“But Toshiro, I’m sorry,” Cara said, “I interrupted your story with my question. Won’t you tell us what happened after you saw the dwarf-like figure manifesting in front of Shogun Morai?”
“Ah, I will. But please, do not apologize. I had forgotten where I was for a moment, becoming lost in the unpleasant memory, and you brought me back. Where was I? Yes, there is not much more to tell. At first I thought that the creature would attack the Shogun, and I nearly ran in. Then I saw that it was not so. Shogun Morai himself had summoned the thing, created it with magic of some evil kind. He pushed back his deep hood and his head was wreathed in dark mist. Then he spoke to the creature, and when he did so, tentacles writhed and lashed out from the back of his neck, and I knew that he was corrupted by the Kanosuru. The creature he had conjured cringed before him, but he gave it some command in a strange language and it fled, leaping from the window and transforming into a transparent smoke. Then, two days later, one of the Shogun’s most dangerous political rivals was found dead, alone in his bedroom in the town. There was no apparent cause of death, but I made it my business to look at the room in which the man had died. There was a thick gray paste, like wet ashes, smeared on the wall outside, and splattered upon the back wall of the dead man’s room. I had no doubt that the Shogun had summoned some horrible creature of evil to do his bidding for him, and assassinate his rival.”
He sat back, looking at us both, then extended his open hands toward us in a pleading gesture. “What could I do? The Shogun had been caught by me in a shameful, horrible act, the act of summoning demons to kill a rival by stealth magic. Nobody in Yamato can do such a thing without great shame. We know it is possible, we know that such magic exists, but it is not something an honorable man can even consider. I was placed in a terrible position. The Shogun was my lord, I had served him in battle. I had sworn my life to him. How could I betray him? I decided that the only thing I could do to preserve my honor—and his—would be to take my own life.”
“To take your own life?” Cara repeated, disbelieving. She gasped, and sat back in her seat, her hands on the table in front of her. I recoiled in horror. In Saxe, suicide was considered one of the worst things a person could do, certainly one of the most dishonorable possible endings for a warrior to come to. It was bad enough for a farmer or a merchant, but for a warrior it was an unforgivable act.
Toshiro looked from one to the other of us and nodded slowly. “This, I see, is another one of the many differences between your land and mine, my friends. Here in Yamato, the ritual we call Seppuku plays a powerful role in our politics and how we conduct our wars. For a man who has lost all honor through defeat or poorly judged action, ending his own life in Seppuku is often the only way he can regain some of his honor.”
That was the biggest difference we had found so far between Yamato and Saxe. Cara shifted in her seat, and I could tell that it made her uncomfortable. I didn’t like the idea either, but I wanted to find out more about it. I would ask about it later. For now though, I was eager to find out what Toshiro had done to save himself from that fate.
“Go on,” I urged him. “What made you change your mind?”
The old Samurai’s eyes lifted up from the table where he was looking, and I saw that they had fixed on something over my shoulder. I glanced round. The old serving man, Win, who had shown us to our rooms had approached silently from the direction of the house, carrying a little paper lantern which shone with a clean, pale light. The old serving man was dressed simply, in practical purple tunic and trousers. He had tightly-fitting shoes of cloth laced up past his ankles, and a round skull cap perched upon his head. Tufts of white hair stuck out from under the cap, and his little goatee beard was white as snow against his sunburned skin. Toshiro smiled up at him. Win looked down at us all with a polite, neutral expression.
“I’ve come to see if you are needing anything else?” he said.
Toshiro smiled and looked back at me. “You asked what saved me from Seppuku? I talked it over with the man I trusted the most in all the world, my loyal squire. This man here.” He gestured at Win.
The old servant’s face crinkled into a sudden smile as he took in the bottle and glasses. “Ah, you have been at the saké again, have you, master? And have you been telling our guests all our old stories?” Win scolded him gently, but there was a flash of urgent enquiry in his eyes as he looked at his master. Toshiro nodded, looking tired.
“That’s right, Win. I’ve been telling our guests the tale. You did not see what they did earlier today, how they drove out the Kanosuru which had infested the shrine of the fox-spirit. The Kanosuru taint has never come so close to Otara before, and these warriors have a power to resist it such as we have never seen before. I have decided to open my heart to them, and
