Jade Palace Vendetta

CHAPTER 25

The Lady wasn’t heavy, but by midday Kaze was weary of carrying her. He had not slept or rested for several days, ever since learning of Okubo’s treachery. Kaze had taken to the mountains immediately. He knew that if he stayed on level ground the Okubo troops would soon hunt them down on horseback. In the mountains Kaze had an advantage, because Okubo’s troops would have to proceed on foot and Kaze could stretch his meager head start as the troops tried to track him.

The rain had not abated, and the dreary wet weather matched Kaze’s mood. His children were dead. His wife was dead. The fate of his Lord was unknown. The Lady’s daughter had been kidnapped and presumably sold. The Lady had been tortured and dishonored. In his arms, she made an infrequent moan of pain but never complained as Kaze took her deeper into the mountains to get away from Okubo’s men.

Kaze was exhausted, but he would have willed himself to continue, except that the Lady seemed near the end of her strength. He found a sheltered spot under a crooked tree and made a damp nest for the Lady from pine needles and cut branches.

He sat next to her and asked if she wanted him to find something to eat.

“No. Not for me. Find something for yourself.”

“I’m not hungry,” Kaze lied. “We’ll rest here for a while. The rain seems to have made it difficult for Okubo to pursue us. We’ll go through the mountains, and I’ll find a safe place for you. Then I’ll make contact with the Lord. Just recover so we can plan our next move.”

“You know, I always admired you for your courage. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. The Lord and I used to talk about it often. I wish I had some of that courage now. I don’t want to die.”

“You won’t die.”

She gave a faint smile. With her drawn face it looked more like a grimace. “You always were a very poor liar,” she said. “I can feel my strength and life slipping away. Still, I want to thank you for rescuing me. I wouldn’t want to die strung up like that. It’s a poor death. An inujini. A dog’s death.”

“Don’t die, Lady!”

“I don’t think I have a choice. There are still so many wonderful things I want to do. But the biggest reason I want to live is to make sure my daughter is rescued and safe. I can’t do that now, so I need your help. I don’t know how, but if she’s still alive I want you to find her. It’s my last wish and my last command to you.” She looked at him with feverish eyes black from strain and pain.

Kaze bowed his head in response to the Lady’s order. Hot tears flowed down his cheeks and mingled with the icy raindrops striking his face. Despite the pain, the Lady reached up and, using the sleeve of her kimono, brushed the tears from his face. It was a gesture that had no practical purpose, because his face was covered with raindrops as soon as her sleeve moved across it. Yet Kaze found comfort in the gesture. Her touch was so light it felt like a breeze caressing his cheek, the kind of soft breeze he felt when he climbed into treetops and put his face into the wind.

Kaze found it strange that the dying should be comforting the living. With his children gone, his wife gone, his clan defeated and in disarray, and the fate of his Lord unknown, Kaze thought that it might be best to follow the Lady in death when the time came.

As if reading his thoughts, the Lady stopped brushing away his tears and extended a weak hand. It trembled with the effort to keep it in the air. “Give me your wakizashi.”

Surprised, Kaze removed his short sword from his sash, putting it in her hand. The weight of the sword caused her hand to drop to the ground, but she clutched the scabbard fiercely. At first Kaze thought the Lady had lost heart and was going to use the short sword to commit suicide, but then she said, “This represents your honor and the ability to take your own life. Your honor is now mine until my daughter is found and safe.

“Promise me!” she said fiercely.

“I promise, Lady. But this is not necessary. I will honor my promise to find your daughter, as I have always honored my pledges. And you will be alive to see her and hold her again.”

The Lady looked at him with tired eyes. “I wish that were true.” She said no more and closed her eyes to rest. In a few minutes she had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Kaze tried to remove the wakizashi from her hand so she could rest easier, but even in her sleep she gripped the short sword.

Kaze sat next to her. He held his own kimono sleeve above her, holding it out like a tent flap with his other hand, despite his fatigue, to keep the raindrops off her face. In meditation, he had been taught to listen to his own breathing, because breath means life. Now he listened to the Lady’s ragged breathing. It became shallower and shallower, until it was barely detectable. Then it ceased altogether.

Kaze sat immobile, watching the pain-racked face relax slightly with the release of death. Then he did something he would never have done while she lived. He placed his hand on her cheek, gently cupping her face. Her position as his Lord’s consort made such an action unthinkable to Kaze while she was alive, but now that her spirit had departed her body, touching her face, as she had touched his, seemed the only comfort available to him after days of pain and sorrow.

He stared at her face, seeing her in happier days instead of the visage with black, sunken eyes and tightened jaw muscles before him. The face he tried to see was serene and kind, with the sparkle of good humor in its eyes. It was the same face he carved on the Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, that he made.

Kaze heard the door of the room slide open. Hishigawa entered, holding a sword. He dropped the sword’s scabbard on the floor, unsheathing its blade. Kaze realized it was his own sword, the Fly Cutter. Hishigawa slid the shoji screen closed and turned to look at Kaze. He smiled. “We use this room when we occasionally have a girl that won’t cooperate. I told you we buy maids for the villa, and when they are sufficiently seasoned, we convert them for sale to a brothel. Sometimes we have one who is recalcitrant about the new life we have planned for her. An hour or two hanging as you are is usually enough to make her see the error in her ways.

“You tried to steal Yuchan from me. Although it might be mildly amusing to torture you further, I am not a cruel man. I am reasonable. I am a businessman. I deal in judgments about what is profitable or not profitable to pursue. Keeping you alive is not profitable, so I have decided to cut my losses.” Hishigawa laughed at his pun.

He hefted the blade, looking at it. It caught the yellow light of the lantern, reflecting a silver arc against the walls and ceiling of the room as Hishigawa moved it around. Even through his pain, Kaze thought the blade beautiful.

“Since I paid for this sword, I thought I would use it,” Hishigawa said. “I don’t have the skill with the blade that you have, but you’ll find that I’ll still be able to take your head, even if it might take me two or three blows to sever it. I’ve ordered many deaths, but I’ve never killed a man myself, so this will be a novel experience for me.”

Hishigawa smiled again. “I know you samurai all like to do your fancy death poems when the end is at hand. But as I said, I am a man who deals in efficiency.” He put both hands on the sword hilt. “I believe it would be most efficient to dispatch you without allowing you to declaim the rubbish that you samurai like to yammer as poetry. You see, although I have to deal with you and your stupid wives because they are my customers, I really don’t like samurai. You’re parasites, feeding off the land and interfering with business every time you start one of your stupid wars.”

Hishigawa lifted the blade to the point-at-the-eye position, judging its weight and balance. “I suppose this really is a fine weapon,” he said conversationally. “Maybe I’ll be able to take your head with only one or two blows, instead of having to hack it off.”

Kaze stared at Hishigawa, and, although his body was in pain, he came to an epiphany. He was not afraid. Always in battle there was a chance of him dying, but now he knew that it was a certainty. And yet, despite the knowledge that he would die, Kaze was able to face it with a studied indifference, certain in the fact that life and death were the same and that existence is only an illusion.

Of course, he had been bred as a samurai and trained in the ways of Zen. He had been raised with the thought that the true samurai is always ready to die in the service of his master or his cause. Yet, from personal experience, Kaze knew that such noble sentiments were not always played out in the hearts of men.

At the mere threat of death, some men cowed and broke, their fear overtaking them. In battle Kaze had seen even highborn samurai, new to the violence of war and the clash of arms, shrink from contact with the enemy and shake from fear. It was said that even Tokugawa Ieyasu, when he was a very young man and engaged in his first battle, actually fled the scene of the fighting on his horse. When he reached safety, one of his chief retainers, Honda, looked at the saddle and saw evidence that Ieyasu had lost control of his bowels when fear had overtaken him.

Instead of remonstrating with his young Lord, Honda had simply laughed. Kaze hated Ieyasu for what he and his men had done and yet, even though he was familiar with the story of his first battle, he would not call him a coward-not after the battles he had fought and won subsequently. Any man might lose his nerve the first time he’s confronted by war.

Now Kaze was facing something else for the first time. It was the certainty of his immediate demise. He almost marveled that all the things that he had been taught throughout his entire life about how a samurai faces death were now coming to fruition. He was facing his own death with courage and indifference. He did not want to die, but if he was going to die, then it was the fate of all men. It was simply his time. Karma.

He leaned his head to the side to provide a better target for Hishigawa. Instead of stepping forward to take the cut, Hishigawa hesitated, unsure what to make of Kaze’s hard eyes staring back at him. The eyes held no fear, no pleading, and no sense of panic, all the things that Hishigawa knew he would display if the situation were reversed.

Instead, the ronin’s eyes met his steadily and the ronin’s face was impassive, perhaps even tranquil, because of some deep-seated core of courage that Hishigawa could not begin to understand.

Hishigawa raised the sword and started to step forward so he could deliver the blow to the ronin’s neck. Suddenly, there was the sound of paper tearing behind him and in the pit of his back there was a burning pain. He was propelled forward and could not bring the sword blade down for the death blow. Instead, he felt his knees grow weak and his grip on the sword become numb. The sword slipped from his hands and tumbled to the tatami mat. Hishigawa fell to his knees.

He reached behind him and felt the shaft of a spear. It had been thrust through the shoji screen because the wielder of the spear had decided there was not enough time to open the door. The silhouette of the man holding the sword was the target, and the spear had been driven home.

Blackness started to descend on Hishigawa as life drained out from the thick hole in his back. He gave a cry of pain mixed with fear at the thought that this blow might be mortal. He tried to give a shout, in a desperate attempt to get help. Instead, all that came from his mouth was a long, slow hiss that ended in death.

The shoji screen was kicked down, and Kaze straightened his head to look into the fierce face of Elder Grandma. She had thick arms, well suited to using a spear, Kaze thought, and the anger and blood lust on her face was as fierce as that found on any warrior.

She looked down at the corpse at her feet. She kicked away a scrap of paper from the shoji that masked the face of her victim, revealing Hishigawa’s face. His eyes were still open, but lifeless. His mouth also open, the last scream still on his lips, cut short by death. Seeing Hishigawa, Elder Grandma stopped a moment. Then she placed her foot against Hishigawa’s back and, grabbing the spear shaft with both arms, pulled it hard to release it. She looked at Kaze and a grim smile came to her lips.

“It’s done,” she said. She pointed to the headband that bore the character for “revenge.”

“It’s done,” she said again with a fierce tone to her voice. “It’s done. The vendetta is completed and our family is avenged. Our honor is restored.”

“If you’ll cut me down,” Kaze said mildly, “I’ll help you see if we can restore your granddaughter, as well as your honor.”

Elder Grandma used Kaze’s sword to cut him down. When she cut the ropes from his wrists, Kaze’s hands burned with pain as the circulation returned to them. He tried to hold his sword, but initially his fingers would not close around the hilt. After the blood returned, he was able to grasp the weapon, and he took a few tentative swings to see how much damage had been done to his shoulders and arms.

“Where’s your grandson and the servant?” he asked.

“Like me, they were searching for you to see what happened with Yuchan. We got tired of waiting in that garden. I saw Hishigawa enter this room and decided to take my chance at revenge.”

“Go gather Nagatoki and Sadakatsu up before they get into trouble. Yuchan is in the palace on that little island. She is not in good condition and will need help. What I thought was a life of luxury turned out to be a life of horror. There are guards, but I’ll take care of them. In fact, it’s better if I take care of things here in the villa before going to the island.”

“What are you going to do about the guards?”

“I’m going to kill them. Kill them all. Someone told me that only bad ones are here, and I believe it. In the yard I found a shallow grave. The grave seemed too old to be Mototane’s, but I was curious about who was buried there. I found the bones of two young people. They were probably girls. Maybe Hishigawa’s efforts to persuade girls to co-operate as prostitutes by torturing them resulted in two deaths. Maybe two girls committed suicide when they realized the life they would lead. Regardless of the reason, they buried the two bodies on the villa grounds to hide the deaths, and they probably didn’t pay a priest to say the proper prayers for their departed souls. It’s a bad business conducted by bad people. It’s better if all the rats are cleared out of this den.”

“Can you?” Elder Grandma pointed to his arms, which Kaze was still limbering up.

“Yes. Just get the other two and meet me at the drum bridge that leads to the palace.”

Elder Grandma didn’t question Kaze’s claim that he would eliminate the guards. She was like a general who expected her troops to execute their mission. She left to find the two others, and Kaze took a few more moments to assure that he could hold a sword properly. He stuck the katana’s scabbard into his kimono sash. Then he stepped into the hall and started making his way toward the main part of the villa.

He turned down a hallway and saw two of the guards approaching. As recognition painted the faces of the two men, Kaze rushed toward them. They shouted and got their swords out just as Kaze reached them. The first was able to parry Kaze’s blow. The second guard took a cut at him. Kaze took a step back and caught the blade. He immediately swung from defense to offense and, using the momentum of his attacker’s blade, he brought his sword downward and across, cutting open the belly of the surprised guard.

Without a second of hesitation, he then brought his blade upward, catching the first guard in the sternum and delivering a mortal wound. Kaze was already past them and running down the hallway before the two bodies hit the wooden planks of the floor.

Attracted by the shouts, another guard opened a shoji screen and stuck his head into the hallway. His eyes were filled with the image of a samurai rushing toward him, sword upraised. He was able to shout a warning to his companions just as a sword bit into his neck and shoulders.

Kaze jumped over the body blocking the doorway and found himself in a room with four guards scrambling for their swords and a panic-stricken maid who, having dropped a tray of food, was cringing in a corner.

Kaze killed two before they could get their swords out. He sparred briefly with a third before delivering a deathblow and caught the fourth from behind as he tried to flee the room.

The maid watched the carnage with bulging eyes, her mouth open but no sound issuing from it. Kaze looked at her. “I won’t hurt you,” he said. He pointed at the five dead bodies in the room. “Is this all in the house?”

“Th-th-there are two more,” the young maid said, stuttering in her terror.

The two Kaze disposed of in the hall. “And Ando?”

“I don’t know, Samurai-sama. I don’t know where Ando-san is. Please don’t hurt me!”

“I have no intention of hurting you. You go to your room and stay there. Tell all the other maids to stay in their rooms, too. In the morning the authorities will come and things will be all right.”

The maid scurried off to do as she was directed, skirting the two bodies at the door. Kaze made his way to the back of the villa and the drum bridge.