Year of the Demon

vision of it lingered in his mind. “That’s it, isn’t it, Mio? Yes, it is. She’s unmarried.”

He sliced off another flopping fish, this one from just under Mio’s armpit. “Do you see the brilliance of it? I needn’t decapitate the Okumas; I need only to give them a new head. If I marry the dowager, I become head of the clan.”

The thought of it sent chills down Shichio’s spine. “But do I dare? If I marry her, I become one of you. Samurai. The caste I want most to extinguish. And yet . . . .”

He laid his blade carefully along the length of Mio’s right thigh, poised to cut not one but three of the bulging rolls of flesh. “If I were to do this thing”—he craned his head to meet Mio’s gaze—“I remove that little cub from his house forever. I earn myself name, station, and land. Oh! And when I take the Okuma estate, I also acquire that old traitor’s monastery, and then I can kill him whenever I like. Even you can see the beauty in that, neh? I win three prizes in one stroke.”

With that he let lashed out with his katana, slicing off three fat gobbets in one blow.

Suddenly the table crashed sideways. A fat foot struck Shichio in the chin. Fragments of rope flew through the air, and ribbons of blood too. The back of Shichio’s head bounced hard off the wall, and when he could see through the stars Mio Yasumasa was gone.

There was a huge, blood-streaked hole where the fat man had crashed through the shoji. Some way off there came a wooden, splintering crash—Mio, probably bashing his way through another sliding wall, far enough now that he posed no immediate threat.

Shichio stood. His gore-stained clothes clung to him, making him want to retch. He stepped outside into the cool night air, seeking respite from the coppery stench of the table. Footprints, elephantine and bloody, described a stomping path toward the slaughterhouse. Fitting, Shichio thought. Let him die with the rest of the swine.

It took him a long moment to sort out what had happened. His final cut must have bitten deeper than he’d intended, slicing through rope as well as flesh. He’d inadvertently freed Mio’s right leg.

It was an understandable mistake. Shichio had never been a practiced hand at torture. Up until tonight he’d never been able to stomach it beyond the first few cuts. Somehow the Bear Cub’s blade had changed that: it released some demonic bloodlust latent in the mask, a thirst so intense that it could overwhelm Shichio’s revulsion. And even if Shichio had been an expert, Mio was so bloated that it was impossible to see all of the ropes. Still, it amazed Shichio to think of how much strength the fat man had. Even after losing all that blood, he still had the strength to tip the table, to aim a kick Shichio’s head, to brace his legs firmly enough to burst his remaining bonds.

Shichio stroked the sharp corner of his mask’s broken fang, the one the Bear Cub had nicked. He wondered what to do next. The fat man wouldn’t make it far. He was naked, unarmed, and bleeding horribly. There was nowhere for him to hide; he was simply too noticeable in his current state.

On the other hand, Shichio had indulged his habit of thinking out loud. The fat man had heard everything. If he somehow managed to reach the Bear Cub . . .

No. He had no tongue.

Shichio laughed out loud. It was unthinkable that Mio would find the boy—for that matter, it was hardly imaginable that he hadn’t collapsed already—but if karma allowed Daigoro to find the fat man before Shichio did, it wouldn’t matter; Mio could relay no secrets.

In any case, Daigoro would certainly have to find him before sunrise. No one—not even a mammoth of Mio’s size—could survive more than a few hours with such hideous wounds. What was more, Daigoro had left the Jurakudai three days ago, and he was mounted while Mio was on foot. And of course Mio would not think to run to Daigoro. He would run to Hashiba, where his wounds would be recognized on sight. Hashiba knew the fruits of his table all too well; he’d sentenced dozens of men to this fate.

And that meant Mio would have recognized the table too. Shichio hadn’t thought of that: unlike anyone else who had ever been lashed down to the table, Mio had seen its results before. He must have known what was coming from the moment he came to, yet all he’d shown Shichio was vitriol and spite. Not the slightest trace of fear.

Shichio could not help but marvel at that. Nor did the poetry of the moment escape him. How many times had the samurai been compared to the cherry blossom, beautiful precisely because it died at the height of its beauty? It was worthy of a song: Mio, the most honored of samurai, and Shichio, gaining his first shred of respect for Mio only after he’d killed him.

Hashiba felt otherwise. He’d honored Mio from the start, and that meant his initial reaction would be harsh. There was no way of guessing whether it would be sharp words or sharper swords; Hashiba was nothing if not capricious. Shichio knew he would have to be swift in presenting the evidence he’d fabricated of Mio’s treason, or else risk facing execution himself. But he was a practiced hand at making others believe what he wanted them to believe, and it was not as if Mio Yasumasa could speak in his own defense.

No, there was little to worry about. “But,” Shichio said, alone in the moonlit garden, “you are nothing if not thorough. It wouldn’t do to leave things to chance, would it?” Shichio cleaned the blood from his blade and sheathed it. “No. No, it wouldn’t.”

He sent for Jun and began composing the orders in his mind. Riders would be sent to every gate and bridge in the city, looking for the fat man. And—why not?—for the now-nameless Bear Cub as well. If the boy hadn’t left the city, and if Mio somehow found him . . .

Shichio smiled. “Why, that would be the best of all, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would. Execute the boy for collaborating with a known traitor.”

Suddenly Shichio wished he’d let Mio go on purpose. He couldn’t have laid a better trap, and he was a little disappointed in himself that he hadn’t planned it that way from the start.

39

The Kamo River gurgled at Daigoro’s feet, though he could hardly see the water. Across the river a fierce red glow loomed over the rolling line of the horizon: the sun’s last light above the hilltops, lingering in spite of the stars that had already begun to multiply. They would overwhelm her soon enough. Here and there a bush warbler whistled its melancholic song. To Daigoro they were singing an elegy for the day.

He’d come down to the riverbank three nights in a row, relishing the relative cool after sweltering days, hoping to find beauty somewhere in the world and finding only emptiness. Katsushima had described him as forlorn. And well I should be, Daigoro thought, watching the sun’s last light die out. I haven’t the faintest clue how to draw Shichio out without angering Hideyoshi. If I kill Shichio without Hideyoshi’s leave, I make myself an enemy of the mightiest, most capricious warlord in the empire—and worse yet, Hideyoshi might well extend his vengeance to Akiko, my mother, and the rest of my family. We made our truce over Glorious Victory Unsought, not over me decapitating the regent’s favorite peacock.

Daigoro knew he could not return home until Shichio was dead, but neither could he stay on the outskirts of Kyoto. Katsushima had been right to suggest that they could burrow themselves in the city—there were so many people to hide behind, so many out-of-the-way places—but that ruse would only last for so long. Shichio had hundreds of men at his command, and even if he did not, he had only to offer a few coins for any word of the crippled boy with the enormous odachi. Sooner or later, news of Daigoro’s whereabouts would reach him, and once that happened, the hunt was on.

Daigoro’s only chance was to draw Shichio out somehow, but sheltered as he was in the regent’s shadow, Shichio might as well have been hiding in an iron fortress. Daigoro could not imagine how he might strike Hideyoshi’s top adviser without striking Hideyoshi himself. Katsushima had suggested calling on the Wind, but Daigoro wasn’t desperate enough to resort to that yet.

Footsteps approached through the tall grass behind him and Daigoro whirled around to see who was coming.

“Good news,” Katsushima said. He held up two large sacks, flat on the bottom with rigid, bowl-shaped lumps inside.

“Our armor?” said Daigoro.