The Dragon Scroll (7 page)

Tora roared and leapt. Seizing both men by their collars, he heaved backward. Caught by surprise, they ended up on the ground in spite of their size. Tora delivered a sharp kick to one monk’s ribs, then grabbed the other by his robe and raised him just enough to punch him in the face. The man collapsed without a sound. But when Tora turned to deal similarly with his companion, he saw him take to his heels, yellow robe raised to his knees and sandals flapping at the ends of his long legs.

The girl was huddled against the wall of a shack, the corner of a sleeve pressed to her bleeding lip.

“Are you all right?” Tora asked, walking over to her.

She nodded slowly, looking at him with wide tear-filled eyes.

What a beauty she was! Tora put on his most fatherly manner. “It’s all right now, little love. I’ll look after you. Why didn’t you scream for help? What were those bastards trying to do?”

She shook her head. Suddenly her eyes looked past him, widening in panic. Tora whirled about. The vicious blow, intended for his head, landed on his arm, but the pain momentarily stunned him. The monk he had knocked out had regained his senses and decided to turn the tables. Tora jumped aside and retreated to draw the man away from the girl. Then he stopped and crouched. They faced each other, the monk with a broken board in his right hand. Tora bared his teeth and roared again. Then he charged. The monk dropped his board and took off after his companion.

Shaking his head at such cowardice, Tora turned back to the girl, but found her gone, too. His disappointment was palpable. He had looked forward to showering the pretty little thing with care and attention after demonstrating his manly prowess. Impatiently he walked a little this way and that, calling out, “Hey, girl! Come back here. It’s all right.”

The street was in a poor quarter of one-story laborers’ houses, their small storage shacks and vegetable patches enclosed by tattered bamboo fencing with dingy laundry drying on it. There were hiding places everywhere, and not a soul was in sight who might have seen the girl.

Relieving his disgust with a string of colorful curses, Tora turned back toward the market when he heard a wheezing sort of cackle, and a skeletal hand, holding an empty wooden bowl, shot out of the dark corner between a shack and a broken fence.

Tora recoiled, then peered cautiously into the dim recess. An old man, bent, decrepit, and filthy, looked back at him with beady black eyes and a toothless grin.

“Strong words, stranger!” The beggar’s voice was accompanied by the same whistling sound as his laughter. “It’ll cost you five coppers!”

“Don’t be greedy!” snapped Tora, walking away.

“You want to find the skirt, don’t you?” wheezed the beggar.

Tora went back. “Tell me first. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Heh, heh. Neither was I.”

Tora took another look. The beggar sat on a basket, one bandaged leg stretched before him, the other a naked stump with grisly scar tissue where the knee should have been.

With a muttered curse, Tora reached into his sash and counted five coppers into the empty bowl.

The beggar shoved bowl and coppers into the breast of his ragged robe, said “Follow me!” and stood up.

Tora stared. The cripple was standing on two thin legs, both perfectly good, though bent like tightly strung bows. He tucked the stump, apparently a piece of painted wood, into his shirt before scooting away down the street in a lopsided scurry.

“Hey!” Tora got over his astonishment when the old rascal disappeared around the corner and went after him in hot pursuit. Five coppers were nothing to sneeze at, and besides, he refused to be hoodwinked.

The beggar moved with amazing speed on his bowed legs; he knew his way around. They passed rapidly across a deserted courtyard, past several storage houses and through a creaking gate into a back alley, which led to a small grove of trees and a Shinto shrine. Past the grove, the shrine, and its red-lacquered torn’ gates, they reached a deserted street of warehouses and walled compounds. Here the beggar stopped and waited for Tora.

“What did you run away for?” gasped Tora, skidding to a halt.

The beggar pointed at a long single-story building resembling a merchant’s warehouse. “Go there and tell them the Rat sent you!”

Tora growled and seized the beggar by his ragged shirt, lifting him a couple of feet off the ground. “Oh, no, you don’t! I’ll walk in there and they’ll slit my throat, and you’ll split the proceeds. I’m not so green I don’t know the games they play with strangers.” He pushed his face close to the beggar’s and snarled, “You fooled me once with that false stump of yours and got your five coppers. Now you either produce the girl or give them back. If you don’t, I’ll make an honest cripple out of you.” He gave the Rat a shake that made stump, bowl, and coppers fly from his shirt and scatter in the street.

“No, no!” whined the Rat. “You got it wrong. Let me go, fool. I tell you, it’s not safe to make a scene here. Those monks are still after the girl, and they won’t forget you either. Go in there and tell them what happened.”

Tora set him back on the ground and released him. “You saw what happened?”

The Rat nodded. “I keep an eye on her. Now go! Remember, the Rat sent you!” He ducked, scooped up his things, and scurried away.

Tora looked at the building. It had a steeply pitched, thatched roof, but no windows. A double door was in the center, and a red sign proclaimed in large black characters that this was Higekuro’s Training Hall in Martial Arts.

Tora walked up to the door and pushed it open. Inside was a vast, dim hall. A few thick mats lay scattered on the floor, and a rack of oak and bamboo poles used in stick fighting stood against one long wall. Another wall held archery targets of varying sizes. Bows and quivers of arrows were hanging from pegs. There was nobody about.

Tora saw another, smaller door in the rear wall and went through it into a dirt courtyard. It was empty also, but a short bamboo fence separated this area from a kitchen yard adjoining a neighbor’s tall plastered wall. When Tora peered over the fence, he saw the girl. She had her back to him and was bending over a basket of cabbages. He would have recognized those shapely hips anywhere. Calling out a greeting, he vaulted over the fence and came up behind her.

She paid no attention to him until his foot kicked over a pail of water that spread quickly toward her. When it reached her foot, she spun around and stared at him. He repeated his greeting. Her eyes were quite large and very beautiful, but she made no sound and it suddenly occurred to Tora that she might be mentally deficient.

“Don’t be afraid, little sister,” he said slowly, smiling at her. “I am Tora. The Rat told me where you live.”

She shook her head and backed away.

“Stop running away.” Tora was losing his temper and glowered. “Why don’t you answer me? You’d think you could at least say thank you.”

She looked frightened and turned to run toward the house. Tora reached for her shoulder, but before he could stop her, his other arm was seized violently and he was pulled off balance; he received a very painful kick to the back of his knee and a sharp blow to his lower spine, and was then lifted, spun about in the air, and tossed. He landed against the trunk of a tree with a thud. By sheer instinct, he rolled and prepared to launch himself against his attacker, a dimly perceived shape coming at him. His lunge was met by a raised foot. The heel caught him squarely on the chin, knocking his head back against the tree, and turning day into sudden night.

When he came to, he felt, through a painful haze, gentle hands on his face. A cool, wet cloth was pressed to his lips. He licked them, tasted salty blood, and opened his eyes.

He was propped against the tree, and a girl was bent over him, not his girl, but a stranger. He looked past her for his attacker. There was no one else around.

“I am very sorry about this,” the girl said in a strong, clear voice. “I thought you were annoying my sister. I keep an eye on her because she cannot call for help.”

Tora recalled the ungrateful wench and glared. “What do you mean, she can’t call for help? There was no need. I called out to her several times. I introduced myself. She knew me. Not to mention that I had just saved the silly skirt from being raped. Why the devil should she call for help? What’s the matter with you people? And...” Tora pushed her roughly out of his way and got to his feet. “And who knocked me out? What, by all the demons from hell, is going on here?”

There was no sign of his attacker, but he picked up a handy length of bamboo just in case.

“I said I was sorry.” The girl bit her lip. “My sister, Otomi, is a deaf-mute. That is why she cannot hear or speak. I am called Ayako, and our father is Higekuro. He teaches martial arts, and we get a lot of rough characters walking in here because of our business.”

Tora noted that she was good-looking, though not the beauty her sister was. But at the moment he was too enraged to care. “Oh, so I’m a rough character now!” he snapped. “Thanks a lot! Well, you can tell your father it’s customary to inform a man of the reason before knocking him out. Jumped at from the back, too! No wonder you get thugs here. No honest man would fight that way.” He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “And to think I listened to someone called the Rat!” The girl flushed and rose to her feet. She opened her mouth to say something, but Tora was just hitting his stride. He was outraged. “And what’s more,” he shouted, “you would both be better employed looking after the poor girl than sending her alone to the market where any villain can lay his hands on her. Two bastards in monks’ outfits grabbed her from a vendor’s stall and carried her off for their pleasure. I caught up with them just in time. She could’ve been gang-raped by a whole cursed monastery for all you cared.”

“That does not give you the right to insult my father!” she flashed at him.

“Oh, for the Buddha’s sake,” he muttered disgustedly and tossed the bamboo staff aside. Turning, he made for the door he had come through earlier.

“Wait!” she cried.

He kept right on going.

When he passed through the exercise hall, there were quick steps behind him and a hand pulled his sleeve. He swung around and saw the deaf girl, her face wet with tears.

“Now, then, er, Otomi,” he said awkwardly, “it’s all right. Just watch yourself next time,” and made her a short bow.

Her sister came up, too, and knelt, bowing her head. “This ignorant person apologizes for her words and deeds. They bring dishonor on our family. Please, for the sake of my sister, I beg that you will not leave without allowing our father to express his gratitude and share a cup of wine.”

Tora hesitated. He had no wish to further his acquaintance with this bizarre family, but he was curious to see the man who had floored him so efficiently. With a grudging nod, he allowed himself to be led to the living quarters of the martial arts teacher, Higekuro.

These consisted of a single room, which served as kitchen and living area, tiny but very clean, and furnished with a built-in wooden platform for sitting, cooking facilities, and a few simple utensils. In one corner, stacked wooden cupboards formed steep steps to an attic space above.

A bearded giant of a man sat on the platform in the Buddha’s pose. He was occupied with weaving the soles of straw sandals. His luxuriant black beard accounted for his name; Higekuro meant Blackbeard.

“A new student, child?” he asked the older girl in a booming voice when he saw Tora.

“No, Father,” the girl Ayako answered. “A friend. He saved Otomi from two monks today, and the Rat sent him to us.”

Higekuro dropped his work and sat up, looking at Tora with interest. “Did he, indeed? We are deeply indebted to you, sir.”

Eyeing the giant warily, Tora stepped forward, bowed, and introduced himself. Clearly this huge, muscular man was the one who had attacked him, but what game was he playing?

“Pray join me in some wine,” continued Higekuro, inviting Tora to sit next to him. “Two monks, did she say? Good heavens! I see that they must have been a handful. Your face is badly bruised and cut.” He waved Otomi over and said, gesturing to Tora’s face, “Go get some salve, little one, while your older sister pours the wine.”