The Dragon Scroll (22 page)

The mountains loomed ominously ahead, and the band of moon-silvered road led straight into them. Within minutes the pine forest swallowed them up.

The forest screened them from the wind, but small night animals frightened their horses, and many eyes, glittering sparks in the darkness of the trees lining the road, watched them pass. Tora cursed once, and when Akitada looked back, he saw in the dim moonlight that Tora was clutching the amulet he wore on a string around his neck. Tora’s superstitious fears were at odds with the courage he displayed against human opponents.

The road began to climb, twisting back and forth among rock outcroppings. It was in excellent condition and quite wide, clearly a result of the fame of Joto’s temple.

Soon Ayako stopped her horse and waited for them to come up. “There!” she said, pointing. The trees thinned ahead, and they saw the top of a tall pagoda stretching a graceful spire and curved roofs into the starry sky, its snowy ridge tiles and gilded eave ornaments, its bells and hanging lanterns shimmering in the moonlight. “We have to turn aside here,” Ayako told them. “The gate is guarded day and night. We’ll take the horses into the woods a little ways and walk from there.”

She seemed to know her way through the forest, but Akitada soon became completely disoriented. They stopped in a small clearing, dismounted, and tied up the horses.

Tora looked around, glowering. “Where the devil are we?”

Ayako said sharply, “Near the western wall of the temple. When we get closer, you must stop talking and try not to make any noise. They have patrols at night, and we are passing near the stables where the horses may give us away.”

A small animal suddenly shot out from under the shrub Tora’s horse was sampling, and Tora cursed, tearing violently at the neck of his jacket to reach his amulet.

“Calm down!” Akitada said. “It was just a fox or badger.”

“How do you know that’s all it was?” Tora looked about him fearfully. “These woods are full of
oni
and
tengu.
Their hungry eyes are watching us from the darkness. There! There’s one of them. Let’s get out of here.” He fumbled frantically with his reins.

“Stop that, you fool,” Ayako snapped. “I knew we shouldn’t have brought you. And I thought only children were frightened of goblins in the dark.”

“Enough,” commanded Akitada. “I have no intention of standing about in a cold forest in the middle of the night, listening to two children squabbling.”

Ayako muttered, “Sorry!” and walked off so quickly that Akitada and Tora barely kept up with her. She moved silently, graceful and surefooted, in spite of the rocks and tree roots that caused Tora and Akitada to stumble awkwardly behind her.

They emerged from the forest at the foot of a cliff. Its top was crowned by the tiled outer wall of the temple compound. In the pale moonlight the cliff looked inaccessible.

“There,” muttered Tora, “I knew it. She got us lost. That’s what you get for listening to a stupid female.”

“Quiet,” Ayako hissed.

“Surely you can’t climb up there,” Akitada protested in a whisper. “It looks too steep. The monks won’t worry about thieves coming from this side.”

“You’d be surprised what they worry about,” Ayako said darkly. “Come on. I know a way up.”

She plunged into the shrubbery at the foot of the cliff, and after a moment Akitada followed. The shrubs hid a narrow crack in the surface of the rock, and now Akitada saw Ayako climbing up this fissure hand over hand like a monkey. His better sense told him to abandon the venture, but he was strangely reluctant. He did not want this strange girl to mock his lack of courage or skill. And then there was the possibility that she might get hurt. He found neither prospect bearable.

The climb turned out to be easier than he had expected—as long as he did not look down and ignored Tora’s muttered curses, groans, and desperate scrabblings.

When Akitada joined Ayako on the narrow ledge at the top, he felt ridiculously proud. But before them was a wall that was the height of two tall men and topped with slippery tiles. Several pine trees grew close to it, but all of the overhanging branches had been carefully trimmed off.

Ayako made her way to one particular pine. It was farther from the wall but extended a broken branch to within three feet of the tiles. She climbed up, walked out on the branch, and then made a heart-stopping leap for the wall. She landed like a cat on all fours, crouched for a moment, then sat and looked down at him.

“All’s safe,” she said softly. Unwinding the black cotton scarf from her head, she lowered it to Akitada. “Grab hold of this and walk up the wall. I’ll help pull you up.”

Tora snorted.

“I’m much too heavy for you,” Akitada told her, adding dubiously, “Climbing the pine tree is the only option.”

“No. The branch won’t hold you.”

“Never mind,” grumbled Tora. “I know a better way. Only ...” He looked at Akitada doubtfully.

“What?” asked Akitada. “Speak up.”

“I’ll have to go up first, sir.”

“This is no time to stand on ceremony. Go ahead.”

“But I’ll have to stand on your shoulders.”

Akitada suppressed a laugh. More and more this excursion reminded him of a boyhood prank. “Where do you want me to stand?”

Tora showed him how to stand with his hands on his hips, back against the wall, and his legs spread a little. Then Tora vaulted upward, stepping first on Akitada’s thigh and from there to his shoulder, kneeling first and then putting one foot on each shoulder and standing up. The maneuver was painful, for Tora was considerably heavier than Akitada, who groaned and held his breath, waiting for the moment when those cruel boots would leave his bruised shoulders.

The moment did not come.

Instead there was some cursing. A brief exchange followed, unintelligible to Akitada, who gritted his teeth and concentrated on keeping his knees from buckling under him.

“Get away from me, woman,” Tora snarled above him. Then he said apologetically, “Sir? I can’t quite reach it. But I think I can make it if I jump for it.”

Akitada did not answer.

The next moment Tora pushed off. There was a brief scrabbling sound, while pain shot through Akitada’s shoulders and down his back. He started to slip down the wall to his knees. His ears rang and his eyes watered from the pain, but blessedly the weight on his shoulders was gone.

“Sst!” Tora hissed from above. “Sorry about that. Now get hold of this. I’ll have you up in no time, sir.”

Akitada straightened his trembling legs and looked up at the end of black fabric dangling before his face. He doubted it would support his weight but had too much pride to say so. His neck and shoulders were on fire, but he raised his arms experimentally and seized Ayako’s scarf, wrapped it about his wrist, and clambered up the wall to the top.

The slanting tiles were no comfortable perch. He straddled the wall and pretended to look about him while he gingerly moved his shoulders and waited for the pain to subside a little. He wondered if Tora had broken his shoulders.

The temple compound was silent under the stars, its layout apparent in the eerie moonlight: a series of quadrangles and rectangles formed by intersecting covered galleries and walls, each enclosing halls, stables, kitchen, monks’ quarters, or storage buildings. The roofs of the great halls, like those of the great pagoda, were tiled. The service buildings had thatched roofs and made darker patches against the gray gravel of the courtyards. Not a soul was about.

“There’s the kitchen,” Ayako whispered, pointing to a long building in the courtyard below. “And back there are stables and quarters for visiting guests. We’ll climb down and go through that gate over there into the next courtyard. That’s where the storehouses are.”

She got up and began to run along the ridge to a place where a big barrel stood against the wall. Akitada and Tora followed more slowly, unused to walking on the ridged tiles.

But just before they could climb down to level ground, they heard a faint crunching sound. Someone was walking across the gravel.

“Down!” Ayako whispered, flattening her body along the tiles.

They followed her example and watched as two dark figures detached themselves from the shadow of a wall and walked to the kitchen building. They disappeared inside, then reappeared a minute or so later, to move on to the courtyard that enclosed the storehouses.

“Now what?” Tora asked disgustedly.

Ayako gave him a look. “We wait, then follow. From what I’ve seen, we’ll have an hour before they return on their next round.”

When she gave the signal, they climbed down and crossed as quietly as possible to the gate. All was still in the next courtyard.

“Come.” Ayako started toward the first and largest of the storehouses. When they reached its big wooden door, they found it was not merely latched but locked.

“You see?” Ayako asked.

Akitada nodded. Locking a storehouse in a guarded temple compound implied that the contents were either contraband or extremely valuable.

“I wish we had a key,” she said. “This is the only storehouse that’s locked, and I bet the missing tax shipments are in it.”

Akitada looked at the building. It was large enough to hold twenty shipments of goods, let alone three.

“Here,” said Tora. “Let me try.” To their astonishment, he produced a thin piece of metal from his sleeve, studied the lock for a moment, and then began to bend the metal with his strong hands. Inserted into the proper opening, the hook tripped the bolt, and the door opened onto darkness. They stepped in.

“Close the door,” said Akitada, moving aside and holding his breath. Tora’s new clothes released an aroma of stable that was overpowering in close proximity.

For a moment they stood in the dark; then Akitada and Tora both struck flints. The momentary flashes of light revealed a large dim space containing vague piles of goods stretching far into the dark corners. Then both lights went out. Tora fumbled about on the floor. “A moment,” he muttered. There was another flash of brightness, and this time Tora managed to light an oil lantern he had found near the door.

They looked around. The storehouse was large and the lantern small. Its light flickered with their every move and threw objects into grotesque relief against vast spaces of darkness that loomed above them and lurked in dim corners and far recesses behind the stacked stores. The air was musty and dry, vaguely smelling of grass mats, old wood, and spices.

As they walked slowly among the piled goods, they heard skittering sounds made by small animals, mice or rats. Akitada lifted the lid off one large barrel and found beans inside. Tora stopped before a long line of large earthenware jars. A long-handled dipper lay on one of them. He picked it up and removed the stopper from the jar. A rich, fruity odor filled the air.

“What do you know?” Tora chuckled in delighted astonishment. “The baldpates have a taste for wine just like the rest of us sinful slobs.” He dipped, tasted, and smacked his lips. “Good stuff.”

Akitada, still wracked with pain and exhaustion, perched on a stack of boxes and stared at the long row of wine jars. “Strange,” he muttered. “Beans are a normal staple in Buddhist monasteries, but wine is forbidden.”

“So is raping girls,” Ayako snapped and kicked angrily at a long roll of straw matting. “Ouch!” She bent to feel the roll. It made a soft clinking sound.

“Stop drinking, Tora,” said Akitada, “and see what’s in all those bundles!”

Once the matting of the roll was untied and opened, a number of halberds appeared, each one new and sharply pointed.

“Holy Buddha!
Naginata!”
gasped Tora. “They must be expecting an attack. No wonder they watch this place like it was some fortress under siege.”