Bundori: A Novel Of Japan

fights, then begged for credit, saying he would soon have enough money to cover his debts.”

“How much money, and how soon?” Sano interrupted.

“Ten koban, the next night.”

The exact sum found on the assassin’s body, at the designated time. Sano’s excitement grew with the certainty that Nango was his man. “Did he say how he planned to get it?”

“Said he’d been hired by someone important to kill a high-ranking citizen. But the gang didn’t trust him. He had eyes that darted like minnows in a stream. So they made him leave. Afterward, they thought he might have been telling the truth. Because he was good with his sword, he was. Took five men to throw the ugly little fox out. And he cut them all.”

Wild Boar’s description of Nango’s behavior fit the assassin: a good fighter whose rashness had gotten him in trouble during his life, and, in the end, destroyed him.

“Did he say who hired him, or who his target was?” Sano asked.

The informant laughed in derision: a grunt not unlike his namesake’s. “If it was true, he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. But I’ll tell you this. I’ve seen his kind before. They blow into town like a typhoon, do their evil, and blow out to sea again. And their master is the man up there on the hill.”

A typhoon of foreboding swirled around Sano’s heart. “Which man?”

“People come to me for facts, not opinions. But if you want, I’ll tell you what I think.” Wild Boar paused, then leaned closer to Sano. His sour, liquor-scented whisper rasped against Sano’s face. “It’s the Second Dog.”

The shogun, Chamberlain Yanagisawa, and Senior Elder Makino were nicknamed “The Three Dogs”-all born in the year of the dog; all associated with Tsunayoshi’s Dog Protection Edicts. The shogun was First Dog by right of rank. Yanagisawa, the Second Dog, led the pack. The typhoon over Sano’s heart sent its fierce winds gusting into his throat.

“The Second Dog hired Nango?” he asked, resisting belief.

“I’d lay odds on it, friend.”

“Why?” Sano pressed.

The informant’s ripe breath blew the answer into Sano’s face. “Miyagi Kojiro. Attacked and killed by an unknown swordsman three years ago while traveling along the Tokaido. The killer was never found. But I’ve got friends at highway post stations who saw a seed-eating, fox-faced man tailing Miyagi. A man not unlike the one we speak of now.”

Sano remembered Noguchi telling him about Miyagi, once the shogun’s adviser and Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s rival. Whose secret murder, rumor said, had been ordered by the chamberlain. “But couldn’t someone else have hired Nango?” Sano persisted, forgetting caution in his need to dispute Wild Boar’s statement. The informant seemed rather too knowledgeable. Was he telling the truth, or inventing stories to give value for his price? “Chugo Gichin, for instance. Or Matsui Minoru. Men with money and influence.”

Wild Boar grunted again. “Chugo keeps to the castle like the emperor to his palace. Thinks he owns it. No connections to men of Nango’s sort, or none I know of. Word on him is, if he wanted someone killed, he’d do it himself. And Matsui has other ways of getting his way.”

The guard captain’s own words agreed with Wild Boar’s assessment of Chugo, and Sano’s impressions of the merchant supported the informant’s statement about Matsui. Sano had no knowledge with which to contradict any of what he’d just heard. Suddenly he found the room’s frenetic atmosphere unbearable. He watched the tall fighter lash out with the scythe’s curved blade. It sliced his opponent’s shoulder. Blood poured from the gash. Gasping, the man fell against the railing. Four men from the audience leapt into the ring and dragged him out. With the first drawing of blood, the fight was over. But Sano couldn’t share the crowd’s uproarious glee.

Father, he prayed silently, let the truth be other than it appears now! But reality didn’t change. His father’s spirit wouldn’t come to him, and, to his dismay, he found he could no longer envision his father’s face.

“Thank you, Wild Boar,” he said abruptly. “Hirata, let’s go.”

Wild Boar ignored Sano’s thanks. Turning to Hirata, he said, “I’ve delivered the goods. Now pay up.”

Hirata pulled out his money pouch. Sano realized that his loyal assistant had bought the information with his own funds. Reaching across Wild Boar, he touched Hirata’s arm.

“Let me. How much?”

“No,” Hirata protested. “I made the deal, I’ll pay.”

Sano shot him a stern glance. From his own pouch he counted out the huge sum that Hirata reluctantly named, and paid for the knowledge that endangered his own life.

Chapter 29

The shrine attendant’s tiny thatched hut stood hidden in the forest surrounding the Momijiyama. A narrow path wound through the trees to the doorway, which in turn led into an entry porch filled with equipment necessary for maintaining the shrine- brooms, buckets, cleaning cloths, soap, candles, lamps, incense- all arranged neatly on shelves. Beyond this lay a single room with a clean tatami floor, a hearth for cooking, a tub for bathing, a rough wooden cabinet for possessions, and a small window looking out on the forest: the bare necessities of the shrine attendant’s life and work.

In the middle of the room, Aoi knelt and carefully unfolded the two kimonos that Sano had given her last night. To her he’d entrusted the task of identifying his missing witness, the mysterious woman who had disappeared from Zojo Temple after the priest’s murder. Her fingers trembled with anticipation and anxiety. She must help Sano find evidence against Chamberlain Yanagisawa. To fail would mean sacrificing their chance for freedom and happiness.

She spread both kimonos on the floor before her, but did not immediately examine them. Instead she sat motionless for a long moment, letting her vision blur. Then she began to take slow, deep breaths. Her lungs expanded to their limit, then expelled the air, contracting to complete emptiness. In. Out. For inspiration, she summoned the memory of her father. She pictured his stern face, heard his quiet voice.

“The special ninja breathing exercise cleanses the body and blood, Aoi,” he said. “It calms the mind and enhances concentration.”

Soon Aoi felt the power radiating from her spiritual center in her abdomen: a great, erratic pulse that shuddered through her body. Over its thunder, her father’s voice came to her across time and space:

“Fearful outsiders call the ninja’s power the ‘dark magic’ But it’s not magic. It’s the power that every human has within himself, but only we know how to tap.”

And this turbulent, swirling energy wasn’t dark, either, but shot through with sparks of light that exploded behind her eyes. She envisioned it as a deep, restless sea filled with luminescent living things. She could hear the waves roaring in her ears, crashing against the shores of her consciousness. Resisting the tide that could carry her into chaos and madness, she clasped her hands. Her trained fingers automatically arranged and rearranged themselves in a series of intricate positions, interlocking, weaving, twisting, pointing.

“Many a samurai, seeing a ninja adversary perform this exercise, has dropped dead from fright,” her father had taught her. “Use their fear as you would any weapon. But remember that the hand positions aren’t an evil magic curse, but a silent chant, a manual mantra designed to harness, focus, and direct your energy.”

As Aoi’s fingers flexed and laced, the turbulent sea within her grew quiet, its pulse slow and rhythmical. She floated in a cold, exhilarating atmosphere of heightened sensory perception. She could smell houses burning in the city below the castle, hear snow melting on distant mountains. She tasted the river’s fishy water and experienced the pressure of her clothes against her skin as a crushing weight of layered stone. All these sensations, though, were extraneous. The last hand position banished them to the edges of her mind. Her father’s image faded, as did his voice, saying “Now you are ready, my daughter.”

Aoi picked up the first kimono. Its white cranes, snowflakes, and green pine boughs seared their images into her brain; the brilliant crimson background made her sensitized eyes water. As she moved her hands over the fabric, she almost swooned at the sensuous pleasure of touching the lush silk, the million tiny stitches of embroidery. Her fingertips probed every area of the garment, seeking the almost invisible thinning where the wearer’s body had rubbed the fabric. With surreal clarity she saw tiny particles adhering to the neckline, cuffs, and