Jade Palace Vendetta (Samurai Mysteries) Page 5

  “At this time of year the water of the falls will be cold from snow runoff,” the Sensei said. “I want you to stand under the waterfall and meditate on the lesson of Yoshimori. I want you to reflect on what it means to kill and not be a murderer.”

  After two years, Kaze had learned not to hesitate at the Sensei’s orders. He shrugged off his kimono, leaving him standing only in his fundoshi loincloth.

  “Do you know why I want you to do this reflection while standing under this waterfall?”

  “Yes, Sensei, you want to see if I’m tough enough to withstand the icy water.”

  “Baka! Fool!”

  Kaze cringed, and the Sensei sighed. In a gentler voice he said, “There are ways to toughen you up without being cruel. The purpose of this exercise is not to mortify the flesh, but to learn to focus. Just as a Zen priest will sit under a waterfall to meditate, now you must meditate. I will leave you here, and when you’ve truly focused and thought about what we’ve talked about today, then you can come back to the hut.”

  “Yes, Sensei,” Kaze said.

  Without another word of instruction the Sensei turned and left.

  Kaze stepped into the cold water of the pool at the bottom of the falls and immediately felt the truth of the Sensei’s prediction of how icy the water would be. He waded out to the tumbling waterfall, feeling the drops hitting his skin like crystals in an ice storm. Taking a deep breath to steel himself against the cold, he stepped under the stream of water coming down Dragonfly Falls and turned to face outward. He put his hands together, closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate as the water from the falls pummeled his head and shoulders and made his body shake from its frigid embrace.

  It was hard to do what the Sensei instructed him to, but he tried to turn his thoughts and feelings inward, thinking about the lesson of Yoshimori. His powers of concentration were not strong enough and the noise of the falling water and the cold bothered him sufficiently so that he had a hard time focusing. He squeezed his eyes tighter and tried to think even more single-mindedly about the story he had been told.

  Then he heard a sound that disturbed him much more than the falling water and noise and frostiness of his surroundings. It was the sound of a young girl giggling.

  Because of the popularity of Dragonfly Falls and its beauty, it was not unexpected that someone else might come by. But it annoyed him that some young girl found his attempts to meditate under the tumbling water an excuse for laughter. In moments the young girl’s laughter was joined by the sound of three or four men, and Kaze opened his eyes to see what was going on.

  In front of him was a bamboo palanquin held by two kago porters. To the front and back of the kago were two samurai acting as guards. Sitting in the kago, the protective bamboo strip curtains raised so she could see the view, was the most beautiful girl Kaze had ever seen. Her face was oval with high cheekbones and a small pointed chin. Her large, expressive eyes were sparkling with some forbidden merriment. She held her hand to her mouth as she giggled uncontrollably. The porters and samurai guards had joined her in laughter, but theirs was a hearty guffaw.

  When the girl removed her hand to suck in some air, Kaze could see a small mouth, perfectly formed with even white teeth. The smoothly arched eyebrows that accented her eyes looked natural rather than painted on. Her long black hair was in a casual style suitable for traveling, and her robes were extremely rich, including a kimono with a pattern that showed botan, peonies, scattered across a large brown branch.

  Kaze was stunned by her exquisite beauty, but this beauty also heightened his discomfort about her laughing at him. Kaze closed his eyes and tried to concentrate even harder, to squeeze out the distraction that this rude group of people was causing him.

  “Hey, boy,” a male voice called to him.

  Kaze was determined to ignore the summons.

  “Boy!”

  Kaze concentrated even harder.

  “Please cover yourself, boy,” the man said.

  Kaze was puzzled by what the man meant, and, reluctantly, he opened his eyes again and stared out at the group. The water streaming down his face blurred his vision, but he could see that one of the samurai guards was lowering the kago’s protective bamboo curtain on the young girl, while the other, the man who had shouted at Kaze, was pointing down toward Kaze’s groin.

  At first Kaze did not understand what the man was doing. Then he understood that he meant Kaze should check himself. Looking down, Kaze saw to his astonishment that the strength of the water coming down the waterfall had actually loosened his loincloth. Kaze was so numb from the cold that he hadn’t noticed. And although the fundoshi was still on Kaze, the cloth had pushed to one side, exposing him. His young manhood was shrunken and shriveled by the cold water, but it was still plainly visible for all to see.

  Normally Kaze was very comfortable with his body, but discovering why the beautiful young girl was laughing at him caused him to blush so hotly that, at least on his face, it momentarily blanked out the cold of the water.

  Mortified, Kaze immediately turned his back to the group on the bank and the girl who had found his manhood a source of amusement. It was a long time before Kaze could concentrate on the tale of Yoshimori and foxes, as ordered. It was so long he almost froze.

  More than a decade later, Kaze was a rising star in his Lord’s service. He had left the Sensei’s training years ago, yet he often thought about the old man and the lessons he had learned.

  After returning to his family from the Sensei, Kaze was married. After marriage, he got a post at his Lord’s castle. The strength of his character and martial skills soon earned him a rapid string of advancements.

  One day the Lord’s castle was in a frenzy of excitement and anticipation because the Lord’s bride was arriving at the castle for the first time. As with Kaze’s marriage, this union was made on the basis of political, financial, and military considerations, but rumors circulated that the young Lord was also getting a woman of remarkable beauty.

  Kaze was chosen to lead the escort that was to meet the future Lady of the domain at the border and escort her to the Lord’s castle. He sat in his best battle armor, astride his favorite horse, with the ashigaru, the foot troops, selected for the rest of the honor guard, waiting for the bride’s party to arrive at the border.

  Before the Lady arrived, the martial display was literally and figuratively dampened by the start of a driving rainstorm. It beat down on the assembled troops, making them drenched and miserable, but it also made their helmets and armor glisten. The line of men formed a serpentine cordon, the wet scales of their leather do, or chest protectors, blending together to create the illusion of a dragon’s body, with Kaze at its head. Kaze wore his best armor, including a metal kabuto, or helmet. Some kabuto for generals had enormous crests on them, to allow them to be identified on the battlefield, but Kaze’s helmet just had a modest copper crescent on its front.

  Kaze was thinking about getting his troops out of the rain when the vanguard of the Lady’s entourage was spotted. Kaze gave an order in a voice trained to rise above the din of battle, and the men snapped to attention, holding their spears smartly to their sides. Kaze had trained these men, and he was proud of their appearance and discipline.

  In a few minutes, four samurai on horseback, the advanced guard of the bride’s party, reached Kaze’s position. Then the palanquins of the Lady and two of her companions came by, followed by an oxcart full of luggage. The palanquins carrying the Lady’s companions were simple bamboo kago, but the Lady was in a fancy norimono. The lacquer work and polished brass fittings of the norimono broadcast the wealth of the Lady’s background, and the painted family crest on the folding door of the norimono proclaimed her lineage. Because it had this crest, instead of the three plum blossom crest of the Lord, Kaze knew this norimono would be returned to the Lady’s family after the wedding.

  The companions in the kago had chosen to follow the Lady to ease her loneliness at being sent to a new family to live. The
Lady’s new family, the family she was marrying into, would be expected to arrange suitable marriages for these companions in exile when the proper time came.

  The remaining troops escorting the Lady marched past Kaze’s guard, their heads bent into the rain. They stood opposite Kaze’s troops, forming a corridor of honor for the Lady’s palanquin. Walking with the bowlegged gait of palanquin porters, two men carried the small covered platform hanging from a thick lacquered beam between the two rows of troops. The palanquins of the companions were put on the wet ground a proper distance from the changing of the escorts ceremony.

  The rain had been reduced to a steady curtain, so Kaze decided to greet the Lady. He jumped off his horse. The wooden, C-shaped stirrups allowed him to ride in sandals, the front of his sandaled foot fitting into the open end of the C. The leader of the Lady’s escort came forward and announced his lineage and his assignment of escorting the Lady to the border. Kaze also announced his name and lineage and declared that his assignment was to escort the Lady from the border to the Lord’s main castle, a half-day’s journey away. Both men bowed to each other, each carefully bending at precisely the same angle to show they were equals. Now the responsibility for the Lady’s safety had been passed to Kaze.

  He walked forward and saluted, kneeling on one knee and bowing his head. After announcing his name, Kaze said, “I have the honor of escorting you to our Lord’s castle. Despite the weather, I hope you will have a marvelous nuptial ceremony and that your life in our domain will be a happy one. There’s a teahouse less than half a ri down the road. We can rest there if you want, or we can continue to the Lord’s castle.”

  Kaze expected the Lady to express her wishes through the closed door of the palanquin. Instead, the hinged door opened. One of the guards ran up with an oiled paper umbrella to keep stray drops off the Lady.

  Kaze had his head bowed, looking at the earth before him. He didn’t immediately see the Lady, but he heard a soft, melodious voice saying, “That’s very kind of you, Captain. My party is soaked by the rain, and I think they’d like a chance to dry out before proceeding to the Lord’s castle.”

  Kaze looked up at the speaker and his breath caught in his throat. Large brown eyes framed by expressive brows looked at him. Her face was serene, with high cheekbones and a small mouth. If she was discomforted by the heavy rain, she didn’t show it. Her gaze was steady and seemed to drink in tranquilly every detail of the scene before her.

  Kaze tried to talk and found his voice catching. He cleared his throat and finally managed to say, “Of course, my Lady, your comfort and safety are my primary concerns.”

  She laughed. It was the same tinkling laugh as at the waterfall, and Kaze was sure it was the girl, now grown into an incredibly beautiful woman. “I’m not discomforted,” she said. “Falling water never bothered me, although it might bother others. I simply suggested we stop at the teahouse so my escort can dry out. You and your men look soaked, too. I’m sure you’d all like to warm yourself by a nice hi-bachi.”

  Kaze hesitated a moment, not sure if her remark about falling water was directed at him. Could she have remembered and recognized him after all these years? If she did, she gave no further sign and simply closed the door of the palanquin without additional conversation.

  Mounting his horse, Kaze led the procession to the teahouse, his mind racing.

  The next day, Kaze safely brought the bride to the Lord’s castle, and within a week the Lord and Lady were married. If the Lady recognized him as the boy at Dragonfly Falls, she never mentioned it during their time together.

  A few years later, Kaze won a fencing exhibition in front of the Taiko, Toyotomi Hideyoshi himself. The combatants used bokken, wooden practice swords, but every entrant made a maximum effort to win for the honor of their clan in front of the ruler of Japan. As a result, several injuries and one death occurred during the competition, because the carved oak swords could be as deadly as any made of steel.

  Kaze made it to the finals of the competition, his heart secretly glad that his opponent in the final round would be his boyhood nemesis, Okubo. The latter was not Lord of his clan yet, although his father’s age made it a certainty that he would be shortly. Kaze had known Okubo since childhood, because he had spent time as a hostage with Kaze’s clan after Okubo’s father had lost a bid to conquer Kaze’s clan in a war. Okubo’s period as a hostage was intended to guarantee his father’s good behavior, lest he lose his son and heir.

  This period as a hostage had planted a deep-seated enmity and rivalry toward Kaze’s clan in Okubo’s heart, and Kaze relished the chance to defeat Okubo in the final match of the tournament. Right before the match, Kaze was approached with inducements to lose the match to Okubo. Kaze was so outraged by this attempt to guarantee a win for Okubo that he didn’t just defeat Okubo, he destroyed him. Okubo now carried a limp in his left leg to remind him of that match and Kaze’s reaction to the attempt to bribe him.

  As a reward, Kaze was given command of a key castle on the border of his Lord’s domain. It was an unusual honor for one so young, but it was an honor that evoked no jealousy or comment from elder members of the clan. Kaze’s performance before the tournament and the glory that his victory brought to the clan made the promotion seem just and proper.

  Right before Kaze left to take command of his new castle, his wife went to pay a good-bye call to the Lady.

  “She’s so nice and so generous,” Kaze’s wife said, returning from the courtesy visit.

  “Why do you say that?” Kaze asked.

  “Well, look what she gave me as a farewell gift,” his wife said. “I really didn’t want to take it, but she absolutely insisted. She said it was most appropriate for me.”

  “What did she give you?” Kaze asked, puzzled.

  “Why, this piece of jewelry.” Kaze’s wife pulled a hairpin from her kimono sleeve. It was a long brass pin, with a silver decoration adorning the head of the pin. The decoration was a silver dragonfly.

  CHAPTER 6

  A fluttering leaf.

  The transient moments are

  sad and beautiful.

  Failing water, in the form of rain, was also involved the last time Kaze saw the Lady alive. It was the day he pledged to the Lady that he would find her daughter and rescue her.

  Memories of that time entered Kaze’s mind. He shook his head, as if sending the drops of water clinging to his hair and face flying would also cast away the bitter memories of the day the Lady died. Sometimes memory can be like a bronze razor, Kaze reflected, lacerating the soul and shredding the heart, cutting deeply into the core of who we are and what motivates us. Kaze squeezed his eyes shut to block out thoughts of the past.

  He sighed as he realized that there was also falling water involved the time he had seen the Lady’s obake. That time the water was in the form of tears. The skin on his arms wrinkled into bumps and Kaze told himself it was simply a reaction to the cold rain and not to his encounter with a ghost on a mountain pathway—a ghost that had no face, but that he still knew to be the dead Lady.

  Next to him, Hishigawa woke and immediately started his grumbling about how uncomfortable he was, how wet he was, and how cold he was. It seemed that the litany of complaints from the merchant formed a kind of mantra, reminding Kaze of the miserable existence of man and how the petty complaints and suffering of one man could seem more important to that man than the anguish, pain, and death of others. There were three guards and four bandits lying dead where Kaze first met the merchant. They would have been happy for a chance to feel the discomfort of the rain.

  “I think it’s letting up a little bit,” the merchant said abruptly.

  Kaze just grunted. The merchant was right, it was letting up.

  “Maybe by morning things will dry out enough for us to push this cart,” Kaze said. “Stop talking and try to sleep.” Then Kaze wrapped his kimono closer about him, closed his eyes, and also tried to sleep.

  The next morning, Kaze awoke to the sound of the
merchant snoring loudly. The rain had stopped during the night, but the earth was still wet and muddy. Kaze crawled out from under the cart without disturbing the merchant and walked into the woods.

  The pine scent was crisp and vibrant, a tart, bracing smell that you could almost taste on your tongue. Kaze came to a stream swollen by the heavy rains and watched the different shades of silver blinking at him. He took off his mud-smeared kimono and rinsed it in the steam. Walking to a place where the water was eddying a bit slower near a curve in the streambed, he stepped into the water to wash the mud off himself.

  The water was cold. It seemed even colder than the icy spray of Dragonfly Falls. He told himself to be strong and wondered if, at thirty-one, he was already starting to get soft. Still, age didn’t have much to do with toughness. The Sensei had been at least twice as old as Kaze was now, and he had been like a stone whose surface had been made smoother and harder by the passage of years. Although the body couldn’t help but age, it was the spirit that got old, buffeted by too much pain, too many bitter memories, and too many disappointments. Kaze took a scoop of cold water and washed his face.

  Getting out of the stream and donning his wet kimono, Kaze walked until he found an open space. A large cryptomeria was growing at the edge of the space, an infrequent procession of water drops dripping off a low limb. Kaze braced himself, his hand on his sword, and waited.