Thousand Shrine Warrior (35 page)

There was no sense of compassion in his conscious mind. He did not attempt to resolve the wherefores of his act. He felt only that he had to dig other graves in any case, and might as well place the hag near a relative as not. His chiseled expression never revealed the least emotion.

It was hard work, since the upper level of the ground was frozen and a lower layer consisted of thick clay, which came loose in heavy chunks. He rested often, not from weariness so much as disinterest, and for having nothing better to do except go hunt up additional bodies once this batch was interred. Villagers shunned him, naturally enough, though now and then one or another would point him in the direction of some hidden body. His task was easier in cold weather, despite hardened ground, for his discoveries never smelled, even if days had passed since death had occurred.

One of his three horses, the oldest and lately the boniest, blew and stamped with dissatisfaction. Ittosai set down his digging implements and wandered off into the woods a moment. There was a shed, hastily constructed a few months before, and filled with fodder. He went inside and grabbed a large but extremely light bag. The mildewed bag was made of straw and that straw was more edible than the bag's contents of dry leaves from early autumn. He took this bag to where his three horses stood unhobbled, and he burst it open. The oldest mare received the rice-straw container, for it was as close as she would get to good feed, and she needed strength.

Ittosai had no dealings with the villagers, who were short of feed for their own animals, and who he was too proud to approach. It would be intolerable if they treated him as an outcaste and not a samurai; he would feel obliged to kill them, though it was not his duty. He also, alas, had no access to supplies from Sato Castle, though a fraction of the feed kept there would be a boon.

Although he had planned ahead—building the shed for tools and fodder and storing additional fodder in the stable of one of the abandoned samurai homesteads on which he squatted—it was poor food in all, and his animals suffered. His own meals were dreary as well, but that mattered less to him. Soon, he supposed he must give up pride, if only for a while. He would be menacing and severe to avoid being insulted, and pry supplies from villagers. They would despise him without letting it show, but he would at least pay them for the feed, using the antique coins received from Priest Kuro for Ittosai's retainership.

As his horses ate, Ittosai sat with them. He always had his gold with him, trusting no hiding place. He removed it from his kimono and shook the bag. As he gazed at it, the first hint of emotion played across his features. The look was one of contempt, not avarice. Whether his contempt was for the gold, or himself for keeping it, was hard to judge.

The coins were minted in the continental Celestial Kingdoms, for the Dragonfly Isles of Naipon had not made its own coins before a century ago, until which time the country depended on imported coins or unminted metals. The old coins had become rare in the last decade, trade in the first place being usually in goods or rice, and native coins usurping those from the Celestial Kingdoms of Ho. Ittosai wondered at Kuro's hoard, but didn't wonder much; curiosity conflicted with his duty.

Much as he despised the truth of the matter, gold alone created opportunities for position, and a good arm merely held what gold obtained. Ittosai hoped there was going to be enough of himself left to seek advancement someday. By the time he had accumulated funds sufficient to offer “gifts” to influential men, and served out his unpleasant retainership to Kuro, perhaps the bitter ambition would be bitterness alone.

Tucking the gold back in his clothing, Ittosai stood from his rest, patting his mares, whispering to them, and apologizing for the meagerness of their meal. The bony mare shook all over, as though crawling with flies, but there were none. She had gotten senile, though as Ittosai counted the years, they were not sufficient to account for the beast's rapid decline. Life had been too hard on all of them, including himself.

When he started toward his task once more, Ittosai saw, in a deep shadow of the surrounding forest, an amorphous shape about eight feet tall and quite wide. In his stomach, Ittosai was startled, but revealed no sign of it.

The shadow appeared to shrink. The vision had been an illusion, a play of light or something. For the only thing to step out of the forest was a diminutive monk. Joining Ittosai, the stranger introduced himself. “I am Kasha, a propogator of the Kwannon Sutra.” His ugly face produced an amicable grin. He said, “I see you collect dead bodies. A good trade! I approve.”

Ittosai's face became flushed with anger. He suppressed it at once. He was a giant against the monk's height and could have bashed him into a tree without effort. Ittosai Kumasaku continued his endless struggle to keep hostility from seeping out, or any other feeling. Even in the face of such an outstanding insult, he would not be baited.

“What do you seek, bonze,” his deep voice boomed.

“My old friend Kuro,” he said matter-of-factly. “You smell like him.”

To Ittosai, this seemed another insult. “Do not anger me, bonze. I may take exception.”

“You think I'm poking fun? Not at all! You happen to smell like my old friend.” Monk Kasha tapped his nose twice, then sniffed. “I happen to know the odor of my friends. Surely you have seen him lately?”

“I am his one retainer. You can get no other information from me.” Ittosai picked up his shovel and began to cover a corpse already in a hole. Dirt and clay struck a horrific visage, then hid the arms. Monk Kasha looked on with genuine interest.

“That horse,” said Kasha, “is sick.”

“I know it,” said Ittosai, not looking up from his task. “It's not your business.”

“You should kill it,” said Kasha.

“It's not your business.”

“She would make a fine corpse.”

Ittosai dropped the shovel. His hand reached toward his sword. Emotions battled inside, and he didn't quite touch the hilt. “You would make a better one,” he said, taking up the shovel anew.

“You think so?” asked Kasha, as though he had never considered it. “Well, maybe so. It would be interesting to find out. I'm very old, you know.”

“You don't look old,” said Ittosai, breathing deeply, striving to master himself, to shake off feelings of hatred for the little monk. His feelings were not entirely explained by the monk's flippant remarks; and the awakening turmoil caused Ittosai a sense of mild alarm.

“Older than you think,” insisted Kasha. “Older than your master Kuro. Older than these trees. Old.”

“The trees are older,” said Ittosai, having no idea why he even bothered to argue. He said, “You're addled.”

“Maybe so. But
you're
in danger. You'd make a nice corpse, it's true, but I thought I should warn you, if only because I empathize with your job.”

“How am I in danger?” asked Ittosai, his tone conveying no genuine interest, his shovel slow at its work.

“Yuki-onna lurks near,” the monk said. “She is furious that you hurt someone who was admired by her friend.”

Ittosai shoved more dirt onto the pile and patted it with the flat of the shovel. He turned and looked down on the little man. Kasha backed away from Ittosai's expression, leery if not afraid.

“Don't believe me, then,” said Kasha. “Do as you please about it. But Yuki-onna is near.” He tapped his nose. “I smell her, too.”

“How have I hurt Yuki-onna's friend?”

“A friend of Yuki-onna's friend,” Kasha corrected, touching his chin pensively. “It's hard to quite explain. Did you blind a young man last night or this morning? I can't be sure you did it; I'm not all-seeing. It seems to be part of why she's angry with you.”

“Thank you for your warning,” said Ittosai, registering neither belief nor disbelief, but only weariness with monk Kasha's uninvited presence. His disdain began to pass, and the monk ceased to matter to Ittosai Kumasaku, as so many things in life had ceased to matter.

“I'll be off,” said Kasha. “Following the scent, so to speak. Goodbye. Take my advice about that horse. Cruel to let her suffer.”

When the homely monk with his teasing attitude had gone, Ittosai's vexation warmed within, a hidden ember waiting to be fanned into destructive conflagration. He went across the tamped, dirty snow and stood among the horses, the last of the only friends he had ever believed in. His deep voice was gentle as he talked to them, the monolog largely meaningless. He stroked their flanks and the sides of their faces while they snuffled and blew and returned his affection. “Wait here, my girls,” he said, and took the reins of the oldest mare to lead her into the woods, beyond the shed, to an area where the snow was not yet marred.

Sunlight found passage through evergreens, lighting the place. The bony horse moved slowly, her every joint stiff and pained. Ittosai dropped the reins and wrapped his left arm under the old mare's head and playfully held one of her ears. She relaxed her chin upon his shoulder. “You're my girl,” he whispered, drawing his shortsword. “You're my beauty.” Where the mare could not see, he touched the point of steel to her chest, but there did not seem to be enough strength in his arm to break the skin.

He hugged her more dearly, his cheek against hers, and slid the sword forward with such care that the mare was oblivious. She began breathing louder, harder. Her heart was pierced, yet death was not sudden. His bloody sword came out with equal cunning; the mare suspected nothing but her own growing tiredness. Her weak legs shook, but it was as though she were shamed by her own unsteadiness and refused to fall. She blew hard through her nostrils; blood and mucus sprayed Ittosai's back, but he was unconcerned with that. The mare's front knees buckled and her back legs followed. Ittosai went to his own knees, still holding the head. The mare rolled slowly to her side, still pumping wind, and Ittosai lay her head gently on the snow. Her round, brown eyes watched Ittosai stand; but after that, it did not seem that she could see. She blew twice more, without much blast, and offered not the least death throe, but died relaxed.

Ittosai cleaned his blade in snow then strode away, his face an unchalked slate.

Mirume, the maiden knocked from the castle's mesa wall and rescued from the moat by a passing nun, had known sorrows throughout her life. To tell them all would be too piteous and, what's more, would be too dull; for many of the most wretched lives are of a kind that hold little interest for outsiders. But it helps to comprehend her mother's acute anguish when one considers that she could give her only daughter such an unflattering name as Mirume, the same name as a female witness in Hell. Perhaps the mother thought the name was auspicious; perhaps she could think of nothing but the hellishness of the world her daughter had been born to. The name was conferred at the mother's dying breath; an eerie legacy. Mirume was to bear the burden of having killed her mother by daring to be born. A more unfilial child could not be imagined; there were those who kept telling her this was so, though if truth be told, it was desperation and not pregnancy that weakened her mother's will to live.

Her mother had been lowborn but, by all accounts, beautiful; and her beauty proved a curse. Having found herself attractive to, and attracted by, a comely samurai, she gave in without thought of the day of abandonment, without considering the cruelty of a family loath to raise a bastard. When fatherless and motherless Mirume was old enough, and it was noticed that her beauty developed along the lines of her mother's, she was hauled away to the castle and offered as a servant. “She's a samurai's bastard,” they said, and exchanged her for this or that; and never after did they communicate with Mirume.

Yet life became more joyous, if only for a short while. She found herself in the employ of Lord Sato's gentle daughter, graceful and angelic (until she became ill), whose mother had been of royal extraction, descended from Amaterasu the Sun Goddess. Mirume felt only adoration for the beautiful princess; and she felt compassion, for the princess had lost her mother, too. No service was a nuisance if Echiko benefited by the least degree. The hardest task was a wonderful occasion.

Her daily company consisted of numerous castle women, some bright, some foolish, some severe. She was the junior of all of them and easily pushed about; but she did not mind. She loved her new clothing, learning proper manners, sharing and criticizing one another's poetry, the composition of which Lady Echiko encouraged. If she were looked down upon for her uncertain origins, and made to work harder than anyone else on account of her youth and willingness, this was nothing compared to the hardships imposed upon her while in the charge of lowborn relatives who despised her, beat her, and blamed her for her mother's death.

Lady Echiko was so far above Mirume that it was absurd to think of such a superior individual as an older sister. Yet secretly, she did so. This bold fantasy was built upon, month by month, in many imaginative directions. The young handmaiden began to conceive of the princess as a glimmering presence, mysterious and seraphlike, a bodhisattva sent to Naipon for the express purpose of being patron and savior to Mirume.

She worshipped Lady Echiko, and surely this was noticed; but possibly there were those who felt it was Echiko's due, for taking in an untrained orphan.

Beneath this venerational exterior, Mirume retained, in her secret existence, the original belief that she was Echiko's little sister. Despite a humble outward attitude, Mirume was something of a megalomaniac. Sister to a goddess, indeed! Beneath her the universe depended. Her prayers were heard in Heaven more loudly than the prayers of others. Her influence was profound though so subtle none could see it.

Such egoism has few rewards, if one begins to see the shape the world is in, truly believing in one's own influence on the matter. She already felt that she had caused her mother's death; why not be the source of all pain everywhere? Mirume suppressed all aspects of her fantasy that were dark and sad. She was able to maintain a brighter perspective, an almost hysterical inner happiness, which rarely betrayed itself.