Heart of the Ronin (27 page)

Akao was awake and waiting for him outside when he stepped out of the inn. “Today is new.”

Ken’ishi said nothing.

“She had a good smell.”

Ken’ishi gave the dog’s ears a stroke and strode past. The thought of her amazing scent was as fresh and bright in his mind as the rays of the sun. Intoxicating. In truth, he felt drunk now. His voice was thick, his lips raw from the heat of their kisses. “We must hurry.”

He broke into a run, and Akao loped alongside him. He hardly noticed the road, caught up in the warmth of bittersweet joy in his breast. His nether region ached with the longevity and ferocity of last night’s use, but he paid it no mind. By their third coupling, she was showing him secrets of how to prolong their ecstasy. He had never known such pleasure was possible. Images of her were seared into his mind’s eye. He would cherish the memory of this night every day of his life, and he hoped he would never see her again. Strangely, he could not remember the name of the man she would marry. He vaguely remembered that announcement being made during the banquet. Why did his mind fail to remember such a simple fact? He tried to remember the later parts of the banquet, but all of them seemed like a useless fog.

Only when he stopped to rest and drink from a nearby stream did he open the bundle she had given him. A fresh draught of emotion blew through him, as many colored as the wind. Inside was a folded bundle of new clothing, redolent with her luscious scent. Another crisp black hakama and a fine silken robe, similar to the clothes Lord Nishimuta had given him, this one a deep rich maroon, with finely woven patterns of white thread. He laughed bitterly.

He had traded love for a set of fine clothes.

As he unfolded the clothes, several small items tumbled to the ground. A fine, lacquered wooden comb. A small, razor-sharp knife. A clinking coin pouch.

The anger swelled in him again as he gathered everything up, carefully repackaged it, and hid it inside his pack.

Suddenly the kami began to whisper fiercely in his ears. He stood up and looked around. A man stood on the road about thirty paces from him, facing him. The man was measuring him with his gaze, as if he knew him. Ken’ishi had never seen him before. He was young, perhaps about Ken’ishi’s age, and carried a jitte thrust into his sash with two swords.

Akao was so startled that he barked once, something he rarely did; he considered barking vulgar.

Ken’ishi faced the man. Silver Crane hung from his old rope belt. He felt no fear, only the dead despair left by the emptiness in his breast. He waited for the man to speak.

“You are the ronin called Ken’ishi.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to pay for your crime.”

Ken’ishi’s lips tightened and his fists clenched. Sakamoto had lied. This man had been sent to kill him. “I have paid for too many things today. I’ll not stand any more payment for Takenaga’s death.”

“I’m here to take you back.”

“I’m not going back.”

“Then I’ll take your head to Lord Nishimuta.”

“You can try.” Ken’ishi laughed once, harshly. “If you succeed, my head will try to bite him. Come and try. I must be moving on, and I’m in no mood for games today.”

He drew his sword and held it relaxed at his side.

Akao began to whine. He spared a glance at the dog. The dog was quivering with fear. Why? This man was no older than Ken’ishi.

He studied the man. His clothes did not look like those of a samurai. They looked like peasant’s clothes. Another ronin? Why would Lord Nishimuta send a ronin to kill him?

“My name is Taro,” the man said as he drew the jitte from his sash with his right hand, and his short sword with his left.

“I don’t care what your name is. You’re a fool. And you’re wasting time.”

Ken’ishi tried to settle his spirit, to prepare himself for battle, but the emptiness in his breast was so vast that he could not. His spirit rattled around inside him like a pebble in a bucket. He tried to breathe deeply, as he had been taught, but he could not. His chest felt crushed under great weight.

Suddenly his opponent flew at him, short sword slashing. Only Ken’ishi’s reflexes saved his life.

His opponent had closed the distance between them, over thirty paces, in a single leap.

Ken’ishi leaped to the side, spun, and raised his weapon.

Taro lunged toward him with the short sword, and Ken’ishi deflected it easily, but he was wary of the jitte in the other hand. He had never seen a weapon like that before. It did not look sharp, but it could be used for thrusting, and that strange prong. . . . Taro came at him with a flurry of clumsy blows. His opponent was ill trained, Ken’ishi realized, but the strength behind those blows sent shocks quivering up his arms. What kind of man could leap thirty paces? Had he imagined it? Ken’ishi looked in his eyes and saw . . . nothing. Only blackness. He recoiled slightly.
 

“Who are you?”

Taro drove him back a step with a powerful stroke. “I am Taro. Why do you ask now? Are you afraid?”

Ken’ishi’s hands stung from the raw power of Taro’s blows. He must release himself into the Void, let go of everything but the Now, but his spirit was too scattered.

Taro came forward again, this time with the jitte, but Ken’ishi noticed immediately that his intent was not to attack the body, but the
blade.
He realized then the weapon’s purpose. Ken’ishi pulled his blade away and retreated again.
 

Now.

Reach for the Now.

Find it.

Forget all.

Release.

Taro lunged, a wild look burning in his eyes, closing the distance in an instant. But all the time Ken’ishi needed existed between instants.

Ken’ishi adjusted his stance half a step to the side and slashed.

Taro grunted in surprise. Ken’ishi heard the splatter of blood on the road, and something fell.

Taro screamed in rage and slashed with the short sword, but the strength in the blow was gone. Ken’ishi batted the weapon away and slashed again. Taro’s body fell to the earth with a soft thud, and blood seeped from a terrible cut across his left thigh. His right arm was now a stump severed just below the elbow, pumping crimson onto the road. The short sword fell from his fingers, and Ken’ishi kicked it far away. Taro’s face was dazed, almost unconscious. Ken’ishi snatched the long sword from the scabbard in Taro’s sash, and cocked his arm to throw it away.

Takenaga’s blade.

This young man was from the village. Ken’ishi said, “You are a fool!”

Taro’s eyes focused on him weakly, but he was losing consciousness. Ken’ishi saw the filthy bandage wrapped around the young man’s lower leg. It was crusted with blood and something else, something dark and unwholesome.

Ken’ishi sighed. “I’m in no mood for killing today, Taro.” He knelt, grabbed Taro’s limp torso by the collar and lifted him closer. “Listen to me. Go home. Don’t come after me again. I will never come this way again. Let it go.”

Taro’s eyes rolled back, and his head sagged backward. Ken’ishi snorted, let go of him, and stood up.

Akao stood about ten paces away. His teeth were bared into a snarl, and his whole body quivered. His tail was tucked between his legs.

“It’s finished,” Ken’ishi said, wiping the blood from his blade and sheathing it.

Akao said, “No. Not finished.”

“What do you mean?”

But the dog said nothing else. He launched into a dead run.
 

Ken’ishi sighed again, picked up his things, and followed after Akao at a trot, leaving the bleeding body behind him on the road. Now, if he could escape this province alive, he might be able to forget the pain gnawing at his spirit.

Fires

Burn in my heart.

No smoke rises.

No one knows.

—
The Love Poems of Marichiko

So ends the First Scroll

The Second Scroll

A New Life

One

A camellia

Dropped down into still waters

Of a deep dark well

—
Buson

Kazuko climbed out of her palanquin and looked up at the imposing central keep, the toride, of Lord Tsunetomo’s castle. Somehow, it did not look as impressive now as the first time she visited it so many months ago. Now it was home. She found herself remembering the wonder of that day. But now in the winter it seemed only grim and gray and heartless, in spite of all the festive New Year decorations. Her clothes still smelled of incense from the temple. She had gone to the temple to pray for fertility, and for happiness in the coming year, and entreated all the gods and Buddhas to ease her suffering.

She walked through the front gates of the castle and began the labyrinthine climb to her chambers at the summit of the central tower. The castle and its environs buzzed with preparations for the New Year celebration. All of the land was awash in festivals. She had always looked forward to the festivals of the New Year, but now she found herself looking forward to nothing at all. She moved through her life like a mindless ghost. She sometimes felt lost in a gray netherworld of endless despair. Hatsumi often chided her for never smiling, but she never felt any smile inside herself waiting to be given life.

She felt one small measure of relief at being home again, because now she could seclude herself. She had once enjoyed the company of other people, but no longer. Now the only people she saw regularly were her husband and Hatsumi. But she also felt something was improper about this, and that only served to make her more displeased with herself. Why could she not be happy? Why must she suffer so? Every moment of life, both waking and sleeping, was like a dull ache. On the days before her marriage, she had considered killing herself, but she had not gone through with it, because she could not bear the thought of dishonoring her father.

As she moved through the house, servants cleared a path, bowing deeply. She passed by the great hall, where she spotted one of her husband’s advisors, Yasutoki. Yasutoki was in the midst of an earnest conversation with Tsunemori, her husband’s younger brother.

Tsunemori had the same well-built frame as her husband, with handsome features and sharp eyes, only with less gray in his hair and fewer lines around his eyes. Tsunemori’s face wore an expression now similar to so many other times when he was speaking to Yasutoki, a look of reflexive skepticism, as if the veracity of Yasutoki’s every word was suspect.

Yasutoki was an ambitious man, ruthless with his opponents and heartless toward servants. Hatsumi told her that all the servants hated him. She sometimes wished her husband would get rid of him, but it was not her place to speak of such things. Yasutoki often had a strange glint in his eyes when he gazed at her, like a cat watching an oblivious mouse. It made her uncomfortable. Perhaps that was why she did not trust him. Even before she married Tsunetomo, he looked at her that way, with a bemused smugness, as if he
knew
something.

She tried to hurry past the door of the great hall before Yasutoki noticed her, wondering what Tsunemori was discussing with him. It was an open secret in the household that Tsunemori and Yasutoki were bitter rivals. She overheard Tsunetomo and Tsunemori speaking one night over a jar of sake. She recalled the conversation clearly, because it was soon after she arrived, and she had still been unfamiliar with things in Lord Tsunetomo’s household. She should not have been eavesdropping, but she could not help it. Yasutoki had gone to Hakozaki to see to a shipment of trade goods from across the sea.

Tsunemori asked, “Why do you keep such a man in your service?”

Tsunetomo answered with his usual good humor. “You’ve been quarreling with him again, have you? It is unfortunate that you cannot get along with him.”

“But why, brother? I can hardly imagine a more unpleasant, spiteful man.”

Tsunetomo laughed. “Because he is my friend. And he is a brilliant. And he has friends at court. I rely on you, brother, for martial affairs. I rely on him for political affairs. And he has not always been so sour. His family’s lack of rank weighs upon him.”

“He is too ambitious.”

“Because of his birth, he cannot hold a high office. It has made him bitter. I do not blame him. It is just the way of things. But he serves me well.” Kazuko heard the smile in Tsunetomo’s voice. “He arranged my lovely new bride, did he not?” Her ears burned, and she tried to slip away without them hearing the swish of her robes. She would be even more embarrassed if they discovered her, and her husband might be displeased. She slipped away without being noticed, and her eavesdropping gave her much to ponder. Even within one house, politics were rampant.

She continued her way through the house, up the stairs, passing through invisible clouds of different scents. The sweaty, oily, metallic smell of a group of guards. Numerous dishes of food, each with its own aroma and special significance to bring luck and prosperity in the coming year. The smell of incense from a small house altar. She observed these things without paying them any attention. Her mind was focused on her own inner darkness. She often wished she could forget the things that made her feel this way. Hatsumi still tried to comfort her sometimes, but Hatsumi was long-since frustrated and impatient with her. Kazuko was frustrated and impatient with herself. This should be a joyous time, and all she felt like doing was sulking.

She finally reached the uppermost chambers of the castle, her chambers. When she entered, she found her husband sitting at his writing desk, brush in hand.

He turned to look at her. “Good morning, my lady.” His voice was warm and deep.

He was a man in his late forties, thirty years her senior. His eyes still burned with the energy and verve of a young man, but were tempered by the wisdom and wit of age. His hair was shot with gray, but somehow it did not make him look old. His alert, good-tempered eyes were surrounded by fine lines, but even those did not make him look old. The vitality and strength of his spirit masked the physical indications of the years and made him seem like a man half his age. Indeed, he possessed the virility of a young man.