The Samurai and the Long-Nosed Devils (12 page)

Matsuzo's urgency must have impressed the attendants, for he was shown into Kagemasa's presence as soon as the latter returned late that night. Almost stammering with impatience, Matsuzo poured out his story, beginning with the discovery of the tuft and ending with Zenta's visit to Mt. Hiei.

When Matsuzo finished Kagemasa looked dumbfounded. “I must confess myself surprised. The monks of Mt. Hiei are violent and uncontrollable, but why should they murder Lord Fujikawa? He was their ally!”

Matsuzo was shocked. “You mean they were plotting together?”

Kagemasa gave him a sharp glance, and then he smiled wryly. “What is the use of watching my words with you? Any adult of normal intelligence living in Miyako soon discovers that many unlikely people band together simply because they all hate Nobunaga.” He sighed. “Their conspiracies are worse than dangerous. They are stupid.”

Matsuzo realized that Kagemasa could drop his dandified airs when he wished. He suspected that it was simply the pose of a man frustrated by his empty life as a supporter of the ineffectual shogun. After thinking over Kagemasa's words he said tentatively, “It's possible that these allies fell out. Perhaps Lord Fujikawa threatened to betray the plot, and the monks killed him to silence him.”

“Whatever the reason, it's a stupid waste,” said Kagemasa heavily. He looked at Matsuzo with sympathy. “I'm afraid it's too late to save your friend. This is a great pity because he seemed like a brave and able man.”

Matsuzo started to speak, but Kagemasa went on. “As for Mt. Hiei, the shogun is not strong enough to send a punitive expedition against it. Nobunaga will be happy to do the job for us, and my master will send some men to support him. Naturally, in revenge for your friend, you will want to take a leading part in the attack on the Mt. Hiei monks.”

Matsuzo knew it was useless to protest. Even if the shogun did send an expedition, what good could it do for Zenta? It would be too late to save his life. Their errand to Kagemasa had been futile.

Kagemasa must have seen the bitterness in his expression. “I'm deeply sorry,” he said and rose with a sigh. “You and the girl had better stay for the remainder of the night. If what you say about the monks is true, the streets are not safe for you. Tomorrow I shall make my report to the shogun.”

Later, tossing sleeplessly on the floor of one of Kagemasa's guardrooms, Matsuzo found time to think. He had been rushing around in a mindless panic, led this way and that by Chiyo. But now, in the quiet early hours of the morning, his brain finally functioned again. There was a discrepancy in something that Chiyo had said.

She knew that the false gardener was a monk in disguise. But Matsuzo remembered clearly that Pedro had told Maria about the gardener spying on the three men near the fence. Maria had certainly chatted with her friend Chiyo afterwards, and she must have mentioned the incident since the fence had an important place in their lives. Therefore, when Zenta left for Mt. Hiei, Chiyo had known perfectly well that he had been seen by the disguised monk and would be recognized as a henchman of the Portuguese. She knew that he was going into danger. Then why hadn't she said anything to warn him?

Chapter 11

 

 

“I wonder if we haven't been counting too much on Chiyo's testimony,” said Nobunaga.

Hambei had been wondering the same thing himself, and he tried to hide his uneasiness. “Chiyo is extremely reliable,” he assured his master.

“From what you said, there is something not quite right about the way she presented her clue,” said Nobunaga. “Perhaps Zenta became suspicious, and that's why he went to Mt. Hiei.”

Hambei avoided Nobunaga's piercing eyes. “That's not necessarily bad. It may even be to our advantage.”

“Things are not going according to plan, Hambei, and you know it.”

“I will take precautions, my lord,” promised Hambei.

 

Pedro felt abandoned. For a while he had held the center of the stage as the chief suspect in Lord Fujikawa's murder. It had not been a comfortable position, but at least people had paid attention to him. Now he was being ignored.

Father Luis was gone, invited by Nobunaga to attend a feast connected with the Gion Festival.

While the Jesuit priest regarded Buddhism as dangerous idolatry which conflicted with Christianity, he thought of the Shinto religion as harmless ceremony. The Gion Festival had been started by the head priest of the Shinto Yasaka Shrine as a petition to the gods against a pestilence then sweeping the city, but gradually the religious aspect of the festival took second place to the merrymaking. Father Luis said that if Japan became a Christian country, the Gion Festival could be transformed into a Christian holiday, like Christmas and Easter, which had also been pagan festivals originally. The Jesuit looked forward to seeing the festivities, and had left in a sedan chair provided by Nobunaga.

Pedro's new friends, the two bodyguards, had also abandoned him. Zenta had gone on a rash and mysterious errand to Mt. Hiei. What was surprising was Matsuzo's disappearance as well. Pedro had to admit that he saw no immediate need for the services of a bodyguard. Without Lord Fujikawa or Kotaro, the samurai retainers next door seemed less antagonistic. Pedro thought that the change in their attitude had begun when he removed his boots to walk barefoot in the mud. Somehow the sight of his vulnerable, white, and callused feet had softened the animosity of the Fujikawa samurai. His feet were objects of fun to them. Amusement had led to sympathy and something akin to friendliness. One of the samurai had even grinned at him. At least his bunions had not been suffered in vain, thought Pedro.

As usual, when he had nothing else to do, Pedro went to the storeroom to check the rust on his guns. A strange sound, half sob and half moan, caught his ears as he passed near the kitchen. It seemed to come from the garden behind the house. He looked out and saw Maria huddled against the kitchen well. The girl was shaking with great, shuddering sobs.

His heart thumping with alarm, Pedro rushed to the girl and put his arms around her. “What's wrong? Are you hurt?”

Maria's eyes were wide with horror. She pointed to the well. “I was drawing water, and my bucket hit something soft. There is a body down there!”

Muttering a few round Portuguese oaths, Pedro leaned over the well and peered down. Maria was right. Something was protruding out of the water, looking very much like part of a human leg.

As Pedro stood thinking furiously, Maria put a timid hand on his arm. She seemed to draw courage from his presence. “Who is it?” she whispered.

Pedro could make a shrewd guess. “I want to have a look at his face,” he said. “We must try to get him out.”

“But how?” asked Maria. “The others have gone to the Gion Festival, and it will be hard for the two of us to lift him up.”

What she said was true. The staff had been given leave by Father Luis to attend the festivities. When Pedro offered to stay guarding the house, Maria had shyly said that she would stay also. She had some tasks to finish first, and only later would she go to see the parade of floats.

Now, looking at Maria's frail figure, Pedro decided that she would not be much help in raising the body. Moreover, he didn't want to subject her to the horrors of the task. “Then I'll go down into the well and examine the body,” he said.

Having found a stout rope, he attached one end of it to the posts of the well and the other end he tied around his waist. Then he climbed over the side of the well and slowly let himself down the mossy walls. It was slippery work, and he cursed as some green slime rubbed off on his knee, staining the better of his two remaining decent pairs of hose. He cursed again when he reached water level and found that he still had too much slack on the rope. After winding the slack around his arms a few times, he had the rope taut and could brace his feet against the side of the well. Then he reached down with one hand and pulled at the mass of sodden cloth until he had the head of the corpse out of the water. There was no mistake: the shorn head, the staring eyes, and the mouth, snarling even in death, belonged to Kotaro.

Pedro suddenly remembered the splash that he and Zenta had heard on the night of the thunderstorm. “That settles it,” he said to himself. “Kotaro killed his master and then in remorse drowned himself in the well.”

“But it would have been more in character if he had committed hara-kiri outside his mistress's door,” he added, not knowing that he was echoing Lady Yuki's opinion.

Pedro was just preparing to climb back up when his eye was caught by a totally unexpected sight. After he had released the body, it had fallen on its face and now, clearly visible on the back, was a long and deep gash. Kotaro had not drowned himself after all. He had been struck down from behind and his body thrown down the well.

Busy with his thoughts, Pedro did not hear Maria's voice at first. “Are you all right?” she called down to him. “What is happening?”

“I'm coming up,” he answered. It was not too soon, for his arms were becoming very tired.

“I'm afraid that we'll have to get water from a neighbor's well for a while,” he told Maria as he reached the top and untied the rope from his waist.

Maria was pale. “Who is it?”

“It's Kotaro,” replied Pedro, sucking a skinned knuckle. In his adventurous life, Pedro had seen violent death in many forms, but even he felt somewhat cold and sick. After the dankness of the well, the hot sun outside was very welcome.

Maria also came to an obvious conclusion. “Kotaro must have killed himself because of remorse at murdering his master.”

Pedro opened his mouth to contradict her, and then stopped. The ghastly thing at the bottom of the well indicated treachery. He made a decision to trust no one, not even Maria, who was looking at him with wide, admiring eyes. He said only, “Don't tell anyone about the discovery until I say so. We don't want to alarm the household unnecessarily.”

He had the beginnings of an idea. Kotaro's murder and the disposal of the body down the well indicated hasty improvisation. This second murder was not part of a calculated plan such as Lord Fujikawa's had been. Pedro planned to use the discovery to make the murderer give himself away.

He was in his room changing out of his soggy and stained clothes when the door slid open a crack and Maria's voice said, “There is a visitor. It's Nobunaga's retainer Hambei. Shall I tell him that you will see him?”

Pedro grunted assent. He knew that Hambei was responsible for hiring Zenta and Matsuzo. Perhaps he had come with some news of the two missing bodyguards. Then Pedro felt a twinge of alarm. Had something happened to Father Luis?

Hambei's errand was about a different matter entirely. “We have reason to believe that the murderer of Lord Fujikawa may be a monk from Mt. Hiei,” he announced.

Pedro nodded. “Zenta told me about a clue that Chiyo had found. He said that he was doing some further investigation.”

“Yes, that is the problem,” said Hambei. “Zenta has gone to Mt. Hiei and will not be back for the greater part of the day. In the meantime, the monks may take advantage of the festival to make more trouble. Since they have always expressed a hatred for Father Luis and other foreigners, Nobunaga thought that you should be warned to take every precaution against attacks.”

“It's true that both of our bodyguards are gone,” admitted Pedro. “By the way, do you know where Matsuzo is?”

Hambei looked surprised. “Isn't he back yet? He was supposed to escort Chiyo home from the restaurant where we had lunch yesterday. Perhaps they went to some events of the Gion Festival.”

For a man whose fiancée was absent all night with another young man, Hambei didn't look very worried, Pedro thought. It was none of his business, however. The mention of the restaurant reminded him that he should have refreshments brought for his guest.

He summoned Maria and asked her to prepare a Japanese meal. After seeing the reaction of the bodyguards to Western food, he decided not to try it on Hambei. He grinned as he recalled the distrustful expressions on their faces as they nibbled tentatively on their pieces of bread.

Hambei loosened his clothing and sat back comfortably, apparently prepared for a lengthy stay. Perhaps he was appointing himself as replacement for the two absent bodyguards.

Maria brought some bottles of heated saké and small dishes of salty snacks for the two men to consume while rice was being cooked. Using his chopsticks very carefully—he could handle chopsticks well, but the pickled jellyfish was slippery—Pedro spoke of a matter that had been puzzling him. “You know, I still think that the most surprising thing about Lord Fujikawa's murder is the use of my gun,” he remarked to his guest.

Hambei drained his saké cup and poured some more for Pedro and for himself. “Why do you find it surprising?” he asked. “It's obvious that the murderer used your weapon in order to put the blame on you.”

“But he was taking a very big risk,” said Pedro. “Guns are very effective in battle, and that's why so many of your warlords are eager to use them. But as a murder weapon, a gun is risky because it is too difficult to aim. Your murderer had the further problem of having to time his shot so that it coincided with a clap of thunder. All this indicated a great familiarity with firearms, and from what I have heard, the Mt. Hiei monks scrupulously avoid foreign inventions.”

“Those monks have a great variety of backgrounds,” said Hambei. “Some of them may be ronin with experience in firearms. As for the problem of aiming, a gun with a rifled bore can be fired with greater accuracy than the older models.”

Hearing these words, Pedro felt as if someone had dealt him a great thump between the shoulders, driving all the air from his lungs. At that very moment, the door opened and Maria came in with two trays of food. While she arranged the dishes and served the rice, Pedro gradually recovered his composure.