The Samurai's Daughter (42 page)

With the castle and barracks secured, the lieutenants ditched their greatcoats and packs and prepared to check every street and house in the town for snipers and nests of rebels.

But Nobu had a mission of his own and nothing would stop him carrying it out. Tomorrow, once they were sure the town was theirs, they’d be busy from morning to night building defences, preparing for the attack that was bound to come when the rebels tried to retake their stronghold. But today, while they were prowling the city, nosing into every house and every back alley, he had a chance – his only chance – to find Taka. He had to find her quickly, before some brute like Sakurai did. He hadn’t forgotten what the Satsuma had done to the women of Aizu. The Imperial Army prided themselves on being more disciplined but every army contained thugs and Taka’s pale-skinned beauty, added to the fact she was Kitaoka’s daughter, made her an irresistible prize. The only problem was that he had a whole huge city to scour and no idea where to start.

‘Hey, Yoshida.’ There was a powerful stench of damp wool, gun oil and boot polish. It was Sakurai, massive and sweaty in his uniform, sporting a pistol as well as his rifle and sword. Sato tacked along behind him like a little launch behind a huge warship. ‘What do you say we scout out this godforsaken place together? Safety in numbers and all that.’

‘I’m fine on my own, thanks,’ Nobu said, quietly but firmly. The last thing he wanted was Sakurai on his tail.

‘So Yoshida wants to play the hero, flash his sword about like a samurai,’ said Sakurai. ‘Let’s see how you do without us, my man. We’ll come and rescue you if you don’t come back. Bet we root out more rebels than you do.’

Nobu looked up and down the road. He knew how Sakurai’s mind worked.

In front of the castle was a broad avenue. To the right, tall trees swayed above stone and stucco walls. It reminded Nobu of the area where Taka used to live in Tokyo, with high walls hiding palatial mansions inside.

He made a big display of studying the area to the left, grunting and nodding, taking his time, making sure Sakurai didn’t suspect he was desperate to get on the move. ‘Nothing much down there but I suppose someone has to take a look. Why don’t I head over? You two can see what’s behind those big walls over there. Safety in numbers and all that.’ He jerked his chin towards the prosperous-looking road to the right.

Sakurai stared at him, eyes narrowed. Nobu could almost hear the wheels in his brain grinding as he tried to work out what Nobu was plotting.

‘Safety in numbers?’ he snorted. Nobu smiled to himself and heaved a sigh of relief. He’d taken the bait. ‘You think we’re fools? You’re not having all the adventures to yourself. Come on, Sato, let’s flush out a few rebels.’

They pounded off down the road to the left, dodging behind a tree, cautiously peering out, then racing to the next. Nobu heard a crash and the splinter of wood as Sakurai slammed his rifle butt into a gate. He waited, drumming his heel, till they’d disappeared inside the grounds, then turned and sprinted for the street that reminded him of Taka’s.

The first gate he came to had been smashed in. Shards of wood hung from the frame and lay scattered across the ground. Looters had been at work in this part of town too. Nobu paused in his stride, his heart sinking, half wishing he’d taken up Sakurai’s offer. It was sheer stupidity to be wandering alone through enemy territory. The entire populace was probably lying in wait, preparing to loose a barrage of shots at the first enemy soldier they saw.

He looked around, the back of his neck tingling, imagining eyes peering out through every crack in the walls, then pulled himself together and forced himself to concentrate. The first step was to locate the Kitaoka mansion. He looked for a nameplate and groaned in disappointment: ‘Nakamura’.

There was an endless expanse of stone and stucco walls to race past before he came to another gate. The nameplate there was not ‘Kitaoka’ either, nor the one after, nor the one after that. Crows
cawed
and seagulls screeched and a sudden wind that smelt of the sea shook the branches of the trees that rose behind the walls. The place was eerily empty.

He cursed and thumped his fist into his palm. The day was half over already and he’d found nothing. He wished there were someone around, anyone. It put his nerves on edge to be alone in this deserted place.

He’d been running from street to street more and more desperately, checking nameplate after nameplate, no closer to finding anyone, let alone Taka, when he came to a particularly large, splendid gateway set deep in a wall, with a steep tiled roof and the latticed windows of a guardhouse alongside. It looked like the entrance to the residence of a powerful man, perhaps the sort who would know General Kitaoka. The place warranted further investigation.

Like the others, the gate had been staved in. Above the squawks of crows and honks of bullfrogs, Nobu heard a crack, like someone cocking a gun. It seemed to come from the guardhouse. He took a breath, fingered the trigger of his rifle, then pushed aside the splintered wood and stepped through.

There was a crash. The door to the guardhouse burst open and a weaselly fellow lurched out, clutching a hefty staff. So the place wasn’t deserted after all. Nobu glared at the man but before he could even raise his rifle the gatekeeper dropped his staff and threw up his hands, his cheeks quivering, his eyes darting from side to side like a rabbit’s.

Nobu stifled a grin. He’d never inspired fear in anyone in his life. It was the uniform and the rifle, not him, he knew that perfectly well. Far from being a skinny nineteen-year-old, in this fellow’s eyes he was a hulking representative of His Imperial Majesty’s Army, armed to the teeth.

Nobu drew himself up with what he hoped was a ferocious scowl. ‘Imperial Army, 7th division, requisitioning this house,’ he growled.

The gatekeeper backed away slowly, then turned and scuttled
off
through the grounds. Nobu allowed himself a triumphant grin. The tables had turned. The Aizu held their heads high again.

Inside the walls the grounds were planted with cherry and pine trees, pink azalea bushes and purple rhododendrons. He crossed a stream and passed a waterfall, a carp pond and a lawn big enough for sparring. The house itself was large and sprawling, surrounded by verandas and raked gravel pathways, grander by far than the samurai houses of Aizu.

He left his boots on so that he could trail dirt across the tatami, as the Satsuma had done in Aizu, and marched straight in through the grand main entrance. The house was full of servants packing up. The air shimmered with dust and there were doors and upended tatami mats propped against the pillars. The servants staggered back, dropping armfuls of kimonos, staring at Nobu wide-eyed, mouths gaping, faces pale as tofu. He felt another surge of triumph and reminded himself he needed to keep his wits about him. Once they realized there were no more soldiers outside waiting to swarm in, he’d be in trouble.

He flung open doors and poked into futon cupboards with his sword, then ordered a sullen-faced servant to open the storehouse. The man hesitated but Nobu raised his rifle and he nodded and scurried to the back of the house.

The storehouse was huge, the most lavish Nobu had ever seen. The servant pulled open the door to reveal scrolls, vases and boxes of pottery piled in heaps, higgledy-piggledy, as if thrown in in a hurry. Nobu dug through the mountain of goods, throwing things aside, but it was just the usual samurai furnishings, nothing marked with Fujino’s flamboyant geisha taste. He’d cleaned and polished Taka’s house for half a year, he knew every dish, every hanging, every scroll. If anything of hers was stored here, he’d have known it straight away. But there was nothing.

He was wasting time, he realized. There was nothing here; but before he left, at least he’d make a few enquiries. He frowned, wondering what he could ask that could possibly produce the information he needed.

‘Where are your masters and mistresses?’ he barked. The servants glowered at him. ‘Don’t try anything stupid,’ he added, playing for time. ‘My men are on their way. They’ll be here any moment.’

They gawped at him, mouths hanging open. He could see they were beginning to guess he didn’t have any back-up. They were testing him, playing stupid. Or perhaps they couldn’t understand his dialect. He repeated the question slowly and clearly with a good Tokyo accent but they still stared stubbornly at the ground. As he swung round, a burly youth with a heavy brow and jutting lower jaw twisted his mouth into an insolent leer. Nobu grabbed him by the collar. ‘Come on, lad, you’ve got a tongue.’

The youth’s face contorted into a grimace of hatred and he raised his fist and lashed out. Nobu saw the blow coming, stepped back, clamped his hand around his assailant’s wrist and twisted hard, pulling the fellow off balance, using the force of the man’s own movement to send him crashing to the floor. There were no tatami mats to cushion his fall and he hit the ground hard.

A couple of other brawny young fellows had slunk forward. Nobu glimpsed a flash out of the corner of his eye as one snatched up a poker and lunged at his head. He dodged, swung his rifle round and drove the barrel hard into the man’s stomach. The poker clattered to the ground and the fellow exhaled like a punctured balloon and crumpled, clutching his stomach and wheezing painfully, gasping for breath. The third man drew back nervously. The burly youth was scrambling to his knees.

Nobu cocked his rifle and levelled it at the men. ‘Anyone else want to take on His Imperial Majesty’s Army?’ he demanded. ‘Wait till my boys arrive. You’ll be wishing it was only me you had to deal with. Just give me an answer.’

An old man with a darkly tanned shaven pate and white hair oiled into a topknot limped forward. ‘They can’t understand you.’ He had a thick Satsuma accent. ‘And even if they could they wouldn’t know. We’re just servants. We don’t know anything.’

‘I don’t believe you. Your masters and mistresses, where did they go?’

‘They just cleared out. Wish we could have gone too before you bastards arrived. We’ve had half the town rabble in here, rampaging through the place, scaring the wits out of us, taking everything they could lay their hands on. Look around if you like. You won’t find anything.’ The man threw up his hands.

The other servants had pulled the attackers to their feet and they lined up against the wall, scowling. Nobu needed to be out of there quickly.

He groaned. He wasn’t getting anywhere. Then out of the corner of his eye he noticed that something looked wrong. There was something out of place. The lintel. The halberd hooks were freshly polished but the halberd was missing. He thought back to the lawn he’d crossed. It had been flattened as if people had been sparring there so recently that the grass hadn’t had time to spring back. The weapons racks in the entryway were empty too. The men would have taken the swords and rifles when they went off to the mountains, but that didn’t explain why the halberds were gone.

‘Your ladies aren’t planning to attack us, are they?’ he demanded. ‘That would be very foolish.’

The old man shuffled. ‘Ladies have their hobbies,’ he mumbled. ‘Needlework, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, halberds – you know what ladies are like.’

Halberds. Unbidden, a memory surged up of Nobu’s sisters practising with their halberds in Aizu. He could almost hear their sharp young voices and the crack of wood on wood and remembered the sun slanting through the trees in the crisp morning air. Tears sprang to his eyes and he blinked fiercely. That had been no hobby, they’d been preparing for war. He wondered if Taka had taken up the halberd too. It would be like her to fight if her city was threatened.

He’d had enough of beating round the bush. There was nothing to lose by asking as directly as he dared.

‘We’re looking for … for a family.’ He didn’t mention the name. No one would give away anything about the great Kitaoka
or
anyone related to him. ‘We intend them no harm. We heard they moved down here from Tokyo.’

The old man studied him, eyes narrowed.

‘You won’t find them here, whoever they are,’ he said cautiously. ‘It’s all old families in this part of town. People from Tokyo don’t settle here. By the time they get here they’re in reduced circumstances, they’ve left everything behind. Once they get here they lead modest lives.’

Nobu nodded. The old man was right. General Kitaoka himself might not have lived in a splendid house in the samurai quarter such as the family had had in Tokyo. He might have lived somewhere small, without space for Taka and her mother. Or perhaps he hadn’t even acknowledged them, hadn’t wanted them to live with him. Perhaps he’d simply left them to their own devices.

Fujino was a geisha. Arriving in an unknown city, surely she would have looked for a place to live in an area where she felt at home – such as the geisha district.

‘Keep the volcano on your left,’ the old man had told him, looking at him quizzically from under straggly white eyebrows when he asked for directions. ‘You’ll find the geisha district on the edge of town, as it should be, well away from where decent folk live. Look for salt fields and a salt kiln and a sand mountain and a huge graveyard, largest in all Satsuma, and you’ll be there. Salt fields and graves and prostitutes go together, that’s what we say round these parts.’

Salt fields, graves and prostitutes … As Nobu left the samurai district for the seedier parts of town, he knew he was putting distance between himself and the army, camped out at the castle and the barracks. He was further from safety but also further from prying eyes. He came across scouting parties and some of his fellow lieutenants patrolling alone or in pairs. There were quite a few like him, it seemed, who preferred to be out on their own.

By the time he crossed the line of pine trees that marked the beginning of the merchant district he’d been searching for most of
the
day. He was tired and hungry, his legs ached and his feet, encased in hard leather boots, were chafed and raw.

The looters had been hard at work. The wealthy houses of the merchant district looked as if they’d been hit by an earthquake. They were right on the road, not hidden behind high walls, which made them that much easier to break into. Nearly all the rain doors were splintered or torn down and there were broken chests and upturned drawers, rolls of paper and bolts of silk littering the road. The shops were barred and shuttered but most of those had been broken into too. A dead rat lay in the gutter alongside piles of rotting vegetables and mangy dogs tore at bloodied pieces of meat, snarling and baring their fangs at Nobu as he hurried by, keeping a wide berth.