The Samurai and the Long-Nosed Devils (17 page)

“But how will Zenta get on the float?”

Matsuzo asked. “Surely the people operating the floats won't permit a perfect stranger to climb aboard? Otherwise, the spectators would be swarming all over the floats.”

Chiyo was smiling brilliantly. “I know of a way. Many of the floats in the parade are sponsored by the leading craft guilds of Miyako. We might be able to use the float of the silk weavers' guild. It's stationed only one street away, and Zenta will not have far to walk. Since Lady Yuki's family have been valued customers of the silk merchants for generations, they would do anything for her.”

“It might work,” said Matsuzo slowly. “When do the floats begin to move?”

“Soon,” said Chiyo. “But we'll still have time to make our arrangements. First, we must see Lady Yuki and get her help.”

Matsuzo remembered the antagonism between Chiyo and her mistress. “Lady Yuki will be livid when she hears of your part in Hambei's plot to murder her father,” he warned. “She'll cook you in the bean paste soup and eat you for breakfast. In fact, she might not bother to cook you first.”

Chiyo shook her head. “She likes Zenta, and I think we can persuade her to help.”

Matsuzo's prediction about Lady Yuki's fury was accurate. She barely stopped short of launching herself at Chiyo's throat. Listening to the stream of abuse pouring from her, Matsuzo wondered how a lady of her refinement and breeding had learned such language. She was using expressions which even he had not heard on his travels. On the whole, Matsuzo thought that her fury was not from grief for her father, but from the discovery that Chiyo had been planted as a spy in her house and had made dupes of them all.

Finally Matsuzo lost his patience. “Lady Yuki, please stop and think: Why do you suppose Chiyo came back to confess herself to you?”

His firm tone had the desired effect. Lady Yuki stopped and stared at him. With an almost childlike gesture, she wiped the saliva from her lips with the back of her hand and looked at it in wonder.

Matsuzo took advantage of the momentary quiet. “We came to you because we need your help in rescuing Zenta.” Seeing that he had her attention at last, he continued. “He was injured while trying to bring your father's murderer to justice, and you owe him a debt of gratitude. Chiyo sincerely repents her part in Hambei's plot, and she is willing to face your anger because we want to beg for your help.”

Lady Yuki dropped her eyes. After a moment she turned to Chiyo, and for the first time in Matsuzo's experience the two girls looked at each other with something like understanding.

“I'm sorry,” Lady Yuki said huskily. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

Chapter 15

 

 

The samurai stationed in the corridors of the foreigners' house were finding their duty quite pleasant. Their instructions from Nobunaga were to wait for the wounded ronin to recover from his attack of dizziness. As soon as he was able to stay on horseback, they were to bring him back with them. All they had to do meanwhile was to see that he made no attempt to escape. There seemed little likelihood of that. When they checked his room, he was resting quietly and looked far from ready to go anywhere.

It was true that they would be missing the most exciting part of the Gion Festival. But they could still see the parade of floats when it took place again a week later. What they had now was a rare opportunity to have a close view of the foreigners' house. They could hardly wait to tell their comrades all about it.

One of the samurai could see through a half-opened door into the room of the Portuguese called Pedro. The foreigner was sitting with his back to the door, and there was a clink and the sound of liquid pouring into a cup. The samurai guard suddenly realized that he was very thirsty. “Hey, do you think we can get something decent to drink in this place?” he called to his comrade, who was stationed further down the corridor.

The door opposite him opened wide and the foreigner looked out with his strange round eyes. “Do you want something to drink?” he asked.

The samurai was embarrassed. He had forgotten that the Portuguese could understand and speak Japanese. “Uh, yes,” he admitted. He saw that the foreigner was holding a cup filled with a dark red liquid. “What's that?” he asked.

“This is a wine of my country. Would you like to try some?”

The samurai thought that red was a very unwholesome color for a drink. Why, one might be drinking blood! “What is the wine made of?” he asked cautiously.

The foreigner saw his suspicion and smiled. “It's made from grapes, a fruit that grows on a vine.”

A wine made from fruit sounded refreshing, thought the samurai and said, “May I try some?” “Certainly,” said the foreigner courteously.

“I'll bring some to your friends also.”

The samurai drank the foreign wine and grimaced. “It's sour! But perhaps it's a taste that grows on you.” He took the bottle and, mindful of good manners, refilled the cups of the foreigner and his friends as well as his own. “I'll try another cup.” He drank the second cup much more quickly than the first.

The slightly sour wine was really quite thirstquenching, and he tilted the bottle again.

For a moment, a look of pain appeared on the foreigner's face, but it passed so quickly that the samurai thought he had imagined it. Perhaps it was the way foreigners normally looked.

The other men also found the wine excellent for thirst. Naturally they would not think of neglecting their duty by getting drunk. But there could be no harm in a drink made from fruit. It was not as if they were drinking potent saké made from rice. The foreigner, on the other hand, had a poor head for drink and he was showing definite signs of intoxication. He began to hum snatches of some Portuguese songs, and as he walked around refilling cups, he staggered badly. When the last drop of wine was gone from the last bottle, he looked heartbroken. “This is a tragedy! We don't have a drop left for your friend outside the gate!”

The samurai guards all agreed that the situation was grave. They mopped their faces— the heat was making them groggy—and tried to think what to do.

“I could go and buy some saké,” one man said thickly. They wouldn't need much saké, just a few drops to get the sour taste of the foreign wine out of their mouths.

The foreigner protested. “You can't leave your post and neglect your duty! Since I have failed in my hospitality, I should be the one to go and buy the saké.”

Touched by his consideration, the men agreed. They had no orders to prevent anyone except the ronin from leaving. A little while later they watched the Portuguese lurch unsteadily across the front courtyard to the gate. They smiled when they saw that he was wearing an odd-shaped metal helmet which kept falling over his face. Foreigners certainly had strange ways of protecting their heads from the sun.

None of the men were certain exactly when the foreigner returned. But of course he did return, because the saké he purchased was heated in the kitchen and served to the men. (They were not to know that it was the saké already in the house, which Pedro had considered too poor to serve Nobunaga.) As they drank the wine, the men were sorry that the foreigner could not join them. He already had too much to drink, he told them, and staggered off to bed. When he was later shaken awake from his drunken stupor, he had no clear recollection of anything at all.

Therefore he was no help in explaining how the ronin had vanished without a trace. Nor could any of the eight hapless samurai offer an explanation, in spite of the rigorous questioning of their furious master.

Two streets away from the house of the Portuguese, the float sponsored by the silk weavers was in the last stages of loading.

There were two main types of floats. The smaller
yama
was a box carried by poles on the shoulders of a dozen men. The silk weavers had the larger type of float called a
hoko
. This was a cart, two stories high, mounted on four huge wheels and pulled by a retinue of men. A long halberd was in place on top of the cart's tall pointed tower, and elaborately embroidered brocade hangings were draped over the sides. Musicians began to climb into the second story.

Matsuzo's frantic impatience had already changed to the calm of despair. Zenta was not going to appear. The float would leave without him.

An excited murmuring broke from the crowd as the rope pullers began to take their places. Next to Matsuzo, Chiyo gave a sigh. She had been tireless in encouraging him earlier, but now even her shoulders drooped sadly.

Barely audible under the noise of the crowd, a voice said softly in Matsuzo's ear, “If I don't take off these clothes soon and scratch myself, I shall go out of my mind.”

As Matsuzo and Chiyo whirled around, Zenta continued, “I don't understand how the Portuguese, who are quite civilized in some things, can wear cloth woven out of sheep hair next to their skin.”

“Then it's a good thing that we have a change of clothing for you,” said Matsuzo, his voice shaky with relief.

Enthralled by the brilliant spectacle in front of them, few people noticed the strangely garbed “foreigner” as he limped away to a refreshment stand at the edge of the crowd. Matsuzo and Chiyo followed him to the back of the booth, which was deserted even by the vendor. Zenta removed the metal helmet from his head with a sigh of relief, and then stripped off Pedro's doublet, fumbling a little with the unfamiliar fastenings. Finally he put on the crisp blue and white cotton kimono, marked with the emblem of a leading silk weavers' guild. Matsuzo was already wearing an identical kimono.

Standing in front of the booth and screening Zenta's actions in the back, Matsuzo and Chiyo looked at each other, knowing that the moment had come to say good-bye.

“I wish I had met you sooner, before you got involved with Hambei's plots,” said Matsuzo wistfully.

“We may meet again quite soon,” Chiyo said brightly. But the expression in her eyes contradicted her cheerful words, and her lips trembled a little.

“Perhaps Nobunaga will be defeated and killed,” said Matsuzo, trying to match her optimism. “Then it will be safe for us to return to Miyako.”

“I think that Lady Yuki would like that, too,” Chiyo began to say. She suddenly broke off and pointed. “They are getting ready to move! You must hurry!”

Zenta came out of the booth, tying the sash of his kimono. “I'm ready.” He turned to Chiyo and bowed deeply. “Thank you,” he said simply.

Matsuzo knew that Zenta was apologizing for his earlier distrust of her and expressing his gratitude for her help. Chiyo bowed wordlessly to the two men and walked quickly away. Turning for a last look, Matsuzo saw that she was holding her sleeve to her eyes.

But there was no time to think about Chiyo, for the wooden wedges holding the wheels of the silk weavers' float were being removed. The two ronin pushed their way to the cart through the thick crowd. A man in the cart saw them and recognized the guild's cotton kimonos. He leaned out and beckoned. With his help, they mounted the cart. He gave them a welcoming smile. “Your place is with the musicians in the second story. It's crowded there and no one will notice you.”

With some difficulty Zenta and Matsuzo squeezed themselves into the crowded secondstory balcony, which was surrounded by a railing. There was barely enough room for them, and some men were dangerously seated on the railing itself.

“Do you play the drum or the flute?” one of the musicians asked Matsuzo.

He played neither, but he said, “Drum,” thinking that it was the easier instrument. All one had to do was to pound on the drum, whereas with the flute one had to find the correct finger holes. Zenta, however, accepted a flute and even put it to his lips.

“I didn't know that you played the flute,” Matsuzo whispered.

“I don't,” replied Zenta. “I'll just pretend to blow. With all the noise, no one will know the difference.”

To the accompaniment of shrilling flutes and thudding drums, the rope pullers heaved and the four huge wooden wheels squeaked sharply. The cart began to lumber forward. The floats in the festival had been put together in various parts of the city, but now they all made their way to Shijo, Fourth Avenue, where they lined up for the parade. The order of the floats was determined each year by drawing lots. After lining up, the whole procession would move east along Shijo for a distance, after which it would turn north.

Being high above the crowd gave Matsuzo a magnificent view. After the silk weavers' cart took its place, he could see the whole parade of brilliantly decked floats stretching before and after him. Just below him, two important members of the silk weavers' guild stood on a narrow shelf at the front of the cart. Each man held a rice straw rope with one hand and with the other hand brandished a white fan decorated with a scarlet disc. To the rhythmic beating of drums, the fans were raised, flipped and lowered.

Infected by the excitement, Matsuzo began to beat his drum more and more enthusiastically. Since he was surrounded by the din, he couldn't hear himself. He was never to know that from a distance away, people could distinguish his drumming quite well. For days afterwards, it was said that the drumming from the silk weavers' cart possessed an intricate syncopation which was more exciting than anything heard before.

Matsuzo found the progress of the parade insufferably slow. Carrying or pulling the giant floats was hot work, and frequent stops had to be made. His arms grew tired from the drum beating, and he was glad to surrender the stick to another man. Zenta, he saw, had long ago given up any pretense of playing the flute. Matsuzo was worried about Zenta's condition, for it was obvious that his leg was giving him pain. At every lurch of the cart, his lips tightened.

To his alarm, Matsuzo noticed that the lurching of the cart was producing a discomfort in himself as well. During the day of frantic activity, he had eaten hardly anything at all, and he started to experience a sensation similar to seasickness.