Thousand Shrine Warrior (11 page)

Again she heard the eerie moan. She was close enough to recognize it as the sound of a man in agony. She found him, the ninth victim. His longsword had been taken away from him and used to pin him through the stomach, a slower death than the strangulation and throat-piercing granted the others. He'd been tied to the tree with a length of the rope wrapped under his arms, so that both hands were free to clutch feebly at the blade stuck deep into the bark at his back.

The bikuni recognized him as the young leader of the bridge guards. Whatever power punished these men so cruelly had been most cruel to the leader. His eyes were closed and he was mumbling the Lotus Sutra. When he heard the crunch of ice, he opened frightened eyes and grew still. He seemed relieved to see it was only a woman with shoulder-length hair. He wouldn't recognize her, as she had worn the hat when they met before, but he would be able to guess who she was. She introduced herself nonetheless,

“I am the one who came to your bridge not long ago. Did you come to cause Bundori trouble?”

The fellow turned his head from side to side in negative reply.

“Then you came to kill me, which is trouble for Bundori anyway. Who stopped you? Trussed up and stuck like a pig … even a villain deserves better. Tell me and I'll avenge you!”

The fellow mumbled. His lips and chin were bloody. He made a coughing, spasmodic sound, which caused more blood to gush forth. His feet slipped at the icy base of the tree, causing his sword to cut upward to the base of his diaphragm. Still, he wouldn't die. He reached out his free hands and the bikuni did not evade his grasp. His left hand caught the shoulder of her kimono and drew her near. He said, “Seek … the man … of Omi.”

The bikuni drew a breath, regretting her promise immediately.

“Heinosuke, who I knew as Yabushi!” she exclaimed. “Do you name him out of obedience to your master? Or is he really the one who did this awful thing to you!”

The wounded man grinned, his bloody mouth an ugly, gaping hole.

“Kill … the man … of Ohhh … mi.”

She grabbed the wrist where he clutched her kimono and pulled him loose of her, but kept her grip on him. She looked him in his wild eyes and said, “I promised you revenge, so I must be sure! How could he have such strength against you?”

The dying man's lips twisted in greater, horrifying glee. He would not be more specific with her. He gave her the name of a place: “Temple … of … the Gorge.”

Then he was dead, that look of ironic glee and victory frozen upon his face.

She wondered if a dying man would lie. If he served a master who demanded it, a samurai might tell mistruths even on his dying breath, all for sake of fealty, which was foremost in the mind of any good retainer. Yet Sato's men weren't famous for their devotion to him. Everyone agreed his men were more obedient to Priest Kuro. By all that she had heard, it did not seem likely that Kuro was the sort to inspire fealty in men faithless to their actual lord. Perhaps a glamor was on Sato's men after all, encouraging them to do and say things that served Kuro's secret purpose.

She had barely heart enough to work on the lantern that next morning. She quit after a while, setting aside the tools that helped her shape the stone. She busied herself helping Bundori gather the tree limbs that had blown down in the night. She helped cut these into short lengths and stack them in a shed with other twigs and limbs, which would eventually be used in Bundori's firepit and hibachi.

The temperature had risen to slightly above freezing, so most of the night's thin ice had vanished from the ponds, hail balls survived only in the shaded areas of the gardens, and the ground was muddy and uncomfortable. The priest had loaned the nun a pair of high wooden
geta
to keep her feet dry, but she accidentally stepped in an unexpectedly deep puddle, and her toes curled with chill as she worked moodily.

She brooded about the promise she had made the dying man on the night past. She was afraid she would find out there was no lie involved, no occult imposition on the samurai's last words. In that case, she had indeed bound herself to fighting a friend unseen in years. The nuisance of the thing was that she had spoken so swiftly and boldly, without thinking first, and had no one to blame but herself. Her samurai spirit had been outraged by the unclean nature of the nine killings. She had spoken as a samurai would speak, though she was no longer a samurai. Was her promise then binding? It could be argued that, as a nun, she was unqualified to make an oath of samurai vengeance. But such excuses did not sit well with her.

Late in the morning, a mounted samurai appeared on the high road. He had two more horses tethered to the one he rode. The short parade moved slowly, dreamily, along the route. The samurai carefully made his horses step down the staircase toward the torii gate. The horses took each step almost daintily. Bundori saw the man doing this and was immediately annoyed. “No horses here! Only sacred animals allowed! If your impure animals excrete, it's trouble for me to repair the desecration! Go back! Go back!”

The samurai stopped at the first landing beneath the torii. He raised the front of his wide hat and said, “I promise my horses won't excrete.”

“You can't promise that!” said Bundori, standing in the way. “I know horses can't control themselves!”

“I know these horses better than anyone,” the deep voice of the big samurai calmly asserted. “They are old and useless girls, but my friends for many years.” He urged his steeds onward in spite of the priest who stood in the path. By this time, the nun had crossed a small drum-bridge and hurried along the path, in case the samurai meant harm to Bundori. She was wearing only her shortsword, the long one being kept indoors while she worked about the gardens or on her lantern. She did not wear her hakama either, but only a nun's kimono, and overall did not look like a warrior-widow. It was just as well. Now that the samurai was within the shrine grounds, it was not feasible to fight with swords. But she would protect Bundori somehow, if the trespasser meant ill.

“What do you seek?” she asked, standing beside the priest.

The big samurai studied her a moment, then let his hat slip from his thumb to cover his face again. It was not as deep a hat as the one the bikuni often wore, but it was almost as good at shadowing his features. He said, “My master says there are nine men for me to take to a private cemetery.”

Bundori was aghast at the very thought. “No dead men at my shrine!” he exclaimed. “I'd know if such defilement occurred!”

“How does your master know about the men?” the nun inquired, causing Bundori to look at her with sharp amazement.

“My master is aware of many things,” the booming voice replied.

“Your master is not Lord Sato, then, who pays little attention to what his men may do,” said the bikuni. “Do you owe open allegiance to Kuro the Darkness?”

“For the time being, that is true,” said the mounted man.

“Corpse-collecting is a job for outcastes,” she said. “What outcaste has two swords?”

“This outcaste does,” he said.”

She said, “The corpses you seek are beyond the back gate, bound to trees grotesquely. Pass through these gardens carefully if you must, but don't try to come back into the shrine with the dead.” The mounted samurai nodded acquiescence.

The nun followed along behind the slow horses, to make sure they did not soil Bundori's shrine, and to be sure the samurai did not try anything unwarranted. Bundori hopped alongside the nun, whispering excited questions at her: “Who was killed? What's going on? Who is that samurai? I saw him bringing corpses through the village the day before yesterday. Funny job for a warrior! Why are you trusting him this way? Aren't you worried about this? Pardon me, I should let you answer. Nothing to say? Well, that's all right. A bother all the same.”

She did not try to edge in a reply to any of his myriad queries, and was uncertain she had answers even if he calmed down enough to listen to her. “That way!” she shouted to the horseman, indicating the gate he should pass through with his horses. She didn't go out with him, but heard him cutting ropes, piling the bodies on his three horses. He would have to walk alongside the steeds to wherever he wanted the heavy loads taken. His third horse had looked decrepit as with old age, and might have trouble hauling more than two dead men at once; but one of the others might be able to handle four, the bikuni reasoned. In whichever case, the samurai would be left afoot.

In a few moments, he appeared inside the gate, leaving his horses outside. He had removed his hat, so the bikuni saw his face clearly now. He had a dour look, which made him unappealing, but a vulnerability in his expression made her think he was an honest man. He seemed unperturbed by the dreadful manner of the nine slayings outside the gate.

Though built hugely at waist and shoulders, his face was almost gaunt, cheeks high-boned and rough-hewn. She oughtn't trust him, considering his professed alliance with Kuro. But she had known too many warriors in her life not to be able to judge one fairly.

He had come back into the shrine-grounds to say something to the nun, but looked at her a long time before doing so. She saw in his gaze an unaccountable nostalgia and melancholy, as though he were a man who chanced to sight a lover from his youth standing far away.

“I remember you,” he said at last.

She could not say the same, so did not speak.

“I fought with Kiso Yoshinake's armies at Heian-kyo a number of years ago.”

There were thousands upon thousands involved in that terrible war. She still could not recall him.

“Since that time,” he said, “I have been unemployable, stigmatized as a supporter of a fallen general. Not that I blame anyone. It was a chance worth taking at the time. There are few wars nowadays, and sometimes it is hard for me to eat. I see you've become a mendicant nun, but I'm too proud to get my meals in that way. I trained warhorses for Yoshinake, but recently I was barely able to live by selling my services to carry goods through these mountain passes on some horses which were my last treasures. One of them died recently, and one of my remaining three isn't strong. I was resigned to a quick death by my own shortsword rather than live another year in such poverty.” He punctuated this last remark by running his little finger across the front of his stomach. “Priest Kuro discovered me as I prepared to die. He berated me for my weakness. I don't like him in the least, but he offered me a chance to be a retainer once again, to regain my samurai dignity. It is said, ‘Who serves a cruel master well is the best retainer in Naipon.' I am obedient in my humble station. I'm Kuro's only direct retainer, though somehow he gets Lord Sato's men to obey him and trusts them more than me. He trusts no one really, but I don't mind that he thinks I could turn against him. It's enough that I know in my own heart that I'm a samurai capable of fealty under severest conditions, not a beggar or a packhorse driver.”

“I understand,” said the nun.

“You think you do?” He sounded as though he doubted it were so. “He tests me with repulsive labor, but I don't complain. He pays me well enough. I save what I can and may one day be freed of Kuro, with enough funds to purchase a better retainership in some city. It galls me, but gifts, not skills, pave a man's way in this corrupt world. Don't look down on me for it!”

“I don't,” she said.

“I admired you a lot in those days,” he said, the source of his nostalgia finally understandable. “Now you are nobody, like myself. Maybe from now on, you'll remember me. My name is Ittosai Kumasaku.”

“I will remember,” she promised.

The man turned to go. Soon, she heard his horses trotting at a slow pace into the deeper woods, going along back routes. Bundori, who had listened to their cryptic dialogue, was somewhat subdued from his previous overexcitement. Still he could not stand long in one place. “He knew you at the Battle of Awazu and other places like that, is it so? You are Tomoe Gozen, like I thought you were!”

“Don't be too certain,” she said, passing him and starting back toward the compound. She added, “Everybody changes a lot. If I was such a famous warrior as that, it doesn't mean that's who I am today.”

Bundori clapped his hands and hopped happily, feeling adulation for his famous visitor. But she stopped on the path and wheeled to face him so swiftly that he was frightened of her for that moment, and he stopped in his tracks as well. She said, “I must see a pawnbroker in the village and sell my vest. Can you recommend someone? It'll be a hard winter, but I must give up my vest for the sake of a little money to get my shakuhachi. An old, dying samurai of low rank promised me he would live two or three more days until I could play for him. The artisan must be finished now.”

“That's been taken care of!” said Bundori, waving a hand. “He decided to fix your shakuhachi as an offering to this shrine.”