Year of the Demon

“Aki, listen to me. Suppose it took a week’s time for this to come from Kyoto. That would have it arrive on our wedding day—to be lost in the confusion, neh?”

“And then to be tossed in with all the other letters and gifts. . . . Merciful Buddha, Daigoro. What are we going to do?”

“Only the obvious,” Katsushima said. He reexamined the kiri blossom imprinted in the broken seal, studied the letter once more, then handed it back with a fatalistic shrug. “Best to get it over with.” Out of old and indelible habit, his thumb flicked out to loosen his sword in its sheath.

“I won’t,” Daigoro said.

Katsushima gave a curt bow. “I understand. It’s harder when you have a personal connection. Lend me a horse and I’ll see it done.”

“You misunderstand me. I have no interest in beheading an innocent man.”

“Buddhas have mercy,” Akiko said, “you don’t mean to defy the regent, do you? When she noticed the look she’d drawn from Katsushima, she glared right back. “Don’t you look at me like that. Do you think just because I’m a woman I can’t understand affairs of state?”

Katsushima snorted. “You’re a girl, not a woman. And the answer to your question is yes.”

Akiko was on her feet in an instant, fists on her hips. “If I am a girl, then my daddy is the most powerful spymaster between here and Kyoto.”

If Daigoro thought she had her hackles up before, that was nothing compared to now. She stood over him with all the tenacity of a she-wolf defending her cubs. Daigoro found he rather liked it.

And she wasn’t finished. “Do you think that sword of yours is the only kind of weapon? A precocious little girl can lower a man’s defenses in ways no sword ever could. I’ve served my father as a courier since I was old enough to count to ten.”

Katsushima wore an expression Daigoro had never seen in him before. He looked startled and chastised and bemused all at once, as if he’d knocked over a buzzing hornet’s nest only to release a swarm of angry butterflies. His look did not lessen Akiko’s temper.

“Aki,” Daigoro said, tugging her sleeve, “sit next to me, would you, please? I need you to tell me what you make of all this nonsense about the river and the flood.”

She gave Katsushima a defiant little squint and sat down, snatching the letter from Daigoro’s hand. He smiled and was glad she didn’t see it; her feistiness was adorable, but it wouldn’t do for her to know he felt that way. Not yet. “Here,” he told her, pointing to the passage in question. “Whatever is too heavy for the river to carry off is easily washed away by the floodwaters.”

“It sounds like His Lordship fancies himself a poet,” Katsushima said.

Akiko harrumphed. “It sounds to me like His Lordship offers you an ultimatum: either you take the abbot’s head or he’ll send a battalion to come and get it.”

“And perhaps conduct other business while they’re here,” Daigoro said, filling in the rest. “Like flooding the house of any upstart lordling who defied his will.”

“It makes no sense,” Akiko said. She studied the letter again, as if she hoped to find some explanation that hadn’t been written there before. “Why should a daimyo halfway across the empire want this man killed?”

“I don’t know,” Daigoro said, but in truth he had no attention to spare for that particular riddle. He had questions of his own to answer. How had so much gone so wrong in so little time? His father had managed the squabbling lords of Izu for decades without mishap. Now, just a year after his death, Izu was fraying at the edges and the Okumas had drawn the ire of the most powerful warlord the islands had ever seen. Daigoro cursed himself. This was not the path his father had laid out for him. If Glorious Victory Unsought was too heavy for him to wield, leadership of the clan was heavy enough to crush him like an insect.

He could almost feel his father’s mantle hanging on him, a stone yoke pressing down on his shoulders and straining his heart. His bones ached under the weight of it. His only goal was to protect his clan and preserve their honor, and his every decision had achieved just the opposite.

“I cannot understand your hesitation,” Katsushima said. “The right path is clear.”

“It’s anything but,” said Daigoro. “Do you really expect me to ride up the hill and murder an innocent man?”

“Of course.”

Akiko let out a little gasp. A tiny, distant part of Daigoro’s mind wondered at the difference between true samurai and those whose families maintained the station but not the code. Akiko had a fierce heart, to be sure, and Daigoro grew fonder and fonder of her by the day, but her father was a craven who hid behind his walls, just like his father before him. Inoue Shigekazu was a potent ally, but never on the battlefield. Clearly he’d never spoken of killing and dying as Katsushima spoke of it, or else Akiko would not have reacted as she did.

It was enough for Daigoro that her father had his spies and informants—and, of course, his topknot. Had the Inoues not been samurai, marrying Akiko would never have crossed Daigoro’s mind. As well marry a pine tree as marry a peasant. The very concept didn’t exist, at least not in the true samurai’s mind. Katsushima was one of those. Daigoro’s father had been too, and it was Daigoro’s sole aspiration to become one himself. But in this case he could not emulate his new mentor.

“Katsushima-san, this is not the honorable path. I cannot agree with you.”

“And I cannot fathom how your morality can prevent you from doing the right thing.” It was clear in his tone that his patience was fading fast. “Why are you afraid to do what is necessary?”

“And why are you so bold as to speak to my husband that way?” Akiko was back on her feet. “You are a servant of this house!”

For his part, Katsushima showed admirable reserve—or else Akiko’s outburst made his dwindling patience seem admirable by comparison. He only looked up at Akiko, who, since she stood on the veranda and he stood in the garden, loomed over him like a giant—but one made of flower petals, as far as Katsushima was concerned.

Daigoro touched Akiko gently on the hand. “He is no servant. He stays because he is welcome to stay, and because he chooses to. I count him as a friend and a counselor, but Katsushima-san has never sworn an oath to my banner.”

“Nor will I,” said Katsushima. “But if you ask me to, I will ride to Katto-ji and return before sundown with the old man’s head in a sack. If you would not have your own men spill his blood, send me.”

“And if I don’t send you? Will you do it of your own accord?”

Katsushima did not need to think about it for long. “No. The decision is yours. I will not make it for you.”

Daigoro nodded, relieved that he would not have to find a way to restrain a man he respected. “It’s wrong, Katsushima-san. He’s committed no crime.”

“Are you sure of that? Sure enough to kneel beside him before the kaishaku? Because that’s what you’ll be doing if you defy the regent: you’ll sentence yourself to execution.”

Once again that tiny, distant voice in Daigoro’s mind voiced its observations about the differences in social stations. Only a ronin would speak of being sentenced to death. Daigoro, lord of his house, would not wait for a higher lord’s sentencing; if he’d done wrong, he would already have plunged his sword into his belly.

But for all of that, Katsushima made a good point. Daigoro had no idea what history the regent and the abbot shared. For that matter, he didn’t even know the abbot’s name. How many conversations had he ever shared with the old man? Three? Four? The abbot had impressed Daigoro from their first meeting, and had offered him valuable spiritual guidance, but for all of that Daigoro didn’t really know anything about him. He had been samurai, yes, but for whom? He had seen battle, yes, and he’d even faced Daigoro’s own father, but how had he conducted himself on the battlefield? With honor? Without? Had he dishonored the great Toyotomi himself? How?

Daigoro could answer none of those questions. All he could do was order a horse to be saddled so he could pay a visit to Katto-ji.

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