Disciple of the Wind (36 page)

Katsushima mulled it over for a moment. “The stories say demons disguise themselves as old crones. Maybe it’s true. In any case, I can’t imagine your father losing to a wizened grandmother any more than I can imagine him losing to a demon, so it’s all the same to me.”

Daigoro frowned. “I know what he told me.”

“All right. A demoness, then. She defeated your father, yet she was the one who died. Was that the way of it?”

“That’s what he said.” Seeing Katsushima wrinkle his brow, Daigoro added, “I was only a boy. I didn’t ask many questions.”

“Mm. Did he bury this ‘evil knife’ with her?”

“No,” Daigoro said. “He tried to, but he was set upon by thieves.”

“And?”

“He stabbed the first one in the heart with Streaming Dawn. The others went running after that.”

Katsushima nodded stoically. “That usually works.”

“He said their friend fled with them.”

“The one with the dagger in his heart.”

“Yes.”

Katsushima paused to consider that for a moment. “All right, that’s something I’d like to see. Are we off to Atsuta Shrine?”

“I am. You’re not.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I need you to take these back home for me.”

He hefted the two heavy sacks off the ground again and lugged them a little closer to Katsushima. Their weight threatened to collapse his bad knee. Katsushima eyed them over, and when curiosity got the better of him, he crouched over one of them and untied the top. What he saw inside made him gasp, a totally uncharacteristic expression from him. “That’s . . . that’s a lot of money.”

“Keep your voice down.” Daigoro looked over his shoulder, then scolded himself for it. Everyone in the compound was loyal to Jinichi. Even so, he could only bring himself to speak in a whisper. “It’s barely a quarter of Kenbei’s demand. Not nearly enough, but it’s a start. You’re the only one I can trust to get it where it needs to go.”

“Trust Jinichi. It’s his,
neh
?”

“It’s mine now. He loaned it to me.”

“Then he should protect his investment. Ask him to send riders with it, all the way back to your mother’s doorstep.”

“I can’t do that, Goemon. He’s already emptied his vault for me; I can’t ask him to go to the expense of—”

Katsushima stood up and took a step back, as physically separating himself from the money would also distance him from any responsibility for it. “Daigoro, he’s willing to help you. He may even be willing to saddle Kenbei with the expense of boarding his people and feeding their horses once they get where they’re going.”

“I can’t ask him to do that.”

“Then leave it here and we can take it to your family compound after we return from Atsuta. Either way, I go where you go.”

“Goemon, please—”

“Daigoro, when I announce myself at your front door and I present your wife and mother with all this coin, they’re going to ask where you are and whether you’re well. What would you have me tell them? That
I turned my back on you? That I have no idea where you’ve gone or whether you’re still alive?”

It was a good point, and it stung. Indignant, Daigoro said, “You don’t owe me anything.”

“True. A
ronin
swears oaths to no one and no one swears oaths to him. He’s alone in this world except for his friends. I don’t
owe
you friendship, but you have it from me anyway.”

“I know, Goemon. But the money—”

“Isn’t any safer with me than it is with a fully armed platoon. Though I appreciate your esteem for my sword arm.”

Daigoro tried to object, but Katsushima silenced him with a look. “How many towns lie between here and your family’s doorstep? And in those towns, how many taverns? How many whores? Do you mean to send
me
along that road, with two sacks of brass and no one looking over my shoulder? Find a better way to spend your money, Daigoro.”

That was the finishing blow. Daigoro knew he’d lost the fight well before then, but that was what made him surrender. His head sagged, and a noise escaped him that was part laugh and part sigh, partly dejected and partly relieved. “Have it your way. But do one thing for me before we depart. Lend me a hairpin.”

29

D
aigoro had heard of Atsuta Shrine because everyone had heard of it. Legend had it that Emperor Keiko founded it to house the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, the fabled Grass-Cutting Sword. At fifteen hundred years old, it was known simply as “the Shrine,” and it was without doubt one of the holiest places on the face of the earth.

Having heard of the Shrine did not prepare him in the slightest for the sheer size of it. In Izu, Shinto shrines were rarely more than a single sanctuary to enshrine the
kami
, connected by a short path to the obligatory
torii
. Osezaki, where he’d conducted his midnight rendezvous with Lady Nene, was uncommonly large; the smallest sites were little more than two upright posts connected by a braid of sacred rope. By contrast, the word “shrine”—even
the
Shrine—did not begin to describe Atsuta. Better to say it was a village of shrines, scattered throughout a sprawling forest under the protection of spirits, gods, and men.

A thick green canopy held in the cool humidity of recent rain, which condensed to form scores of tiny pearls on Daigoro’s forehead. The cool air came as joyous relief from the harried, hurried, breathless voyage from Yoshiwara. Back at Fuji-no-tenka, Jinichi had insisted that Daigoro should make all possible speed. He knew all about Shichio’s many eyes and ears, and about the roving packs of bear hunters. He also knew of a swift ship,
Pride of Suruga
, said to be able to make the run from Izu to Ayuchi in two days flat.

The
Pride
was as fast as Jinichi promised, but the weather was
against her, so it was not until morning on the third day that Daigoro and Katsushima guided their mounts onto the boardwalk in the port city of Ayuchi. From there they rode straight to Atsuta, not stopping to break their fast. Daigoro was feeling pressed for time; the lost half day weighed on him as heavily as his Sora breastplate. But now, enveloped by cool air and history, he did not know what to do with himself.

The Shrine was a sight to behold. Narrow canals babbled here and there, their walls equal parts hand-laid rock and moss laid down by the
tao
. A bridge arching over the water formed a perfect wheel with its reflection. Decorative stone lanterns were home not to evanescent candles but to lichens a thousand years old. No two lanterns were alike, and there would be hundreds of them in this forest, standing sentinel like the trees.

Daigoro had no idea how he would ever find his father here.

He’d spent his entire life trying to follow in his father’s footsteps. Here, from the moment he crossed under the first towering
torii
, he knew he was doing precisely that. His father had walked these very paths. His boots had trodden the same rain-slicked stones. But this place was so vast. There was no way of knowing which way to go.

“He came here to honor a worthy foe,” Daigoro mused aloud.

“But not to bury her,” Katsushima said. “These Shinto priests are notoriously prickly about contaminating their gods.”

Daigoro wasn’t sure
notorious
was the right word. Here of all places, the
kami
were at their most pure. A dead body was the ultimate pollution. But Katsushima was right: gods were entombed here, not assassins.

“He must have had her cremated somewhere else,” Daigoro said. “A Buddhist temple, probably. Then he came here to have a priest say prayers over the ashes.”

“Why?”

“‘
A worthy foe deserves a worthy funeral
.’ It was one of his maxims.” Daigoro continued to live by it. His brother Ichiro shared a tomb and a death poem with his murderer, Oda Yoshitomo.

“There’s wisdom in that,” Katsushima said. “It seems to me the
cremation would have been enough, though. I’ve never known a dead man to fuss over his funeral rites.”

Daigoro shrugged. “Maybe demons are different. I don’t know. Truth to tell, I’m not even certain my father ever came here. We got that from Jinichi, and that man is far too credulous for my liking. By the Buddha, Goemon, he asked me if I could change into a bear.”

Katsushima shook his head and laughed. “You should have said yes. Maybe he’d actually set Kenbei straight if he thought he had a bear at his heels.”

Daigoro forced a laugh too. It sounded desperate even to his own ears. “You see my point,
neh
? This whole voyage might be for nothing.”

“That’s the dog talking. Defeated by the squirrel before the fight even began. You remember the story?”

“Yes.”

“Then show a little spirit, will you? I didn’t come all this way just to hear you whine.”

Daigoro willed himself not to blush. Katsushima was right: bellyaching would get him nowhere. He led his mare to the nearest fountain, then dismounted so he could purify himself. The water chilled the bones in his right hand, reminding him of the old pain there. He held the reins of both horses as Katsushima performed the purification rite, then stepped up into the saddle again. “Let’s suppose Jinichi had it right,” he said. “There’s no use supposing otherwise. If Father was here, if this really was the place where he cut down that thief . . . well, a fellow running off with a
tanto
stuck in his heart isn’t the sort of thing that’s easily forgotten. Someone must have seen something, or heard something, or overheard it secondhand. If we ask enough questions, we’ll get to the truth.”

Katsushima gave him a satisfied nod, and together they ventured deeper along the wooded paths. Their horses’ hooves clipped and clopped on the flagstones. Now and then a cold droplet from an overhanging branch would slip right down the back of Daigoro’s collar, making him shiver. Katsushima seemed undisturbed by such
surprises. Then again, at thrice Daigoro’s age he’d had a few extra decades to bring his body’s unconscious responses to heel.

As they came across each shrine, one of them would dismount and step inside to make a few discreet inquiries. Usually it fell to Daigoro to do the asking; despite his lame leg dragging at him each time he stepped in and out of the saddle, he was not as heavily encumbered as Katsushima, who found the questioning quite embarrassing. Talk of demon assassins and magical knives was all too provincial for a
ronin
who had spent most of his days in sprawling cities like Ayuchi and Kyoto.

Late in the afternoon, in a beautiful broad-roofed shrine surrounded by ironwoods, Daigoro found an acolyte scrubbing the ancient floorboards. He was middle-aged, and therefore much too old to be charged with such trivial chores. Daigoro guessed the man must have been born into some other occupation at first, taking the cloth only later in life. He regarded Daigoro with an inquisitive, somewhat surprised look in his eyes, as if he were unaccustomed to seeing armed and armored men in this peaceful place.

“What is your business here?” he asked.

Daigoro didn’t often hear such brusque tones from a member of the priesthood. Then he remembered: the world did not see him as samurai anymore. He was an undersized, overproud boy armed not with
daisho
but with two grossly mismatched swords. His cloth was finely spun but in dire need of washing, which called into question any right he might have to dispense haughty looks.

“I come seeking rumors,” Daigoro said, adopting the soft manner of a peasant. “Perhaps you’ve overheard them, or know of someone who has. There was once a battle in these woods, or so I’m told, one samurai against a pack of thieves.”

“And one of the thieves was struck through the heart,” said the acolyte.

“Ah! So you’ve heard the story.”

“No, but I’ve heard of the two riders asking around about it. Word
travels quickly here, even among those who oughtn’t gossip.” The acolyte gave him a sheepish grin.

Daigoro returned it with a little bow and a kind smile of his own. “Can you tell me where I might turn to find my answers?”

“My uncle may know. He is the head priest at Daimatsu Shrine, and has been for some time. He would have been here when your story took place. It’s not half a
ri
from here; I’ll lead you if you like. Only . . . well, you’ll have to wait for me to finish scrubbing my floors.”

Daigoro was in no mood to dawdle. “I wouldn’t think to trouble you. If you’d be so kind as to point me in the right direction. . . .”

“But of course.”

The acolyte ushered Daigoro outside, where Katsushima minded the horses. He pointed them in the right direction, then vanished back inside. “A very helpful fellow,” Daigoro said. Then they were off.

“Helpful?” Katsushima asked a little while later. “The fool doesn’t know his left from his right.” In fact he and Daigoro had to double back more than once; the acolyte was hopeless when it came to giving directions. In the end they finally stumbled across Daimatsu, an imposing two-story shrine whose sweeping roofs were twice as wide as the sanctuary itself. Its stout timbers had grayed with age and its roof tiles were heavy with lichen.

Walking along the veranda was a senior priest who bore a strong resemblance to the acolyte. They shared the same lean body, the same high cheekbones and strong chin. They might have passed for twins, if only twins could be born fifteen years apart. The priest’s back was bent, his steps shuffling. He strained his neck forward when he saw Daigoro and Katsushima ride up to his shrine, squinting to make the most of the failing light.

“Good evening,” he said in a reedy voice. He wore long white robes, bright purple
hakama
, and a ceremonial black hat that made Daigoro think of a shark’s fin. His sleeves were so long that they almost touched the floor. “If you’ve come for the wedding, I’m afraid you’ve just missed it.”

“Wedding?” Daigoro said.

“They’ve all gone into the city.” The priest gestured vaguely toward the south. “If you hurry, you may yet catch them.”

Katsushima frowned and turned in his saddle, seeming to study the empty space where the priest had pointed. Daigoro’s attention remained with the priest. “As it happens, I believe you’re the one we’ve come to see. Are you the high priest of Daimatsu?”