Disciple of the Wind (10 page)

Yet no one had heard a single whisper of that rumor. There were only two explanations: either all of his spies were incompetent, or else the whelp had kept the story to himself. But why would he? He had nothing left to lose. Shichio had dispatched not just spies but also mercenaries—“bear hunters,” as they had come to be called—and Daigoro’s best defense against them was to see Shichio dead. So why hadn’t he loosed the one arrow that would put Shichio in the grave? Or if he had, why had none of Shichio’s agents caught wind of it?

That was a worry for a later time. At the moment, there was Inoue’s comment about Shichio’s “station” to deal with. It was ingratiating and insulting at once. Shichio had no surname, as Inoue well knew. His own daughter had been front and center during Shichio’s wedding fiasco. Shichio remembered her all too well: her smile had been the biggest of all when Shichio backed down. Some day soon, Shichio meant to kill her, preferably with the Bear Cub as his captive audience. But it would not do to tell her father that. Instead Shichio said, “Tell me, why should you want this boy dead? You allowed him to marry your daughter,
neh
?”

“I did. A damned cripple, and I even gave him my blessing.” Those beady black eyes finally stood still, matching Shichio’s gaze and glowing with a murderous light. “He got her with child, then abandoned her. He even abandoned his own name. What sort of man does that, I ask you? Now my Akiko is an Okuma, not an Inoue. There is nothing I can do about it. And no sooner did she step from my ship onto that one than the Okuma ship started to sink.”

“Oh?”

“Of course! Its lady is a lunatic and its lord needs a wet nurse.”

Shichio hardly needed the reminder. He’d asked his question
hoping for something juicier. He’d received a report that the Okumas faced some kind of financial difficulty, but he had yet to confirm it. “How poorly run is this ship? Do you have ears within their walls?”

“Of course.”

“Then I think you know what I’ll ask next. Is the Bear Cub hiding there or is he not?”

“No. But you know that already, General. Your garrison still stands outside the Okuma compound.”

“Yes it does, doesn’t it? But you see, Lord Inoue, this puts you in a difficult position. You
are
Izu’s greatest spymaster, are you not?”

Inoue’s beady eyes twinkled. “I am.”

“Then you know I have searched Izu from top to bottom. I’ve lost count of how many bear-hunting parties I’ve sent into the wilds. Not one of my men has laid eyes on the whelp, and there is only one place we have not yet looked: your own home.”

Inoue stiffened. His eyes flitted here and there as if an assassin might pop out from any corner. “General Shichio, why would I assist the boy I hate most in the world?”

“Why indeed?” He let the question hang in the air for a moment, and let the little man wonder if Shichio meant to have his answer by tearing the compound apart. “Well, of course you wouldn’t, would you? Harboring a fugitive is a crime. But then where is the Bear Cub? I have agents on every road, in every port, at every checkpoint. They swear he has not slipped them by. Have they lied to me?”

“Lied? I think not. But there is more to Izu than ports and checkpoints.”

“Obviously.” Shichio was not stupid. He knew the difference between the fiction illustrated on a map and the truth laid out by the land.

Inoue paled at Shichio’s tone. “A thousand apologies, my lord. Suffice it to say that I have eyes and ears everywhere, and all of them are out bear hunting. If Daigoro is in Izu, my people will find him.”

“And if he attempts to leave, mine will find him.” Shichio smiled thinly. “I shall send you his head, along with my compliments, if you give me your word as a samurai to reciprocate.”

“I swear it,” Inoue said, and Shichio knew he had him. These samurai were bullies and butchers, but deadly serious when it came to their honor. They would sooner die in a duel than suffer being called a liar. “Glorious Victory is yours, as soon as I take it from the boy’s dead hands.”

Shichio smirked and finished his tea. “Send me the hands too.”

8

I
f you want these hands, you can have them, Daigoro thought.

He knelt in the dark not three paces from where Shichio sipped his tea. Only a paper wall separated them. He had only to step through it and he could wrap his fingers around the peacock’s throat. Shichio’s samurai would leap to their lord’s defense, and no doubt Inoue would sit back and let them, but Daigoro had no doubt he could snap a skinny peacock neck before they could take him.

His hands had regained most of their former strength. The left was healing well; none of the cuts had festered. The right was still stiff, but the bones had mended well enough that he would soon be able to wield a sword without pain. And how satisfying that would be, to return Glorious Victory Unsought to his hands. From where he sat, he could cut the wall in half with a single blow. With a second he could separate the peacock’s head from his shoulders. It would hardly matter if Shichio’s men attacked him after that. At least he would go down fighting.

Such an easy thing, to walk three strides and take an enemy’s life. An easy thing, as easy as grasping the moon.

Even if he could hold his
odachi
, he stood a better chance against Shichio unarmed. His Inazuma blade promised glorious victory, but only to those who did not seek it. And what would be more glorious than to cut down his most hated foe in the face of the father-in-law who would gladly sell him to the enemy? That would be a victory beyond price, and for that reason his sword would never let him claim it.

Yet the very thought of it made his heart race. He shifted silently where he knelt, rising from a
seiza
position to curl his toes under, pressing the balls of his feet to the floor. In
iaido
this kneeling posture was a ready stance, and Daigoro started to invent scenarios in which he might be able to pounce. Lord Inoue knew he was hiding behind the
shoji
. In fact, he was the one to propose this dark little alcove as the perfect place to eavesdrop. What if he betrayed Daigoro’s position? He’d promised he wouldn’t—promised his daughter he wouldn’t, which meant a great deal more than anything he could swear to Daigoro—but Inoue Shigekazu was no true samurai. By birthright he was entitled to the twin swords and topknot, but he did not live by the
bushido
code. Neither had his father before him, and neither did his sons.

It was his daughter who stayed Daigoro’s hand. He felt her feather-soft palm alight on his forearm, and when he turned to look at her, she pressed her other palm to her belly. She was the love of his life. As of six weeks ago they had been husband and wife, but Shichio’s treachery forced Daigoro to surrender his love and lands. He’d signed a pact with Shichio, renouncing his name as an Okuma, and that meant the baby in Akiko’s belly was now a bastard. Aki didn’t see it that way; in fact, she’d put her fists on her hips and insisted that she wouldn’t consider herself divorced until her husband cast her bodily out of the house. “That’s what the law permits, and that’s what I demand,” she’d said. But Daigoro would stand by the pact; to do otherwise would be to break his word, and
bushido
would not allow him that. He had every intention to wed her again, but he could not do that so long as Shichio lived.

Akiko put a finger to her lips and Daigoro realized he could hear his own breathing. The thought of avenging himself on Shichio had distracted him, but now he brought breath and heartbeat back under control. He listened as his erstwhile father-in-law exchanged final pleasantries with the peacock, and restrained his sigh of relief until he heard the Toyotomi company depart.

As soon as the great gate groaned shut behind them, Inoue
Shigekazu ripped the
shoji
aside. Daigoro and Akiko blinked in the sudden sunlight. “There,” Lord Inoue said. “I’ve lied to the crown. Does that satisfy you?”

“Not by half,” Daigoro said. “It would satisfy me if you gave your arquebusiers the order to fire before the peacock gets out of range.”

“I told you, boy, I will not invoke the wrath of the mightiest warlord in the land. Filling one of his generals with leaden balls would be the swiftest way to do that.”

“His name is Daigoro, not ‘boy,’” Aki said. “He made good on his promise to you, Father. He had his opportunity to kill his enemy and he let it pass. Now promise me again: you will not reach out to Shichio.”

Inoue’s beady black eyes darted from her to Daigoro and from Daigoro to the gate. “I won’t.”

“Swear it.”

He glowered at Daigoro. “He is the father of my grandchild, Akiko. Kin of my kin, whether I like it or not. You need no oath from me.”

Akiko’s mouth became a flat, colorless line. She planted her fists on her hips and her eyes narrowed. Anger tended to raise little wrinkles on the bridge of her nose. Daigoro could never admit this to her, but he found it adorable.

Her father did not. He buckled physically, as if someone had dropped a yoke on his shoulders. With a long, exasperated intake of breath he said, “I swear to you, daughter of mine, I will not betray your faithless husband to General Shichio. Nor will I lend my aid to any of the countless hunters who seek to bring him to justice—which, I might add, they are right to do, since he is a known fugitive.”

Daigoro gave him an anemic smile. Thank you for reminding me, he wanted to say. I’d almost forgotten the price on my head.

“Nor will I harbor him any longer,” Inoue said. “Believe me, boy, I meant what I told the general. If not for my promise to my daughter, I would sell your sword for a song and keep your skull as a pot to shit in. If she should miscarry my grandchild, or if any accident should
befall her, I will be the first to send messengers to General Shichio. Do we understand each other?”

“We do. It’s not a subtle point you’re making.”

“Then get my daughter to her home. Until I can talk your lunatic mother into marrying my daughter to a better man, Akiko belongs behind Okuma walls.”

She does, Daigoro thought; she belongs in the only place on this earth where I am legally forbidden to stay. That was the condition that allowed him to keep Shichio from driving the entire Okuma compound into the sea. The only way he could protect his family was to renounce them, formally surrendering not just his title but his very name. Okuma Daigoro was no more; only Daigoro remained, a
ronin
and a wanted man.

But here he was unwanted. He gave Lord Inoue a curt bow, then limped with Akiko onto the veranda. It was hot in the sun, and Izu’s drought showed no signs of relenting. Aki had no tolerance for it—she overheated so easily now that she was pregnant—but Daigoro took it as a gift. Wet trails aided the hunter, not the hunted, and Daigoro’s hobbling gait left distinctive footprints. “My lord,” he called back, “may we stay until after sunset? Your daughter is not fond of riding in this heat.”

The old bastard actually had to think about it. “Very well,” he said at last. “I suppose you’ll be wanting something to eat too. Akiko may dine with me. You and your man will eat at the servants’ table.”

Your man
was Katsushima Goemon, who was just emerging from the towering gatehouse. He was not yet fifty, but his hair had grayed and long years of traveling the countryside as a
ronin
had wrinkled his sun-browned face before its time. Sitting still, Katsushima might have passed for sixty-some years, not forty-some. But those who saw him move beheld a tiger in human form. Quiet, surefooted, inhumanly fast, Katsushima was the victor of more than fifty duels. He attributed his success to patience, a virtue he was forever trying to instill in Daigoro. Daigoro figured patience probably came much more easily to a man whose sword was quicker than thought.

Katsushima strode toward Daigoro with a stern look clouding his
face. He carried a great bow and a single arrow in his hand. “I couldn’t do it,” he said.

“Couldn’t do what?” Daigoro asked.

“It was that damned palanquin. Once he was inside, I never had a clean shot.”

Aki gasped and rushed to Daigoro’s side. Shocked as she was, she still managed to keep her voice at a whisper. “Buddhas have mercy! You didn’t plan to shoot Shichio, did you?”

Katsushima frowned at her in exactly the same way he would regard a talking butterfly. “Why on earth not?”

“This is my father’s land!”

“And your father prefers tiny leaden balls to arrows. Everyone knows that. No one would lay the blame at his doorstep.”

“Your target was
on
his doorstep!”

Katsushima shrugged. “An errant shot. Loosed while pheasant hunting. Or peacock hunting, as the case may be.”

He smiled at his own witticism. Aki did not reply in kind. Keeping her voice at a whisper only made her sound angrier. “Daigoro made a vow to my father—”

“And my name is not Daigoro, as you may have noticed. Nor is it Okuma. My quarrel with Shichio is my own.”

Aki fumed like a volcano. She balled her fists as if she were actually going to strike him. That would have been a grievous mistake. Katsushima entertained her outbursts because he seemed to find them amusing. Being punched by a teenage girl would not amuse him. He was not above striking a woman—few men were—and he rode with Daigoro as a friend, not a retainer. Akiko may have been mother to the heir of House Okuma, but Katsushima had never sworn loyalty under an Okuma banner. He certainly had no fear of Aki’s father, nor of any other man whose idea of battle was hiding in a tower and pouring black powder down a metal tube.

But Aki was highborn. Perhaps she should have feared a dusty itinerant
ronin
, but she didn’t have it in her nature. “You will take that look off your face.”

“Aki, please,” Daigoro said, taking both of her hands in his own. When she would not turn to face him, he stepped between her and Katsushima. “I have few friends left in this world. I would not have them fight. In any case, Goemon never loosed his arrow. No harm done,
neh
?”

“Neh,”
Katsushima grunted. “And we’re not likely to see a better opportunity, Daigoro. He’s getting wiser, hiding in that sedan chair instead of traveling ahorse. That troubles me.”