Jade Palace Vendetta (Samurai Mysteries) Page 8

  Swimming with the current, Kaze avoided being thrown against the rocks that studded the stream. Right before he reached Goro, the peasant disappeared under the water. Hanzo, who could still see the two bobbing heads moving ever farther away, gave a great groan when he saw his friend disappear under the swirling water.

  Kaze reached the spot where Goro had vanished and dove under the water, frantically searching for the peasant. He realized that he could be dashed against a rock or drowned himself, but he focused on trying to save the quarrelsome peasant and put such considerations out of his mind. He looked about underwater, but the water was too turbulent and murky. He surfaced to see if Goro had made his way to the top again, didn’t see him, took a quick breath, and dove under the surface once more. Reaching out into the swirling water, his hand brushed against a piece of cloth. Propelling himself forward with a powerful kick, he grabbed the cloth with his strong grip and held on to it with tenacity.

  Breaking the surface of the water, he hauled the peasant, gasping and coughing, back into the sweet air.

  Kaze swam to a quiet eddy in the river and dragged the peasant onto the shore. Goro continued to cough, spitting up water.

  Hanzo, who had made his way downstream, rushed to the side of his friend, holding him in his arms. “Goro, Goro! Please forgive me! It was stupid of me to push you. Please say you forgive me.”

  Goro looked up into Hanzo’s face, then spit up a mouthful of water into it.

  “You idiot!” Hanzo said.

  “You were the one who just said he was an idiot.”

  “I said I was stupid to push you. That’s not the same thing as being an idiot.”

  “Well, then you’re stupid.”

  “If I’m stupid, then you’re an idiot.”

  Kaze shook his head and started making his way back up the stream to the place where Hishigawa was waiting with the pushcart. He was sitting on the money chest, resting his feet as Kaze came up the slope.

  “I can see the peasant didn’t drown,” Hishigawa said casually, pointing to Goro and Hanzo, also making their way up stream and still arguing. “This has been a terrible waste of time.”

  Kaze said nothing but took back the sword from Hishigawa and also sat on the cart to rest. Goro and Hanzo made their way up the slope, miraculously stopping their bickering. They came up to the cart and dropped to their knees in front of Kaze. They bent down with their hands on either side of their heads and touched their foreheads to the ground in a deep kowtow.

  “Thank you for saving me, Samurai-sama,” Goro said. “I will be eternally grateful.”

  “Thank you for saving my friend,” Hanzo said. “I am sorry my foolish act caused you so much trouble.”

  “Get up,” Kaze said gruffly. “I didn’t want Goro’s dead body stinking up the river, so I had to save him before he drowned.”

  Surprised, the two peasants looked up. When they saw the small smile on Kaze’s face, they both started laughing.

  Kaze’s kimono was barely dry when they pushed the cart around a corner and were confronted by a half dozen armed men waiting a good distance up the narrow road. At the sight of the pushcart, the men started advancing, swords and spears at the ready.

  “That old man must have betrayed us,” Hishigawa said. “He told them we were heading back to the mountain path.”

  “Probably,” Kaze said. “Wait here.” He walked behind the cart a short distance until he could get a clear view of the twisting road behind them. Coming up the mountain path were four men. They were armed with swords and spears, too.

  They were trapped.

  Kaze approached the cart. “There are men coming up the path, too.”

  Hishigawa looked at the narrow path, with the mountain on one side and the steep slope down to the river on the other. There was no place to move the cart, except either up or down the path. Looking at the samurai with terror in his eyes, he asked, “What should we do?”

  “Hurry,” Kaze said, “we only have a few minutes.”

  “What is it?”

  “With the men coming up the trail and the six ahead of us, there are ten men to fight.”

  “You’ll fight ten men?” the merchant said, incredulous.

  “If I must. I hope not to.” He took out his sword.

  “Are we going to fight, too?” Hanzo said, with a quiver to his voice. “I said we weren’t fighters.”

  “No, you’re not going to fight. Just keep out of the way. I have an idea. Perhaps none of us will have to fight.”

  “What is it?” Hishigawa asked.

  “Just watch.”

  Kaze walked to the cart and used his sword to cut the ropes holding the strongbox to the cart. As he finished, the two groups of men coming up and down the path saw each other, the cart trapped between them.

  “Help me,” Kaze said urgently. He grabbed one end of the heavy strongbox. Hanzo, still not understanding Kaze’s plan, rushed to take the other end.

  “Now, what, Samurai-sama?” he asked.

  “Help me move it away from the cart.”

  “What are you doing?” Hishigawa said, a touch of alarm in his voice.

  “Just watch,” Kaze answered.

  Kaze and Hanzo staggered to the edge of the road just as the two groups of men converged on the cart.

  “Give us the gold,” one of the bandits shouted.

  “If you want the gold, you must work for it,” Kaze said.

  Kaze suddenly took his end of the box and dropped it over the edge of the road. Hanzo, who was unable to hold the box on his own, gave a cry and almost dove off the road to try to catch the box. Kaze grabbed him by the collar of his kimono and shouted to the ban-dits,“You better go after it before the gold gets washed away in the river.”

  Hishigawa gave a cry of pain, and Goro stood horrified as the box tumbled down the mountainside, end over end, making its long way down to the bottom of the mountain and into the river with a splash. The bandits stood mesmerized as the box somersaulted its way down the slope. The men formed a frozen tableau, watching the gold receding from their grasp. Suddenly, all the bandits started scrambling down the slope, some slipping in the loose dirt, one actually falling and sliding down the slope on his face.

  “My gold!” Hishigawa sobbed.

  “Samurai-sama, why did you do that?” Hanzo cried.

  Kaze, seeing the road ahead was clear, said, “Quick, let’s get out of here.”

  He reached over and grabbed one of the shafts of the pushcart.

  “Why are you taking the cart?” Hishigawa said. “It’s worthless now that you’ve gotten rid of the gold.”

  Kaze commanded, “Do as I tell you. Take the cart. Come on, let’s go!”

  Looking bewildered, Goro and Hanzo resumed their positions behind the cart pushing, but Hishigawa refused to grab on the cart’s shaft to pull.

  “It’s still heavy,” Goro grunted.

  “But not as heavy as when that strongbox was on the cart,” Kaze said. “Come on, let’s hurry.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Part the curtain and

  disclose the trick. The magic

  of revelation.

  It’s the barrier!” Hanzo cried out.

  For centuries Japanese roads had barriers across them. They acted as checkpoints, taxing stations, and helped to regulate commerce. Since the Tokugawa victory at Sekigahara, the Tokugawa forces had manned the barriers on the Tokaido Road and other major highways. As a result, Kaze usually cut across country to avoid the barriers. Now he had no choice but to go through the barrier. He wondered if one of the warriors at the barrier would recognize him from the days when he fought against the Tokugawas.

  The barrier was a sturdy fence of large bamboo that stretched for a long distance on both sides of the road. In the middle of the barrier, straddling the road, was a pair of large bamboo gates. Next to the gate were a guard barracks, an area for doing business, a teahouse, stands selling refreshments, and a stable where horses were kept for the Tokugawa messenger se
rvice. The messenger service used relays of horses and riders to speed messages from Edo to all points on the main island of Honshu.

  As they approached the barrier, Kaze said to the disconsolate Hishigawa, “You should report the bandits. Then we should get an armed escort that will take us to Kamakura. You can continue on to Edo later.”

  Hishigawa looked at Kaze, his eyes flashing with anger, “What for? You threw the gold off the cart and down to the river below! By now the bandits would have retrieved it. All is lost.”

  Kaze sighed. “Stop the cart for a few moments,” he said to Goro and Hanzo. The two peasants stopped pushing, glad to have a short breather while the samurai and the merchant seemed to be settling something. For once, others were fighting instead of them.

  “What good is getting guards now?” Hishigawa screamed, his fury rising.

  Kaze stopped for a minute and looked at the merchant. Seeing the steady set of Kaze’s eyes, the merchant stifled his anger. When the merchant had himself under control, Kaze said, “Good. Now watch.”

  He pulled the dead man’s sword from his scabbard in a smooth fluid motion. Without using his full force, he brought the blade down on the edge of the large bamboo rail that made up the framework of the cart. The blade cut into the bamboo, knocking out the mud plug that filled the end of the hollow shaft.

  Hishigawa, Hanzo, and Goro watched Kaze’s actions with puzzled looks on their faces, uncertain as to what the samurai was doing. Kaze took the blade of his sword and twisted it, splitting the bamboo and opening a gap to reveal what was inside.

  “There’s your gold,” Kaze said.

  Hishigawa walked to the split rail of the cart and looked into the gap. There, at the core of the bamboo, was a long plug of mud holding together large clumps of oblong oban gold coins.

  “What?” Hishigawa asked, stunned.

  “There’s your gold,” Kaze repeated.

  “How?” Hishigawa said, shaking his head in befuddlement.

  “When you went to get Goro and Hanzo, I opened your strongbox. Then I cored out this bamboo and dropped the gold coins from the strongbox down the bamboo. I used your pot for tea water to pour mud into the shaft so the coins wouldn’t move around or make noise. Most of your gold is in this shaft, but the other shaft also has some. I put rocks in the strongbox so it would be heavy and tied it up again.”

  Hishigawa fell to his knees and reached up with a trembling hand to touch the bamboo shaft of the cart.

  “It’s all there?” he asked in wonder.

  “Yes.”

  “My gold.”

  “I thought it would be a shame to lose the gold, but, if necessary, I knew it would be so much easier to give the bandits the strongbox. The fact that I was able to give them the strongbox in a way that caused them great effort to retrieve it was just a gift from the Gods.”

  “My gold,” Hishigawa repeated, still stunned by the sudden reversal of fortunes.

  “Come on,” Kaze said, “let’s get down to the barrier.”

  As Hishigawa went into the guardhouse to report the bandits and arrange for an armed escort into Kamakura, Kaze took Goro and Hanzo to one of the nearby stands that served refreshments. These were simple structures made of bamboo lashed together into a crude framework, with a rough thatched roof and wooden benches that served as both seats and table for weary travelers. In one corner of this stand was a stove made of mud, where tea water was heated and food was cooked.

  As he entered the stand, Kaze asked the proprietor, a wizened man with a face like old leather from working outdoors in the summer sun and winter cold, if he had seen a trio of travelers consisting of an old woman, a youth, and an old, thin servant.

  “An obaasan, a grandmother, with a headband? On the headband the kanji for ‘revenge’?” the old man said.

  “The same!”

  “Yes. They went through here a few days ago. That was one tough old granny!” The man cackled. “I thought she was going to run me through with that spear she carries when I wouldn’t give her a discount. Argued with me for the longest time, then finally took her business next door. Heard her arguing over there, too. She was something.”

  Having been so lucky, Kaze took a chance. “Is there a nine-year-old girl around here? She would have come within the past two years, possibly sold as a servant.”

  The old man scratched his head. “No, sorry, Samurai, there’s nobody like that in these parts.”

  Hiding his disappointment, Kaze thanked the old man for the information, sat on a bench, and ordered hot tea and roasted gingko nuts on tiny bamboo skewers. Goro and Hanzo, not used to partaking of the amenities of the world, sat together on a bench. They were curious about Kaze’s inquiries but so uncomfortable about being in the snack stand that they remained silent. The meager earnings from their farm made spending money on tea and service an unthinkable luxury.

  Kaze was handed a brown earthenware cup, and then a woman with a coarse red face came by with a large copper teakettle that she used to fill it with steaming green tea. She went to serve Goro and Hanzo as Kaze lifted the cup to his face, content to drink the hot bitter liquid. He was happy he was going in the right direction to track down the trio and had decided to let his karma take him where it willed, even if it meant being recognized by the Tokugawa guards at the barrier. His mind was clear and he was unafraid.

  He was in the midst of taking a second drink when he felt two men behind him. He put the cup down, stood, and turned before the men could get within a sword’s length of him.

  “It’s the man who’s kind to flies,” one of the men said.

  Kaze smiled. They were the two drunken samurai from the tea-house a few days before.

  Since the barrier acted as a choke point for commerce, Kaze was not surprised to see fellow travelers he had met before. The chances were high that people would meet and sometimes meet again while traveling the Tokaido. Kaze relaxed his guard slightly, reaching down to pick up his teacup again. He gave a brief nod to the two samurai.

  “Did you really believe that you could cut a fly?” one of the two samurai said rudely, not addressing Kaze properly or introducing himself.

  Kaze cocked his head to one side.

  “Cutting a fly with a sword, it really can’t be done,” his companion said.

  Kaze put down his teacup. He looked about him and saw several flies buzzing lazily near the refreshment stand. Then he looked at the two samurai and again back at the flies. He was tempted but heard the voice of his Sensei. When you play with fools, you act like a fool. When you act like a fool, you are one.

  Calling attention to oneself was never good. Doing it in this circumstance, while at a barrier checkpoint with Tokugawa guards, was especially foolish. Kaze picked up his cup of tea and smiled at the samurai, just as he would at a simpleminded child. “You might be right,” he said.

  Kamakura is in such a beautiful setting that it surely must be loved by the Gods, Kaze thought. This love manifests itself in the fact that many Gods, spirits, and holy people have touched various spots there, dotting its hills with countless temples, nunneries, and sacred places.

  Kamakura is tucked into a deep green fold in the steep hills that ring the clear waters of Sagami Bay. It is reachable by a road that branches off the Tokaido. The Tokaido Road continued to Edo, but Kaze was pleased to be able to avoid the new capital of Japan, the stronghold of his enemies, the Tokugawas.

  This was the second time Kaze had visited Kamakura. The first time was when he was eleven, when he had come to the city with his Sensei. Even when Kaze was eleven, he had a sense of furyu, that aesthetic and religious love of nature that samurai strove to develop lest they be considered barbaric and uncultured.

  As he walked through the narrow mountain pass that opened the way to Kamakura and caught sight of the city, Kaze recalled the first time he had seen it. That time and this time, his reaction was exactly the same. His breath caught in his throat and he paused to drink in the vista.

  The city spread
across the narrow valley below, with the blue sea to the south and the steep hills to the north. Fuji-san could be seen in the distance beyond the hills, its majestic, snow-covered slopes dominating the horizon. With the steep hills and narrow passes leading to the city, Kaze immediately saw the military possibilities of the location as well as its beauty and understood why it had once been a military stronghold. Nitta Yoshisada had conquered Kamakura centuries before, but it had required intervention by the Gods.

  The central part of Kamakura was laid out like a grid, in the Chinese style. Another former capital, Kyoto, was also laid out in such a grid. The rigid sense of orderliness imposed by a grid almost offended Kaze’s Japanese sense of geometry, which liked some small degree of variation, much like the variations found in nature. Unlike that of Kyoto, the grid portion of Kamakura was relatively compact. It was organized along a main central avenue, Wakamiya Oji. At the head of this avenue, high on a hill, was the Tsurugaoka Shrine.

  The Tsurugaoka Shrine was devoted to Hachiman, the God of War. It was the creation of the Minamotos, who ruled Japan briefly from Kamakura almost four hundred years before Kaze’s time, adopting the fiction that the palaces and villas found on the beautiful rolling hills were like a military camp. They called their government a bakufu (“government of the tent”), as if this name would indicate that they had not strayed far from their military roots. One of their number, Yoritomo, became the first Minamoto Shogun, the “barbarian-conquering general.”

  Once away from the central grid, the streets and paths of Kamakura took a more Japanese twist, following the contours of the land and snaking about the countryside. Tall trees grew up and down the hillsides and blue and gray tile roofs dotted the landscape. Kaze knew from his previous trip that after a rain some of these roofs would capture the image of Fuji-san, a picture of glory reflected in a humble roof.

  The sound of a temple bell filled the air, and Kaze let the deep, rolling sound of the bronze kane wash over him. Temples were everywhere in Kamakura, as well as sites important to Zen, Nichiren, and most other sects of Buddhism. Kaze watched the procession of hired samurai, Hishigawa, Goro, Hanzo, and the gold-filled pushcart pass before him and start down a side path, apparently to Hishigawa’s home. Hishigawa had hired ten samurai at the barrier, and the trip from there to Kamakura had been made without incident.