Child of Vengeance (35 page)

“Hello, samurai,” said one of them, his voice cold.

Their nails were dirty, their hands clawed, and the boy realized then that though they were quite still, not one of them was bound as he was.

THE GUARDS LEFT
them, up the stairs and then out into the light once more, bolting the door behind them. What happened down there was nothing to them—men did not come here to be monitored. They came here to be slaughtered, and if that happened down in the darkness of some murky cell instead of in the baking sun atop a crucifix, it was of no great concern to them.

The bandits looked at Bennosuke for a long while, a silent court. He tried to meet their gaze fearlessly, but he had little defiance left; he knew that he was trussed and at their mercy.

“Don’t look much like a samurai,” said one eventually, his accent coarse. “Raggedy little bastard, is he not?”

“Swords is swords,” said another.

“Aye,” agreed the first.

“What’s he here for, then?” said another, and now they all began to talk as though he could not hear them.

“He’s made a big bloody mistake somewhere, that’s for certain.”

“Murder?”

“Samurai don’t murder, do they? It’s all pretty words for them, though men lie dead all the same.”

“Rape?”

“I doubt that, his balls have barely dropped.”

“I haven’t raped anyone,” said Bennosuke, forcing what little bravado he could muster into his voice. “Nor have I murdered. Now, I would ask for you to untie me.”

They laughed at his interruption, a cruel snigger that passed through them all. The boy had tried to speak imperiously, as a samurai should speak to peasants, and it must have looked ridiculous in these circumstances. It seemed to kill their interest in him, though—the sport perhaps too easy—and they started to turn back to one another. The boy sensed that his arrival had interrupted something. They were all huddled in a corner, looking inward as though they were plotting something.

Of course they were plotting something—they were bandits. If they had an escape planned …

He hesitated. Would the purity of his mission be compromised if he collaborated with the low? His father had said “at any cost,” but he was talking in terms of death and self-sacrifice; acceptable, noble terms. But Bennosuke knew he could not escape on his own. It was either die like a criminal and let the Nakata live, or live like a criminal for a moment and let the Nakata die. One had vengeance, one did not, and so the boy shuffled toward the men on his knees.

“Please, untie me,” he said again.

“Look to yourself, boy,” said one. “We’re accounted for.”

“Please!” Bennosuke said, and some of the desperation leaked into his voice. “Are you to be killed too? We have to get out of here. I can help you.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

“You know anything about locks?”

“No.”

“You have a saw on you for these bars?”

“No.”

“Then what use are you to us, eh?” said the man, disgust in his voice. “You aren’t anything now. Can’t even move your arms. Just flapping around, a fish on land, you are.”

“My swords—we can use them,” said Bennosuke, jerking his chin to where his weapons lay outside the cage.

“Aye, we can.” The bandit nodded. “We don’t need you for that, though, do we? Believe it or not, working a sword isn’t that hard to figure out.”

“Please!” begged the boy.

It was all he had left, but honest as the plea was it withered before the bandits. There were snorts of irritation, disgust, and pity before they turned away to start murmuring among themselves once more. Bennosuke was left alone and ignored on his side of the cage. The boy started to writhe and struggle against his bonds with a final desperation, but they had not loosened simply through his wearing of them.

He flailed in vain until, defeated and exhausted, Bennosuke collapsed onto his side. He felt the coarseness of the sawdust on his burning cheek, the weeks-old stench of it as bitter as the tears in his eyes. There was terror and defeat in his heart. Closing his eyes, he wished himself somewhere else—to a place where the starvation and the long, cold nights had not been all for naught, had been more than a prelude to nothing. The familiar dizziness pressed at his temples like two thumbs gouging his brains.

When the pain passed he found his eyes were open again. Through the mass of the peasants he became aware of a single face looking at him. Older than the others, hard and lined and missing one eye. The remaining eye was upon him; cold, judgmental, condemnatory.

It reminded him of Munisai. He could not bear it for long. Bennosuke turned away, still burning with shame, and awaited oblivion.

THE DIZZINESS CAME
and went, and Bennosuke found himself growing faint. Perhaps it was the stench, or perhaps exhaustion or starvation, but he knew that it was most likely fear. He drifted in and out of sleep where he lay, taking in glimpses of consciousness that seemed to swim before him until a fresh pang of disgrace drove him back into senselessness.

Day faded into night, orange into blue, and then back into orange again as weak oil lanterns were lit. At some point he felt hands upon him. It took him a moment to connect the sensations in his head, and a moment longer to realize that they were gentle. He felt a thigh under his side and then the ropes tying him being loosened.

He looked up and found it was the one-eyed man.

“There’s enough suffering here,” the old man said quietly in explanation.

The binds fell free eventually, the many knots taking time, but then for the first time in a day the boy could move his arms. He rubbed them, seeing the bright red lines molded into what flesh was left atop his bones.

“Thank you,” said Bennosuke.

The man nodded, and sat back stiffly. The other bandits lay where they had been, some sleeping and some simply staring up at nothing. From outside, the wailing of the tortured persisted even now, but raw agony had been replaced with a pitiable emptiness. It was a haunting sound, a dying sound, but the stillness of the night was strangely calming.

“What’s your name?” the old peasant asked, keeping his voice low.

“Bennosuke,” said the boy. “Yours?”

“Shuntaro,” he said. The weak flame of the lantern lit up the ridges of his face. His eye had been gone for some time, the remaining lid withered into a vestige, but it was weeping from the beating he must have sustained in his capture. “How’d you end up in here, Bennosuke? You say something out of turn to your master?”

“Theft,” said the boy.

“What did you steal?”

“A horse.”

“Why’s a samurai stealing horses?”

“I needed one,” said Bennosuke. It sounded pathetic, but he did not want to reveal much.

“Well, you fouled that right up,” said Shuntaro. “I thought samurai were supposed to die rather than let themselves be captured, anyway.”

“I didn’t have the chance,” said the boy hotly.

“I wasn’t judging,” said the man. “And you’ll have plenty of time to die tomorrow, in any case. After us.”

“You’re all together?” asked the boy, and Shuntaro nodded. “The samurai outside said you were bandits.”

“He’s right—we’re a notorious crew of demons sent from the pits of hell to plunder and kill. Look at us and tremble,” said Shuntaro.
Their hostility gone now, in the darkness Bennosuke saw a group of bedraggled men as wretched as he was. He looked back at the old man, and mirth leapt into the one eye he had. “That, or we were hungry.”

“You stole to feed yourselves?”

“Perhaps. I was the head of a village. Taxes and tithes were too high, because of war. War, war, war, always a war, whether in the east or the west or the north or the south. ‘Don’t worry yourself over it,’ the tax collectors said to me. ‘War’s the sole concern of samurai!’ I said. ‘It’s the game of samurai—it’s the concern of everyone,’ ” Shuntaro said, and his face contorted in disgust. “They think they’re the only ones who suffer, because they do the fighting. But who pays for it? We do. The peasants—down to the last grain of rice. They’d take it out of the mouths of our children just to give some archer an ounce more strength to fire one more meaningless arrow in the name of some fool I’ll never see perched on an ivory saddle.”

He realized how vitriolic his voice had become, and he took a few moments to calm himself before he spoke levelly once more. “Anyway, that was all a few years ago. You know what happens to those who don’t pay their tithe, and, well … Eventually, here we all are. You know, I’ll welcome it almost … Once it’s all done, I fancy I’ll come back as an owl. Free and alone in the quiet of the night. Sounds wonderful.”

“Aren’t you going to escape?” said the boy. The man considered it, shrugged.

“Probably,” he said, dabbing at his weeping socket absently. “It’s quite the trick, though. You saw the samurai outside, right? They’re the problem. The guards here, bloody corpsehandlers, we could maybe take them if it was just them—but the band of samurai took us when we were free and armed. There’s no way we can fight our way out now.”

“What about my swords?”

“There’s a score of them out there,” snorted Shuntaro. “No man’ll ever take on twenty samurai with a pair of swords and win.”

“But—”

“No. Anyway,” the man said dismissively, “the cage is the problem. It’s only wood, and we could bash our way free if we had time,
perhaps. But the noise would attract the samurai, and then they’d run in and stick us with spears. We need the key for that lock on the gate, and then to escape without being seen.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I have a plan for the samurai, at least. The good men of the law who hunted us down will make a visit tomorrow, expecting to see us killed. They’ll want to see us here, caged, taunt us probably, and then I’ll act.”

“Can I help?” Bennosuke said. “I can’t die here.”

“No, only I can do this,” he said. “It’s only right for me to do this. When it’s done, though, I won’t be in any position to stop you escaping too. No one deserves to be crucified … Well, not over a horse.”

“Thank you,” said the boy.

“Now you have to put the ropes back on,” said Shuntaro. “If the guards see you free they’ll be suspicious. I’ll do it loosely, though. You won’t really be tied up. That all right?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” The old man sighed, and it seemed he was speaking to himself as he began to loosely loop the rope around the boy’s torso once more. “Life is all a deception, lad, never let anyone know the true state of things around you. Then you’ll have the surprise over them.”

When the work was done, Shuntaro shuffled back to nestle among his men and closed his eye. Bennosuke watched him as he slept. The man’s empty eye socket lingered half open like half the face of death; a skeletal sentinel taking in all in its blackness. The lanterns flickered, and outside the screaming and the night went on.

WITH THE LIGHT
of dawn, Bennosuke found that the sense of dread had left him. He was not safe, he knew that, but he had a chance. That was more than he had had yesterday, and the simple hope of having an avenue of escape—more than that, of being able to influence his own fate—was soothing.

Shuntaro and his men continued to sit huddled together as morning came around them. Some were awake and some slept. They gave no greeting to Bennosuke when he rose, as tense as he was. Perhaps the old man had not told them what he planned either. They waited,
motes of dust hanging in the light all around them. The screaming had ended, Bennosuke realized, to be replaced by birdsong. Not the braying of carrion birds, but the lilt of gentle summer creatures unable to understand what men were doing to one another so close by.

But there was no need for carrion birds when samurai were here, and when they came they came as crows; a murder of them marching quickly, their feet passing in front of the low window. The door was thrown open, and they stalked down into the jail. A half dozen of them scoured the room for danger, checking that the gate remained locked and that the prisoners were all accounted for. One came across Bennosuke’s swords. He poked them with his toe, and then gave a disgusted glance at the boy where he had shuffled apart from the bandits.

“The most honorable Marshal Fushimi approaches,” barked one, and then he and his men moved to the sides of the room and stood to rigid attention.

There were more samurai crowding the mouth of the stairway, and they made way to allow Fushimi to come down into the jail, the stairs rattling under his riding greaves. He was a tough-looking man with a cloth clutched across his mouth, his eyes pinched in revulsion and anger. To be among an enclave of the corpsehandlers disgusted him, but he would endure.

His expression did not change as he came to stand before the cage and looked across the bandits. It reminded Bennosuke of the way the peasants used to look at him in Miyamoto. When the marshal caught sight of Shuntaro, however, his eyes lit up.

“Ah,” he said, from behind the cloth, “this must be the Yamawaro of the Red Hills.”

“Sir Fushimi,” said Shuntaro plainly, and ducked his head in a bow. A yamawaro was a mythical, one-eyed mountain ogre, a filthy, rag-clad beast that delighted in evil mischief. The men around him glowered.

“You know manners?” asked Fushimi.

“I know manners, sir,” said Shuntaro.

“Then you will come and kneel before me as I pass judgment upon you,” said the marshal, and pointed at the ground. Without a
word, Shuntaro obeyed. His men parted, and then he knelt in the formal way and kept his eye on the ground.

“I name thee a canker,” said Fushimi after a considered pause. “A troublesome disease of which we have at last cured ourselves. Theft and murder and arson … All manner of havoc and mayhem you have created. You are responsible for the massacre at Takasago village—”

“I contest that, sir.”

“You were identified by the survivors.”

“I was there, sir, I do not deny that. I contest that it is named ‘massacre.’ It was a battle between armed men, and we won.”

“It will be recorded in history as a massacre, and remembered as such.”

“That I cannot contest, sir,” said Shuntaro meekly.