Jade Palace Vendetta

CHAPTER 26

As he approached the drum bridge, he saw a group hiding in the brush, out of the moonlight that bathed the entire garden.

“Psst! We’re here!” Elder Grandma said in a harsh whisper.

“Good. Stay there.”

He came to the bridge and started climbing up the stairs that led to the central span.

“Who is that?” challenged the guard on the other side of the bridge.

“Death,” Kaze answered.

“Huh?”

Disgusted, Kaze said, “Take out your sword and defend yourself. Enomoto-san has not been gone a whole day, and you are already slackening your vigilance.”

What the guard lacked in ability to assess the situation, he made up for in ferocity. He drew his sword and rushed at Kaze, yelling and taking the steps of the drum bridge two at a time.

Kaze waited for his opponent to get to the central span of the bridge, where he met his furious attack. The moon silhouetted the two men, standing on the half-round bridge attacking and counter-attacking, swords weaving together in a deadly dance amid the music of steel clanging on steel. Kaze knew he was not completely fit, and the torture and exertions with the other guards had taken their toll. Yet he beat the guard back across the span toward the island and delivered a deathblow just as the guard reached the stair portion of the bridge. Staggering backward, the guard stepped off the central span and tumbled down the stairs.

“Come on,” Kaze called to the trio hiding in the foliage. “Follow me, in case there are more guards.”

Kaze entered the Jade Palace amid a strange silence. After the fighting and shouts and groans of dying men, the palace provided a tranquil respite, despite the fact that Kaze knew it was a place of horror. The wooden grate blocking the hallway was open. He walked down the silent hall, a silence that saved him. As he approached a corner in the hallway, he was able to hear a creak from one of the floorboards.

Kaze didn’t change his pace, because that might alert the person waiting in ambush around the curve in the corridor. Suddenly, there was a mad shout, and a spear was thrust at Kaze as he rounded the corner.

Kaze caught the top of the spear shaft with one hand and diverted it slightly, so it missed him. The other hand, holding Fly Cutter, came down, and the shaft of the spear was cut in two.

Kaze threw the spear tip to the ground and looked at his assailant. It was Ando.

She threw away the butt end of the spear and retreated. Kaze stepped forward.

“You wouldn’t kill a woman?” she said, holding her hands out in front of her.

“No, but I would kill a monster.” Kaze’s sword cut a fast arc, and Ando’s head and one of her hands went flying down the hallway. A surprised look was still on her face. Kaze stepped past the headless corpse and made his way to Yuchan’s room.

The room seemed unchanged. The emaciated creature huddling in the corner of the cell didn’t look up.

“Yuchan,” Kaze said gently.

She looked up with feverish eyes, half-hopeful at the sound of Kaze’s voice.

“Merciful Buddha!” Nagatoki exclaimed. Kaze looked over his shoulder to see the young man, Sadakatsu, and Elder Grandma standing behind him in the doorway. They all had shocked looks on their faces, and Kaze thought he detected tears in Sadakatsu’s eyes.

“It’s all right, Yuchan,” Kaze said. “Your grandmother and cousin are here to bring you home, and you must remember Sadakatsu.”

Yuchan looked at the trio, then looked at Kaze. “Is it a dream?” she mused.

“No, it’s no dream. You’re saved. You will be going home.”

Yuchan crawled over to the cage wall closest to the door. She put her fingers around the bars and stared out. The fingers looked like dried twigs, they were so thin.

“Go get the key to the cell,” Kaze ordered Nagatoki. “It’s probably on that body in the hallway.”

“But that body doesn’t have a head!” the grandson said.

“Yes, but she probably does have a key. Check her kimono for it.”

Nagatoki left, and Sadakatsu went to the cage and fell to his knees, copious tears now streaming down his thin face. Yuchan looked at him and said, “Sadakatsu! Look, Sadakatsu, for once you are not the skinniest one in the room.” She held her hands out. Every bone in her hand was visible. “Even you are not as thin as this, Sadakatsu!”

When she made that joke, Kaze immediately knew two things. One, she was indeed from the same strong stock as Elder Grandma. Two, although it would take a long time to recover, Yuchan would eventually prevail over this ordeal. She might never be as pretty again, but she would always be as strong.

Nagatoki came back with the key. He held it away from his body like a repugnant thing. Perhaps it was. Kaze took the key and opened the cage. Yuchan painfully crawled out of the cage, too weak to walk.

“Get up and walk!” Elder Grandma ordered.

Yuchan tried to stand with the help of Sadakatsu but collapsed back to the tatami like a fragile autumn leaf. “I can’t,” she said.

Kaze picked Yuchan up in his arms. She was as light as a small child. “Thank you,” she whispered as he held her.

Elder Grandma handed her spear to Sadakatsu. “Here, let me have her,” she said gruffly.

Kaze hesitated a moment, and Elder Grandma turned her back. “Put her on my back. I used to carry her as a baby that way and I can certainly carry her that way again.” Kaze took Yuchan over to Elder Grandma and loaded her onto the old woman’s back, piggyback style. It seemed to give Yuchan comfort to be next to her grand-mother.

“That’s fine for getting out of here,” Kaze said, “but it won’t do for getting you back home. We should all leave Kamakura immediately. I don’t know what the authorities will think of all this and don’t want to bother finding out. We’ll have to roust some porters out of bed and have Yuchan carried in a palanquin. That will take money.”

Elder Grandma bit her lip. Her penurious nature did battle with her practical side, and for once practicality won. “All right,” she said. “Sadakatsu has the money.”

“Good,” Kaze said. “You start and I’ll join you. I have one last piece of business here.” Kaze had no desire to carve a Kannon for the dead in the villa and the palace, but he did want to do one thing.

Kaze left the room with the cell and made his way to the back of the palace. There, in a large common room, he found six girls, all dressed in sumptuous kimonos. They were startled by Kaze’s appearance and sat staring at him with wary eyes.

“You’re free,” Kaze said.

Several of the girls looked at each other, seeming not to understand.

“I said you’re free,” Kaze repeated. “The men who were guarding you are dead. You can leave any time.”

One girl stood with tentative movements. Another girl, with hard eyes, said, “Sit down!” The first girl sat.

Puzzled, Kaze said, “Don’t you understand me? You can go at any time.”

Hard Eyes said, “Where are we to go? Our parents sold us into prostitution. We have no home now. If we leave, we will have to wander, seeking some housemaid’s job, where men will use our bodies just as they do now, except we won’t get the fine clothes and luxury our current life can bring us. It’s just like a man to announce that we are free to go, but not to tell us where we can go!”

Kaze looked at Hard Eyes until she looked away from his even harder gaze. “Suit yourself,” he said. “The door to freedom is open. Freedom is never easy, for a man or a woman. You at least have the chance at it, if you want. If you don’t want, then that’s your karma.” He turned and left, catching up with the others.

Kaze and the four left the Jade Palace and Hishigawa’s villa. They went to the outskirts of Kamakura and Kaze found a porters’ lodging next to an inn. There he was able to get two palanquin porters out of bed.

At first the two porters were frightened by the sight of Yuchan, but Kaze told them she had been sick and needed to return home immediately to recuperate. After a brief consultation and a few minutes of haggling over price with Elder Grandma, who eventually triumphed by pointing out how light Yuchan was, Yuchan was safely tucked inside the palanquin.

“You should be fine,” Kaze said to Elder Grandma. “The authorities will be looking for me, but I doubt they will look for you.”

“Will you be fine?”

Kaze rubbed his shoulders. “Like you, I’m tough.” Elder Grandma grunted a reply, then went to look after Yuchan.

Nagatoki came up to Kaze and asked, “How many guards did you kill in the villa?”

“Too many. The best blades stay in their scabbard, but I hate to leave a job undone. I did not find out what happened to Mototane, but I decided to clear out that nest of vermin. I think I am still like a Muramasa blade, not a Masamune blade. I am sharp but still have to strengthen my spirit.”

“It’s too bad Mototane couldn’t be here to help us. He would have eliminated that bad lot, too.”

“Perhaps.”

“It’s a shame you couldn’t see how Mototane could fight. He was superb. I envied the way he could handle Sakuran.”

Sakuran was a word meaning falling cherry blossoms, one of many words used to describe the various states of the cherished sakura, the cherry blossom. “Sakuran?” Kaze asked.

“His sword was called Sakuran, Samurai-san.”

An awful chill touched Kaze. “What did the tsuba of Sakuran look like?” Kaze asked quietly.

“It was beautiful,” Nagatoki said enthusiastically. “It had the branch of a cherry tree around the outside edge and in the middle it had sakuran highlighted in silver.”

“Did the branch have gold highlights?”

“Why, yes. How did you know? Have you seen Sakuran?”

“Yes,” Kaze said softly. “I’ve seen it.”

Kaze knew Hishigawa was a liar from his first meeting with him. He had called the bandit chief Ishibashi, and that name should have been a clue that Hishigawa was lying. To get to the place where the bandits were attacking Hishigawa, Kaze had crossed a small stone bridge before climbing the hill. “Ishibashi” meant stone bridge. Hishigawa had crossed the same stone bridge and had used “Ishibashi” when he needed another name for Noguchi Mototane.

In Kaze’s world, names were important. Men fought and died to protect or enhance a name. In fact, the rulers of the land, the daimyo, had a title that meant “great name.” But Kaze, above all in his class, knew that names were ephemeral and not immutable. Kaze now used a name that was plucked from the air on a whim. His past name, which he had once put such store in, was now like the wind. Its effects were still felt, but it had no tangible existence. By the simple expedient of giving Noguchi Mototane the name Ishibashi, Kaze had been fooled and Mototane had died.

As a warrior, Kaze knew death much more intimately than most men, but even the most sheltered farmer understood that life was finite. Therefore, death by itself had little meaning to Kaze, but the manner of death had much meaning. There are good deaths and bad deaths. The Lady had had a very bad death, and this fact had driven Kaze to rage more than just the tragedy of her passing.

The death of Noguchi Mototane, Elder Grandma’s missing grandson, was a death that now weighed on Kaze’s conscience. Kaze had killed numerous men, but he had never, to his mind, murdered one.

Noguchi Mototane had been on a legal vendetta and had the right to kill Hishigawa. Kaze had prevented the execution of that right and in so doing had disturbed something he considered proper and just. He felt that he had been tricked into committing the murder by the merchant’s assertion that Mototane was a bandit chief. Kaze knew that if he had understood the circumstances of Mototane’s grievance against Hishigawa, Kaze would have simply stood to one side and let him kill the merchant.

Kaze’s murder of Mototane had disrupted the harmony that was the linchpin of his existence and philosophy of life. Now he understood why his katana had broken in the fight. It was a sign from heaven that his actions against Mototane were unjust-a sign Kaze had chosen to ignore. His wa was disturbed, and he had both remorse for his actions and anger at the merchant who had fooled him into taking those actions.

Kaze fell to his knees. With both hands in front of him on the ground, he bowed until his forehead touched the earth. “Please forgive me, Mototane-san. I’m sorry I killed you. I know it was wrong and that it makes me a murderer. Please forgive me.” Kaze aimed his remarks at the spirit of the dead Mototane, but Nagatoki also heard the ronin’s confession. The young man stared at the repentant ronin.

“You killed Mototane?” Nagatoki said in shock.

“Nani? What?” Elder Grandma had returned to the two, with Sadakatsu at her heels. She had halted at the sight of the ronin humbling himself and her grandson’s words now reached incredulous ears.

Kaze shifted his position to face Elder Grandma. “I just realized that I killed Mototane. It was within minutes of meeting Hishigawa, when he was being attacked by bandits on the Tokaido Road. Mototane must have been shadowing Hishigawa, looking for his chance.

“He had attacked Hishigawa once before, when the merchant was going to Kamakura, but he couldn’t kill Hishigawa. On the Tokaido, Mototane attacked right after some bandits had, and Hishigawa told me that Mototane was the head of the bandits. I had killed him in a duel. Hishigawa told me I had killed a man named Ishibashi, but I now know it was Mototane. Talking to Nagatoki, I understand that the sword I threw into the bay was Sakuran and that it was owned by your grandson. That sword is now asleep in Sagami Bay. I threw it there to appease the spirit of the man I killed. I am truly sorry for murdering Mototane.”

Elder Grandma strode up to the still-bowed Kaze. In her sash, she had a katana, just like a man. She withdrew her blade and grasped its handle with both hands. Kaze made no move to defend himself or get away.

“You have murdered my grandson. Now I will murder you.” Elder Grandma drew her blade back.

Sadakatsu fell to his knees and said, “Elder Grandma, if you are going to kill the samurai, please kill me first.”

“What?” Elder Grandma said, startled. “Why?”

“As a protest. I want to die as a protest.”

“What are you talking about, you ridiculous old fool?” Elder Grandma chastised.

“I have served the Noguchi my entire life,” Sadakatsu explained. “I have always been proud to be a servant in the employ of the Noguchi, just as my father and his father before him served your family. The Noguchi show proper samurai honor and frugality. They also exhibit proper bushido, the way of the warrior. They have never been, to my knowledge, unjust. If you kill this samurai, then you will be unjust, and I want my death to protest this injustice.”

“Have you gone senile? What is unfair about dispatching Mototane’s murderer into the void?”

“His act was murder, but at the time he thought he was defending an innocent merchant on the highway. How many men would put themselves at risk in similar circumstances? I know that this samurai does things to help the weak that most others will not. He is now being honest with you, and I can tell he has sincere remorse. He took Mototane’s sword, which was a valuable one, and flung it into Sagami Bay to try to ease Mototane’s spirit.

“He said Mototane died in a duel. That meant that Mototane had an equal chance to kill or be killed. It was Mototane’s karma to die, which is something that brings me great sadness. It would also bring me greater sadness if the Noguchi were dishonored by unfairly killing this samurai.”

Elder Grandma was nonplussed and stared at her servant as if she had never seen him before. Usually Sadakatsu stayed silent and did what he was told. She couldn’t imagine what spirit had gotten into the thin servant that caused him to spout such words.

Her grandson, Nagatoki, came to her and also fell to his knees. He said, “Sadakatsu is right. If you kill this samurai, you will be killing the wrong man. Hishigawa is the man who tricked Matsuyama-san into killing Mototane. It is Hishigawa who is responsible for his death. Hishigawa is now dead, killed by your own hand. If you are going to kill the samurai, then kill me, too, for I could not stand the dishonor of such an act.”

Elder Grandma stepped back, looking at the three men kneeling or bowing on the dirt before her. Her sword drooped and, for the first time, she was uncertain about what was right. She suddenly looked and felt as old as she really was.

Finally, she said, “All right, the samurai lives. Our bargain was for him to tell me what happened to Mototane. He has done so, although his news is something totally unexpected.” Noticing that the three men had not moved, she said, “Get up.” Then, with a touch of her old authority creeping back into her voice, she said, “Get up!”

Kaze did as he was told and looked deeply into the face of the old woman. The challenge to her authority seemed to affect her. Her lined face, once the picture of martial determination, now looked tired. Her hair, once a helmet of steel, was now a bundle of gray strands. Her posture, once as straight-spined as that of any general, was now round-shouldered and sagging. Kaze marveled at how the mind controls the body, but he was not prepared to offer sympathy to Elder Grandma yet. In her life, she must have known many disappointments and challenges. She had now just had both, with the news of her grandson Mototane’s death and the rebellion of her little ragtag force. But this woman was resilient, and over the many years she had lived, she had never allowed life or its events to defeat her. She would be back to full vigor soon.

As soon as Kaze thought this, he saw Elder Grandma straighten visibly. “Since you’ve told me about Mototane, I will tell you about the cloth,” she said to Kaze, as if the threat of death and the subsequent rebellion had not just occurred. Kaze marveled at her strength and was reminded that women are truly frightening. No man could recover as quickly.

“That piece of cloth was used to pack gifts that Ando brought when Hishigawa was trying to court Yuchan. I don’t know its origin, but I do know its source. It comes from Hishigawa. How he got it, I don’t know. It is something you can no longer ask him.”

Now it was Kaze’s turn to sag. “I know how he came by that cloth,” Kaze said. “He told me about his recent business dealings. At the time, I didn’t realize that the young girls he talked about brokering included the daughter of my Lady.”

Elder Grandma gave a nod, and the palanquin porters hoisted their load. Yuchan was so light, it was if the palanquin were empty. She looked out from the palanquin, a living skeleton. Kaze knew that they’d stop at an inn after they left Kamakura and Yuchan would be able to take a decent bath and put on one of Elder Grandma’s kimonos. The dirt of captivity could be washed from her, but she would never regain her beauty or her innocence.

She looked out from the palanquin and said just two words to Kaze. “Thank you.” That, and the tears in her eyes, were enough.

As they were about to depart, Elder Grandma gave an almost imperceptible dip of her head in Kaze’s direction.

“Elder Grandma,” Kaze said.

“What?” she answered gruffly.

“Yuchan needs patience and care. She doesn’t need to be bullied into normalcy. She will return to normal on her own. She’s more than proven she will not respond to bullying.”

“What do you …” Elder Grandma’s retort died on her lips. She glanced at the palanquin that held her granddaughter. Reluctant to cede to Kaze’s authority but cognizant of the soundness of his prescription, she said, “All right.”

“Good.”

Elder Grandma marched in front of the porters, holding her spear. The servant, Sadakatsu, burdened with his pack, shuffled along behind the palanquin. Only the grandson, Nagatoki, stopped, looking back at Kaze. In the pale gray light that preceded the dawn, he smiled a half smile and waved his hand in farewell. Kaze nodded his understanding and waved back. Then he turned to go.