The Tokaido Road

“My foolish letters caused your enemies to find us.” Kasane sighed. “The mouth is the front gate of all misfortune.”

  “Don’t dwell on what’s past.” Cat spoke gently, although she had already rebuked herself for being so careless as to leave traces of her presence in public places.

  “Who wrote the other letter?” Kasane whispered. She hadn’t had time to spell out the contents of her own letter, and it was too dark to do it now. She was consumed with curiosity about the second message.

  “He’s a filthy wretch, a hireling of my father’s enemy. He’s chased me from the Eastern Capital.”

  “The rMnin you tried to stab?”

  “Yes.”

  “He looked like he was trying to help you.”

  “By seeing one stripe you know the whole tiger. He had no intention of helping me.”

  ‘ ‘But he warned you about the man in the drum tower.”

  “It was a trick, a needle concealed in a mass of silk floss.”

  For a while they lay in silence in the mustiness of the old draperies and straw matting and scrolls around them. Cat was bothered by the fact that Hanshiro hadn’t tried to capture her. Had he been toying with her?

  “Even his poem was deceptive,” she said finally.

  “Is that so?” Kasane tried to sound noncommittal.

  “ ‘Now is not the time,’ “ Cat recited, “ ‘to be thinking of yourself as one all alone.’ “

  “Maybe he means he wants to help you.”

  “He’s mocking me. He’s telling me I can’t escape him. But I’ll travel the Three Paths before I’ll allow him to take me.”

  Her anger discouraged further conversation. Kasane tumbled quickly into an exhausted sleep. Cat sat up and tried to keep watch, but eventually she could fight off fatigue no longer.

  She awoke stiff and sore, curled up next to Kasane. She looked up into the rays of sun shining through the holes in the cedar shutter of the window. In the daylight she could see that the holes formed a graceful pattern of waves.

  “Did you sleep well, my lady?” Hanshiro asked politely.

  Cat sat up and gathered her legs under her in a crouch. She grabbed for her staff, but it was gone. Hanshiro was kneeling in the formal position, sitting back on his heels, his palms resting on his thighs. Cat looked into his tiger eyes.

  Cat was incensed that Hanshiro had seen her asleep like some servant or peasant or outcast under a bridge. She pulled the knife from her jacket and heard Kasane scream as she lunged at him with it. He barely swiveled sideways, but Cat’s blade stabbed emptiness where his chest had been.

  Cat knew there was no use continuing. She could not harm him. She could not escape him. She turned her blade around and would have stabbed it into her own breast if he had not reached out faster than she could see. He held her wrist in a grip gentle but strong as an iron band.

  “Kill me if you will, my lady,” he said. “I will not try to prevent it. Only grant me the favor of hearing me out.”

  “Mannerless wretch!”

  “You have reason to think so.” He handed her a brocade bag. “But accept this as a token of my sincerity.”

  Cat opened it as though it contained a snake. She shook the contents onto her cotton towel. With the point of her knife, she separated the topknots and laid them in a line. There were eight of them.

  “They belonged to your enemies, Your Ladyship,” Hanshiro said. “I have named my sword the Barber.” If Hanshiro was making fun of himself, Cat couldn’t tell. His face was perfectly solemn. “I apologize that I couldn’t catch the man in the drum tower.”

  “Are the owners of these dead?” she asked.

  “Worse. They’re shamed. The magistrate detained them for public brawling. They won’t bother you again.” Hanshiro took a long, slow breath to compose himself.

  Even now, her eyes heavy with sleep and her hair disheveled, Lady Asano was lovelier than anyone he had ever seen. Teeth like pasania nuts. Dark, perfectly arched eyebrows. Strong chin and the high, narrow nose of a warrior. Arms white as mulberry ropes. A perfect hairline, each hair strong and glossy as black silk thread and growing from skin smooth as pale jade. Hanshiro longed to trace with his finger the contour that marked the wilderness of Cat’s hair.

  “I have something that will be of use to you, Your Ladyship.” Hanshiro laid a folded letter on his open fan and offered it to her. The wax seal bore the crest of her father’s ally, Lord Hino.

  CHAPTER 57

  THE BLADE THAT DEALS DEATH

  Hanshiro sat at the writing stand in Futagawa’s shrine to Hachiman, the ShintM god of warriors. With a dagger he sliced the tip of the fourth finger of his right hand. He squeezed the finger until a puddle of blood formed in the bottom of a small bowl. He dipped a fine-haired brush into it, put it to the thick sheet of white paper, and began writing an oath of loyalty.

  Cat watched him warily. She was seated on a pile of cushions that raised her head above his. The position symbolized that Hanshiro was below-the-eyes, a subordinate.

  The abbot gestured to an acolyte, who brought forward a small brazier, set it down near Hanshiro, and fanned the coals. When the blood had dried, Hanshiro lit the paper and held it over another bowl while it burned. A second acolyte added hot water to the ashes, and Hanshiro swirled the bowl to dissolve them. Then he drank the mixture.

  When he finished, the abbot and his assistants discreetly rose, bowed, and left. Kasane started to leave, too, but Cat motioned her to stay. She remained kneeling unobtrusively in a corner, but in effect Cat was alone with the bounty hunter.

  “That was an impressive performance.” Cat’s voice was chilly and remote. “Did you drink a similar oath in the service of Kira?”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Then why have you pursued me?”

  “The mistress of the Perfumed Lotus wanted you found.” Hanshiro knew that fact certainly wouldn’t raise him in Lady Asano’s esteem. “My sword would never have harmed you.”

  “Crows circle your sword guard. Are you of the New Shadow school?”

  “Yes.” Hanshiro was impressed. Lady Asano was a keen observer.

  “Doesn’t the New Shadow school teach that weapons are unfortunate instruments hated by Heaven’s Way?”

  “Heaven’s Way is to maintain life.”

  “Then why do you offer to kill my enemies?”

  “When one man’s evil causes suffering for thousands of people and that man is killed, then the blade that deals death is the one that also gives life.” Hanshiro could see that Lady Asano still distrusted him. “Perhaps time will convince you of my sincerity.”

  “I don’t have time.” Cat tugged at the front hem of her secondhand jacket. She pulled the overlapping flaps tight so they wouldn’t bag open when she stood up. Under his steady gaze she had become acutely aware of her shabby traveling clothes. “All I wanted from your oath was your promise not to betray me.” She bowed curtly. “Now my companion and I must start. We have far to go, and the sun’s already high.”

  “Your Ladyship ...”

  “I do not have the right to be referred to in that way,” Cat was irritated. If you weren’t an ignorant provincial, you’d know that, her silence said. She motioned to Kasane, who rose and gathered up their two bundles.

  “Then what shall I call you?” This interview wasn’t going as Hanshiro had planned it.

  “You have no need to call me anything.” Cat hardly glanced at him as she took the furoshiki from Kasane, who helped adjust it on her back. “Our paths fork here.”

  Hanshiro didn’t show his surprise, but he had assumed she would be grateful to have his sword and his arm as protection.

  “Lady Asano . . .” The command in Hanshiro’s voice was subtle, but so compelling that Cat hesitated at the door. In spite of her reproof he called her by the title her father’s death had stolen from her. “I know you must be on your way, but grant me a few moments.”

  Cat returned to the cushions. She regarded him with a neutral, unreadable exp
ression.

  Hanshiro was more pleased than if she had meekly accepted his offer. She had heart. She had spirit. She had dignity. She was a mistress he could be proud to serve. And he would serve her, no matter what she said now.

  “The travel permit from Lord Hino’s councilor is for me and my disciple and a servant,” Hanshiro said.

  “Yes. You might as well take it back.” Cat drew the letter from the front of her jacket and held it out. “It won’t help me, but I thank you for your trouble.”

  Cat knew her behavior was rude, but she was angry. He had harried her and frightened her and now thought he could make amends with a prick of the finger.

  “At least allow me to present you with a small token, as an apology for the anxiety I’ve caused you.” Hanshiro pushed a new wicker traveling box across the tatami. Then he bowed and left so Cat could open it.

  A gift. Cat drew the box to her and stared at it. Gifts could be very expensive for the recipient. What price would the Tosa rMnin try to extract for this one?

  When Cat took the lid off the box, Kasane moved close to see the contents. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

  Cat held up the garment on top of the pile of folded clothes. It was a pale chrysanthemum-colored robe of wadded silk lined with striped satin. Pine trees, each needle embroidered, bordered a rushing blue river. The river started at the left front hem, spiraled to the right and around the side. On the back a huge carp the color of cedar bark leaped upstream against the rapids. It was the design invariably worn by actors portraying the youngest Soga brother in his struggle to avenge his father.

  Under the robe were a hempen hakama and formal haori jacket the color of cedar and the accessories to make up a young warrior’s traveling outfit. At the bottom of the box was a servant’s livery of the same color with a horizontal stripe of dark rust.

  “I’ll give them to the abbot.” Cat folded them neatly and replaced them in the box. “He can sell them to raise money for the temple.”

  Kasane made no argument, but Cat could see she was crestfallen.

  “These clothes will make us conspicuous,” Cat said. “At the very least they’ll attract thieves.”

  Kasane read her suitor’s poem aloud to Cat.

  Alone in the night

  I visit you by dream paths—

  There’s no blame in that.

  “He’s a bold, romantic rogue, Kasane.” Cat laughed.

  “Here’s my answer.” Kasane was shy and proud. She had written this one herself. In her letter she confessed that someone else had copied the earlier poems for her.

  I would read your words by moonlight

  Or by the reflection of the snow

  Or by the glow of the fireflies.

  And if there were no moon or snow or fireflies

  I would read it by the light of my heart.

  “He’ll like it, I’m sure.” Cat curbed her impatience to get started. Thick gray clouds were moving in overhead, and she could hear distant thunder. Cat felt Hanshiro’s letter under her jacket. “ ‘Now is not the time to be thinking of yourself as one all alone.’ ” Surely the lowering sky was what was making her so melancholy.

  Kasane hung her letter to the Traveler on the big wooden message board near Inari’s shrine. Cat whirled when someone spoke from close by.

  “Forgive me, my lady.” Nameless bowed low.

  “You’re the lantern painter.” Cat raised her staff, ready to strike. She recognized the young warrior from the attack at the ferry on the Tama River, and she was ready to break his nose again.

  He looked much younger than Cat remembered him, probably no more than fifteen or sixteen. The bruise across his nose and under his eyes had faded to lavender. The nose itself was misshapen from her blow.

  “Forgive me, Your Ladyship, for failing you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t Hanshiro-san tell you?”

  “No.”

  “I was trying to guard you, but I failed. In the fight last night he took all the topknots, shu, shu, shu. He prevented me from killing your enemies.”

  “Who ordered you to follow me?”

  “No one.” The boy looked thoroughly dejected. “I was a page in AkM when the news of your father’s shameful betrayal arrived. We all wept bitter tears. I swore with the others to defend our lord’s castle to the death or wreak vengeance on his enemy.

  “But the councilor betrayed us. He meekly handed over the keys to the shMgun’s agents. Then he became a profligate in the brothels, probably with the money he stole from your father’s estate.”

  “And are there no plans to avenge the Asano name?”

  “None that I know of, my lady. I went to Edo to try to kill Kira myself, for one cannot live under the same heaven with the slayer of one’s lord. But I was unsuccessful. Kira’s house is a fortress. His son, Lord Uesugi, has stationed extra bowmen there. I had decided to follow my lord in death when I heard you had escaped. I set out to find you and try my insignificant best to guard you against your enemies.”

  The lad had also hoped that if some of Lord Asano’s former retainers were plotting revenge, Cat would lead him to them. He’d been disappointed all around.

  “What have you been doing between Kawasaki and here?”

  “I was in the scuffle at the theater in Kambara, and I joined the fray behind the pilgrims’ inn in Mishima.”

  “You were there?”

  “You almost broke my nose again.” In spite of his misery, Nameless smiled shyly. “Forgive the impertinence of a humble boy, my lady, but you were magnificent. You were also very difficult to follow.” He didn’t mention that he had blundered into Cat at the mountain pass near Nissaka and had pretended to be a babbling dry-goods clerk.

  “And the Tosa rMnin, what do you make of him?” Cat despised herself for asking, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to hear everything she could about Hanshiro.

  “He can drink a great deal, my lady.” The boy grimaced at the memory of trying to match Hanshiro at draining sake jars. “At first I thought he was one of Kira’s hirelings, but he’s on your side after all. That’s a great stroke of fortune for you. He’s an accomplished swordsman.”

  “Thank you for your help.” When Cat picked up her bundle the boy tried to take it from her. Cat gently pulled it away. “Kasane and I will continue to travel alone,” she said.

  “I can carry your things and protect you from ruffians and make arrangements at the inns. I’ll bargain with the river porters and the ferrymen and heat water for your tea at night.”

  “We’ll get along by ourselves.” Cat wished she were as sure of that as she sounded. “We prefer to travel as we have been.”

  She was half tempted to accept his offer; but after watching Hanshiro’s sure, graceful movements, after looking into his dark, gold-flecked eyes and reading his poetry, she couldn’t bear the thought of spending her days in the company of this boy.

  She rationalized that she didn’t know anything about the boy except that he was persistent. She couldn’t trust him any more than she could trust the dangerous, taciturn rMnin from Tosa. Yet how to refuse without wounding his pride?

  “I have an important, personal favor to ask of you,” Cat said. “It will require great discretion, cunning, and courage.”

  “Anything, my lady.”

  “I want you to take a message to my mother.”

  The boy’s eager expression faltered. “Back to Edo?”

  “Yes. It grieves me to think how worried she must be. But the task is a dangerous one. My enemies will try to intercept you if they find you have word of me. You understand, don’t you?”

  Cat told the absolute truth, but her face lied artfully. Her face said the letter would contain a message of far greater moment than reassurances to her mother. She let the boy think it would be the final link in a plot to avenge her father.

  “Your wish is my will, my lady.” The boy wasn’t entirely fooled.

  CHAPTER 58

  THE M
UTUAL EMBRACE OF STINKING BONES

  “Look at him,” Cat muttered. “Planted like a willow in the road.”

  Cat and Kasane stood elbow to elbow with the other travelers crowded under the wide eaves fronting on the TMkaidM, which was also Akasaka’s main street. Rain cascaded in a silvery sheet from the edge of the roof. They would have waited out the icy downpour inside the tea house just behind them, but it was filled beyond capacity. The entryway was heaped with tall rain geta and straw and paper raincoats. The mass pilgrimage that Cat had started was still crowding the road to Ise. Akasaka’s famous pleasure district was thriving.

  In the middle of the river of mud that was the TMkaidM, Hanshiro sat on the wicker box he had tried to give Cat. He had offered to buy the box and its contents from the abbot in Futagawa to whom Cat had donated it. But the abbot had insisted on giving it to him. Like most people who knew about Lord Asano’s tragic fate, the abbot’s sympathies lay with the lord’s daughter and the man who seemed determined to help her.

  In spite of the rain, Hanshiro hadn’t bothered to open his umbrella. His feet were planted firmly in the brown water that flowed past his ankles. He stared ahead stolidly as the rain thrummed on his broad-brimmed bamboo hat and splattered his leggings with mud. The hat and the oiled-paper raincape were keeping him neither dry nor warm.

  “He looks cold,” Kasane said. She and Cat had been carrying on their conversation sotto voce.

  “He looks smug as a snake that’s swallowed a mosquito.”

  Over the roar of the rain on the roof, Cat could hear the speculation going on around her. Everyone was curious about the rMnin. Most people had concluded he was mad. In any case, he was drawing unwelcome attention.

  “He’ll surely catch cold.” Kasane shivered in the wind that whined around the corner of the building and whipped her rain cloak against her legs.

  “He doesn’t have to sit there,” Cat said. “He didn’t have to follow us for the past four ri.”