Disciple of the Wind (45 page)

She needed more information, and poor Oda had no defenses against her. “Didn’t it frighten you to have this boy under your roof? I hear he’s a ferocious warrior.”

“Ferocious? He was half dead. No, his man Katsushima is the one to fear.”

So Daigoro and Katsushima still ride together, Nene thought. And they are probably penniless, since Daigoro—a polite boy—did not offer to pay for horse feed. “I see. But once you were on the road, he wasn’t your guest anymore,
neh
? You must have been worried about crossing paths with him then.”

“Hardly. If he were riding west, he could have carried his own damned letter—oh, curse me for a jabbering fool. I should not have said that, my lady.”

“Of course, of course. I’m frightfully sorry; I never meant to make a noble samurai break his oath. We won’t speak another word of him—but I shan’t let you go just yet. It’s late, and I won’t send you off without a good meal. Let’s talk about something else, shall we? Something wholesome and innocent.”

Even idle chatter about the weather divulged the information she needed to know. When Oda told her he’d enjoyed cloudless skies on his ride to her home, he said by implication that Daigoro’s little-used trails would be dry, not muddy. When Oda said he hadn’t seen any major storms since that typhoon last month, he might just as well have said that Daigoro would find every ford to be shallow and slow. Oh, you poor man, Nene thought. You have no flair for this game.

He’d come to deliver three words—
I have it
—and now he’d given Nene a soliloquy. Daigoro was badly hurt but on the mend, he and Katsushima rode together, the two of them departed Ayuchi three days ago, and now they were heading east and making good time. If Oda had wanted to fulfill his promise to the boy, he should never have stepped out of the saddle. Better to trot through the gate, put the
letter in Nene’s hand, and leave like a stranger. The moment he opened his mouth, he was lost.

Purely out of habit she wondered what use she might put him to. It was an old reflex, like a merchant biting a piece of gold to test it. In truth it embarrassed her. She ought not to think of men like Oda as playing pieces. Naive nobility was still noble, was it not? He didn’t deserve to be manipulated. But her husband’s needs and the good of the empire took precedence over obligations to a dead friend’s cousin.

The unfortunate truth was that this Oda Tomonosuke was a useful tool. He was a sword master once, wasn’t he? Nene questioned her memory for a moment, but one glance at Oda’s hands erased all doubt: they were meaty and strong, as callused as an oarsman’s. Yes, he was a
kenjutsu
sensei after all. And who had just taken up the sword? Shichio.

She could be so kind to both of them. For Shichio, the only thing better than an expert sword master would be one with intimate knowledge of the Bear Cub. If Nene judged Oda rightly, nothing would swell his sails like becoming a proper sensei again. Shichio would be a dismal student, childish and temperamental, but he would be a
paying
student. Clearly Oda needed the money—and, come to think of it, he’d also benefit from the distraction. That much was genuine sympathy on Nene’s part: Oda was coming apart at the seams. Taking on a student might make him feel like a man again.

He could use a friend too, one who promised to write him regularly—a friend like Nene. He was too noble to knowingly betray Shichio, but she did not need him to be a mole. She needed him only to be himself, and to accidentally divulge all the countless details of Shichio’s life.

“Do you know, I’ve just thought of someone you should meet,” she said, deliberately sounding as if she had surprised herself. “My husband has a general who—you won’t tell a secret, will you?” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The men say he’s better known for his penmanship than his swordsmanship.”

“Disgraceful.”

“
Neh?
But he wants to do better, and . . . well, I didn’t think of it before because General Shichio is so far from here, but now . . . oh, I do hope you’ll pardon me for saying so, but after your wife’s passing, and your son’s . . . I know it’s terribly rude of me. . . .” She made herself sound weak and indecisive. Oda would feel stronger if she gave him the opportunity to reassure her.

Inevitably, he took the bait. “It’s all right, my lady. Please, speak your mind. You needn’t be shy with me.”

“Well, I wonder if it might do you some good to get away for a little while. If it’s not too much trouble. This general is stationed all the way in Kanagawa-juku. But I’m sure he’ll pay handsomely for a sword master of your caliber. Come to think of it”—she lowered her voice conspiratorially again—“my honored husband will pay you too. It shames him to have a general who hardly knows which end of the sword to hold.”

A fleeting twinge passed over Oda’s face. Nene knew why. Her husband was no swordsman either. Like Shichio, he lacked the patience for martial art—though in his defense, Hideyoshi’s impatience was not like Shichio’s. Shichio was like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Hideyoshi was more like a randy teenager surrounded by naked women.

“Well, please consider it, Oda-sensei. It would be my honor to recommend you—”

“And your recommendation is all the honor a man like me requires.” Oda bowed deeply. Already he seemed like a younger man. He came up from his bow with his shoulders squared and his chest puffed ever so slightly. “Do you know, my lady, just the other day I told that Okuma boy my warring days are behind me. Perhaps I spoke prematurely. It will be my greatest privilege to support General Toyotomi’s war effort in whatever way I can.”

“I do hope so,” Nene said with a smile. “And please, do not take it amiss if I write you a letter now and again. If I am to blame for sending you into the back of beyond, then the least I can do is keep you abreast of what is afoot at home.”

“It would be my honor and my pleasure.”

“And you’ll write back to me?”

That puffed him up even further. A strong man always wants the attentions of a woman, Nene thought. Even a woman he can never have, and especially a woman who knows she cannot have him.

“Oh, you’ve made me so happy,” she said, speaking again with perfect honesty. “I’m sure there is no better place for you than at General Shichio’s side.”

37

“‘I
have it’
? That’s all it said?
‘I have it’
?”

Nene’s errand boy was holding out on him. Shichio knew it damn well. He misliked the look of this man from the moment he blustered through Shichio’s gate. His name was Nezumi, and he had a cocky swagger unbefitting a common messenger. He wore clean white and darkest black, with a black
hachimaki
restraining his wild hair. His teeth were brown and broken, and he exposed their hideousness with a ready smile.

“That’s all,” Nezumi said. “But the courier said more than the letter.”

Shichio sighed irritably. “Are you an actor on a stage? Is it your job to keep me in suspense? No. Out with it, or else it’s out with your tongue and I’ll have you write down anything more you need to tell me.”

Nezumi bit his lip when he smiled, exposing those bestial teeth all the more. “Heh heh. That would be unwise.”

“Because you’re unlettered?”

“Because my lady likes me. There could be . . . what’s the word? Reprisals.”

I have no fear of Lady Nene, Shichio wanted to say. Now more than ever he wished it were true. If only she were a wife and not a sister-figure, he could have her killed and deflect Hashiba’s wrath afterward. Perhaps he might even persuade Hashiba to punish him by
stripping him of his swords. Once Shichio was demoted back to the peasantry, he could grow his hair back. As it was, he was forever worried about a sunburned scalp. He’d burned it once already and the pain was terrible.

Even now, standing on his veranda with this sweating messenger kneeling in his shadow, he worried about his shaven pate. He eyed Nezumi’s dusty legs with disdain but bade him inside anyway. Once he was inside, Nezumi was a guest, so Shichio had no choice but to feed him. To do otherwise was unbecoming of a
hatamoto
of the great Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

“The courier,” he said after a maid fetched a little tea. “What did he say?”

“Everything.” There was that brutish smile again. “He vowed never to betray the Bear Cub, and to deliver that letter without saying a word. Then he ran straight to Lady Nene and told her all he knew.”

“I like him already. Who was he?”

“Lord Oda Tomonosuke. A swordsman of some repute.”

“And more than an errand boy, unless I miss my guess. Couriers do not have lordships or surnames. So why should this one be reduced to carrying messages back and forth like a pigeon?”

“You mean like me? Heh.”

By the gods, those brown teeth were hideous. “Yes, yes. Now out with it. Samurai are not known for their humility, and neither are they known to break a sworn oath. Why should this Oda fellow deign to serve a crippled boy as a messenger, and why should he break his word?”

“Hard to say what goes on in another man’s mind, but I expect he did the first one in order to do the second.”

“Because?”

“The Bear Cub killed his son in a duel.”

“Did he now?” That was an interesting development. This Oda must have some personal connection to Nene, or else he would not have been granted an audience. Shichio could use a spy with Nene’s confidence, and his hatred for Daigoro might be just the thing to sway
Oda’s loyalty. Shichio had deployed spies, troops, ships, and a mountain of gold to capture the Bear Cub. If Oda were to learn of that—accidentally, of course—then he might be manipulated into approaching Shichio to seek an alliance.

“I would like to speak with Lord Oda. When you return to your mistress, you will tell her so.”

“No need. He’s coming to you.”

“Oh?”

“Lady Nene sends him as a gift. She says he’s better than the sword master you’ve got—”

“Curse that woman!”

Shichio didn’t mean to say it aloud. It just burst out of him. How did she know he’d taken up
kenjutsu
? Did she know Wada-sensei by name, or was this just bluster? Was Oda so fell-handed that even Wada couldn’t stand against him? And did she honestly expect that Shichio would study under him? A gift, Nezumi said, but Shichio saw the truth: Oda had to be Nene’s spy. She knew he and Shichio shared the same hatred for the Bear Cub, and she hoped Shichio would befriend him on that basis alone—or if not, that his
kenjutsu
was strong enough for Shichio to keep him on as a sensei.

Well, that is a dance for two, Shichio thought. He would welcome Oda after all, and learn what he could from him, not just of swords but of Nene. And when Shichio had wrung every last drop out of him—

“I haven’t got all day,” Nezumi said.

The ungrateful bastard might just as well have scratched his balls like a mountain monkey. He sat cross-legged now, as if he were in his own home and not sitting before a daimyo. Shichio could hardly believe his cheek. How gratifying it would be to don the mask and show Nezumi everything he’d learned of swordsmanship. But alas, he could not. He needed what this man knew.

“Well?” Shichio said. “Out with it. Your mistress sent you to pass
along her secrets. Tell me what you know, then be gone from my house.”

“The Bear Cub was wounded,” Nezumi said. “Oda’s healers nursed him back from death’s door. Even so, the boy was hardly fit to ride when Oda sent him away. North and east, that was his guess. Oda’s, I mean. He knows the boy didn’t ride west.”

“From where?”

“Ayuchi. Near Atsutahama. And he rode with that
ronin
of his, the tall one with the woolly hair.”

Shichio remembered the man. Katsuhiro? Katsuhama? Something like that. “When did they leave Ayuchi?”

“Six days ago. Maybe seven, maybe eight. I couldn’t say for sure. I know when Lord Oda spoke to my lady and I know my lady sent her pigeon within the hour. As soon as I received it, I came straight here—”

“Silence.” Six days. More than enough time to find the whelp, if only Shichio’s bear hunters weren’t the most inept bunglers he’d ever had the misfortune to hire. How could that wretched boy elude every last one of them? Now he was wounded and
still
he managed to slip them by. Thanks to Nene, it was harder than ever for them to report to their master. So long as Shichio had stayed in Izu, he was rarely more than a half-day’s ride from his informants. Now, banished to the barbarian north, everything took an eternity.

“I have been patient with you long enough,” he said. “When do you plan to tell me what ‘it’ is?”

“Which ‘it’ would that be?”

“The letter, you fool.
‘I have it.’
What is ‘it’?”

Nezumi shrugged. “I couldn’t say.”

“Because Lady Nene didn’t tell you or because she told you not to tell me?”

“Heh heh. Does it make a difference?”

It was all Shichio could do to leave his katana in its sheath. A good stabbing might improve this creature’s manners. “I will share
something with you, Nezumi-san. I think your mistress knows what ‘it’ is. I think she wants ‘it,’ or else the Bear Cub would have no reason to send the letter. It follows that the two of them have been in communication with one another.” Which I can spin into charges of sedition, he thought. “It also stands to reason that they must speak again, or else the Bear Cub has no way to give her whatever ‘it’ is. Tell me, are you the one assigned to make contact with him?”

“Yes.”

“You will tell me where and when.”

Nezumi bowed. “That’s why my lady sent me.”

Shichio couldn’t hide his skepticism. “Is it now?”

“Yes, my lord. When I find him, I’ll arrange for a meeting. The boy has something to give Lady Nene, and she insists on seeing it for herself. Whatever it is, my lady has promised your head in exchange.”

“What?”

“Of course.” Nezumi sat back smiling, amused and bemused in equal measure. “I thought you knew.”

“Make sense,” Shichio told him.

“My lady is laying a trap. So you can kill the Bear Cub.”