White Serpent Castle (11 page)

Jihei reddened furiously, but before he could reply, Saemon said, “That is true. The daimyo would not thank you for administering his justice!”

“That was not my intention!” protested Jihei angrily. “I merely wanted to take these dangerous men into custody. You're not suggesting that we allow them to remain free?”

“What proof do you have that they are dangerous?” demanded Saemon. “So far as we know, their only connection with the crime is that they discovered the body. I know that my master was dead long before they came.”

“How could you know what was happening in your master's room?” retorted Jihei. “You and your men were busy distracting us during the ghost hunt. Don't think that we didn't notice.”

“The ghost hunt was a perfect cover for many other activities,” said Saemon. “I'm not overlooking the fact that your men could have used it as an excuse for breaking into this very room!” During the heated exchange, Matsuzo noticed that Zenta was staring fixedly at a spot near the envoy's body. When Zenta felt himself observed, he hastily turned his head away. But Matsuzo had already seen what he was staring at. It was the heel half of a bloody footprint. The front half had been obliterated by the spreading pool of blood.

Saemon, whose eyes missed nothing, followed Matsuzo's glance and saw the print also. “Here is something strange!” he exclaimed and pointed. Everyone turned to stare at the print.

Saemon glanced around and examined the feet of every person in the room. None of them were stained with blood. “This print was not made by one of us in the last few minutes. The murderer must have made it after he stabbed my master.”

After inspecting the footprint carefully, he continued, “The outline is quite clear, and this means that there was a lot of blood on the foot. The question is, how did the murderer get out of the room without leaving another bloody footprint?”

There was a silence which lasted for some minutes as people entertained visions of the murderer making a giant leap or flying through the air.

“What about the hole that leads to the crawl space under the floor?” asked one of the envoy's men. “Perhaps he escaped through that.”

“No, it's too far away,” answered Saemon. “When we first arrived, I checked the location of the emergency exit in every room of our suite. The one for this room is in that corner over there. The murderer would have had to jump halfway across the room. You men in the antechamber would have felt the thump as he landed.”

Some of the men considered the wooden beams in the ceiling. A very tall man possessing strong arms might be able to jump and grasp one of the beams, but they did not offer a good hold for bare hands, and he would have to let go before proceeding very far.

The most teasing problem was the reason why. Why should the murderer go to the trouble of keeping his feet off the floor?

Suddenly Jihei pointed at Zenta. “This is another one of your tricks,” he snarled. “There has been nothing but confusion in this castle from the moment you arrived. I don't know what your plans are, but I fully intend to find out!”

“I was suspicious of him as soon as I saw him this afternoon,” said the chamberlain. He ran his tongue over his lips and smiled eagerly. “We have ingenious ways of getting answers to our questions.”

“Wait! I can't allow you to do this,” cried Saemon. He seemed even more alarmed than the prisoners themselves at the prospect of their being tortured for information.

“This ronin obviously knows more than he is telling,” said Jihei roughly. “The daimyo will not object if we present him with a nice confession already signed.”

“I believe that's tampering with the suspects,” commented Zenta.

“Since it's a question of my master's murder,
my
men and I should have custody of the prisoners,” insisted Saemon.

“And since it's a question of the safety of the castle, I propose to take them into custody,” retorted Jihei. “I cannot let these criminals have the chance to commit another murder!”

“This is outrageous!” cried Saemon. “Are you implying that the castle is not safe with all forty of us guarding these two unarmed men?” “We know that these men are exceptionally cunning,” said Jihei. “It would be only sensible to let our men keep them safe until the time comes to send them to the daimyo.”

“Do you mean that my men are unable to guard them safely,” demanded Saemon, “or that we might deliberately allow the suspected murderer of our master to escape?”

Jihei was becoming very angry also. “I am pointing out that our forces are vastly superior to yours. We outnumber you by more than ten to one.”

This was clearly a threat, and the envoy's men growled angrily. Saemon ground his teeth, but could not deny the truth of Jihei's statement. The envoy's quarters were in an open wooden structure impossible to defend, and they were surrounded on all sides by the chamberlain's men. Any attempt to resist would end in a bloody massacre. He shook his head warningly at those of his men who were already reaching for their weapons.

Although violence was averted for the moment, the chamberlain was anxious to leave. Looking nervously at the angry faces of Saemon's men, he said to Jihei, “Come on. Let's get the prisoners into the inner fortress.”

In his hurry to remove the prisoners and end the tense confrontation with Saemon, the chamberlain made two mistakes. First, he did not take the time to send for rope and have the prisoners bound. Secondly, he failed to pay attention to Lady Tama.

While Saemon and Jihei were engaged in their heated argument, Lady Tama gradually regained her composure. Her face, still swollen with weeping, was set in furious thought. Finally she moved quietly back toward the door and slipped out of the room. None of the chamberlain's men noticed her departure.

Chapter 12

 

 

The guards escorting the prisoners to the interrogation chamber surrounded them densely on all sides as they marched across the inner courtyard. But when they entered the mazelike corridors of the inner fortress, they were forced to string out in a double file. Jihei was far in front, leading the party. Zenta and Matsuzo were in the middle of the long file, with some fifteen men before them and an equal number behind. No one spoke, and on the polished wooden floors of the corridor, their sandaled feet made little noise.

In the forefront Jihei turned a corner which led in one direction to a long dark hallway and in another direction to a narrow flight of stairs going to an upper floor. Suddenly he stopped. The whole party came to a halt and stood motionless. Their ears caught the sound of a flute.

The ghostly flute music became louder, and in the light of Jihei's lantern they saw a dim white figure at the end of the hallway. Then it turned and glided off with a soft slither. A low laugh echoed down the corridor.

Jihei forgot his prisoners. All he could see was the hateful figure which had mocked and humiliated him earlier in the evening. With an angry hiss he darted forward along the hallway, followed by his eager men.

At the foot of the staircase, Zenta heard a faint noise from above. He looked up and saw Saemon at the top of the stairs with a sword in one hand and a lantern in the other. Saemon did the only thing possible: he threw his sword down to Zenta.

The ronin had been expecting this move from the moment he heard the flute music. He caught the sword neatly. When the guards realized what had happened, they turned and saw the light glinting wickedly on the naked blade as Zenta tested it for balance. “Well, now,” he said, his voice purring with pleasure, “I believe you people mentioned something about a lesson in swordsmanship?”

He made a flashing attack on the guards and cleared a space at the foot of the stairs. Before the guards could recover to counterattack, he was already racing up the stairs, pulling Matsuzo with him.

Jihei and the guards in front were halfway down the corridor after the ghost when they heard the sound of the clash behind them. By the time Jihei realized his mistake and struggled back, the prisoners were already at the top of the stairs. Zenta seized the lantern from Saemon and hurled it into the face of the nearest pursuer.

The man flung up his arm to protect his face. His sleeve caught fire and he screamed with terror. Losing his footing, he fell tumbling down the stairs and sent the men behind him toppling.

The castle walls were plastered, but the basic building material was wood. Fire, therefore, never failed to cause unreasoning panic. For some moments complete confusion reigned at the foot of the stairs as the men tried to beat out the flames. Groans came from the men bruised from their fall down the stairs.

The three men at the top of the stairs did not wait to see what was happening. With Zenta leading the way, they ran through the corridors of the upper floor. Down a different flight of stairs they went, through one corridor after another, one turn after another, then up and down some more stairs.

“I hope you know where you are going,” Matsuzo managed to gasp with bursting lungs.

Zenta finally stopped. He opened the door of a small guard room, found it empty, and entered it quickly, followed by the other two men. After catching his breath he said, “I think we've lost them for the time being.”

“We can't stay here,” said Saemon. “Jihei will sound a general alarm soon and search every room. I must gather my men together and find a place where we can defend ourselves.”

“I suggest that we try to occupy some tower of the outer fortress,” said Zenta. “It is fortified, and much easier to defend than one of the residential buildings. Since most of the samurai there have been ordered to the inner fortress, we can take the place easily.”

Suddenly the three men tensed. They heard the sound of running feet. But the men, instead of searching the rooms one by one, rushed past their door. Matsuzo could overhear snatches of conversation.

“Did you see how close the White Serpent was this time? I saw it before I even heard the flute music.”

“We'd better hurry. Jihei will have our heads if we fail to catch the ghost again.”

Inside the room Matsuzo stared in amazement. “I thought I could run pretty fast,” he muttered, “but Lady Tama can run much faster, even trailing a silk floss snake!”

Saemon smiled. “That was not Lady Tama you saw earlier. It was her double. They have two White Serpents, and this is the reason why the ghost hunters were so confused. Each time they started after the ghost, the flute music would come from a totally different direction.” “Then the men that just went by were not pursuing us at all,” said Zenta. “They don't even know about our escape.”

“That's right,” said Saemon. “Lady Tama is distracting the attention of the castle men and scattering them with a ghost hunt, so that Jihei will not be able to round up his men and issue orders.”

Matsuzo remembered that earlier Zenta had said Lady Tama had the mind of a strategist. It was no exaggeration. Zenta now frowned, however. “Lady Tama is courageous, but she's utterly reckless. If she should fall into the hands of the ghost hunters, she would be treated mercilessly. Even worse, the chamberlain may seize the opportunity to violate her, claiming that he didn't recognize her. She would be forced to marry him, then.”

“I've already told her this,” said Saemon. “But she's very stubborn, and she insisted on playing the White Serpent Ghost one last time. I agree that she is in very great danger. Let me go and rally my men to storm the outer fortress. Meanwhile you and Matsuzo should bring Lady Tama to safety.”

There was no time to be lost. After checking that the corridor was clear, Saemon sped off to his waiting men. Zenta led Matsuzo down some stairs, through a series of dark and narrow passages until they came to a small door that opened into the courtyard. This was the clearing between the inner and outer fortresses. Their problem was to find Lady Tama and then cross the moat, and they could expect the bridges to be heavily guarded.

Hearing cries in the distance, they turned and saw a white figure flying toward them. Matsuzo recognized the ghastly face which he had seen earlier, with the same huge staring eyes and blue painted lips. Behind the figure trailed a silk floss tail, somewhat shortened by clutching hands.

The figure almost reached them before Matsuzo recognized Lady Tama. Far from being terrorized by her pursuers, she seemed to be in a state of exhilaration. She had recovered completely from her grief, and Matsuzo had the feeling that her love for the dead envoy had not been very deep.

One of her pursuers reached out a hand and grasped her sleeve. She turned and dealt him a sharp blow across the bridge of his nose with her flute. While the man covered his nose and howled with pain, Lady Tama calmly examined her flute. “What a pity! I made a crack in the flute, and it's my favorite one.”

Zenta rushed up and made short work of two other pursuers who had run over to help their comrade.

Lady Tama flashed a fierce grin at her rescuer. “Come on. There are a few more men over there that we can finish. Who knows? Maybe we can take over the castle!”

“Don't be silly,” snapped Zenta, sparing no time for courtesies. “We have only one sword among the three of us, and your flute is a limited weapon.”

As they ran across the courtyard Lady Tama asked, “What are our plans now? Did Saemon say anything after he freed you from Jihei's men?” “We have to find shelter, a place that we can temporarily defend,” said Zenta. “The best place is . . .”

“The outer fortress, of course,” finished Lady Tama.

A cry to their left drew their attention. They saw Ume carrying an armful of weapons, and beside her a figure in white. Matsuzo blinked. He was looking at an exact duplicate of Lady Tama. When the figure came closer, he recognized the little maid. Her makeup and white gown were identical to Lady Tama's.

Zenta, however, had eyes only for the weapons in Ume's arms. “My swords!” he cried joyfully. Snatching his two swords from the old woman, he pulled the long one from its sheath and ran his fingers down the perfect blade. He almost crooned with happiness.