Death at the Crossroads (Samurai Mysteries) Read online

  The young women lined up along one edge of the field, and rice seedlings, which had been carefully nurtured from the best grains of the previous year’s crop, were tossed to them in bundles, each bundle of precious shoots carefully gathered together and tied with a twist of straw.

  The planting always started festively enough, but by the end of the day each woman was exhausted by the constant bending and tedious work. Some might welcome some of the gawking men on the edge of the paddy as potential marriage prospects. The crowd included men who had no real interest in the planting except to see all the young woman of the village lined up in one place. Nagato was such a man.

  Many of the girls were fifteen or older and thus already married. Nagato didn’t find these types appealing. Not because they were married, but because they looked too assured, too much like women. For some reason that made the Magistrate very uncomfortable.

  Ichiro’s daughter was joining the rice planting for the first time, and as such she was tentative and unsure of herself. She shrugged off the top of her kimono, letting it hang down from her waist sash. Since she was used to working and playing in summer with her chest exposed, she was not intimidated by the costume for planting. She was simply cognizant of the fact that her invitation to participate in the rice planting marked a passage for her, from the ranks of children into the ranks of the young women of the village.

  Nagato found her hesitancy very appealing. He couldn’t say why, but this quality made him have lustful feelings toward the child. That’s why it seemed like an omen when Nagato, in a black mood after his fight at home, stumbled across the daughter of the village headman gathering roots at the edge of the forest. The child had the flat basket used for collection of roots in her hand. If she had a shallow round basket, she would be gathering mushrooms. She was with her mother, a woman Nagato dismissed as he did most of the peasant women in the village.

  Nagato had been marching through the village to calm down from his fight and perhaps to find a peasant to yell at. He stopped when he spotted the girl and watched her with narrowing eyes. He carefully noted the way her body pushed against the cloth of the kimono and her innocent gesture of pushing her scraggly hair out of her face as she straightened up. She wasn’t aware of the Magistrate, but her mother was.

  Stepping between her daughter and the view of the Magistrate, Ichiro’s wife bobbed in a low bow and said, “Good morning, Magistrate-sama!” Her voice was a little too cheerful, as if she was forcing herself to be bright and friendly, all against her better judgment.

  The Magistrate said nothing and continued to stare past the woman at the child. The young girl had turned with the voice of her mother and was now looking at the Magistrate with surprise. It occurred to Nagato that he really didn’t have to buy such a creature. As village Magistrate, he should be able to just take her. He stepped toward her.

  “Would you like some freshly gathered roots, Magistrate-sama?” the mother said. Her words were innocent, but her voice took a sharp edge as she read the look on the Magistrate’s face.

  “Get out of my way,” the Magistrate said as the woman further imposed herself between him and the child. Now the child had a look of fear on her face, and this incited Nagato’s lust even more. She looked as if she was about to run away.

  “Please, Magistrate-sama, won’t you have some roots for your table?” the mother was pleading now, holding the basket before her like some offering. The words didn’t match her thoughts, but it was plain she knew what was on the Magistrate’s mind.

  “I’ve told your stupid husband enough times what I want your daughter for, but he just doesn’t seem to understand,” Nagato told the woman. “Now I see it runs in the entire family. Now get out of my way. I am about to bestow a great privilege on that daughter of yours.”

  “Please Magistrate-sama! She’s much too young! Take me instead. Please, Magistrate-sama! We can go into the woods right here and I can please you. The girl is still a child. She’s too young for such things. Please!”

  For Nagato, the woman’s pleading evoked no pity. Instead, it quickened his need to take the child. He felt powerful and in control. His bluster, which so often crumbled when confronted with his new District Lord or his wife or the strange ronin, was now channeled into new and novel directions. He liked it and stepped closer to the child.

  The mother imposed herself again, which surprised Nagato. The idea that a peasant might love a child and would want to protect it was one that had never occurred to him. Peasants were simply rice-producing machines: slow, stupid, dishonest, and untrustworthy. They had no human feelings.

  The child was starting to run away, which enraged Nagato, and the mother had now dropped the root-gathering basket and dared to grab at his arm. “Please, Magistrate-sama! We’ll go together into the woods, neh? You don’t need the child. I can—”

  Nagato struck her full force with his fist. The effect was even better than he had hoped. The woman crumpled to her knees, dazed. She released her grip on his arm, and it actually got the child to return to him and her mother.

  “Please, Magistrate-sama! Don’t hit my mother!”

  Nagato smiled. “Come with me and I’ll leave your mother alone.”

  “But Magistrate-sama—”

  Nagato raised his fist to smash the now-defenseless woman kneeling before him. The child ran to him, grabbing at his arm. He reached over and grabbed the girl’s wrist in a cruel clasp, twisting her arm and bringing a wince of pain to her face.

  With her struggling to break free, he dragged her into the woods after him. Just before he stepped into the trees he looked over his shoulder and saw the mother staggering toward the village, her face cupped in her hands.

  For once, Nagato felt powerful and completely in control. He actually smiled when he found a clear space in the woods and dragged the child close to him. He always knew he could kill any peasant with impunity, but he had never considered the other possibilities of what he might do.

  He ignored the child’s cries as he roughly stripped the kimono from her. Because she wouldn’t stop struggling when he ordered her to, he gave her a backhanded slap that snapped her head back. He shoved her to the ground and fell on top of her, using his superior strength and weight to hold her down while he fumbled with his fundoshi loincloth.

  He finally got his manhood free, but the child was still squirming and crying, and he coldly slapped her again. He wanted her chastened and subdued, but not unconscious. He found he enjoyed her struggles and the mewing pleadings that were coming out of her peasant mouth. He reached down with one hand to guide himself into her jade gates when he gave a large gasp. It was not a gasp of pleasure, it was a gasp of pain.

  He reached behind to grasp the thing digging into the flesh of his back and felt the thing release its pressure. He brought his hand back to his face and was surprised to see it was covered in crimson. It took him a few moments to understand that his hand was covered in blood. His blood.

  He rolled off the girl, the shock starting to ebb and the pain taking over. He could see Ichiro, the village headman, standing above him with a dagger in his hand. Nagato was astounded. A peasant in the village attacking him was unthinkable. The penalty for such an attack was the death of the peasant, the death of his family, and the death of at least four of his neighboring families. Collective responsibility extended beyond the need to cooperate to grow rice. It also meant collective punishment if one member of the village broke the laws protecting samurai and nobles.

  Ichiro also seemed to understand the import of his act, because his weapon hand was shaking. His rage and need to protect his child had fueled his first thrust into the fleshy back of the Magistrate, but now, coming face-to-face with the consequences of his action, he realized he had murdered the child he wanted to protect, along with himself, his wife, and his other children. And for attacking a Magistrate, the deaths would not be quick ones.

  Nagato made a bellow of anger at the sight of the village headman and reached for his swor
ds, still tucked into the sash of his kimono, which he had not bothered to take off.

  At the movement of the Magistrate toward his swords, the instinct for self-preservation took over Ichiro and he lunged forward, the sharp blade of the dagger catching the large man just below the breastbone, skittering downward into the soft flesh of his belly. Nagato clawed at the blade, roaring in pain and rage. He engaged in a desperate struggle with the smaller peasant, feeling his strength, blood, and life ebb away through the dagger wounds. Finally, still clawing at the weapon, he expired.

  Ichiro’s daughter had had her leg pinned by the corpulent body of the Magistrate during the entire struggle. The weight of the struggling Magistrate, the pain, and the shock of the attack had driven her to hysterics. She was pushing at the Magistrate’s corpse, crying and not yet comprehending what had happened. Seeing his daughter’s predicament, Ichiro dropped his weapon and helped the girl to push the large body of the Magistrate off her. Then, putting her torn kimono around her shoulders to cover her nakedness, he held his daughter to him as she sobbed and shook from her experience.

  He tried to provide some comfort to her, but he had no comfort in his own heart. All he could think about was that he had killed them all with his rash act against the Magistrate. He racked his brain but saw no escape from the inevitable results of this killing. No one in the village would side with him, because his action had killed many of them due to the collective responsibility that samurai imposed on peasants. He couldn’t run, because anyone who sheltered him would also be killed, along with their family, too. He couldn’t plead that he was defending his daughter, because he had no right to defend his daughter, at least not from the village Magistrate.

  His daughter was crying, and tears formed in his eyes, too. His daughter’s tears were tears of shock and relief, but his tears were tears of despair. Through his tears, he saw a movement in the woods and, suddenly, standing before him was the strange ronin.

  Kaze took in the scene in an instant. The half-naked girl being comforted by her father, the large body of the Magistrate with blood covering his stomach, the bloody dagger still impaled in the body of the official.

  Kaze stepped over to the body and pulled the dagger out. He wiped the blade on the kimono of the Magistrate. For a second, Ichiro thought Kaze was going to administer justice on the spot, killing both him and his daughter for his crime. In a way, he almost welcomed this, because it would mean their deaths would be simple and quick. It would also mean that Ichiro would not be kept alive under torture so he could watch his wife and children and neighbors all killed before he, himself, also paid the ultimate price for his crime.

  To Ichiro’s surprise, Kaze extended the butt of the weapon to him. Taking one hand from his daughter, the village headman took the knife. He was confused about what Kaze was doing.

  “It’s terrible how these bandits have gotten out of hand in this District, isn’t it? I guess one of Boss Kuemon’s men took revenge on the Magistrate, mistakenly thinking he was responsible for Kuemon’s death.”

  Ichiro heard the ronin’s words but could not understand their meaning. He knew the samurai was strange, but now he thought that perhaps he was insane.

  “What?” the headman said.

  “I said it’s terrible what the bandits have done. They’re now so bold that they’ve killed the local Magistrate.”

  Ichiro still didn’t understand. He looked up at the ronin in total confusion.

  “I think you should say that the Magistrate was off for a walk, then later you saw a few of Boss Kuemon’s men in the forest. You went to investigate and found the body. Keep the child in your hut for a few days and tell your neighbors that your wife slipped and hit her face on a rock. Don’t mention you saw me. Now do you understand?”

  “But why … ?” Ichiro gasped.

  Kaze stared down at the shocked peasant, who was still holding his young daughter in one arm and holding the murder weapon with his hand. In a way, Kaze felt like a traitor to his class. His natural sympathies should be with the Magistrate, Nagato, because he was a fellow samurai. Kaze knew that there had often been peasant revolts in Japan and that the savagery and ruthlessness of armed peasants were exceeded only by the samurai who had been sent to suppress such revolts.

  Yet, in the two years of his wandering, he had gotten to know the people of the land in a way no regular samurai could. They could be petty and venal and selfish. They could also be warm and generous and full of bawdy humor. More important, in two years of looking for the daughter of his former Lord, he had also seen the treatment of countless young girls and it was starting to disgust him.

  In Japan they didn’t indulge in the practice of exposing newborn girl infants as the Koreans and Chinese did, except in times of dire famine. Yet the life of a peasant girl was hard and often brutal, and Kaze sometimes wondered if life was such a precious gift when it was lived in these conditions. He wondered what the Lady’s daughter had experienced in the two years she had been missing and what she would be like when he found her.

  “Why?” Ichiro asked again.

  Kaze looked at the body of the Magistrate. Kaze was now sure the Magistrate hadn’t killed the samurai at the crossroads. The arrow he had shot at Kaze during the ambush was not like the ones that had killed the unknown samurai and Hachiro. Although the Magistrate could grab any arrow when startled at night, as when Kaze played the trick on the village, Kaze decided that the Magistrate would most likely use his best-quality arrow when he knew he would be killing men.

  Still, the Magistrate might as well die for trying to rape the peasant girl as for some other crime, such as taking a bribe from a bandit. In fact, if Kaze had come upon the scene a few moments earlier, he might have killed the Magistrate himself. He had caught sight of Ichiro’s wife rushing into the village, then of Ichiro running into the forest. Kaze had gone to investigate. The peasant wanted an answer for Kaze’s actions, which turned his perception of class and the whole world upside down, but Kaze couldn’t articulate one.

  “Because it pleases me,” Kaze finally answered. Kaze walked away, leaving the astonished peasant and the sobbing girl.

  CHAPTER 22

  Red Fuji, caught in

  the caressing rays of the

  budding scarlet sun.

  When he was a boy, Kaze climbed trees and flew kites from the treetops. He started by flying kites from fields, like other boys, but found he preferred the intense sensation of flying a kite in a swaying treetop. The leaves fluttered with gusts, and if the wind was strong enough, the branches and trunk vibrated. Kaze felt like a part of the kite, weaving with the wind and shaking high above the earth. In his mind, the treetop was like another kite, tied to the real kite by the thin twine in Kaze’s hand, both kites dancing together in the wind.

  The wind was a mystery and constant fascination to him. You couldn’t see it, but you saw its results in the bending grass, the fluttering leaves, and the ripples skimming the surface of a pond. If the wind was strong enough, you saw grown men bending into it, fighting their way across a castle courtyard or down a country road. After a particularly violent storm, you even saw trees uprooted or frame and paper houses, held together with pegs and cunning joints, standing with tattered shoji screens and a forlorn, harshly scrubbed look.

  Through the strings of a kite, you could interact with this unseen force, playing the gusts and eddies to coax the kite higher and higher into the sky. The force was invisible, but you learned to deal with this force, conforming to the imperatives of the wind while using it to hold up your kite until you ran out of string or patience.

  Kaze reflected that honor was like the wind. It was invisible, yet you felt it tugging at your conscience and impelling you in a direction that you might not want to go. You were buffeted by honor until you bent to its will, moving in the direction that it blew you.

  As he grew older, Kaze stopped playing with kites but more keenly felt the effects of honor. If his karma was to grow old, he looked with anxio
us anticipation toward a time when he would again be near one end of his life span, this time the old end. Then he could have the luxury of playing with kites again.

  Now the wind, insistent but not strong, forced him to hold his kimono a little tighter as it pushed against his chest and face. He sat in the dark outside Lord Manase’s manor and waited until it was time to again visit the old blind Sensei, Nagahara. Since adding a nightly visit to the Sensei to his schedule, Kaze had devised a plan for entering Manase Manor that didn’t require a snoozing guard.

  The manor, as with almost all buildings of its kind, was built on a foundation of pilings resting on large rocks. This left a large crawl space under the floor, and this crawl space, plus the fact that the floorboards were not fastened down, made it rather easy for him to enter the manor anytime he wanted to. He knew the Sensei stayed up late reciting the books he was so desperate to retain, so he always appeared late at night, when the rest of the household was asleep.

  Nagahara Sensei’s energy appeared to be fading, but Kaze’s visits seemed to revitalize him as he taught classes for pupils long since past. For his part, Kaze was learning about a Japan also long since past, a Japan where meat, not fish, was eaten in large quantities; where Buddhism was not a major religion; where people didn’t bath for pleasure and ritual purification; and where beliefs were totally different from the beliefs Kaze held.

  When the time was right, Kaze rapidly crawled under the manor, making his way under the hallway in front of Nagahara Sensei’s room. When he was sure it was safe, Kaze displaced several floorboards and climbed into the hall. Replacing the floorboards so there was no evidence of his entry, Kaze slid back the shoji and called out softly, “Sensei?”

  “Hai.” Nagahara’s voice seemed weak. Kaze entered the room and found the old man reclining on a futon. The room was dark, because there was no need for a light with a blind man, but from the tiny amount of light that spilled in from the open door, Kaze could see that the old man looked tired.