Heart of the Ronin (42 page)

“Perhaps he was making a gift for you, a new scabbard. That scabbard you have was beautiful once, but now it is a bit battered.”

Ken’ishi scowled. “It is old! It was my father’s scabbard.”

“Of course. I meant no offense, Ken’ishi. But only the blade of a sword lasts forever. Sometimes the hilt and wrappings must be replaced. Look here! A small bag of polished stones and some mother-of-pearl. Perhaps he was going to use them for ornamentation. These discarded pieces of wood are rough. Perhaps he was unhappy with them. They would fit your blade if they were finished.”

Ken’ishi nodded. “So it seems. He asked about my sword last time I saw him, asked me to show it to him. And I did.”

“The forest? Is there something in the forest?”

“But there are so many villagers who come and go in the forest.”

Norikage’s brow furrowed, and he rubbed his chin. “It could be anything. A robber, a band of thieves, hungry ghosts, tanuki, kitsune, demons, spirits. Ah, so many dangers in the forest!”

“Something must be done. We can’t wait for more people to disappear and hope for a clue. I’ll go into the forest. I’ll be the bait in my own trap.”

“Ken’ishi! We do not know what could be out there!”

“I’ll find out. This bait is not a piece of dead meat. It has teeth of its own.”
 

* * *

The villagers were afraid to venture out of the village. The farmers should have been tending their fields and gardens, but they were afraid to leave their homes. As Ken’ishi went back to his house, he received several suspicious and hostile looks from the bolder villagers, especially Chiba and his brothers.

Akao fell in beside him as he walked. Even his usually happy face was grim. “Trouble.”

“Yes.”

“Something bad.”

“I know. I’m going to find it.”

Akao stopped and looked up into his eyes. “Are you going to fight?”

Ken’ishi stopped and looked down at him. “If I have to.”

“Not a fighter.”

“I know. You’re a hunter. It will be dangerous.”

“Ask me?”

“No, I won’t ask you to help me.”

“Fool. Never refuse you.”

“That is why I don’t ask. If something happens to me, you must look after Kiosé.”

“What, and raise her pup?” Akao laughed.

Ken’ishi could not help but laugh as well. “You would be a good father,” he said.

“And so will you. Coming with you.”

Ken’ishi smiled. “As you wish.”

When they reached his house, he packed up his bedroll, gathered some food and water, his sword and his bow, and ventured into the wooded countryside. For several hours, he and Akao moved in concentric paths around the village, searching for any evidence of any of the missing villagers, anything unusual, but they found nothing. They once came upon an area that reeked of death, but when they followed the stench, they found only the carcass of a dead deer, bloated and crawling with maggots. Ken’ishi hoped this was not an omen of things to come.

* * *

Norikage sat in his office, rubbing his hands. He thought about the disappearances, and the unknowable hostility of the forest, and felt that no good could come to Ken’ishi out there alone. His dog would help him, but if he met serious trouble. . . . But there was no one else. Norikage knew he himself would have been worse than useless if he had accompanied Ken’ishi into the forest. He could not fight, only get in Ken’ishi’s way if danger appeared.

For that matter, how safe was Norikage in the village with Ken’ishi gone? Chiba and his brothers, if they were the true culprits, might take the opportunity to enact another mysterious disappearance. He noted well that they had several times walked past the office, looking toward the shuttered windows as if they could see Norikage sitting inside. He, of course, saw them through the slats, and something in their looks made him uneasy. They knew that Ken’ishi had gone into the forest. Norikage always kept a dagger secreted within his robes, but he knew that he would be pitifully inept if he tried to use it.
 

As the hours passed, he sometimes practiced drawing the dagger quickly, trying to strike in the same movement at some imaginary adversary, and all the while he felt foolish, even though a persistent feeling of impending dread kept building in his belly like a nest of buzzing hornets. Ken’ishi would say that Norikage’s premonitions were the kami speaking to him, warning him of danger. But what could he do? He was a not a fighting man.

He spotted Kiosé coming toward his office. She was growing thicker around the middle. She looked pale and wan, and Norikage wondered if she was getting enough to eat. She glanced furtively up and down the street, and fear painted her face in broad brushstrokes. She, too, knew that Ken’ishi was absent. She was startled when he invited her in before she even reached the door.

She said, “I am sorry to bother you, Norikage-sama. I am too much trouble.”

“Not at all. Come in.”

“It’s just that . . . I’m frightened.”

He nodded. “Of course. You can stay here in my office as long as you like. These are bad days.”

She bowed low, and her voice was soft and quavering. “Thank you, Norikage-sama. I am sorry to be so much trouble.”

In the shadows of his office, she looked even paler. She looked ill. He said, “Are you well?”

She glanced in his direction without meeting his gaze. “I am sick much of the time. But Gonta’s mother tells me that it is just the baby causing the sickness.”

Norikage nodded. “I can understand your fears, with Ken’ishi being gone.”

“What if something happens to him?” The tremor in her voice increased, and he could hear the almost frantic emotions behind her words. “If something happens to him, I will die, too.”

“Now, there is no need for such talk.”

She continued as if he had not said a word. “Something will happen to me. Chiba will kill me. But maybe that is not so bad. At least then my child would not have a life of suffering.” Suddenly tears burst out of her eyes and rolled down her sunken cheeks.

Norikage felt a pang of pity for her. She was so helpless, so downtrodden. Empathy for others was not a common experience for him. He was much more accustomed to worrying about his own skin, but her plight touched even his jaded spirit.

“But even if Ken’ishi returns, what will happen to me?” she said. Her lips quivered with the fear and emotion bubbling out of her.

Why had she come to ask him these things?

“This child could belong to almost anyone. Sometimes I just want to walk into the sea and never return. I cannot return to my family. They would not have me.”

Norikage squirmed where he sat. He did not know how to deal with matters such as these. Furthermore, at this moment she reminded him of another fragile waif, a girl doomed to suffer the birth of a bastard child, the child of a careless, selfish young nobleman. But Kiosé was infinitely more unfortunate, because she had no one to care for her. Was she asking for his help? Was she plotting to run away?

She noticed his silence and glanced at him. In that instant, he saw in her eyes the reason she had come to him.

She trusted him.

Norikage’s mouth fell open. He considered himself to be among the least trustworthy people in the world, but somehow she trusted him. Even Ken’ishi did not fully trust him. Ken’ishi did not know it, but his distrust in Norikage was warranted. Norikage kept unpleasant secrets, secrets that would mean both their heads if they were revealed. For a long time, Kiosé sat there across from him, waiting for him to speak.

Finally, she moved to get up. “I am sorry, Norikage-sama. I was rude for coming.”

“Please wait,” he said, raising his hand. “It is good that you came to me, Kiosé. You are special to me. I don’t want any harm to befall you.”

It was her turn to look surprised, and Norikage was inwardly amused. She said, “Norikage-sama, you are a wise man. What should I do?” The look of helpless entreaty in her eyes moved him. She truly thought he had the answer to her question, as if all of life’s implacable questions had an answer.

He laughed. Stunned for a moment by his own inadequacy, he laughed. She shrank away from him, and the look in her eyes changed from entreaty to hurt.

“I’m sorry, Kiosé, please forgive me!” he said, still chuckling. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at me.”

“Wh . . . What?”

“I am the last person in the world who would know the answer to your question.”

Her crestfallen look deepened, but the hurt in her eyes diminished.

“It’s good not to worry,” he said brightly, smiling at her. “I’m sure Ken’ishi will be fine.”

“Shall I make some tea?”

“Of course,” Norikage said. She got up and began to prepare the tea. As she did so, he watched the simplicity of her movements, and thought about how her situation could be improved. Norikage had enough money left to buy her contract from Gonta and set her free, but not only was he loath to part with such a sum, there were other considerations as well. While she was in Gonta’s employ, she would probably have enough food to eat and a roof over her head, but she was his slave. If she was not in Gonta’s employ, she would be free, but she would have no place to live and no food to eat, and she would still be a fallen woman with a bastard child. Perhaps Norikage could keep her as his mistress. He would be grateful for a woman in his house. But then, she loved Ken’ishi.

After she prepared the pot of tea and poured him a cup, he said, “I’m afraid we have much time to pass before Ken’ishi returns. Do you know how to play Go?”

She shook her head, looking uncertain.

“Then I will teach you. I have been trying to teach Ken’ishi lately, but sometimes his skull is quite dense.” He flashed her a confidential smile.

She smiled back, timidly.

He looked around his office at the stacks of documents and books, rubbing his chin. “Now, where did I put that Go board?”

* * *

As the afternoon shadows grew long, Ken’ishi found himself on the path leading to the pond that he and Kiosé visited a few weeks before, where Tetta might have gone to fish. He stood on the path for a few moments, pondering. It was conceivable that Gorobei had used this path himself.

Akao stood beside him, nose to the ground. “No trail here. No humans for a while.”

“We’ll search again,” Ken’ishi said and strode down the path.

“Night coming.”

“I know.” Ken’ishi glanced down. Akao’s hackles stood on end. “What is it?”

Akao said nothing.

“Are you afraid?”

The dog looked up at him. “Something . . . strange.”

In the failing light, the looming rock face along one side of the pond was a powerful, brooding presence. He had just enough time to make a modest camp a few paces from the water. While he did so, Akao prowled the outskirts of the pond’s perimeter. Before long, a sharp bark from the far side of the pond echoed over the water. Ken’ishi moved around the pond, and as he approached the spot, his nose caught the powerful stench of death, more rotten, more foul than he had ever experienced. He covered his nose and mouth with his collar and followed the odor.

As he thrust himself between reeds taller than his head, cursing his own noise, he spotted Akao’s brownish shape deep in the reeds, pointing toward the water. After he took a few more steps in the failing light, something purple and distended emerged, lying half in the water. Then he saw the human foot, twisted and swollen. He stepped nearer and clenched his teeth against the unbearable stench. The corpse lay on its stomach, knees half-curled up under it, its head submerged in the muck. Strangely, the body was naked. And even more sickening, between the narrow, purpled buttocks sticking into the air, something red, raw, wet and distended, looking as if some of his innards had been sucked out through the hole.

Ken’ishi’s guts churned, and he tasted the bile rising in his throat, but he clamped his jaw shut like a band of iron. He stepped back, short of breath, allowing the reeds to hide the horror that lay among them.

Akao said, “Something strange did this. Scent is . . . wrong.”

Ken’ishi could not answer. His breath came in short, painful gasps. When it began to slow, he swallowed the bitterness rising in his throat. Then he drew his sword, sliced a thick handful of reeds, and twisted them into a makeshift rope. Steeling himself, he stepped back through the rushes closer to the corpse, moved to its feet, and slipped the rope around the corpse’s swollen purpled ankle, careful not to touch the lifeless flesh. He did not wish to taint his spirit with the touch of the dead. After tying the rope securely, he pulled. The corpse came out of the water with a sickening squelch and a belch of putrid air. He hauled it up onto the bank, flattening a path through the reeds. As he pulled, the corpse rolled onto its back, and he could see the man’s face. Gorobei’s mouth gaped in a silent death rattle, full of muck, eyes eaten to empty sockets, flesh purple and sagging.

Ken’ishi’s guts heaved, and his knees buckled for a moment, but he fought it down and staggered about thirty paces away, trying to regain control of his breathing, waiting for his thrashing innards to settle. Finally, he regained control and turned back toward the corpse.

The hairs on the back of his neck rippled erect, putting him instantly on guard.

Akao faced the water, a low growl rumbling in his throat.

Ken’ishi took two steps back toward the corpse and spied movement in the reeds near its resting place. Something large squelched and rustled in the tall reeds and dashed back to where the corpse lay. Water splashed, just out of sight behind the reeds, and the tops of the plants still waved with the passing of . . . something. He parted the reeds and looked out over the pond. Ripples spread toward the water’s distant sides. He looked down and saw what looked like two small footprints in the muck. He could not tell the shape of the footprints because they were already filled with water. Another chill trickled down his spine. Something had been standing here. Watching them.

“Can you scent it?” Ken’ishi asked.

“Watched us.”