Sword of Honour (18 page)

Summer. Ninth Year of the Era of Keicho

Seven years since the death of the Regent Hideyoshi Toyotomi

Approaching four years since Sekigahara

The first year of the imperially ordained Shogunate of the clan Tokugawa, may it last ten thousand more

Chapter Eleven

There were moments Goemon Inoue found when he felt not as himself, jarring slivers of some higher lucidity where he could simply see what lay before him as though from some
distance away and behind his own eyes, see it all as the absurd circumstance of another. A black, mocking play put on by actors and he merely a spectator that had somehow ended up on the stage,
surrounded and overwhelmed by it.

The heat of the humid high summer swirling, churning, trapped in the crowded forehall of the garrison of the Tokugawa, Goemon feeling sweat coursing from his brow, down the back of his neck,
from the pits of his arms, stagnating on his stomach, his thighs, and yet for an instant suddenly he was cool, apart, feeling nothing. He saw the beseeching guild master who stood before him with
perfect objectivity, and from that unknown void he temporarily inhabited Goemon wanted to laugh.

The guild master had umbrage in his eyes, honest umbrage, and he held himself as though he wore swords, or at the least as though he were adorned with some form of armour that the actual blades
at Goemon Inoue’s side could not penetrate. ‘Captain, I demand of you to explain yourself to me. This is intolerable. Never before have taxes of this sort been levied. You demand what?
A full third of our profits over that which we already pay? This is unheard of . . . I simply cannot believe that you would intend to . . .’

On he droned, on and on, such that it pulled Goemon back into his own flesh. Heat was felt and his pulse at his temples was felt and sweat salt was on his lips, and Goemon had to make a
conscious effort to hide the disdain from his face. The guild master was a portly man with too much face for his skull, froglike almost, draped in fine silks in gaudy shades of chequered blue and
flower-patterned burgundy, and he, this gold-hungry merchant, this lowerborn, stood brazenly speaking as though he had the authority of samurai.

Goemon raised a hand and silenced the man for a moment. ‘As it has been explained to me,’ he said, ‘your guild profited exponentially selling rice to the campaigning armies
during my most noble Lord’s rightful conquest, grew several times your size. It seems only just that you should yield some of the bounty of what my most noble Lord enabled, does it
not?’

The guild master bridled – the rage in him, the actual genuine indignation over such venial things! ‘We offered our tribute of rice grain to the most noble Shogun and his armies as
is our duty,’ he said. ‘All profit we made beyond that we made by selling fairly to those who needed it. It is beyond reproach for us to be expected to be raped of all our diligent
labour’s reward, and I wish to protest it formally!’

Very thinly, lips all but white, Goemon said, ‘It is not my business to set the law, merely to enforce it. Pay what is due or face the consequences.’

‘The Regent never saw fit to tax us such! This is without precedent!’

‘It is the new order of things.’

The contemptible coin-grubber made to speak on, but Goemon simply turned away from him. There was no respite for him, however, and he merely found another seeking to petition him. Goemon’s
men, knowing their orders, had long since given up trying to enforce order on the mob that swarmed, and there was a constant thriving clamour for his attention.

A shaven-headed monk forced himself before the captain, and the man had come in his full formal black robes and his saffron sash that hung across one shoulder, even clutched a rosary wrapped
around his fist.

‘Your men, Captain, have desecrated holy grounds,’ he said, the look of a flagellant in his eyes. ‘Unpardonable. They knocked the northern wall of our temple down merely that
they might have an easier route to transport the great blocks of stone to your master’s castle-to-be.’

‘I . . .’ said Goemon, and he hesitated out of residual deference to the holy. ‘I apologize on their behalf, but you must understand that for the sake of order upon the streets
the construction is of the utmost imperative.’

The monk’s face twisted in venomous zeal. ‘Vain mortal constructs pale before the glory of the Teachings! Thou shalt right this offence, or thou and thy Lord will incur the wrath of
the heavens!’

From the side a new man interjected. It was hard to gauge what status or rank he held because the man placed himself so close to Goemon. ‘I have waited months Captain, and I wish to know
what the ruling is upon the estates of the traitor Lords up in the northern wards of the city. Four years they have stood empty, going to ruin. All I ask is that I be permitted to purchase, for a
fair value—’

‘Those are property of the Shogunate by right of triumph,’ said Goemon. ‘They are not to be bid upon like farmlands or—’

The monk hissed over him: ‘Revered be the Regent, who understood the paths of harmony! Who clad in gold the capital city, who built for himself no intrusive palace but enshrined what ought
to be enshrined!’

A fourth man now spoke: ‘Truth there – in the Regent’s time it was safe upon the roads. Captain, my caravan was waylaid upon the Tosando road by bandits east of the Biwa for
the third time this year. The third time this year! What is being done about it?’

Goemon rolled his tongue across the insides of his teeth and prepared to answer, and yet all words were stolen from him by the one who lusted for the Lordly estates actually placing his hand
upon the captain. The man wrapped his soft fingers around the lapels of Goemon’s inner kimono and then proceeded to speak his piece, repeat his bland mercantile inanities, and such was his
self-absorption the man did not even notice Goemon’s entire frame become rigid with affront. Spoke blindly on as Goemon’s jaw grew tight and his eyes went wide with fury.

This how they saw him, this how they all of them out there in the city saw him.

There came a banging and a gruff voice demanding silence. It was the Goat, Goemon’s adjutant, thumping on the frame of the inner door with his fist. He was an older samurai, grey of beard
and lamed of leg, and he used his longsword in its scabbard as an ersatz walking cane. He snarled at the crowd to relent and they obeyed and shrank back, and then in the silence he hobbled over to
whisper in Goemon’s ear after snapping out a curt bow.

‘An incident developing, sir,’ he said. ‘Out in the street front. You are needed there more than you are here.’

With some relief, Goemon jerked his head and the pair of them left the forehall behind and set off through the garrison. It was a military building, close corridors with low ceilings to prevent
the swinging of swords, everything dark wood, bereft of ornamentation and thick enough to stop spear-thrust, and also, at the back of every man’s mind, heavy enough to crush should an
earthquake come.

As they navigated the tight hallways the captain reset his clothing where it had been pulled out of order. He tried to level his spirit, clenched his fist around the handle of his sword that he
might grant himself a measure of satisfaction. The Goat was attentive and perceptive, and noticed Goemon’s disquiet.

‘You should have the men impose some order on that lot, sir,’ he said in a voice low enough that none but they would hear. ‘Disgraceful impertinence.’

‘What am I to do, Onodera?’ said Goemon. ‘You know the remit of my command.’

The Goat did, and he gave nothing but a vague grunt and a jerk of the chin onwards.

Outside the sun was fierce in a cloudless sky, fierce enough that the burnished heads of spears were hard to look at after the shade indoors. The yard was dusty and the samurai who crowded it
were silent. They were waiting for Goemon with grim anticipation, and at his appearance they barked a salute and dropped to one knee. He gestured them up immediately. An odd atmosphere pervaded.
The garrison was no moated castle and beyond the walls of its compound lay the common thoroughfares of the city. Silence reigned there also, when usually there was the bustle of commerce.

Through the mouth of the gate itself, Goemon found the cause: a group of men stood before the garrison in bold challenge. There were perhaps twenty of them clustered close together, and though
they were all unkempt they were all obviously samurai: they wore kimonos rather than jerkins; those that were not wearing wide-brimmed straw hats wore their hair in topknots; and each met
Goemon’s gaze as an equal would.

Yet, for all this, not one of them wore a pair of swords at his side.

Goemon took this in with his face a picture of level sternness. He was standing between two great banners of the Tokugawa livery, white field and black emblem, both splayed taut on the right
angle of their bamboo frames. He looked to either end of the street, where the lowerborn had clustered to watch on. Then he turned back to the group and spoke, careful as always to twist his voice
into the Kyoto accent.

‘I am Goemon Inoue, proud vassal of the most noble Shogun Tokugawa,’ he said. ‘I command in his name in the city of Kyoto. What is your intention here?’

One man strode forward from the group of men, his eyes squinting in the brightness. He struck a proud stance with his arms crossed, hands hidden up the sleeves of his jacket, but his voice was
not aggressive.

‘We have travelled far, Sir Inoue,’ he said. ‘We would ask that you hear us in the name of your Lord.’

‘I shall do so.’

‘We are all of us indebted to you,’ said the man, and bowed not quite deep enough to be respectful. ‘We have come on the cause of protest.’

‘I would inform you, before you speak,’ said Goemon, ‘that my jurisdiction is limited to the city of Kyoto alone. Should you have a problem in your realm, Edo may be better
able to settle your dispute.’

‘We come not to dispute the minutiae of the law of the nation,’ said the lead man. ‘No, we come to protest a perversion of the proper way of things, and what better place than
Kyoto for that?’

Samurai eyes peered out pensively through triangular arrow loops from within the garrison. Goemon said, ‘I fear you have been a victim of some cruel circumstance.’

‘That we have,’ said the lead man, and from one of his sleeves he produced a folded, sealed sheaf of paper. ‘Here, then – formal written protest at vile humiliation
visited unjustly upon decent men.

‘Our clan was neutral in the war in which your master Tokugawa claimed the Shogunate. We raised not a single weapon against your warriors, prayed not for your defeat, but even fed you,
aided you, and guided you through the mountain passes of our realm. We were assured by your Lord Tokugawa that our fiefdom was inviolate, and, in the spirit of honour, in the code of fellow
samurai, we believed in such promises.’

His voice was deep and carried well, drew in the distant crowd. He waved the sheaf of paper with one hand as he spoke, kept the other hand clasped upon his elbow. Goemon became aware of a faint
smell of burning in the air, a chemical smell. The oil merchant up the street must have been burning in excess of his permit once again; yet another petty grievance he would be forced to
address.

‘But how long they lasted, these vows,’ continued the swordless samurai. ‘Fleeting things, soon forgotten like the gold of dawn, and come the spring this year: shameful
betrayal! Our most noble Lord assented to the new way of things, gave no objection to your Lord’s proclamation as Shogun last summer but rather paid loyal tribute, and what is his reward? He,
commanded to seppuku! We, all of us, our swords confiscated! Such was our Lord’s loyalty, he ordered us not to resist. But still he lies dead, and still we linger here.’

Goemon nodded his head. ‘A sad case of affairs. But my most noble Lord has his considered reasons for every action, and it is not for me to explain nor question them. What now, of you?
What now your intentions?’

‘Stripped of purpose, stripped of meaning, we have decided that we do not wish to clutter the world any longer. We have come here to die, as samurai should.’

‘Noble,’ said Goemon.

‘Here are our seventeen names and the seventeen seals of our families in testament. Take them. Record them. We wish to be known as true followers of the Way, and by our deaths prove our
unyielding loyalty.’

‘Of course.’

‘We also with our deaths protest this obscene government, pray to all righteous spirits for the death of the devil-tyrant Tokugawa and ask that he face judgement for his shameful duplicity
in the myriad hells.’

There was a long silence that followed. Goemon sighed sadly.

‘That you had but held your tongue,’ he said, ‘yours is a sympathetic story. I would have shown you mercy. I would have even lent you my own sword, that you could perform
seppuku as it should be done. But no. Insults. Now what is left to us but—’

‘Do you really think,’ said the lead samurai, ‘we would have come this far without a way to be the masters of our own end?’

He withdrew his other hand from under his sleeve, and the source of the chemical burning smell became apparent: two burning lengths of arquebus matchcord in his hand.

Behind him his men burst into action, tossing off their straw hats and shawls. Amongst their huddle they had been hiding two large casks, which they now revealed with a grim flourish. The
swordless samurai dropped to their knees, their leader tossed their declaration towards Goemon, and then turned and headed back to his men.

As the samurai clutched their bodies tight to the barrels like leeches, the leader handed one matchcord to another man, and then, within a cold moment, Goemon knew what would follow.

From behind him one of his men began rushing forward out of sheer instinct, levelling his spear. Goemon grabbed the man by the belt and tried to haul him backwards. He struggled, but the captain
was stronger, dragged him back towards the shelter of the walls of the garrison, screaming at all his men to do likewise, and then the matchcords were at the caskets and there was the punch of a
roar beginning and—