Year of the Demon

“Yes. He finished early.”

Katsushima set one of the sacks right next to Daigoro, then sat down on the other side of it. “Nice night.”

Daigoro grunted something noncommittal and opened the drawstrings. Inside the sack was his Sora breastplate, its russet Okuma lacing removed and replaced with white, the color of death. In fact, everything replaceable had been replaced in white: the silk cording, the leather straps, the padded damask, all of it. Even the steel plating had been relacquered in white. Daigoro’s helmet was in the sack too, nestled inside the breastplate with the sune-ate, the kote, and the rest of the smaller pieces.

“It hardly feels like mine anymore.”

“It’s yours, Daigoro. And it’s far easier to dye if it’s white. We may need to disguise ourselves again.”

Daigoro started laying the pieces out on the grass. “I know,” he said. “And in the meantime, I guess it’s appropriate enough that we’re dressing ourselves in funeral colors.”

“You need to lighten up. I’m telling you, a good sporting woman will have you in fine fettle in no time at all.”

Daigoro shook his head and began to bind his sune-ate to his shins.

“What are you doing?” said Katsushima.

“Standing by my word. I told you already: as long as Shichio lives, I am at war. I may as well dress for the occasion.”

Katsushima smirked. “Fair enough. But armoring yourself now is overmuch, is it not? Tonight we go only to our beds. Do you intend to sleep in your armor?”

“I would if I could.”

“Daigoro—”

“We’re targets, Katsushima. For us the whole countryside is a battlefield.”

“All right, all right. But we’re only going down the road—”

“My father was killed only riding along the road. And he had no enemy so powerful as Shichio. Going unarmored is a luxury I can no longer afford.”

Daigoro slipped his right arm into its kote and tied it fast, examining it as he did so. The ruddy damask padding that lined the inside had been replaced with white, but where the original had silken bears pacing across its surface, the replacement was a simple, unadorned basket weave. That made sense, he supposed; Kyoto’s weavers might take days just to learn the bear pattern, a pattern that Okuma weavers knew from memory. Even so, Daigoro regretted the change. Even in the waning light he could feel the difference, and the problem was not that this coarse fabric was suited for common stock; rather, it was the thought of his family’s bear crest heaped in the rubbish bin of some Nishijin weaving-house.

He donned the second kote, lamenting the fact that even his Sora armor couldn’t protect him as much as he’d like. Wearing his full oyoroi wouldn’t do—it would only serve to call attention to himself—but he had resolved to wear every piece he could reasonably hide under his clothing. That ruled out all the large pieces save the Sora breastplate. It felt strange to be armored only partially, but then everything about his new situation felt strange. He was Daigoro but not Okuma Daigoro. He was married and yet he might never see his wife again. Some not-so-distant day he would become a father, but in all likelihood he would never know when it happened.

Daigoro slipped between the clamshell pieces of his Sora yoroi and pulled the straps until the heavy steel pressed firmly on his chest and his back. Last came his new haori, the overrobe he’d purchased the day before, right after he and Katsushima had left their yoroi with the armorer. With its wide, white, pointed shoulders, the haori made Daigoro feel as if he had wings, and between the haori and the added girth of his armor, he thought perhaps he no longer looked like a little boy. For the first time in his life he actually looked like a samurai. And it would not last long. He’d scarcely gotten used to shaving the top of his head, and now he would have to stop. It was the samurai’s birthright to maintain the caste’s traditional topknot and shaven pate, but Daigoro had given up his birthright when he’d renounced his name. For a few months Okuma Daigoro had been samurai, a man of age, the lord of his house. Now he did not know what he was.

“What do you think?” he said. “How do I look?”

Katsushima inspected him. “You look like a lordly man who will sleep alone tonight.”

“Be serious.”

Katsushima laughed and said, “By the buddhas, the world is not only shadow; there is sunlight too.” Seeing Daigoro’s reaction, he forced a straight face. “Very well. In all seriousness, you do not appear to be armored, and in all seriousness I think you will go to bed tonight without a woman to play your flute.”

Daigoro slung Glorious Victory over his back, thrust his wakizashi back through his belt, and led Katsushima back to their shelter for the evening.

Three nights earlier, when they’d left the Jurakudai, Daigoro had found himself at a loss. He’d never had to hide from anyone before. In fact, in his whole life thus far he’d always been able to get what he wanted simply by announcing his name. To go abroad without announcing himself was awkward, and to actively deceive people about his identity came as naturally to him as riding horseback came to a fish. He remembered all too well saying, “Goemon, I have no idea what to do or where to go.”

And he remembered all too well the wry smile Katushima had given him in return. “At last,” Katsushima had said, “we come to my territory.”

Hence the brothel.

It embarrassed Daigoro even to cross the threshold. Jasmine perfume and opium smoke had worked their way into the very woodwork, so that Daigoro was overcome by the smell of the place. Girlish giggling was constantly in the background, punctuated now and then by the whistle of a shakuhachi, the humming harmony of a shamisen, or the staccato rhythm of some unseen man grunting like a pig.

Daigoro did not think of himself as a prude. Back when he was at home he’d been well aware that he could have visited any pleasure house in Izu on any night he wished, and the only difference in being married was that as manager of the household finances, Akiko would have been the one who paid the bill. She would have understood as any wife would have understood—and she’d be all the more understanding, Daigoro reminded himself, if he availed himself of the women here, so many ri from home. But the smells and sounds of this house reminded him all too vividly of the pleasure house Ichiro had taken him to visit when they were boys. His cheeks burned as he remembered the embarrassment, the woman’s cold hand slipping down into his hakama, her fingertips finding the wasted tissues of his thigh on their way to what they sought. Her face had been so close to his that he could feel her breath, smell it, taste it. Had she been any farther away, he might not have noticed her wince when her fingers touched his thigh. It was a vanishingly small expression, and she’d recovered instantly, but still he’d noticed. That same embarrassment was reborn in his face even now.

The girls that eyed him now misinterpreted it as boyish hesitation. He was small, and had a young-looking face even for a sixteen-year-old. Two of the girls tittered at him and pranced up on tiptoes. They were wispy and delicate, and when they whispered in his ears their breath made the skin on his forearms tingle. The things they said would have made their own madam blush. He knew his ears and cheeks turned red, because the girls exploded in a fit of giggles and went flitting off like a couple of butterflies.

“Ladies, be polite,” the madam told them. She was stately, statuesque, with a husky voice and sly, knowing eyes. She wore a green brocade kimono with silver threads that matched the silver streak in the middle of her long, flowing hair.

“Gentlemen,” she said, her voice low and smoky, “so pleased to see you again. I’ve got something special in store for you if you’ll follow me.”

“No, thank you,” said Daigoro. “I’ll just need a bath and a bed.”

The madam arched a black eyebrow at him. “You’ll forgive me, my young lord, if I suggest a woman of my maturity knows what you need more than you do. Trust me: come this way and you won’t regret it.”

Daigoro felt his cheeks flush. She held his gaze much longer than she should have, and Daigoro thought it