The Samurai's Daughter (22 page)

‘For-forgive this intrusion at this … this hour,’ he stuttered. He
raised
his head. His eyes were bulging out of their sockets like a frightened rabbit’s and his face, always pale, was ashen.

‘Don’t worry, Suzuki,’ Taka’s mother said briskly. ‘Where’s Eijiro?’

‘On … on his way back, I hope. I sent a message urgently. We had a bet,’ he added, flapping his hands helplessly. ‘We were going different ways to see who got to the Yoshiwara first, but …’

There were shouts of ‘Clear the way! Get back!’ The crowd parted as a group of men pushed through. Hardly daring to breathe, Taka stood on tiptoe, trying to peek between the heads. There was a grating wheeze and a stifled groan. Suzuki yelled, ‘Gently. Gently.’

Craning her neck, Taka caught a glimpse of torn clothes thickly caked in blood. The stench turned her stomach. Whoever the men were carrying, he was dreadfully injured. The clothes were of western cut and she made out a broad chest and muscular limbs. She breathed out in relief and uttered a silent prayer of thanks. The injured man was not tall and gangly and dressed in mismatched cottons. It was not Nobu.

The bearers stepped out of their sandals up into the great main room and set the wounded man on the futons which the maids had laid out. There was blood dripping from the makeshift pallet and trailing through the entryway and a pool of blood was already spreading across the futons. Maids brought lamps and set them around him.

Taka glanced at the injured man’s face and looked away in horror. It was blackened and pulpy like crushed fruit and smeared with blood, with torn, ragged flesh where his cheek should have been. One eye was so swollen she could hardly see it, the other stared dully. The man’s thick hands were locked over his chest as if he was trying to hold himself together. Blood oozed between his fingers.

‘Easy, Toshi, easy,’ said one of the bearers. Taka gasped in shock. It couldn’t be. Surely not Toshi – Toshiaki Yamakawa, Eijiro’s closest friend.

Fujino was at his side, exuding calm. The men stepped back to give her room as if, like Taka, they knew everything would be all right now that she was here. Her mother turned to the maids who were hovering anxiously. ‘Okatsu, fetch Dr Fujita. Omoto, find Inspector Makihara. Run!’

She knelt beside Yamakawa and laid a soft hand reassuringly on his arm. ‘You’ll be fine, Toshi,’ she said quietly. ‘Stay still. We’ll fix you up in no time.’ The men exchanged glances. No one dared say a word.

Maids ran in with basins of steaming water and warm cloths and knelt around Yamakawa, dabbing at his wounds. Others tried to staunch the flow of blood, ripping cotton sheets into bandages and wrapping them around his injured limbs. Taka tied back her sleeves, wrung out a cloth and knelt beside him, cautiously bathing his sound cheek, wiping back the blood-stiffened hair as she’d done to other wounded men as a child in Kyoto.

All this bloodshed was supposed to have finished but it was starting all over again. Something had gone wrong in their peaceful lives.

Yamakawa groaned and moved his jaw. His breath wheezed in his throat. ‘Waste of time,’ he muttered, his face contorted as if every word caused him agony. ‘Had it. Finished.’

Suzuki pushed in beside him. ‘Don’t be stupid, Toshi. The doctor’s on his way, Dr Fujita, who patched up our men on the battlefield. Don’t give up now. You got more fighting to do. We’ll settle those northerners once and for all. We’ll kill the lot o’ them.’

Feet crunched on the road outside, wheels clattered and a rickshaw hurtled through the gates. As the shafts crashed to the ground, a big man leapt out and charged through the crowd, shoving people out of his way, bellowing, ‘What’s happened? No, not Yamakawa, by all the gods, not Toshi!’

He dropped to his knees beside the bloodied figure on the floor.

‘They got me, Eiji. They killed me.’ Yamakawa’s voice was faint but Taka could hear every word.

Eijiro’s face had turned the colour of clay. ‘Don’t be a fool. No one would ever manage that. Pull yourself together, man. You’ve been wounded before, you’re a tough son of a bitch. You’ll pull through.’

He swung round, his face so racked with anguish that Taka had to look away. ‘What happened?’ His voice was a sob.

Yamakawa raised his head a fraction. ‘Northerners.’

Taka stifled a gasp and tried to still the thumping in her chest. She stared around in panic, feeling as if she was caught up in a nightmare. A dreadful suspicion had gripped her, so terrible she hardly dared frame the thought. Surely Nobu couldn’t have had anything to do with whatever had happened to Yamakawa? Surely it couldn’t have been him who’d carried out this brutal attack?

She bit her lips in panic. Maybe it was her who’d brought this catastrophe on their house. Maybe she’d made a terrible mistake – meeting him in secret, encouraging him to visit her, to come on to their land, into their house. She’d thought she knew him so well, they’d known each other since they were children, but maybe she’d been wrong to be so open with him, to trust him so completely. She’d closed her eyes to the fact that he was an Aizu, that she and her family were his deadly enemies. He’d always seemed so gentle, but maybe he’d deceived her. She wished she could confide in her mother, ask her if she was behaving like a foolish child, letting herself be driven by her feelings like this. But it was too late for that.

She glanced around, afraid someone might have caught the horror on her face, but everyone was staring transfixed at Yamakawa and Eijiro. No one was paying the slightest attention to her. She was just a girl, of no consequence, invisible, like the maids.

Yamakawa’s head fell back on the futon and he gasped for breath, wheezing painfully, his face twisting. ‘Suzuki. He’ll tell you.’

‘No talking,’ said Fujino. ‘Rest.’

‘We’ll find them, whoever they are.’ Eijiro’s threatening tones sent another tremor of fear through Taka. ‘You’ll have your revenge, I promise.’

Yamakawa was panting with a terrible rattling sound. His eyelids fluttered and he opened and closed his mouth. Eijiro pressed his ear to his lips but there were no words, only a long sigh as Yamakawa’s eyes closed. His body sank on the futon, hands still locked on his chest.

There was a dreadful silence. Then Eijiro gave a sobbing howl. ‘Toshi!’ His big shoulders heaved with sobs. Taka found herself weeping in sympathy.

After a long time Eijiro lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot and puffy. He stared around wildly and his expression changed from anguish to rage. Suzuki was kneeling with his face to the mats as if it was him who had died.

‘What happened, Suzuki? Tell me. What happened?’

Suzuki looked up, hollow-eyed. Taka hardly dared hear what he had to say. Her heart was pounding. Supposing it really had been Nobu. Eijiro would kill him straight away, and her too.

‘Northerners,’ Suzuki groaned. ‘Like Toshi said. Northerners.’

‘Pull yourself together, Suzuki. You’ve seen men die before. I want to hear everything, now, before the inspector arrives. Come on, spit it out.’

Suzuki’s eyes darted nervously. ‘We were driving along beside the estate and they leapt out of the ground.’

‘Out of the ground? You think I’m an idiot?’ Eijiro mimicked his reedy croak, scowling. Suzuki quailed.

‘It was dark. I … I thought they were ghosts.’

‘Fool!’ Eijiro slammed his massive fist on the tatami.

‘Huge guys,’ Suzuki went on defiantly. ‘Three or four at least, maybe five. Northerners, for sure. I could tell by the accent. Northerners with a grudge.’

‘What did they say?’

‘“Southern bastards,” that kind of thing. They jumped us.’

Three or four huge men. Taka had been holding her breath. She
let
it out sharply and unclenched her fists. So it hadn’t been Nobu. She’d been wrong to doubt him. She was so relieved and glad it made her feel weak. But in that case who had committed this terrible crime? Then she remembered what Nobu had told her, about trouble brewing. She hadn’t paid much attention at the time, she’d been too happy to see him, but now she was terribly afraid.

Eijiro glared at Suzuki. ‘But you got away unscathed. Where are your wounds? Yamakawa’s a better soldier than you, far better. He’s cut down hundreds. They got him and not you?’

‘There were f-f-five of them and t-t-two of us.’ Suzuki was stuttering again.

‘You didn’t help him?’

‘I barely escaped with my life. I wounded one and Yamakawa cut one down. We shoved the body into the moat – a monster, as big as a sumo wrestler. I was fighting another one off, battling for my life, when the rest piled on to Yamakawa. He fought back like a demon – you know him – but it was three against one. He didn’t stand a chance. The others were just behind us – our friends. They turned up as he fell and the thugs ran off.’

Eijiro’s heavy brow was furrowed. ‘Why would guys like that run away? Why didn’t they lay into all of you?’

Suzuki looked straight at him. ‘They went for Yamakawa. They seemed to know who they were after.’

Eijiro thought for a while, then nodded, as if the pieces were falling into place in his mind. ‘Huge men, you say, who knew Yamakawa.’ He spoke slowly, weighing every word. ‘Not northerners with a grudge then, not a random attack. They must have put on northern accents to disguise themselves.’ He glared around fiercely. ‘No. Killers, professional killers. It could have been me they were after, but they got Yamakawa instead. That’s why you didn’t get a scratch, Suzuki. They wouldn’t waste time on you.’

The men were muttering urgently, nodding in agreement. ‘Don’t you see?’ Eijiro said, his voice rising. ‘Father’s gathering an
army
, Satsuma is virtually an independent state. Everyone’s already gone, the barracks are half empty, all the Satsuma men have left and gone back to Kyushu. And here we are – fools that we are – holding a meeting right in our own house! It was government agents, it’s all too obvious. There are spies in our midst.’ He stared around at the assembled men, who shuffled and glared accusingly at each other and made a show of meeting his eye, as if to say, ‘Don’t look at me. It’s not me who’s the traitor.’

Taka was trying to follow his argument. She was not sure it made sense but he was probably right. Men were supposed to know about such things.

Eijiro lowered his gaze to the battered body, now hidden under a sheet that was already black with blood. ‘I’ll miss you, Toshi, old friend. By the gods, I’ll miss you. You were the best of us all!’

He buried his face in his hands. When he looked up his expression was determined.

‘It’s begun,’ he said quietly. ‘They’re picking us off one by one.’ His jaw set. ‘It’s suicide to stay here any longer.’ He swung round. ‘Mother, tell the servants to pack our bags and book our passage. We leave as soon as we can get a berth – you, Taka, all of us. You can do as you please, lads, but I suggest you join us. My father needs all the men he can find in Kyushu.’

Taka gasped and sank back on her heels. Leave Tokyo, when Nobu had just come back into her life? That very evening they’d pledged themselves to each other. He’d have no idea of where she’d gone or how to find her.

None of them had ever been to Kyushu. Eijiro’s friends might be from Satsuma but she and her mother certainly weren’t. They were Kyoto women, used to city comforts. They’d be as out of place in that rough frontier country as a couple of dainty butterflies. Taka wasn’t even sure her father wanted them there.

But it would be foolish to argue with Eijiro now. They’d do better to wait till morning, when his grief had eased a little and the horrors of the night had faded. He was always making melodramatic statements, like when he’d said that he’d fought off
the
thugs in the Yoshiwara single-handed. With any luck he would see sense – that there was no need for them to leave, certainly not all of them, not Taka and Fujino. Her mother would talk to him.

Then she realized that if they went to Kyushu, Fujino would have to break off negotiations with Masuda-
sama
. Suddenly a chance to escape this dreaded marriage had been thrust into her hands, like a gift from the gods. It was too cruel a choice – go to Kyushu and lose Nobu or stay here and marry.

In any case the decision was not in her hands. Her mother would never call off the marriage. She couldn’t. The loss of face would be unthinkable.

Fujino was on her knees beside Toshi’s body, her face an expressionless mask. Taka could tell by the set of her shoulders and the stubborn angle to her mouth that she had not the slightest intention of being dragged away from Tokyo. If General Kitaoka had summoned her she would have gone straight away, but he hadn’t, and she was not going to run like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Taka twisted her hands together. Her head hurt from thinking. It seemed the very marriage she’d struggled so hard to escape from would be her salvation; it would enable her to stay in Tokyo. It might be best if she stopped seeming quite so opposed to Masuda-
sama
, but at the same time she would have to put her mind to finding ways to postpone the evil day. There were her studies for a start. She had to finish the academic year. She’d never dared play games with her mother before. Fujino was far too astute. But now she’d have to try.

And as long as she was in Tokyo she’d be able to see Nobu. He’d be in touch soon, climbing over the wall and creeping through the gardens again to surprise her on her veranda, and then they could look for a way to make a life together.

PART III

North and South