Child of Vengeance (32 page)

The prints it produced were far from great art, of course, simple black outlines more often than not illustrating well-known tales and stories, but for the first time they were allowing the common man to fancy himself cultured. The presses therefore resided somewhere between a novelty and the foundation of an industry, growing in popularity in Kyoto and Osaka and Edo, and so it followed that, like any trend, of course Nakata had purchased one. His machine had been kept busy these recent months printing by the score a particular scene titled
The Revelation of the Nation’s Finest and All That Lay Within Him
.

Kazuteru had first seen it in the barracks where he stayed, a group of samurai passing a copy of it around with stony faces. It had been one of the more expensive copies too, for an artist had gone over it by hand with red ink, lovingly picking out entrails and splashes of gore. What it showed was Munisai’s seppuku; a caricature monkey of a man on his knees with a sword in his belly, his eyes pinched shut in childish agony, tears rolling down his cheeks, and his tongue poking out.

The samurai behind him, conversely, was tall and handsome and strong, his sword held steady and proud, disdain in his stoic eyes. The perfect contrast to what squirmed at his feet, and by that immaculate man’s face was clearly printed the name Kazuteru Murayama.

“Well,
you
came out of this well, didn’t you?” one of the samurai had said, his eyes narrow and venom in his voice.

Kazuteru had tried to protest his innocence, tried to tell them that he found it embarrassing to be singled out so, but they had not listened. They were obliged to condemn Munisai, of course, but there was an unspoken acknowledgment that his death had been suspicious and so the words they spat were protocol only, and to hate Shinmen or the Nakata was to speak against the very thing that made them samurai.

That left Kazuteru, and so he had become their surrogate abomination.

Yet despised though he was by his own comrades, because Lord Shinmen did not protest the contents of the print and allowed for it to be openly disseminated in his own realm, the veracity of it became indisputable to the other thousands of men of all castes who saw the print. Munisai was disgraced, Kazuteru renowned, and so it came to be then that visiting dignitaries and courtiers would ask to meet him.

It had happened so often that Lord Shinmen found it expedient to simply promote him to the bodyguard rather than summon him each time, and each time when he was presented he could see the look of disappointment in their eyes that who knelt before them was not some legendary warrior but a young man barely out of adolescence.

Just another shame to bear; at least his mother was benefiting from his fattened stipend. Unwanted by those beside him, an anticlimax to men of a dozen realms, Kazuteru kept his eyes down as his lord and his ally ate, and plotted, to the sound of a koto harp played by unseen hands.

“Our regent’s war in Korea is almost spent,” said Lord Nakata once the formalities of etiquette were done with, the polite inquests of health and subtle praise and honor he and Shinmen exchanged with each other exhausted. “ ‘Do not let my soldiers become ghosts haunting foreign lands,’ his latest decree.”

“So I have heard,” said Shinmen. “And though I pray it to not be true, my emissaries in Kyoto tell me our regent is all but spent himself. His health is failing, and then …”

“And then,” said Nakata, and nodded.

The War. That was what they could not permit themselves to say. Once the Regent Toyotomi vacated this world, the whole of Japan would be thrown to the wolves. The tiny fiefdom struggles that had plagued the country would cease, petty grievances and domain disputes put to one side in favor of the true prize.

“When that happens—may it be ten years, nay, ten lifetimes away, of course—what is our plan, my ally?” asked Lord Nakata.

“We shall side with our Lord Ukita, as always,” said Shinmen. “My will is as his—unless?”

“I do not engage in deceit,” said Nakata, his ever-squinting eyes hiding any chance to see if he spoke the lie all lords spoke without shame. “I too intend to remain with our Lord Ukita. But therein lies a clarification—remain alongside, not be blindly absorbed into his numbers, as will be his urge in the marshaling of forces.”

“Oh?” said Lord Shinmen.

“I intend to remind him of my independence from him. I would ask your help, my closest ally,” said Nakata, and then at Shinmen’s look of discomfort added, “Do not worry so. I do not plan violence against him. No—new enemies should not be made now. I merely wish to remind him that I—that we are capable.”

“How?” said Shinmen.

“A Gathering of the Horse,” said Nakata.

“A Swarming Hell?” sputtered Shinmen.

“Let us keep our tongues civil, my ally,” said Nakata. “A Gathering.”

Nakata wanted to be delicate about it, but Kazuteru had seen such an event in his childhood and he knew his lord had spoken fairly. Other men called it the Crush or the Melee or the Whirlpool, and these were apt names also. He remembered the thunder of the hooves, the overwhelming fury of it, hundreds of men on horseback as fierce as on a battlefield but there for sport and not for conquest. A spectacle as dangerous and costly as it was marvelous.

The samurai would ride in a great circle that grew slowly ever tighter and ever faster. When they were pressed flank to flank and the ground was truly shaking, a wooden ball was lobbed into the center of the mass, and then the chaos began.

The goal was to grab the ball and then escape from the mass of bodies without being unseated. No weapons were allowed, but that did not make it any less dangerous. It became little more than a brawl, frenzied horses kicking and ramming and men clawing and punching at one another. To fall or to be wrenched from the saddle was to be sucked into a sea of stomping hooves, and from there very, very few men escaped unscathed.

To win had as much to do with luck as it had to do with skill, but nevertheless the man who bore the ball free won great honor and
respect for both him and his clan. For that reason, rare though they were, a Gathering always attracted men from far and wide seeking glory.

“What think you, my Lord Shinmen?” said Nakata, his eyes gleaming with self-congratulation.

“As impressive as that may be,” said Shinmen, recovering from his initial surprise, “might I remind you, my dear ally, that even combined our cavalry number but a fraction of our Lord Ukita’s.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to win the thing, nor try to scare him with simple weight of numbers. The staging of it and the sight of so many lords and warriors heeding my invitation will display to him that, should I wish it, I have options,” said Nakata.

“That is not without risk. We do not wish even to put the idea in his head that our loyalty wavers.”

“Mmm, true,” said Nakata.

“Allow me to suggest something—we enter a time of steel, my lord, not gold,” continued Shinmen. “Steel is what you need to display, and fortunately steel can take the form of more than just a sword in the hand.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Go ahead with the Gathering, my lord, but show him another strength. Our cavalry cannot impress him, and gold inspires only avarice in such times. Knives grow longer. Of course I do not suggest our Lord Ukita harbors such malice, but should an accident or ill health befall you—the heavens forbid such a thing, my dear ally—our Lord Ukita might see a chance to”—he had to pause to choose an acceptable wording—“satiate his avariciousness toward your wealth. You must discourage this, remind him that your clan resides in more than just you. You must show him the strength of your line.”

“My line?” said Nakata.

“Yes,” said Shinmen, and then he turned to Hayato. “And thus the Lord Hayato here enters our consideration.”

“What—you expect me to ride?” said Hayato, surprised as much at the sudden attention as the implication. He had been eating in a world unto himself, months of indolent recuperation having returned weight and health to him.

“Yes,” said Shinmen.

“Do I need to remind my dear ally of something?” said Hayato, the empty sleeve of his kimono between them.

“What better way to display the strength of heart of the Nakata? A one-armed man riding in a Gathering has never been seen,” said Shinmen.

“Never been seen because he’s fallen off his horse and gotten trampled before it could even begin,” said Hayato. “No, I absolutely refuse.”

“Oh, come, my young lord,” said Shinmen. “There comes a time when every man from peasant to nobility must play a role for the good of the clan. Men shall speak of your bravery the breadth of the country, and our Lord Ukita will realize that the Nakata possess something more than coin.”

“Oh,” said Lord Nakata, and his old, jowly face was lighting up now, “oh, my ally, that is a quite wonderful idea. Romantic indeed!”

“Father!” said Hayato, more shrilly then he intended, for he took a moment to compose himself before speaking again. “I cannot do this. Have one of our commanders ride in my name, or …”

“That misses the point entirely. What is remarkable in having your men serve you? That is their duty,” said Shinmen. “Do it.”

Shinmen spoke the last two words quite levelly, but Kazuteru had spent enough time around his lord to recognize the undertone in them. There was something more than just command or plea in them—a subtle anger, a nuanced vindictiveness that neither of the Nakatas noticed.

There had been one evening some months before when Shinmen had, unusually, summoned him to his personal chambers. Kazuteru had found the lord sitting before a meal barely touched and a bottle of sake still full to the brim. A copy of the seppuku print was in his hand. The young samurai bowed and knelt a respectful distance away, waiting for the man to speak.

“Do you think it was cruel?” said Shinmen eventually, eyes not leaving the print. “You were the closest to him, at the end.”

“It was seppuku, my lord,” said Kazuteru. “It is supposed to be cruel.”

“I know that, but …” said Shinmen, and he seemed to be struggling for words. “Could you feel anything from him?”

“No more than any other man there, my lord,” said Kazuteru, not quite understanding the question. He had waited for something further, but the lord seemed only to grow more agitated. Slowly he held the paper to a candle, and watched it as it ignited in his hand.

“I am not a human being. Do you understand this?” he said as the flame spread across the cheap paper. “I am a clan. A heart of my own does not lie within my chest—a heart of a thousand years does.”

He held the paper until the fire reached his hand, and then he dropped it upon the floor and tipped the sake upon it. With his finger, the lord pushed the sad little dregs of resultant ash as though he was reading auguries.

“You must think the will of a lord boundless, but it is nothing to the will of an aeon,” he said, a hollow sadness in his voice—the voice very much of a human being. The lord had said nothing more, and had eventually waved him away.

Kazuteru had remembered witnessing that fragment of the man, so at odds with how the lord appeared from day to day. Often he had wondered if it was a singular bout of emotion or whether it always bubbled somewhere behind the mask of his face. And he remembered also that, during that strange delay at Munisai’s seppuku before Shinmen gave the signal to strike, it was Hayato who was sitting next to him.

Here, now, plotting the Gathering, the pair of lords were opposite each other. It was impossible to know exactly what Shinmen was thinking, but it seemed to Kazuteru that there was no grand plan here, no hidden machination escaping his eye—Shinmen was moved by a simple, personal dislike. Forcing this on Hayato was a trivial and small thing, so very far from anything that could be considered revenge, but it was all he could do. The clan had chosen the Nakata and not Munisai, and thus the human too was bound to them.

“I agree thoroughly—you shall ride,” said the Lord Nakata, and he carried on before Hayato could interrupt. “There need be no danger to you either, my son. You will ride with my bodyguard around you.”

“Father …” said Hayato.

“Do you doubt their ability to protect you?” said Nakata, and it was a cunning move, for Hayato could not publicly belittle men
sworn to the head of his clan. The young lord tried to think of something he could say, but the words eluded him and after a moment he sighed in resignation.

“Fine, fine. I will ride,” the young lord said, and looked down sullenly to shove a chunk of fish into his mouth with his one remaining hand.

“Splendid, splendid, splendid!” said Nakata, and he raised the pewter dish he was drinking from in toast to Shinmen. “The country shall resound in awe of the Nakata. Oh, how splendid!”

“Indeed,” said Shinmen, and returned the toast.

They finished the many decadent courses of the meal, slept under sheets of Chinese silk, and then in the morning Shinmen, Kazuteru, and the rest of the retinue departed, the same beautiful girls who had served them throwing petals in front of the dirty hooves of their horses. They carried with them the first tidings of and invitations to the clan Nakata’s Gathering of the Horse.

It was not the news that the country was waiting for—that was still lingering on a death bed in Kyoto—but it spread quickly all the same.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The empty street seemed to swim in front of Bennosuke. It rippled and pulsed, a dizziness that gnawed at him. It was a familiar sensation born of exhausted delirium that plagued his waking moments. He wished the world would stop moving, that the ground would seem solid beneath him just for an hour, but he knew that he could not rest. He had a mission.