Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate (26 page)

I counted no more than five, well but crudely armed. Two had swords, two others clubs, one a thick staff. My
tachi
was clear of its scabbard before they were well out of the forest, but I had foolishly allowed Lady Snow to wander a good four paces ahead of us. An older, toothless brute who was their apparent leader reached her before I could do anything. He held her roughly by one arm as he brandished a rusty sword.

“Throw down your weapons or . . . ”

We never did find out what “or” was. What came next happened so fast I almost didn’t see it. Lady Snow’s free arm withdrew into its sleeve and when it emerged there was a flash of steel. Her captor immediately released both her and his weapon, which fell unheeded to the road. Now both his hands were wrapped around his throat and his face had turned ashen gray.

The bandits were momentarily stunned by the turn of events, but I wasn’t fool enough to give them time to recover. I killed the man with the staff while he was too busy watching his former leader pitch face first into the dirt. The other three quickly turned to face me just in time for Kenji to bring his priest’s staff down hard on the remaining swordsman’s head. He joined his leader and the first swordsman in the dirt, and the last two dropped their clubs and ran off into the bamboo as I rushed up to Lady Snow.

“Are you injured?”

“I have blood on my sleeve,” she said ruefully. “I-I think I need to sit down.”

We found a maple tree that had somehow endured the encroaching bamboo, and Lady Snow used it to lean against. “I will be fine. Please check on Nidai.”

Nidai was fine. He was busy pummeling the one fallen bandit who, I was certain, was not dead.

“Nidai-kun, I believe your opponent has had enough.”

There was a light of vengeance in the boy’s eyes. “This isn’t battle, Lord Yamada. This is punishment,” Nidai said.

“I understand, but your mistress needs you now. See to her. Kenji and I will take care of this.”

Nidai gasped and then rushed to Lady Snow’s side, where she was forced to reassure him over and over that she really was all right and finally gave him the task of cleaning her dagger just to keep him quiet. While they were so occupied, Kenji and I studied our fallen attackers. Shabby clothes, poor weapons, and today, even poorer luck. Kenji had his priestly methods for dealing with ritual impurity, but I could not care less for my own part. The leader’s body was face first. I turned it over with my foot. As I suspected, his throat had been cut cleanly, which explained all the blood pooling under him.

“It seems Lady Snow is not the helpless flower she appears,” Kenji said.

“If you ever thought she was such a flower, you clearly were not paying attention. Even so, that was impressive.”

“An understatement,” muttered Kenji who, I was certain, was now re-evaluating any notions he may have held as to the seduction of Lady Snow.

I was not at Kanemore’s level of swordsmanship, but even so I was certain my own opponent would not be getting up again. That left the third, whom Kenji had felled.

“He’s still alive,” Kenji said. “What shall we do with him?”

I knew what it was to be both poor and lacking in options. While I could not be certain it was this that turned the man to banditry and not a violent and brutal nature, my instinct was to spare the man. Common sense and justice both argued against that.

“Wake him up,” I said.

Kenji splashed some water in the man’s face and, after a few moments, had him kneeling if not standing. I waited until some focus had returned to his eyes.

“My name is Yamada no Goji,” I said, “and I have every right to cut your head off. Please explain to me why I should not.”

The man gibbered and bowed, and I could not get one coherent sentence out of him; certainly no justification for not treating him as he richly deserved. I methodically cleaned my sword to give him more time to think on the matter, but in the end I simply put the sword back in its scabbard.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Y-Yoshi.”

“Yoshi, as of this moment forward your head belongs to me,” I said. “If I ever see you again, I will claim it. Do you understand?”

He stopped gibbering and bowed lower, which I took for assent.

Kenji frowned. “You’re going to let him go?”

“I’m going to treat him as we treat the others. Normally I would hang them at the bridge as a warning, but they’d be cut down by nightfall. Throw him in the river.”

The bandit found his voice again. “But . . . I cannot swim.”

“Now would be an excellent time to better yourself in that regard.”

We hauled the man to his feet, and together we dragged him to the river’s edge and tossed him in, soon followed by the bodies of his companions. By the time we threw in the last body, he had managed to splash his way to shallower water and crawled out of the river on the far side. If he had so much as shaken his fist at us, I would have not hesitated to take the time to hunt him down and collect my debt, but he just staggered off into the bamboo on the other side of the river as quickly as he could go.

“As a priest, I must of course applaud your mercy and sense of restraint,” Kenji said. “But as a traveler who may need to pass this way again, I really think you should have killed him.”

I sighed. “There are plenty left to replace him, but for what it may be worth, I agree. Most likely he’ll be waiting with even more of his friends upon our return.”

“You won’t see him again,” Lady Snow said very calmly. We had not heard her approach.

Lady Snow had just had her life placed in great danger and then killed a man. While she had been upset and shaking as one might expect, that all seemed to have passed. She seemed perfectly composed now.

“Indeed? Why do you think so?” I asked.

She looked away. “Most men have far less imagination than we might think. I don’t believe it had ever occurred to that fool that his prey might one day turn on him. Now he knows that, he will seek another occupation.”

I sincerely hoped Lady Snow was correct. While I prided myself as a judge of men, I would certainly admit there were large gaps in some aspects of that understanding. Somehow I doubted if that would be true for Lady Snow.

Nidai accompanied her to the river where she attempted as best she could to remove the bloodstains from her sleeve. Fortunately by then the bodies had been swept downstream, and the water was relatively clean. She tied her wet sleeves up to keep them from touching the dirt, and we resumed our journey on the southern road. I wanted to be well away from Uji as soon as possible in case any of the bandits’ friends and family came seeking revenge, but the day passed without further incident or any signs of pursuit. We pretty much had the road to ourselves, as this direction was not well traveled except for certain festival times linked to the temples at Nara, but this was the wrong season for that sort of travel.

That evening we made camp in a maple grove far enough off the road to obscure, if not hide, our campfire. After we were done with our meal, Lady Snow played the flute again. Again, the ghost returned. It did not approach any closer than before but simply hovered at the farthest extent of the firelight, apparently listening. I had already satisfied myself as to the ghost’s identity. There was far more that I did not understand. When Lady Snow finally put her flute down, she rejoined us at the fire.

“That was the same song you played the first night. I confess I am unfamiliar with it. What is it called?”

“ ‘Sunset at Mount Toribe.’ It was Kei’s favorite. She was a cheerful enough girl, but she did have her melancholy streak.”

“It seems you spent a great deal of time with her,” I said.

Her face was impassive. “It does not seem like so very much time now that I see it complete. We argued sometimes, but she was a dear girl. She did not deserve such a thing.”

“Does she follow you for the music?”

“She follows me,” Lady Snow said, “whether I play or do not play. I hope the music gives her some comfort, but I do not know that, or what she wants. Sometimes I think she is trying to tell me something, but I cannot hear her.”

“Does she come to you in your dreams?”

“I do not know,” Lady Snow said. “I can never remember my dreams.”

I’m not sure what moved me to share what I did with Lady Snow, but I think it was the pain in her eyes. “Shortly after her death, I dreamed of her. I do not know why; I never met her while she was alive.”

Lady Snow looked at me, suddenly intent. “Did . . . did she say anything? Please, she was my friend.”

“Yes. She said that I should take tea with her older sister, and that I should please be kind. Does this mean anything to you?”

Lady Snow did not look at me. “Her older sister was Taira no Hoshiko. If you ever meet that worthless creature, perhaps you can ask her.”

“From what you said to me when we first met, I gathered that you were not fond of Lady Hoshiko.”

“I had many problems with Lady Hoshiko,” Lady Snow said, “though perhaps no more than one of my lowly station should expect. Still, I was fond of Kei.”

“The ghost seems to think her sister is in pain.”

She didn’t look at me. “We are all in pain, Lord Yamada. Since no one knows who killed the poor child or why she haunts me now, I would rather talk of other things.”

Kenji grunted. “Who? I rather think the creature that killed your Taira no Kei was more of a ‘what’ than a ‘who,’ ” he said. “Possibly a demon.”

Lady Snow frowned. “You know how Kei died? What killed her?”

I glared at Kenji, but he only shrugged. “Rumor says far more than even you know, Yamada-san. I doubt Lady Snow knows much less than you seem to think is secret.”

“My movements at Court are somewhat constrained,” Lady Snow said. “Please continue.”

“I thought you wanted to speak of other things?” I asked.

“I do. Yet I have an urge to believe that, one day, whoever or whatever killed Kei-chan will be discovered and punished. Foolish of me, perhaps, but there it is. Lord Yamada, I do not ask that you betray confidences or tell secrets to one such as myself, but the nature of my profession does allow me a freedom of travel about the city that many other women do not have. Perhaps I can be of use to you when we return to the capital.”

While I still wanted to strangle Kenji for his loose talk, I had to admit Lady Snow had a point. Nor could I see any harm in telling what little we knew. We were far from the only ones who knew it. Lady Snow listened attentively to everything I said, and when I was done, she appeared very thoughtful.

“But there would be no reason,” she said aloud. I didn’t think she was talking to me.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Kei was still a child, even by the standards of the Court. She had no lovers, no jealous rivals.”

I frowned. “Well, yes, but I don’t understand what this has to do with the matter. We already know Kei was not attacked by a human being. Such was impossible. The only common factor is this dark spiritual energy that I mentioned before. Unless we sort out what the thing is, we have no way of fighting it.”

“I don’t know anything about clouds and such, but of course it’s possible. What I’m saying is there was no
reason.
Kei-chan had no enemies,” Lady Snow repeated.

Now both Kenji and I were staring at her. Nidai, for his part, merely looked confused as if he had come across three gods discussing one of the finer points of spiritual refinement and karmic debt.

One of us had to ask, so I was the first. “How could a person strike unseen? Are you talking about magic? While I certainly am no expert on Yin Yang or other magical forms, an associate of mine is, and there was nothing about the attacks he recognized.” That had been one of my earlier suspicions, especially considering the persistent rumors about a link between Lord Sentaro and Chinese magic. While I admitted the possibility that Yu had lied to me, there didn’t seem much point to doing so. Especially since Kanemore would have richly rewarded him for solving the murders.

“I certainly was
not
speaking of magic. Who would need such a thing anyway? If someone wished Kei ill, they would more likely strike the same way the Lady of Rokuji did.”

Now we were all staring at her, even Nidai. Kenji and I exchanged glances, but I simply shrugged and let Kenji be the one to ask the obvious question.

“Who is the Lady of Rokuji?” Kenji asked. “The Sixth Ward of the city contains quite a few noblewomen. A few are of my personal acquaintance.”

Now it was Lady Snow’s turn to stare at us as if Kenji and I had grown an extra head each. Then she suddenly bowed low and started to shake uncontrollably. Nidai rushed to her side, apparently thinking my first thought that Lady Snow had been seized with some sort of fit and needed help. The truth, once it finally revealed itself, was a little more puzzling. She was laughing.

At us.

Nidai sat back on his heels, frowning. I merely waited for Lady Snow to compose herself. I was not used to being laughed at and could not say that I cared for it, but at the moment I was far more curious about what had caused Lady Snow’s uncharacteristic merriment.

“We said something humorous?” I said, as if it were an actual question.

Lady Snow finally managed to raise herself off the grass. There were tears in her eyes and her nose was running. All in all, she did not look her best. Even so, the laughter made her look years younger. Nidai produced a cloth that could not have been any too clean, but Lady Snow did not question. She merely blew her nose and wiped the tears away.

“Forgive . . . forgive me, gentlemen, I just realized.” Whatever she just realized set off another laughing fit—of shorter duration this time. The cloth was scarcely needed. When she looked up again, she managed to keep her composure. “Again I must apologize. It’s just that it never occurred to me you didn’t know, didn’t recognize . . . ”

“The Lady of Rokuji? As Kenji pointed out, there are many such.”

“No, sirs, there is only one. A person,” she said, “from
Genji Monogatari.
”

For a few moments all I could do was blink like an owl surprised in daylight. Of course I had heard of the story of Genji; it had been written about fifty years earlier by a lady of the Court known as Murasaki. As it was the height of bad manners to record a lady’s name directly, lest it be linked to rumor and gossip, her actual name was obscure. Doubtless there were one or two souls still on the earth who knew her true identity. Still,
The Tale of Genji
was just one of several yarns of romance and courtly intrigue much favored by the women—and some men—of the Court and upper classes, though in my opinion it had the added disadvantage of being the longest.