Death's Kiss Page 6

  Shin preferred the river to the forest, and the forest to the mountains. A mountain seemed to him an untrustworthy sort of thing, prone to rockslides and other assorted dangers. While a bit of risk was the spice of life, there was a such a thing as too much spice. And the mountains seemed a great deal of spice indeed.

  But he let none of this show in his voice, or on his face, as they rode along the narrow, dusty trails up into the foothills and then through narrow streets winding ever upwards. Clumps of mountain cedar and cypress dominated the foothills, giving way to maple and beech as they ascended. His stomach settled as he lost sight of the high peaks amid the rooftops rising about him.

  Eventually they came to the mercantile district, where heimin townhouses rose narrow and deep. Storefronts glared warily at one another across the street. That Batu had chosen to make his home here did not surprise Shin. Batu had always had a good sense for finding the center of things.

  His residence proved to be as humble as Shin expected. It sat at an awkward angle to the street, not quite facing it. A low stone wall had been erected around it, with a tall, narrow gate overlooking the street. Past the gate, the building rose tall. It had been a farmhouse once, he thought, built in the true-ridge style: three stories, shuttered windows, square plan, and a massive gabled roof that sloped down to either side of the building. It was engulfed in a copse of beech trees, which mostly hid the scattered outbuildings that crouched at the gable-end of the house.

  A pair of servants were waiting on them, clearly having been given orders to see to their needs. Kasami handed over her sword to a nervous-looking youth, and Shin made himself at home. Soon enough, he had acquired tea and a light midday meal of rice and soup. Kasami prowled the residence alongside Nozomi, the two women seemingly quite comfortable with one another. Kitano was dispatched to the guest quarters, there to make himself useful in an inconspicuous fashion.

  Shin knew that Batu would eventually make his appearance, once he’d gotten over his snit. He simply had to be patient. When he’d completed his meal, he wandered into Batu’s study – a small, boxy room with large windows and shelves holding the papers that every magistrate seemed to collect.

  He perused the shelves and the papers, looking for anything of interest. He found a copy of Winter, by Kakita Ryoku. Somewhat surprised, he pulled it down. Flicking through the book, he wandered to a window so he could read by the fading light of dusk, and to wait for his host’s return.

  Chapter Six

  The Blind Woman

  Gozen Emiko listened to the call of the night birds as she climbed the steep peasants’ route into the foothills. Bachi in hand, she plucked at the strings of her shamisen, providing brittle accompaniment to the birds.

  The road was clear this time of evening. Few peasants were brave enough to enter the foothills after dusk without a good reason. But Emiko did not fear ghosts, hungry or otherwise. The night held few terrors for one who had lived in darkness since birth.

  That she could walk and play without being able to see the path was a result of years of hard practice – and not a few hard falls. But a blind woman had to learn how to walk without fear, else she would never get anywhere at all.

  Her bamboo cane was nestled in the crook of her arm as she played, providing a sense of comfort. She owned only two things of any worth – the shamisen and the cane. Everything else was negotiable. Her clothes, her pack, all of it could be and had been replaced many times. But the shamisen was the only way she could earn the koku that kept her from starving or selling something other than her voice. And the cane – well, the cane had other uses.

  Hers had been given to her by an old teacher – a masseur of some distinction. As blind as she, but without her talent for singing. He had earned his money with his hands, and had taught her to do the same.

  The bird calls changed, became shrill and aggressive. Emiko stopped, head tilted, listening. Though her eyes saw nothing, her ears still worked, and so too did her nose. She sniffed the air and caught a whiff of unwashed flesh and soiled clothing. She stilled the strings of her instrument and carefully slung it over her shoulder, where it would hang safely out of the way. She gripped her cane in both hands and set the tip on the ground.

  Pebbles shifted beneath poorly made sandals. Brush dragged at the hems of tattered clothing. She swung her face towards the sound, calculating the distance. “Hello,” she said, letting the word quaver on the air.

  Laughter was the only reply. Someone whistled, and she followed the sound. Another voice barked like a dog, drawing her back the other way. Three, perhaps four of them. Five at most. “Who are you?” she asked, softly.

  “Can’t see us at all, can she?” a voice grunted.

  “If she could, she’d have run by now – especially from your ugly face, Tano.” Laughter greeted this witticism, and Emiko tried a smile.

  “If it helps, I cannot tell if you are ugly or beautiful. Thus, it is of no importance to me.” She held her cane close, across her body, and bowed her head. They drew closer. She heard the rasp of steel on leather, and smelled the stink of their night’s drinking. “I have nothing for you, my friends. Unless you would like me to play a song?”

  “Play us a song, she says,” the first one said. Tano. “Want a song, lads?”

  “Maybe after we see what she has on her. I hear these musicians hide the day’s take in their rags, like some filthy eta.” She felt the heat of the nearest man, his sweat stinking of cheap booze and spicy noodles. “Take her arm, Higo.”

  The grip on her arm was light – not gentle, but tentative. She did not protest. Instead, she let her cane slide through her grip and gave the upper section a quick twist. With a clack, the shikomi-zue slid free with a serpent’s hiss, and she slashed upwards and out. She had positioned the cane so that the edge of the blade was facing the one called Higo, and she was rewarded with a splatter of warmth and a strangled scream.

  She pivoted, following the string of curses that exploded from the lips of the next closest man. She brought the blade around in a horizontal slash, and felt something part. More wetness spattered her front and legs. There was a squawk, like that of a dying chicken, and then she was turning towards the sound of running feet.

  She did not cease moving, did not slow or pause. Once begun, the dance of death had to continue until its end – hers, or her opponent’s. To stop before the last blow was to invite disaster. Crouching, bent forward so as to make herself a smaller target, she turned and twisted, blade darting in all directions with a speed that might have appeared heedless to any onlooker, but was in fact agonizingly precise.

  Tano was the last. He came at her slowly, warily. She could hear the trepidation in his footsteps. Felt it in the air of his blow as it passed by her face. She turned into it, and her blade chopped into something – he gave a grunt, and the gravity of his fall nearly pulled the blade from her hand. She waited, head cocked to the side. Then, flicking blood from the blade, she slid it into its hidden sheath and straightened.

  A rock clattered. The smell of familiar perfume on the air. “Tashiro,” she murmured. “Did you enjoy the show, ronin?”

  “Most truly, Emiko. Your performance is, as ever, unmatched.” His voice was smooth and easy, like honey. She heard the rustle of his kimono as he approached, and the rattle of his swords in their sheaths. “Though, this may cause trouble with our esteemed comrades.”

  “Then you know them?”

  “Some of Honesty-sama’s men. New ones, I should think. Else they would have known better than to bother you.” The name of Northern Owari’s undisputed criminal master never failed to make her smile. A blatant lie, and yet with some truth to it – for he was honest, and honored by those who served him. A daimyo, though not titled as such.

  “He should thank me. They were too foolish to live.”

  “I am not certain he will see it that way, but hey-ho – a problem for another day.
Take my arm, and I will guide you the rest of the way.”

  “A ronin guiding a blind woman may attract notice.”

  “A lone woman covered in blood will attract more. At least this way, I can take the blame for this little… massacre.”

  “As ever, I am in your debt, Tashiro.”

  “What is a bit of debt between friends?” He took her arm in his. Beneath the perfume, he smelled of sweat and foreign spices. Not a bad smell, but a comforting one. Tashiro claimed to have journeyed across the Burning Sands, and sometimes she even believed him. Despite his origins, Tashiro was a firm believer in the great work – just as Emiko was. Along with their brothers and sisters they would set right the wheel of heaven, and impose justice upon an unjust world.

  He leaned close. “So, did they arrive, then? As our contact warned us?”

  “Yes. By river.” She had not seen the Crane envoy arrive, but she had heard him. A nice voice, as smooth as Tashiro’s, but with a far greater warmth to it. She had enjoyed listening to it, and looked forward to hearing it again.

  “Trust the Crane to take the easy route,” Tashiro sniffed. “I still don’t understand why that fool is even here. What is the magistrate thinking?”

  “It was not his doing. The Iuchi wish there to be an investigation.”

  “If it were one of us, I doubt they’d bother.”

  “Why should they? We are half-people, Tashiro. The great unwashed, whom the nobility barely notice save when we impede their triumphal progress.” She spoke without bitterness. It was simply a fact, and an indisputable one. One did not argue with the stump in the field – one merely uprooted it and got on with one’s day.

  That was what the great work was all about. Uprooting the stump that hindered the ploughing of the fields of progress.

  “They will notice us soon enough,” he said, and his grip on her arm tightened. She could hear the righteous anger in his voice, and smiled. She patted his arm. Toshiro hated the Celestial Order more than she, for he had once thought it the truth. Now that he knew otherwise, he could not help but feel anger towards those whom he had once served.

  “Yes, but not now. Not because of this. We must tread carefully, my friend.”

  Toshiro laughed. “So counsels the blind woman.”

  Still smiling, she dug her fingers into his forearm. She felt him flinch. “That I am blind does not mean I cannot see what is plain. There is only one way the investigation ends – only one way it can end. The wheels of Rokugani justice have but one track, and they follow it without remorse or pity.”

  “It does not sit well with me,” he said, after a moment.

  “It does not sit well with any rational person,” she replied. “But sometimes a sacrifice must be made for the greater good. I console myself with the thought that she would have struck any one of us down without a thought, had her masters ordered her to do so.”

  “You do not know that,” Toshiro said. “She is a ronin, like me.”

  “Not like you, dear Toshiro. Having slipped the leash once, she chose to go back. You were wise enough to see that for the trap that it is.”

  “Some of us see little choice,” he said.

  “And some of us choose to take the unmarked path,” she countered. “Why did you come to meet me, really? I do not think it was merely curiosity.”

  “There is talk, among the others. A worry that we have overplayed our hand of late. We – they – fear that the war will not happen. That we have forced them to a point where they have no choice but to make peace. The Unicorn will not allow them to do otherwise.”

  “How would the Unicorn stop them? The clan is not all-powerful. They do not control the hearts of people, however much they might believe otherwise.” Emiko shook her head. “And anyway, war is not the optimal result of our gamble.”

  Toshiro grunted. “I thought…” he began.

  “War is like the bursting of a boil – it hurts, but soon enough the pus leaks out and the wound heals. Better that the boil… fester. That it swells painfully, causing distraction and discomfort to the afflicted.”

  “How poetic,” he murmured, in revulsion. She chuckled.

  “But apt. We must think long term. We are seeding the field, not for this year’s harvest, but the next and the next after that.” She patted his arm. “This affair has already served us well. If we are careful, it will yield great dividends at some future time.”

  “What about this Crane? What if he causes trouble?”

  “If it becomes necessary, we shall clip his wings. But I do not think we will have any trouble with him. He seems a dull sort – kind, but foolish. The sort of man who would weep for trampled grass.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a Crane at all.”

  “Perhaps he is an odd sort of Crane.” She decided to change the subject. “Those men – you are certain they belonged to Honesty-sama?”

  “I have seen them around,” Toshiro said. He ostensibly worked for the criminal cartel that controlled most of the illicit activity in Northern Owari. He was Honesty-sama’s man, if he could be called anyone’s. But it was only a mask.

  They had needed someone to keep an eye and an ear on the cartel, and Toshiro had been the obvious choice. A ronin who, to all appearances, had the usual bad habits of that breed – strong drink, games of chance, and no respect for human life.

  He had done well, so far. Through his efforts to ingratiate himself into Honesty-sama’s confidence, they had managed to steer the crime lord in the necessary directions and funnel a sliver of the cartel’s profits into more deserving hands. Namely, theirs.

  “Then it will be up to you to see that they are not missed. If Honesty-sama should come to know of us before we are ready, he may well prove our undoing.”

  “A low-born criminal like that?”

  She sighed. Sometimes, Toshiro still fell prey to the biases of his upbringing. “Low born or not, he has welded together a formidable organization in the years since his arrival. And save for you, we have not been able to successfully infiltrate his ranks.”

  Toshiro grunted. “Do not fear, Emiko. They will not be missed.”

  “It would be for the best if he thought bakemono were responsible. He will not bother to investigate, or seek vengeance, if he believes they were slain by goblins.” There was no profit in hunting the creatures, at least not for a man like Honesty-sama.

  “I will see it done.”

  Emiko patted his arm. “I know.”

  “Where will you go now?”

  “There is to be a luncheon at the magistrate’s house tomorrow, for the Shiko and the Zeshi – his guards were speaking of it in town. He might be in need of musicians, and I can listen as I play.”

  Toshiro inhaled sharply. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “No. I am a blind woman, remember?” She smiled. “No one ever sees me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Katai Ruri

  Lanterns had been lit by the time Batu returned. Shin, engrossed in the book, had barely noticed the passage of time. Batu paused in the doorway. “I was not aware I had given you leave to come in here.”

  “I was not aware you had denied me the option.” Shin snapped the book closed and tapped it with a finger. “A curious book. One I did not imagine to find in your possession.”

  “I am capable of reading, Shin.”

  “It’s not your ability I question, but the material. I was not aware you were interested in such things, though I am heartened to see that you finally took one of my suggestions. Albeit at a remove of ten years or so.” Shin set the book down on the window sill and gave Batu a frank look. “Feeling better, then?”

  “No.”

  “A shame.”

  The two men stared at one another for long moments. Batu yielded first. “You have something to say to me?”

  “You were surprised when yo
u saw me.”

  “I was.”

  “Displeased?”

  Batu hesitated. Shin could see hospitality warring with honesty on his face. Finally, he said, “I was not expecting you. That is all.”

  Shin nodded. “I was told I would be residing here for the duration. If that is no longer the case, I will make other arrangements.”

  “Like what?” Batu asked, in a pugnacious tone.

  “Your city is famous for its ryokan. Perhaps I will partake of their hospitality, since yours is lacking.”

  “Did I say you could not stay?”

  “I do not wish to impose.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  Shin sighed. “Have I offended you somehow, my lord?”

  Batu stared at him. “Do you truly not recall, or is this more of that obfuscating stupidity of yours?” The words hung etched on the air for long moments.

  “I have offended you. Tell me how, so that I might make restitution.”

  “That ship, as they say, has sailed.” Batu’s hands curled into fists. “I truly loved her, you know. Kaiya.”

  “Kaiya?” Shin frowned. Sluggish memories percolated to the surface. A daughter of the Kakita, and troublesome besides. A notorious flirt – she still was, in fact. “Kakita Kaiya?”

  “I would have wed her, had you not interfered.”

  Shin laughed. “No, I do not think so.” Batu had followed Kaiya around like a fool for months, hanging on her every utterance. She’d found it highly amusing, and made something of a game of it. Shin had not approved.

  “She loved me!”

  “Is that what she said?” Kaiya had never loved anyone but herself. She was lovely, true, but that beauty was a shallow pool. When Shin had confronted her, she’d laughed the matter off as if it were of no consequence. He’d almost challenged her there and then, but had restrained himself – something he still regretted.