill for everything from my clothes to the food I eat. I had the good fortune to fall in love with a woman, and the misfortune to have my brother favor her too.

“Any one of those could provide a motive for murder. Only a fool would not consider me a suspect, particularly when no other comes easily to mind.”

Hiro turned to face Hidetaro. “Shall I ask the obvious question, or would you prefer to answer without my asking?”

“I did not kill him.” The samurai’s eyes remained on the stones and his posture did not change.

“And the next, also obvious, question?” Hiro asked.

“I do not know who killed him. Our cousin Mitsuhide recently swore allegiance to Lord Oda, but I doubt the shogun would kill a friend for the acts of a distant relative. In addition, I am still alive and so is Nobuhide. If the shogun wanted vengeance, he wouldn’t have stopped with Yoshi.”

Mention of Nobuhide gave Hiro an opening. “Have you seen your brother’s family since his death?”

“Yesterday morning. I tried to persuade Nobuhide of Sayuri’s innocence, but he would not believe me. That is why I went to see Matto-san.”

Hiro ignored the mispronunciation of Father Mateo’s name. “How long have you known Sayuri?”

“Yoshi invited me to the Sakura at cherry blossom season, to see the girl’s debut. I didn’t expect much. My brother was always bragging about some beauty from the Sakura. They rarely amounted to anything. Sayuri was the exception.

“I never thought I would care for a woman.” Hidetaro’s gaze lost its sharpness as emotion took hold. “But Sayuri is not like any other woman.”

Hidetaro fell silent as if struggling for an explanation. At last he said, “She laughs at my feeble jokes, and when she smiles at me she means it.”

It was a strange compliment, but one that suggested honesty. Hiro would have discounted comparisons to birdsong or the moon, but Hidetaro’s simple phrasing rang true.

It also gave Hiro an opportunity to learn more about the samurai. “What do you mean?”

Hidetaro raised a hand to his face. “When most women smile, their faces become masks. The smile doesn’t reach their eyes.”

He demonstrated. His lips turned up and his eyes glittered with feeling but their edges didn’t crinkle with real joy. Then he smiled a second time, in earnest.

“You see?” he asked. “A true smile begins in the eyes.”

“I never noticed,” Hiro lied. “Is that why you wanted to marry her?”

It wasn’t a normal choice. Most samurai would never marry a commoner, let alone a woman in the entertainment trade. Hidetaro’s monastic tendencies made the decision even more unusual. Few men would allow a woman to change the course of an ascetic life.

“That, and the fact that she returned my affection.” Hidetaro gave an uncomfortable smile. “You may see the difference in our ages, but Sayuri did not mind it.”

Hiro found that surprising too, especially since the girl had talents to match her looks. Young, beautiful women rarely fell in love with substantially older men.

Unlike Hidetaro, the shinobi sought a deeper, and probably financial, explanation. He wondered where a destitute samurai found the money to buy a performer’s contract and whether Sayuri believed Hidetaro had silver hidden in his purse as well as his hair. Social convention prevented him from asking.

“Did Mayuri negotiate much on the contract price?” Hiro wondered aloud.

Hidetaro’s cheek twitched. “Not as much as I would have liked.”

“Perhaps she will reduce it more because of all the blood.”

Hiro realized a moment too late that his effort to flush out a useful response had overstepped the boundaries of politeness.

Hidetaro stood up. “I’m afraid I have an appointment. Please excuse my rudeness, but I must leave.”

Hiro stood up and bowed. “Thank you for speaking with me. I apologize if my words have offended.”

They left the temple together. When they reached the abbot’s quarters Hidetaro paused and reached down to adjust his katana.