Death at the Crossroads (Samurai Mysteries) Read online

“I can hear that,” the old man said. “I may be blind, but I can hear very well, don’t you know. Why have you disturbed my studies?”

  “Of course, Sensei,” Manase said in a placating voice. “It’s just that we get so few visitors worth talking to that I thought I’d introduce you to a samurai we have staying with us, Matsuyama Kaze.”

  “Matsuyama Kaze? What kind of name is that? It sounds like an odd name to me.”

  “It is an odd name, but it suits a strange fellow,” Kaze spoke up. “I am glad to meet you, Sensei. Please be kind to me.” The last phrase was a common greeting instead of a real request.

  “Be kind? Be kind? First let me see your lessons.”

  Kaze looked at Manase for guidance. “He sometimes thinks he’s still teaching,” Manase said. “He goes in and out with great frequency, thinking he’s in the past and then remembering he’s in the present. Just have patience. His mind will return to the moment after he’s drifted a bit.”

  “My young Genji, my shining prince, how can you expect to take up the mantle of courtly duties if you don’t study? Do you want to embarrass your household and all your ancestors? People will laugh at you!” The old man shook a withered finger in Kaze’s direction.

  “I have no doubt people will laugh at me,” Kaze said kindly. “I apologize to you, Sensei, for not having my lessons completed.”

  The old man’s head snapped up, like a snoozing sentry suddenly startled by the coming of his captain. “Lessons? What lessons? Is someone here to meet me? Do you want to study the classics? I’m blind now, but I can still recite them from memory. I say them over and over again so they will not flutter from my mind like an escaping bird.”

  “I am Matsuyama Kaze. I am glad to meet you, Sensei.”

  “I am Nagahara Munehisa.” He put his hands before him on the mat and gave a short bow. “I used to be classics master in the household of Lord Oishi Takatomo. I once had the honor of reciting part of the Kojiki before His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor.”

  “Nagahara Sensei, that is a great honor indeed. You must be a scholar of exceptional merit to recite our oldest history before His Majesty.”

  “You are too kind. It was the Imperial Household that asked for the Kojiki, but the Genji is my real love.”

  “I am honored to meet such a distinguished scholar.” Kaze placed his hands before him on the mat and gave the blind old man a deep bow, even though the old scholar could not see the compliment.

  “Ah yes, the Kojiki, the Kojiki. The remembrances of Hieda no Are, an old, old woman. Like the Genji, another tale from a woman. She was sixty-five when her legends were recorded. Did you know I’m sixty-three?”

  “No, Sensei, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, I’m …” The old man paused, a confused look coming over his face. Suddenly he seemed quite stern. “So you would rather see the horse races than study your classics? Bushido is more than swords and horses and armor, young master. Bushido, the way of the warrior, is also about knowing the classics of Japan and even China. To be a superior man, you must be a cultured man. And a young lord in your position must be a superior man. I am your teacher, your Sensei, and I am responsible for you. Do you want others to laugh at you, bringing shame to both you and your household? You are a most willful boy, sneaking out to see those races!”

  Kaze looked at Manase for guidance. The District Lord took a fan from his sleeve and started cooling himself. He had a look of complete indifference on his face. Kaze returned his attention to the old man and said, “Yes, Sensei. Thank you for correcting me.”

  The old scholar didn’t seem to hear Kaze’s reply. Instead he started mumbling to himself again at a rapid pace. Kaze couldn’t make out all the words, but he caught “Heike” and “battle” and “mirror in the seas.” Kaze thought he must be reciting the story of the ancient battle between the Minamoto and the Taira for the leadership of Japan.

  Manase gracefully stood to leave, and protocol required Kaze to follow. In the hallway outside the Sensei’s room, after the shoji screen door was closed, Manase gave his little laugh again and said, “How boring. He’s gone again. He’ll recite for quite some time. He’s afraid of forgetting the things he used to be able to read, so he tries to recall them to memory by repeating them over and over. He keeps forgetting more and more of the stories, however, and then tries even more desperately to remember what he has left. When I first bought him, he could recite the most marvelous stories, especially from the era of Genji. That was almost six hundred years from today, but that old man could make it seem as alive and modern as if the world of Genji were just outside the walls of this villa.”

  “You bought him?”

  “Oh, yes. A man was leading him around the countryside like a performing bear, putting on shows where he would recite stories and get paid a few coppers. I paid off his handler and brought him into my household. He really was a classics master in Lord Oishi’s household, but he gets less and less useful to me. Lately he just wants sweet treats like some kind of child, and his ability to concentrate and carry on an interesting conversation gets less and less.” Manase sighed, “I suppose that eventually my only link to the world of Genji will be the books I have, because that old man will go completely crazy or die.”

  “You seem especially interested in the world of Genji.”

  “Yes. That’s how I try to live my life.”

  “But that was six hundred years ago!”

  “But it was the pinnacle of our life and culture. The people of Japan have been in a decline ever since. I still try to follow the customs and beliefs of the age of Genji. That was a time when there truly were shining princes, and men of refinement could pursue the highest aesthetic interest. After three hundred years of constant warfare our heritage was lost. No wonder old courtly arts and customs are dying, and rough, swaggering bushi rule.”

  “You mean Lord Tokugawa?”

  Manase caught himself. “Certainly not! Tokugawa-sama is a most cultured man. I’m talking about other lords.”

  “Of course. How stupid of me. Please accept my apologies for not properly understanding your comments.”

  “Well, yes. I accept your apologies. I was just upset because the old man slips deeper and deeper into his private world, depriving me of the entertainment I bought him for.”

  “I can see where that would upset you.” Kaze stared blandly at the District Lord.

  “Well, I must attend to some duties now. Please stay for a few days. Despite your strange ways, you’re an amusing fellow in this dreary backwater.”

  “Can I ask one final thing before you go, Lord Manase?”

  “What is it?”

  “If I find the villager hiding a bow, would you let the charcoal seller go?”

  Manase studied Kaze for several seconds. “You are a most peculiar fellow. The peasants hide their weapons, and it would take weeks to search all their filthy huts to see where they put them. That charcoal seller will be crucified in a few days, and I won’t delay things for a foolish search. But I’m a reasonable man, and if you can somehow find out what weapons the villagers have in that time, then of course I’ll arrest the one with a bow and crucify him instead. As I said, it’s all the same to me which villager is killed for this murder. It might as well be the one who actually did it.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Tears drip like blood on

  a ghostly face. Obakes

  dwell inside my soul.

  It was a quiet night as Kaze made his way from Manase’s villa to the nearby village of Suzaka. Leaving the villa had been absurdly simple. Manase posted a sentry, but Kaze found the sentry comfortably asleep, sitting on the ground and leaning back against a gatepost, announcing his slumbering status with a raucous snoring.

  The mist that had painted the ground the first morning Kaze entered this district was back. It was a gossamer blanket that captured the faint light of the stars and the brighter light of the waxing moon, entangling both in the swirl of its ephemeral weave. Kaze cut through the
undulating blanket, the passage of his feet tearing puffy-edged holes in the surface.

  Kaze looked over his shoulder and sought the image of the rabbit in the moon that Japanese children were taught to look for. He could see the familiar ears and eyes, and he smiled in recognition. He stopped for a moment to look up between the flanking pines to glory in the wave of stars that crested over the treetops and flooded the heavens. Nowhere did the stars seem so close and attainable as they did in the mountains. Kaze’s curious mind wondered why the stars seemed so flat and dull in cities like Kyoto.

  The trees that bordered the path to the village meant that Kaze had no worries about losing his way in the dark. Besides, with the instinct that all people close to nature must develop, he knew the general direction to the village even without the trees to guide him. He started off again, enjoying the journey.

  The night had an unnatural stillness to it, a trait Kaze had noticed before when conditions were like this. It was as if the damp air smothered the normal sounds of the forest, leaving a void in the air waiting to be filled. As he walked, that stillness was pricked by a sound so faint he had to stop to make sure he actually heard something. It was from up ahead, where the road curved so Kaze couldn’t see what was hidden beyond the corner. He still couldn’t make out what it was, but there was most definitely a sound.

  Kaze reached down and smoothly loosened his sword, the sword moving past the sticking point that kept it firmly in the scabbard with a satisfying click. Walking silently, Kaze approached the corner that was flanked by dark trees. As he came to the curve in the road, he was able to comprehend the sound he had heard. It was a woman crying. Curious, Kaze rounded the corner to see what was ahead of him.

  There, crouched down in the middle of the road, was a high-born woman wearing a white kimono, the color of death and mourning. Kaze could easily tell her station in life from her long hair and the cut of her kimono. Her face was buried in her hands, and her hair cascaded down around her shoulders. Kaze could hear most definitely that she was sobbing. Through a trick of starlight, the form of the woman seemed almost as misty and ephemeral as the silver blanket covering the ground around her, and Kaze rubbed his eyes because the edges of the woman seemed to blur into the night. Kaze’s eyes were especially acute, so the shifting shape of the woman made him uneasy.

  He walked toward her slowly, his eyes trying unsuccessfully to focus on the form before him. Because of her eerie luminescence, he was able to make out her shape easily, and there was something so familiar about the slope of her shoulders and the way her head was bent forward that Kaze stopped walking.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but his mouth was dry, and only a soft whisper emerged. The woman apparently didn’t hear him, for she made no change in her posture. The dryness of his throat surprised him, and he suddenly realized that a chill had taken hold of his bones unlike any cold he had experienced before. It was a dry, inward chill that was so intense that Kaze found himself trembling from it.

  Kaze took a deep breath, and the air around him tasted dry and flat, like the dead air in an old abandoned monastery or barn. He studied the shifting shape of the woman once more and, with an awful certainty, he knew who was before him.

  “My heart has no hindrance,” Kaze said to himself, reciting the Heart Sutra. “No hindrance, and therefore no fear.” He took another gulp of that dead, flat air and, repeating the Sutra to himself, he called upon his courage and approached the woman.

  Stopping a few feet from the figure, he bowed deeply, keeping his back straight. “I am here, Lady,” Kaze said, greeting the obake, the ghost, of his dead mistress. The obake ceased her sobbing, and Kaze took this as a sign that he could straighten his bow. The figure before him still had her face in her hands, and Kaze was at a loss about what to do next. Suddenly, the figure looked up and removed the hands from her face. Kaze’s soul froze.

  Instead of the serene face of his dead Lady, the same face he carved on the Kannons he habitually left behind him, he saw that the obake was faceless. No eyes, no nose, and no mouth; just a soft lump of flesh. Yet, even without a face, he heard her sobbing and he saw the drops from wet tears glistening on her kimono.

  Kaze stood motionless before the apparition, not daring to breathe. A fear more real than any he had known gripped his heart, yet he stood his ground and didn’t flee. No hindrance, and therefore no fear, he told himself. No hindrance, and therefore no fear. This obake was the spirit of the Lady, someone he served when she lived, and someone he still served through his searching, even though she was dead. There is no reason to fear her now, even though she was a faceless entity.

  “How can I help you, Lady?” Kaze said, summoning up all his courage. He was pleased that his voice sounded more normal than before.

  The obake unfolded from the ground, rising like a puff of white smoke until it was standing before Kaze. It raised a hand in a languid motion, the arm floating upward gently until it pointed down the road.

  “You want me to go with you?” Kaze asked, his heart chilling at the possibilities.

  The obake continued to point down the road.

  “There’s something down the road?”

  The obake remained motionless.

  “You want me to leave?”

  The apparition lowered its arm.

  Kaze sighed, a gripping anxiety replacing fear. He dropped to his knees and bowed before the obake, his head cutting through the low-lying mist and touching the earth. It somehow felt comforting to be so close to the damp ground in the presence of the obake, and the contact with the planet gave Kaze the courage to go on. “I know you want me to find your daughter,” he said. “Please excuse my lack of attention to my pledge! But Lady, something is very wrong here. The Lord I served, the man you were married to, always taught that it was our duty to maintain harmony within ourselves and in our society. That harmony has been destroyed here. All of Japan is in upheaval as the Tokugawas impose their will, but I feel there is some chance for me to restore harmony to this little piece of Yamato. I don’t know the cause of the disharmony, and I don’t know if I can correct it, but Lady, I would like to try. If I fail within a few days, I will continue my search. But for now, my Lady, please let me try!”

  Kaze remained motionless, waiting for some sign from the obake that his request was granted or denied. The stillness that surrounded him was suddenly broken by the sound of a cricket in the woods. Kaze looked up, and the obake was gone.

  Kaze tried to stand and couldn’t. His heart was tripping in his chest and his body felt weak, as if he had a three-week fever. The air now tasted damp, but alive. He noted with wonder that the mist, which covered the ground, was rapidly shrinking into the earth, flowing into ripples and crevices and tiny folds as if it were water. He closed his eyes, centering himself and willing the chilling numbness of fear away. No hindrance, and therefore no fear.

  Soon his breathing became slow and rhythmic, and the weakness in his limbs was replaced by growing strength. He stood, adjusting his sword in his sash. Then, with a firm step, he started off down the path to the village.

  Kaze felt guilty about pausing in his search for the child to try to free the charcoal seller, but he now knew the Lady understood and was giving him permission to try to find harmony for this village. He wondered about the demon seen in the next village and wondered if this place was unusually active with spirits.

  From his earlier exploration he knew the village layout. It was a compact collection of huts and farmhouses holding perhaps two hundred people. Like most villages of its size, it was organized alongside a dusty main street, with huts and houses flanking the street.

  Kaze stood at the edge of the village, still calming himself and also enjoying the calm while he could. Behind him, in the woods, he could hear the song of a nightingale. It comforted him, and he tried to focus his attention on what he was about to do, not what he had just experienced. Then he took a deep breath and took his sword and scabbard out of his sash. Holding the sword in the m
iddle of the scabbard, he ran to the door of the first hut in the village.

  “Wake up! The bandits are attacking!” Kaze used the butt of the scabbard to bang on the house door.

  “Nani? What?” a sleepy voice from within the hut called out.

  “The bandits! They’re attacking. Hayaku! Hayaku! Hurry! Hurry! Grab a weapon and come out here!”

  Kaze ran across the street to the next hut. He started pounding on the door.

  “Wake up! Wake up! Bandits are attacking the village! Grab your weapons and come outside!”

  Without waiting for an answer, he ran back across the street to the next house in line. There he repeated his warning and ran to the next house. As he zigzagged across the street he noticed the men of the village tumbling out of their homes onto the main street. A few carried newly lit torches, and in the flickering yellow light Kaze could see that all were carrying weapons of some type. As he progressed through the village the crowd in the main street grew larger and more confused.

  “What—”

  “Where’s the bandits?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Are they attacking?”

  “Where’s the attack?”

  Kaze looped around to catch the village houses that weren’t on the main street. By the time he finished his circuit of the village, a large crowd of men and women were huddled together in the center, milling around, clutching weapons, and looking nervously into the dark.

  Puffing from his exertions, Kaze strode into the mass of people and started pushing his way though the crowd.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s that samurai who was at Jiro’s. …”

  “Where’s the bandits, samurai?”

  As Kaze shouldered his way through the forest of people before him, he looked at the weapons they were holding. A few clutched farm implements, but most had spears, swords, and naginatas. He made his way through the milling group, ignoring all questions, until he reached the center of the crowd and saw a pudgy hand holding a bow. He walked up to the owner of the hand and confronted the sweating face of the Magistrate.