Heart of the Ronin (38 page)

“I don’t know what came over me!” Hatsumi cried. The look in her eyes told Kazuko that she was on the verge of weeping. The rage fell away from Hatsumi’s face like a shattered mask, and she sank to her knees, her eyes glistening with tears.

“What were you doing!” Kazuko cried. “That was so cruel! How could you be so cruel! What could she have done to warrant such treatment?”

Hatsumi stammered, “I . . . I. . . .” Then her resolve seemed to harden. “She is a whore!”

“How can you say that?”

Hatsumi’s voice grew harder with each word. “Yesterday I saw her come out of. . . .”

“Where?”

“Yasutoki’s personal chambers.”

“And what of it? She is a servant. And what of Yasutoki? Wait.” The realization struck her then, and a sliver of dread tore into her. “Are you and Yasutoki lovers?” Normally she would have been happy to hear that Hatsumi had found a lover, but not this way, not with Yasutoki. The man was evil, and his interest in Hatsumi could not be genuine. He was a man with motives within mysteries. What kind of game was he playing?

Hatsumi’s eyes flashed with defiance as she nodded. “Last week he professed his undying love for me.”

“Do you love him?” Kazuko asked, dreading the answer.

Hatsumi paused. “I don’t know. It’s so exciting that he says he loves me! And he has a powerful position.” Then her voice grew venomous again. “But that little slut trying to take him away from me. . . .”

“Hatsumi,” Kazuko gently interrupted her, keeping her voice soft and even, “how do you know she was in his bed? She could have been there for any number of reasons.”

“It was the look on her face! And she knew that I knew!”

“But she is so young—”

“And so ripe for the plucking! She seduced him—”

“Hatsumi, she has no such designs on anyone, much less Yasutoki. She is little more than a child.”

“And what about Yasutoki? Is he not desirable? Why would she not want him for herself?”

Kazuko stiffened. The wrath and suspicion in Hatsumi’s voice almost rocked her back on her heels.

“Hatsumi,” Kazuko said, trying to use her voice to soothe Hatsumi’s emotions, “you are distraught. Do not fear, I will take care of you. That’s a bit of a change, isn’t it?” She gave a feeble smile. She wanted to say that even if Moé had been in Yasutoki’s bed, the liaison had been all Yasutoki’s doing. But she could not suggest that without making things worse.

Hatsumi’s posture softened.

Kazuko hugged her shoulders. “Even if Moé deserved to be punished, the deed is done now, yes? There is no need to punish her further. We must not be cruel to the servants or they will hate us. They serve us well, and they are beneath us, thus they deserve our kindness. Yes?”

Hatsumi’s eyes began to tear and she nodded, sniffling.

“Good. Besides, you have certainly filled her with fear. You will not punish her anymore?”

Hatsumi sniffled again and shook her head.

“Good. Please come with me outside. The fresh air will help calm you.” She helped Hatsumi to her feet and led her out to the balcony. “I will call for some tea. That will make you feel better, too, won’t it?”

“Please don’t go to so much trouble. . . .”

“No trouble at all. Just wait here.” Kazuko sat Hatsumi down on a soft cushion, then went back inside and rang a small gong that she used to call her servants. A middle-aged servant woman named Yuki answered her summons. Yuki was as pale as fresh linen as she knelt and bowed to the floor. Kazuko requested a pot of tea.

Yuki said, “Of course, milady. Anything for you.” She stood up to leave.

“Um, just a moment. How is the girl, Moé?”

Yuki stiffened almost imperceptibly. “She will be fine, milady. In time.”

“Hatsumi feels terrible about what happened. It will not happen again.”

Even in Yuki’s respectfully downcast eyes, Kazuko could see the hard glitter of hatred. “As you say, milady.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Yuki paused, thinking, as if choosing her words with great care. “I do not know, milady.”

“What does Moé say?”

Yuki spoke carefully. “She says that she took Master Yasutoki his fresh laundry, and Mistress Hatsumi saw her coming out of his chambers and grew very angry. Hatsumi summoned Moé here, and started beating her without explanation.”

“So Moé has no idea why Hatsumi beat her?”

Then she grew cautious. “Milady, you are a fair and kind mistress. All the servants love you. May I speak?”

Kazuko felt herself stiffen. These were bold words for a house servant. “You may speak.”

“Hatsumi hates Moé. Sometimes Moé is a bit clumsy and spilled some of Hatsumi’s tea once. Hatsumi threw the scalding water in her face. The poor girl could have been blinded.”

Kazuko’s lacquer of calm cracked. She could not imagine Hatsumi being so cruel. “That cannot be.”

“I am sorry, milady. I tended Moé’s burns myself.”

Kazuko clenched her hands in her lap, trying to restrain her racing emotions. “When did this happen?”

“In the first month after your arrival, milady.”

“Thank you, Yuki. That is all.”

Yuki bowed again and departed, leaving Kazuko alone with fresh dread. What had gotten into Hatsumi? Had she been possessed by a fox or some evil spirit? Was this no longer the real Hatsumi? Had the real woman been replaced by a tengu or other such shapeshifting creature? Any number of possible explanations raced through her mind, none of them pleasant, but her thoughts kept returning to the encounter with Hakamadare. Had the oni’s evil somehow taken root inside her? Had the horror she had experienced shattered her spirit? So many thoughts, all of them unpleasant, but at least they gave her respite from her own private pain. She would have to watch Hatsumi closely.

Eleven

“If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever . . . With such non-attachment, one can accomplish any feat.”

—
Hagakure

Yasutoki sipped his tea in the dark, listening to the silence of the night. Darkness had fallen hours ago, and most of the castle was now fast asleep. The only people likely to be awake were guards. He darkened his room so that anyone passing by his chambers would think him to be sleeping as well. The cold moon shone down through the slats in the shutter, painting faint bars of silver on the tatami. The moon was high and aloof, little more than a sliver in the cloud-patched sky. This was Yasutoki’s favorite time, the deep dark of a cold night. He sometimes felt that it most closely mirrored his soul. There were no voices, not of night creatures nor of men, to disturb the silence. Only the moaning whisper of the wind. He savored the mournful sound, like the pain of the whole world given voice. One had but to listen. There were men who could not accept the world’s pain and ugliness, men who tried to fight against the misery and the injustice. The men who fought against it were fools, doomed to perpetual failure. All a man could do was to seek to carve a place for himself, to suffer less misery by inflicting it upon others if need be. The shadows of his room were pitch-black, much like the dark corners of his spirit, he imagined. The darkness held mystery, and mystery was power. Men feared the unknown, and controlling the shadows granted power over men. The power of shadow was subtle, sometimes so ephemeral that it could not be predicted, but it was power, power that Yasutoki had been trained to harness from the time he was a child.

His affinity for shadow was a potent weapon, but so was information. And information was something he gathered in great abundance. In spite of Tsunemori’s recalcitrance, there was little that happened in Lord Tsunetomo’s castle to which Yasutoki was not privy. He occasionally amused himself with testing bits of gossip to see how they spread and how the details changed in the telling. The news of what Hatsumi had done to the servant girl, Moé, had spread through the house like wildfire. This was something he had not foreseen. The last thing he wanted now was a confrontation with Hatsumi. Perhaps she was a bit too volatile to use as a pawn, at least until he determined a way to turn her volatility to his advantage. Making love to her had been a chore. She had been stiff and unresponsive, like bedding a dead fish. After months of his careful advances, she had consented to lie with him, and he could tell from her reactions that she was almost hysterical with fear until he was finished. But she had been possessive ever since. He was finding it difficult to take advantage of some of the servant girls he favored without offending her. And then poor, unfortunate Moé, in the wrong place at the wrong time, taking the brunt of Hatsumi’s newborn jealousy, and undeservedly so. No matter. Moé was a just a lowly, cross-eyed servant girl. Perhaps if she became a bit more womanly, he might decide to partake of her charms.

It was time.

He stood and shed his voluminous robes, revealing his tight-fitting, black undergarments. He picked up a small black box made of hammered copper. The handle was warm to the touch, even through his black gloves. He slipped the black mask over his face and moved like a true shadow to the door of his chambers. The hallway outside was pitch dark. He moved with complete surety through the empty blackness, having long ago memorized the exact dimensions of every room and hallway in the castle. As he passed the shoji screens of various chambers, faintly backlit by the glow of coals or moonlight, faint snores whuffled through them. The air held the faint smell of charcoal smoke from the heating braziers. His slippered feet made no sound as they moved across the polished wooden floors. He did not expect to see any guards until he had nearly reached his destination. Nevertheless, no lord ever lived as long as Tsunetomo by being careless. There were guards at the entrance to the castle, and at the stairs to the upper floors, where the lord, his family, and Yasutoki resided.

Yasutoki’s chambers were on the floor below Lord Tsunetomo’s. Tsunemori’s office was on the castle’s main floor, near the audience hall, the kitchens, guest rooms, and Yasutoki’s office. Yasutoki had only one guard post to contend with between himself and his destination, placed at the stairs between the upper floors and the main floor. Usually that guard was asleep.

Yasutoki reached the top of the stairs. He saw the opening below, a window of yellow-orange light from the lantern. The shadow of the guard, standing just out of sight, lay across the floor in front of the doorway. As silent as a shadow himself, Yasutoki moved down the stairs. He had long ago memorized the points on every step where the wood would not creak under his weight. Two steps from the bottom, he saw the guard’s silhouette against the lantern light. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, his head drooping toward his chest, his measured breathing indicating he was dozing. As the castle was not under threat, the guard was not wearing any armor; he would be an easy target if Yasutoki had to kill him. Slipping past him into the corridor, Yasutoki kept his attention focused on the guard. Only when he rounded the first corner and was out of sight did he begin to move quickly.

In less than twenty heartbeats, he reached the door to Tsunemori’s office. In two more, he was inside with the door closed behind him. The room was pitch-black. The windows were shuttered against the winter night, but only kept out the moonlight, not the cold. The air was frigid, but Yasutoki ignored it. He moved across the room, found the desk with his hand, and knelt beside it. Then he opened a small door in the black box in his other hand, and a small puddle of faint light from the candle within spilled out onto the desk. Yasutoki’s breath seeped through his mask in vaporous wisps. He shielded the light with his body. No one passing by in the corridor would see any evidence of activity within the office.

Tsunemori’s desk held an inkpot and brush, a neatly arranged row of scrolls, and a sheaf of loose papers. He rifled through the papers and scrolls until he found the list of names for the warriors serving as Tsunetomo’s retainers, an inventory of arrows, bows, swords, spears, and other weapons, a count of horses to mount the bushi, and an inventory of the supplies stored to feed these warriors and their horses. There were even estimates of how many peasants could be conscripted to fill the ranks in an emergency. His gaze darted around the pages, counting, calculating, committing it all to memory. He would remember all of it in perfect detail. When he was finished, he felt a sense of satisfaction that Tsunemori would be instrumental, in some small way, for the future victory of the Great Khan. He put everything back exactly as he had found it, then closed the small lantern door, plunging him into complete darkness.

He waited for his eyes to adjust once again before slipping back into the corridor. He crept through the castle hallways until he reached the corner where he would have to move into the guard’s field of vision. Ever cautious, he peered around the corner. The man was awake now, yawning into his hand and rubbing his arms to keep warm. Yasutoki cursed silently.

He waited and listened for the sound of the guard settling down again to doze, for the sound of slow, steady breathing. But those sounds did not come. Yasutoki knew this man to be a competent warrior, an honorable man, not a sluggard. It sounded now as if he was trying to keep himself awake and warm in the cold, deep hours of the night. He was rubbing himself, moving around, complaining under his breath about the chill.

Yasutoki’s patience began to wear thin. He considered killing the man, but that would create far too many complications to his simple plan.

Then he stiffened at the sound of footsteps coming from behind him. The next watch was coming. If he were discovered, all of his plans would be for naught. The footsteps were closer than they should have been. He had been too focused on this guard and had forgotten when the watch changed. A lantern floated toward him down the hallway, illuminating the pale pool of the new guard’s face in the lantern light. Fortunately, Yasutoki was standing near the door to a small storage room. He slid the door open, slipped inside, and closed the door behind him. Around him in the darkness, he sensed bulky stacks of barrels, bags of rice and grain, and jars of pickled vegetables and fruit. Had the two guards heard the sound of the sliding door?