Death at the Crossroads (Samurai Mysteries) Read online

  Without looking up, Manase asked, “Have you ever read The Tale of Genji?”

  “Many years ago.”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “Lady Murasaki was a genius.”

  Manase looked up in surprise and give a tittering laugh. He covered his mouth with his hand, just like a maiden. Kaze noted that Manase had his teeth blackened, like a Court noble in Kyoto. It puzzled and disturbed Kaze to see this rural District Lord adopting the language, clothes, and customs of the Court. It seemed out of place and presumptuous.

  “A genius! A woman genius!” Manase gave another high-pitched laugh. “I can’t say I have ever heard of a woman being called a genius before.” Manase’s face had a light dusting of rice powder on it. His eyebrows were shaved, and small false eyebrows were painted high on his forehead.

  “I judged her work, not her sex. No man I know wrote about life six hundred years ago with such passion and interest.”

  Manase nodded his head. “In that I suppose you’re right. I’ve tried to read all I can about the courtly life of that period, and I keep coming back to The Tale of Genji over and over again. If a woman can be a genius, she was one, but it’s strange to hear you call her that.”

  Kaze said nothing.

  Manase folded up the scroll and said, “You’re also a devotee of Noh.”

  “I used to be, in times past. It’s been many years since I’ve seen a Noh play. That’s why it was a real pleasure to see you that day.”

  “And how did you know it was me?”

  “A Noh dancer learns balance and grace. His walk can be quite distinctive. When you were practicing Dojoji I was able to observe your walk for a long time. When I saw you enter the courtyard I saw the same walk.”

  Manase laughed again. “That’s a useful trick, identifying a man by his walk.”

  “It can be useful on a battlefield. You can see someone from far away and still tell who he is.”

  “Surely the crest on his helmet will tell you that.”

  “No, not always. A man can wear any helmet. Sometimes the crest on the helmet doesn’t identify the man. It’s a popular ruse in war to have someone else wear a leader’s helmet to confuse the enemy.”

  “But I was able to identify General Iwaki Sadataka by his helmet. I would have been a complete fool to kill the wrong man and take his head to Tokugawa-sama.”

  Kaze had a hard time picturing this dandy killing anyone, much less a famous general like Iwaki, but the manor they were sitting in showed that the Lord had been rewarded for something.

  “If that happened, who do you think would be more surprised?” Kaze asked. “Lord Tokugawa or the man who lost his head because it was found under the wrong helmet?”

  Manase gave his high-pitched, tittering laugh again. “You’re a droll fellow. I like you! It’s so deadly dull in this little backwater. Like your name, a fresh wind is always welcome.”

  Kaze nodded. “How did you come to kill General Iwaki, if I may ask?”

  “It was during the battle of Sekigahara,” Manase said in the tone of a man reciting something he’s said many times before. “Sekigahara was a confusing battle with two hundred thousand warriors present. In the morning the forces against Tokugawa-sama outnumbered his troops, but he had made secret agreements to get support from many of the lords who were supposed to be fighting against him. At the proper time, these troops would turn on their own army and help the Tokugawas. In addition, Tokugawa-sama had made arrangements for several other lords to remain neutral and not enter the battle at all. Despite that, it was a desperate battle, and it wasn’t decided until the forces who had agreed to turn against their own army did so.

  “Toward the end of the battle General Iwaki became separated from his guards. I managed to come across him when he was alone and kill him.” Manase gave a flip of his hand. “The General was an old man but still skillful with the sword. I was lucky to kill him.”

  “He was separated from his guards?”

  “Oh yes. The guards were quite mortified by their carelessness. I understand they all committed seppuku on the battlefield to atone for their lack of fidelity.”

  “This is the first time I’ve heard of a general getting separated from his guards.”

  “I said Sekigahara was a very confusing battle. Armies were first on one side, then the other. It was hard to know who was fighting whom, and enemies in the morning were allies by that afternoon.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Were you at Sekigahara?”

  Kaze laughed. “Oh, I’ve never been in such a famous battle. Sekigahara changed Japan, because the forces that supported the late Taiko’s widow and heir were defeated. Now the widow and the Taiko’s young son are entrenched in Osaka Castle, and Tokugawa-sama is the real ruler of Japan. Rumor says he will soon declare himself Shogun, so you received this district from the hands of a future Shogun. I’m just a ronin, and one who is frankly a little envious that you had a chance to distinguish yourself in battle and receive this district as your reward.”

  Manase looked petulant. “It’s a miserable little 150-koku district and far removed from all the things I love.” In theory, Manase could provide many fighting men if he was called to do so by the new Tokugawa government, although usually he would be asked to take to the field with only a fraction of the theoretical total. It was a small district compared to some of the fifty-thousand- and hundred-thousand-koku districts ruled by major lords, but Tokugawa Ieyasu was notoriously tightfisted.

  “If I may be impolite and ask, where is your original home?” Kaze asked.

  “I come from Ise,” Manase said, naming an ancient district at the edge of the Inland Sea. “I long for the shimmering waters of Ise Bay and the taste of fresh sea bream. I felt closer to the Gods there. His Majesty, the Emperor, comes to Ise to consult with the gods Amaterasu-o-mikami and Toyouke-no-o-mikami at their home in the Grand Shrines.”

  “Those shrines are made of unpainted hinoki wood, Japanese cypress?”

  “Of course.”

  “Were you ever there for a sengu-shiki ceremony?”

  “When I was a young man. They do it only every twenty years, and thousands of pilgrims come to see it.”

  “During the ceremony they actually dismantle the shrine buildings and construct entirely new ones?”

  “Yes. The pilgrims and the populace get bits of the shrines as talismans. Oh, the happiness to get a bit of the sacred shrine is something to behold.”

  “You must miss it terribly.”

  Kaze was surprised to see a tear well up in Manase’s eye. “Oh yes,” he said. “This rural life has very few compensations.”

  Kaze sat in silence while Manase recovered himself.

  “This conversation has taken a melancholy turn,” Manase said. “I had intended to take advantage of the rare sight of a cultured man in this backwater.” He pointed to a large block of wood in the corner of the room, as thick as the span of a man’s hand. “Would you like to play a game of go? Only the imbecile Magistrate plays here, and he hardly gives one a game.”

  Kaze nodded and slid across the mat to the go board. He moved it between the two of them and took one of the brown, covered, monkeywood bowls from the top. Kaze took the lid off his bowl as Manase took a second bowl from the top of the board. Inside were white go stones made of shell: pearlescent, thick, and expensive. Manase’s bowl held black stones, equally thick. The top of the board was crisscrossed with nineteen lines, forming a grid.

  Since Manase had black, he moved first. He took a stone between the tips of two of his fingers and set it down on an intersection of the grid with a decided snap, a move that made a pleasing “click” sound on the thick go board. The board had a sound hole and small legs on the bottom to magnify and enhance this sound.

  The opening moves, which followed standard patterns called joseki, went quickly as the two men snapped down stones. Go is a game of position and territory. Once a stone is placed it can’t be moved except to remove it
from the board if it is completely encircled by the enemy’s stones. The winner secures the largest territory, either through strategy or “killing” the opponent’s stones.

  Early in the game Manase made a move that invited Kaze to start a fight along one side of the board. Without comment, Kaze declined the gambit and played a stone at a bigger point; a place that secured more territory for him. “I would have thought you were a fierce fighter,” Manase commented after Kaze made his move.

  “Fighting without purpose is the activity of fools,” Kaze said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Gomen nasai. I’m sorry. I meant that I am willing to fight when the stakes are right, but I must know what I am fighting to accomplish.”

  “You wouldn’t fight just because your Lord told you to?”

  “Of course, a samurai’s first duty is to obey his Lord. But I could be more effective in fighting if I understood what the objective is.”

  “How do you reconcile that with unquestioned obedience?”

  “I am not questioning; I am simply understanding the purpose.”

  “A strategist,” Manase said teasingly, placing a stone that started an attack on Kaze’s territory.

  “No, a realist,” Kaze said, responding with a stone that threatened to encircle Manase’s attacking stone.

  Manase stopped to ponder the board for a few minutes. “I misjudged you,” Manase said. “I mistook your calm nature for a lack of fighting spirit. Now I see you’re quite willing to fight when it suits you.” He placed a stone down to support his attacker.

  The battle on the go board continued to ebb and flow, with both players locked in a struggle to assure the survival of their stones. Manase would constantly offer Kaze a perceived opening, but, upon study, Kaze would see that the moves were cunning traps designed to get him to commit to a course of action that would eventually lead to disaster.

  After Kaze refused one such gambit, Manase gave his affected laugh and said, “It’s quite frustrating playing you.”

  “Why?”

  “You never accept my invitations.” Manase clicked down a stone.

  “I will when the time is right.” Kaze answered with a stone of his own.

  “When will the time be right?” Another stone.

  “There is a time for everything.” Kaze paused to study the board. “Patience is the coin that buys the proper time.” He placed his stone.

  “In that you are like Tokugawa-sama,” Manase said.

  Kaze, who disliked being compared to the new ruler of Japan, said, “Why do you say that?”

  “Haven’t you heard the story they’ve recently made up to show the character of the last three rulers of Japan?”

  “No.”

  “It’s really quite amusing. They say Nobunaga-sama, Hideyoshi-sama, and Tokugawa-sama were looking at a bird on a limb, and they wanted the bird on the ground. I’ll kill it, Nobunaga-sama says, and that will bring it to the ground. I’ll talk to it, Hideyoshi-sama says, and convince it to come to the ground. And I will sit, Tokugawa-sama says, and wait until the bird wants to come to the ground itself.”

  Kaze had to laugh. The story was both irreverent toward the leaders of Japan and illustrative of their characters. “But,” Kaze added, “at Sekigahara, Tokugawa-sama stopped waiting. He attacked, and he won.” Kaze placed a stone to start an attack on Manase’s position on the go board.

  The play of the stones became increasingly rapid, with the click of pieces played sounding quicker and quicker as the battle between the two men was joined. Go was a common game for a warrior because it taught the need for proper timing of attacks, the value of evaluating the biggest move, and the virtue of anticipating an enemy’s response. It held a fascination that prompted the proverb, “A go player will miss his own father’s funeral.”

  Despite Manase’s maneuvers and stratagems, Kaze played a calm and steady game, and by the end Kaze had a fifteen-point advantage and victory. “You’re a stronger go player than I imagined,” Manase said, as he scooped stones into his bowl.

  “I was just lucky.”

  “There is no luck in go. Like shogi, Japanese chess, the game is all skill. It’s not like dice or war, where luck is everything.”

  “There’s no skill in war?”

  Manase placed the lid on his bowl. “Only the skill to take advantage of the opportunities that luck has brought you. Now that you have beaten me at go, we’re even.”

  Kaze gave him a quizzical look.

  “It was my strategy to use a net to capture you,” Manase explained. “I knew the Magistrate and his miserable guards could never capture someone as strong as you were described to be without some kind of clever stratagem. Now that I’ve met you, I see I was right.”

  “That strategy was a good one. I’ll remember it.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you will. We’ll have to see about some other game to see who the eventual winner will be between us.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, poetry composition or something similar. Please be my guest for a few days. I’ve already instructed the Magistrate to return your sword to you. If you stay, it will give me a chance to study you and see what would be the best thing to challenge you with next.”

  “Thank you. I will stay briefly, but I can’t impose on you. I’ll be just as happy to continue staying with the charcoal seller.”

  Manase giggled, his humor, which had been soured by the go game, seeming to return. “Oh, that’s quite impossible. You see, I intend to crucify that charcoal seller.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The caterpillar

  spins a cocoon. What knowledge

  from a fuzzy head!

  “Why do you want to crucify the charcoal seller?” Kaze asked, surprised.

  “Oh, for the death of that merchant at the crossroads.”

  “But the charcoal seller didn’t do that.”

  “You found him standing over the body yourself.”

  “But the man was killed with an arrow. The charcoal seller had no bow.”

  “He probably hid the bow. You know that weapons have been forbidden to peasants since the time of Hideyoshi-sama’s great sword hunt, which is almost twenty years now. The recent war between the Toyotomis and the Tokugawas has allowed the peasants to gather arms again, so I know they all have their secret cache. They claim they need them for defense against bandits, but peasants are notoriously greedy. They’ll often kill if there’s a few coppers in it for them. You just interrupted the charcoal seller before he could rob the merchant.”

  “Perhaps the charcoal seller interrupted a bandit—”

  “Oh, don’t go on,” Manase said. “If the charcoal seller didn’t kill that merchant, then I’m sure it was someone else from this village. Killing one peasant is as good as killing another. It serves as a lesson to all of them. Please don’t bother me with this talk about the charcoal seller again. It’s quite boring. Instead, come with me. I want you to meet someone.”

  Manase rose, and protocol required Kaze to stand, too. Kaze noticed that Manase wore trousers that were long and trailed behind him. His feet in the trouser legs rubbed against the tatami mats, making an exotic swish-swish sound as Manase walked. It took practice to walk in this kind of pants, and they were normally reserved only for officials of the Imperial Court. Kaze followed behind, his cotton tabi gliding silently. The sound of the long legs of Manase’s trousers rubbing across the tatami reminded Kaze of happier days, in a life long before his current wandering state.

  Kaze couldn’t enjoy the sound made by Manase’s passage, however. He had come to like the charcoal seller, and Manase’s plans to crucify Jiro did not sit well. Kaze was not repelled by the thought of death. He had been raised to believe that death is just a part of the natural cycle of life and rebirth all men must go through. With hundreds of crimes carrying the penalty of death, he had also seen countless executions and had even ordered several himself.

  What bothered him was the prolonging of death. He knew some men der
ived pleasure from the suffering of others, and he wondered if the strange District Lord leading him through the passages of the seedy villa was such a man. Kaze believed that death, when necessary, should come cleanly and quickly. There were good ways to die and bad ways to die, and crucifixion was not a good way to die.

  Some lords who favored crucifixion also favored the novel Christian cross, an invention that came into Japan with the smelly Christian priests and pale, Western traders who were little more than pirates. But given Manase’s proclivities toward old things, Kaze was sure that a traditional Japanese cross would be used: Two poles set into the ground to form an X, the arms of the victim tied to the top of the X so he was hanging. The pull of the earth would settle the victim’s lungs and other organs, and the man would die an agonizing death of slow asphyxiation. For a small, wiry man like Jiro, that kind of death could take many long days.

  Kaze wondered what was the best tactic for saving the old peasant’s life, but before he could formulate an idea, Manase came to a shoji screen door and stopped. “Sensei?” he called softly, placing his face next to the door.

  From behind the screen, Kaze could hear a low murmuring, like someone reciting a sutra. The murmuring stopped for a moment, then an old, cracked voice said, “Is it time for a treat?”

  Manase gave that high, tittering laugh of his and slid back the shoji screen. He entered with Kaze in tow. “No, Sensei,” Manase said, settling down on the tatami mat. “Later on the servants will give you mashed azuki beans sweetened with honey, but right now I want you to meet a guest of mine.”

  Kaze sat down slightly behind Manase and looked at the curious creature before him. He was a very old man with wisps of scraggly gray hair clinging to the side of his head and an equally thin and scraggly beard. His eyes were covered with a white sheen that made the man blind. His kimono was clean but patched in numerous places.

  Seeing Kaze’s gaze on the kimono, Manase leaned over and said in a low voice, “He won’t give up that kimono. He claims all other kimonos are too rough and scratchy. How amusing!”