Flask of the Drunken Master (25 page)

“You don’t have to believe me,” Basho said. “But it’s the truth.”

“What did you learn on your little walk?” Hiro narrowed his eyes at the merchant.

“Kaoru talked about calling upon the angry ghosts of Ginjiro’s ancestors and how a selfish man would always pay for his selfish ways. He said, ‘We’ll see how big Ginjiro feels when he’s lost everything.’ Ginjiro is another sake brewer.”

“I know who he is,” Hiro hissed. “Enough delay. Tell me who killed Chikao.”

“I swear, I do not know.” Basho looked desperate.

“If you truly knew nothing, you wouldn’t have guessed that he was the man I meant.” Hiro drew his
wakizashi
. “Would you remember more with a blade at your neck?”

“Please,” Basho whimpered. “I don’t know who killed him. I swear. I was told that he died but nothing more. Please, I have a family…”

Hiro believed the merchant but needed to ensure his silence. He placed the point of his sword on Basho’s stomach. “You will never mention this conversation. Not to anyone, including your wife.”

“I won’t breathe a word.” Tears spilled over Basho’s eyelids, but the merchant didn’t dare wipe them away. “I swear I won’t.”

“I hope not,” Hiro said, “because I will know, and even a word is more than your life is worth.”

He sheathed his sword, slid the shutters open, and dashed away into the night. When he reached the opposite side of the road, he hid in the shadows and watched Basho close up the shop. He didn’t leave until the locks slid into place with a click that echoed through the midnight silence.

Hiro didn’t worry about Basho discussing his visit. Kyoto’s bandit clans showed mercy to people who held their tongues, but none to those who talked. Basho would never risk his family’s safety, or his own, by telling tales.

Unfortunately, the merchant’s words had not revealed as much as Hiro hoped. The shinobi considered the story as he made his way home through the darkened streets and alleys.

Even if ghosts existed—and Hiro did not believe they did—the dead would not obey the commands of the living. Father Mateo’s religion claimed that people could speak with a holy ghost, but the priest didn’t say he could bend the ghost to his will. On the contrary, the Jesuit claimed it worked the other way around.

However, the part about Ginjiro’s losing everything suggested a real threat and also implicated Kaoru. Hiro might have dismissed the story as a drunken flight of fancy, but the words meshed well enough with the facts to make him wonder why Chikao returned to Ginjiro’s brewery the night he died—and whether or not he truly returned alone.

Someone in Kyoto knew what happened in that alley. Hiro had to find out who and make that person talk—and he had less than half a day in which to do it. He wished he could have asked Basho what time Kaoru left the Golden Buddha on the night Chikao died, but the question would have sounded too suspicious coming from a bandit’s lips.

He would have to learn the answer another way.

When he reached the bridge at Sanj
ō
Road he found half a dozen samurai standing guard. Given the explosion and the missing guard, he expected more. Hiro waited in the shadows until the guards distracted themselves in conversation. When they did, he scurried off to cross the river farther north.

Only a single samurai guarded the bridge at Marutamachi Road. The guards must have decided Hiro’s bombs were an isolated incident, worthy of extra guards at that location but nothing more.

Hiro slipped under the western end of the bridge and considered his options. He doubted his physician act would work so close to home. The guards who patrolled this bridge had seen him in the past, or else would see him in the future, making the lie too great a risk.

Explosive charges wouldn’t help him either. One exploding lantern was coincidence. Two explosions in one night meant sabotage. Hiro wanted to get across the bridge, but not enough to generate a citywide alert.

A shadow moved in the street to the west of the bridge. Hiro watched it from his hiding place among the pilings. The shadow didn’t move like a tree or with the measured pace of a human being or a horse. The movements came at intervals, and without repetition, in the manner of a spy who wanted to remain unseen.

Nervous excitement loosened Hiro’s joints and pooled in his stomach. Whoever approached the bridge did so with the stealth and speed of a highly trained shinobi.

Hiro took a long, slow breath to counteract the energy that lit his veins on fire. Many shinobi worked in Kyoto, rivals as well as those from his own
ryu
.

Unfortunately, a shinobi heading east on Marutamachi Road at night suggested only two potential targets—and only one if the assassin crossed the bridge. If that happened, Hiro would have to kill the spy before he reached the house where Father Mateo lived.

The other shinobi approached the river slowly, with the subtlety of a master. Hiro tracked the assassin’s movements with interest, wondering how the rival shinobi planned to cross the bridge. He doubted the assassin would swim the river. Not only would the samurai guard see someone in the water, but soaking clothes would leave a trail—a fatal error no trained spy would make.

The shadow reached the final house before the bridge and disappeared into the yard. Hiro fixed his eyes on the spot and waited. Nothing moved.

Perhaps the assassin wasn’t after the Jesuit after all.

Hiro breathed a sigh of relief and reprimanded himself for the assumption.

As the surge of excitement left his muscles, Hiro wondered who lived in the house at the end of the street. He stared at the building but saw no clues to the owner’s identity. He saw no sign of the assassin, either. No light shone through the latticed windows. No foliage moved in the yard.

Hiro turned his thoughts to the river and how to cross it safely.

A woman’s scream shattered the silence.

Hiro tensed. The scream came from inside the final house before the river—the one the shinobi assassin entered.

“Help!” the woman screamed again. “Help me! Help! A thief!”

Geta thumped on the wooden bridge as the samurai guard responded to the cry. Footsteps pounded the earthen road, and Hiro peeked from beneath the bridge to watch the samurai race to the darkened house.

Hiro crouched, preparing to run across the bridge the moment the guard disappeared from view. He knew he could get across and hide before the samurai returned. He took a breath, prepared to run …

 … and ducked back into his hiding place as the strange shinobi broke from the shadows and raced across the Kamo River bridge.

Chapter 50

A second surge of adrenaline shocked Hiro’s system as the assassin’s footsteps pattered overhead. When they faded into silence, Hiro hurried out from his hiding place and pursued the strange shinobi across the bridge.

As he ran, he caught a glimpse of the assassin disappearing into the shadows on Marutamachi Road.

Hiro didn’t stop running until he reached the torii gate at Okazaki Shrine. There, he paused in the shadows to listen. He heard crickets and cicadas, nothing more. He hoped his race across the bridge alerted the assassin to his presence. Most shinobi abandoned a mission, temporarily at least, if someone saw them approaching the target’s home.

He moved along the street, staying in the darkness when he could. Although he hoped the assassin had disappeared, Hiro didn’t trust his hopes any more than he trusted assumptions.

Lights flickered behind the oiled paper windows of Father Mateo’s home. The sight released a bit of the tension binding Hiro’s chest. A shinobi would wait for the lights to go out before infiltrating the residence.

Hiro paused and watched for movement in the shadows. The house on the opposite side of the street from the Jesuit’s was dark and silent. Hiro found himself suddenly grateful for the neighbor’s akita. The assassin could not approach from that direction without triggering a fit of angry barking.

Something moved in the shadows near the fence that circled Father Mateo’s yard. Hiro watched with horror as the strange shinobi approached the gate and slipped into the garden without a sound.

As Hiro started toward the fence, he realized that Matsunaga Hisahide might have sent the assassin after Luis
Á
lvares, believing the merchant’s death would stop the weapon sale to the Miyoshi. That left Hiro with yet another ethical dilemma. He loathed Luis on a personal level but didn’t think the Portuguese merchant deserved to die. Not unless his death would save the priest.

The Iga
ryu
didn’t care about the merchant, and the unknown client who paid for Hiro’s services had never mentioned Luis
Á
lvares. Even so, no other shinobi would harm the Jesuit’s household on Hiro’s watch.

A shout would send the assassin running, but he would return, perhaps at a time when Hiro did not expect him.

Hiro didn’t intend to let his enemy slip away.

A shinobi would notice someone following him through the garden gate, so Hiro slipped into the neighbors’ yard and climbed an ancient cherry tree that sent its questing branches across the wall. From the relative safety of the tree, he peered into the Jesuit’s yard.

A shadowed figure stood on the veranda outside Father Mateo’s room. The Jesuit’s silhouette flickered on the paper panels, separated from the assassin by only a flimsy shoji.

The strange shinobi reached for the Jesuit’s door.

Hiro retrieved a
shuriken
from a pocket inside his sleeve. He preferred to use the metal stars as fistload weapons, not projectiles, but he had no time to close the distance now. He measured the distance carefully. In daylight, and without obstructions, Hiro could strike a fatal blow to the man on the porch with ease. Tonight he had to make the throw in darkness and through branches, and he didn’t know how quickly this assassin would react.

Hiro drew a preparatory breath.

The strange shinobi pivoted, and Hiro saw his opponent’s face.

It was Ozuru.

Hiro threw the
shuriken
but knew as he released it that the star would miss its target. He leaped from the tree and hit the ground as the metal star embedded itself in the porch with a silent thump.

“Don’t move.” Hiro jumped to the veranda and drew his sword. “I missed the throw on purpose. I will kill you if you run.”

Ozuru raised his empty hands. “We have no dispute, Matsui-
san
.”

“We do,” Hiro said, “if you attempt to kill a man that I protect.”

Ozuru lowered his hands to his sides. “I came to warn you, not to kill the priest.”

Hiro didn’t believe him—not yet, anyway. “Deliver your warning.”

Ozuru’s gaze flickered from Hiro’s blade to the spots on his clothing. His eyes narrowed. He met Hiro’s gaze and nodded, accepting Hiro’s decision not to lower the sword.

“Hisahide has refused the Miyoshi daimyo’s demand to surrender Kyoto. War is now inevitable. If the Miyoshi start that war with Portuguese firearms, Hisahide will declare this household guilty of treason. He will execute the merchant and the priest.”

“The Miyoshi weapons order has been cancelled,” Hiro said. “Hisahide has no cause to blame the Portuguese. Not the ones in this house, anyway.”

Ozuru drew back in surprise. “Cancelled? When?”

“Yesterday,” Hiro said. “The merchant does not want to start a war.”

“My sources claim the sale proceeds on schedule,” Ozuru said, “and that your merchant simply arranged for a different Portuguese to deliver the firearms to the Miyoshi stronghold.”

Hiro hid his chagrin behind an innocent expression. “You cannot blame Luis if another merchant revives a cancelled sale.”

“Matsunaga Hisahide will not consider that a cancellation,” Ozuru said.

“I appreciate the warning.” Hiro wondered what the Koga
ryu
would gain from helping Hiro save the Jesuit and Luis. The respect and passive truce between the Iga shinobi and Ozuru’s Koga
ryu
did not explain the other man’s behavior. Somehow, the priest’s survival—or the merchant’s—benefited Koga’s plans.

Hiro sheathed his sword.

Ozuru’s expression softened. “Koga desires stability in Kyoto. Foreign deaths will divide the city, creating opportunities for enemies far more dangerous than the Miyoshi.”

“You mean Oda Nobunaga,” Hiro said.

“And others.” Ozuru paused. “Ashikaga Yoshiaki has left Nara.”

“The former shogun’s brother?” Hiro frowned. “Can a monk lay claim to the shogunate?”

“Yoshiaki renounced his vows when he left the temple,” Ozuru said. “Rumors say he does intend to claim the shogunate.”

“How much truth do these rumors hold?” Hiro asked.

Ozuru shook his head. He would reveal no more. “You should leave Kyoto quickly, with the merchant and the priest. This city is no longer safe for you.”

“I understand.” Hiro bowed but kept Ozuru’s hands in sight. “And thank you.”

“Do not thank me. I was never here.” Ozuru sprinted to the wall and disappeared over the top without a sound.

Hiro hoped he would move as smoothly when he reached Ozuru’s age.

The door behind Hiro slid open. Father Mateo stepped onto the porch.

“I heard voices.” The Jesuit looked around the yard. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Hiro said. “It’s only me.”

Chapter 51

Father Mateo gave Hiro a knowing look. “Just you, you say.” The priest stepped into his room and beckoned. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you’ve been the last few hours?” He frowned. “What’s on your clothes?”

“Three years ago, I promised I would not lie to you,” Hiro said. “It is better you don’t know about my clothes.”

The Jesuit frowned but didn’t press the issue.

“As for the other half of your question, Basho has made a miraculous reappearance.” Hiro explained about his conversation with the missing merchant, though he left out all the details of his journey there and back.

Father Mateo shook his head at the thought of Suke tackling Yoshiko. He frowned when Hiro mentioned Kaoru’s words about angry ghosts.