Kill the Shogun (10 page)

“So you can learn to be creative in your fencing.”

Kaze pondered that, and at the risk of being called stupid by the Sensei, he asked, “But won’t the precise repetition of patterns kill any creativity I have?”

“Then whatever creativity is inside you deserves to die. You practice patterns to learn technique. That technique is necessary to allow the freedom to create. You cannot project power without a sound base, and you cannot show creativity without a mastery of basic technique. When you have mastered that technique, you can transcend it and combine the basic moves of sword fighting into marvelous new combinations. But first you have to be so grounded in basic technique that you no longer have to think of it. That is what makes a master fencer.”

“When do you think I’ll master technique?”

“Never.”

Kaze sighed. Dealing with the Sensei was sometimes like talking to a Zen priest. Seeing the frustrated look on the boy’s face, the Sensei said, “Why do you think I say that?”

Kaze thought for several minutes, then finally said, “Because
you are constantly practicing, despite your years with the sword. When you spar with me, you are not only teaching me, you are also reviewing all the basic subtleties of the patterns. You are correcting me, and at the same time reminding yourself. You always say that no man can achieve perfection, he can only strive for it. If that’s true, then the striving must continue forever, because our goal is to achieve perfection of mind, spirit, body, and sword.”

“Good.”

T
he flute music stopped. Kaze looked up at the lattice opening, hoping that the music would start again, despite its melancholy theme. But silence filled the night air, and Kaze eventually realized that the music for the night was finished. He sighed and drew the robe closer around his shoulders. Just before drifting off, he wondered if the choice of a musket as the assassination weapon had any significance. Unlike Shingen, Ieyasu had been lucky, and the bullet had missed him and hit Nakamura. Kaze wondered if the conditions of the assassination had promoted that luck.

Gray hair does not mean
wisdom. Sometimes it doesn’t
even mean great age.

Y
oshida had very little faith in luck, although he had to admit that the ronin he sought must have the devil’s own luck. He turned to Niiya and frowned.

“You had almost a hundred men,” Yoshida said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, Lord.”

“And this one ronin was still able to elude you?”

“I don’t know, Lord. I have had men dredging the canal with poles since he disappeared, but that canal is subject to tidal surges, and it may be possible that his body was washed quite some distance from where it landed.”

“It’s also possible that the body pulled itself out of the water and walked to a warm bed.”

“I’m sure I hit him with a musket shot,” Niiya said emphatically. “I was waiting for him to poke his head out over the edge of the roof. The light was poor and his head only poked up less than the span of a hand, but I’m sure I hit him. I don’t miss what I aim at.”

“You hit him, but he still had the energy to leap over a wide street and into the canal?”

“I don’t miss what I aim at.” Niiya’s words were spoken slowly and his eyes were locked on Yoshida’s. Yoshida decided he had pushed too hard.

“I’m sure you did. No one knows the accuracy of your marksmanship better than I.” He turned back to the map of Edo. It was late at night, almost morning. The map was illuminated by the soft light of a paper lantern. Like most Japanese maps, it was a perspective view of the city, with individual buildings shown. The scale was approximate, with artistic considerations ruling cartographic ones. Edo was growing so fast that any map drawn was obsolete before the brush left the paper. Like forest mushrooms, hovels and shacks sprang up on open soil in the space of a morning. Lords and officials confiscated entire sections of the city, forcing all who lived there to move. Yoshida had heard a story of one particularly unlucky fellow who had been forced to move five times in the last year. He had an uncanny knack for placing his house on land that would soon be given to a daimyo or temple.

Except for the anchors of the rivers and Edo Castle, the entire city was in constant flux. The Tokugawas had even leveled Kanda Hill to fill up some of the swamps that made Edo such an unhealthy city before the Tokugawas took over the area a dozen years before.

“We have men searching all up and down the canal,” Niiya said, tracing the path of the water channel on the map with a calloused finger. “If his body is in the water, we’ll find it. Here, where the canal joins the river, we’ve put up a net so the body can’t wash out to sea.”

“And if you don’t find the body in the water?”

“Then we will put up notice boards all over the city telling of the reward.”

Yoshida thought for a moment and said, “Put up the notice
boards at first light. If we find the body, no harm will be done, but we should try our best to get another hint of where he’s hiding. There’s no value in keeping our search secret anymore.”

“What name should we use on the boards?”

“He is using the name Matsuyama Kaze, so use that. Also list his former name. His former name was stricken off the list of official names after Sekigahara, so it has no meaning, but perhaps someone would know him under his former name.”

Niiya bowed. “All right, my Lord.”

“I think we should also try to search any quarter where this Matsuyama Kaze might be spotted.”

“To do that, we will need the help of additional men.”

Yoshida frowned but said, “All right. I’ll ask Lord Honda, Lord Okubo, and Lord Toyama for help. That should give us plenty of men to search any section of the city.”

Niiya nodded his agreement. “I’ll go and have the notice boards prepared,” he said.

When Niiya left, Yoshida turned back to the map of Edo. Since he was a small boy, Yoshida had loved the planning of campaigns. He would lead groups of other boys in mock skirmishes, sallying forth on a stick horse with a toy sword. In winter, he would supervise the building of elaborate snow forts, and then lead the defense or attack on the fortress. Even in the quiet moments of the evening, Yoshida loved playing
shogi
, Japanese chess, or
go
, a strategy game played with black and white stones.

Of course, as the son of a daimyo, Yoshida was expected to be the leader of his contemporaries, but he discovered very early that he relished this role. Other sons of highborn nobles took leadership positions, but even as a boy, Yoshida felt they did this because of who they were born to, not who they were.

Like all Japanese, Yoshida set great store on the value of lineage and birth. Yet recent history had shown that birth did not guarantee power and ability. Oda Nobunaga was the man to start
the unification of Japan after hundreds of years of clan warfare. He was the daimyo of a minor, albeit strategically placed, domain in central Japan. His was not considered one of the great families.

Nobunaga’s successor was Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi was a peasant who raised himself to become the ruler of the land by virtue of his original mind and extraordinary abilities. People who could not accept that a peasant could become ruler now said Hideyoshi was the illegitimate son of a court noble, but Yoshida doubted this. Hideyoshi honored his mother, in true filial fashion, and his mother was a simple peasant woman. The idea that this common peasant could be the concubine of a court noble was ludicrous.

Then there was Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Shogun. Until recently, the Tokugawas had been considered a good, but not great, family. It was a family much like Yoshida’s own. Now Ieyasu claimed he was a descendant of the Minamotos, which allowed him to obtain the hereditary title of Shogun, a title Hideyoshi couldn’t claim because of his common birth. Ieyasu had richly rewarded the priest who “discovered” this family connection to the Minamotos. Yoshida was sure that if the opportunity ever presented itself, he could find a priest who would discover a link between the Yoshidas and the Minamotos, too.

So although Yoshida still thought birth was important, he realized that ability was more important in this modern age. That’s why he was so anxious to show his abilities to Ieyasu during this assassination crisis.

He had planned the ambush at the vegetable seller’s house with Niiya as soon as the gambler Akinari came with the information about where Matsuyama was staying. He had not been able to stay for Matsuyama’s return, but he knew of Niiya’s intelligence and skill, and had absolutely no doubts about his loyalty.

But despite Niiya’s having almost a hundred men waiting for the ronin, the man had managed to elude his carefully set ambush. No, Yoshida corrected himself, perhaps Niiya was right, and the
ronin had been wounded, and it was only a matter of dredging his body out of the canal. Luck had been with him thus far, with Ieyasu-sama giving him the opportunity to lead the search for the ronin, so perhaps luck would be with him now, and the ronin was dead.

But, just in case he wasn’t dead, Yoshida returned to his map of Edo to see what would be the best way to search the city.

T
oyama was also up early in the morning, but he was not busy doing anything, save for worrying. He was lying on his futon, looking at the dark creases in the ceiling boards, all outlined by the light of the lantern in his room. He had dismissed his favorite concubine earlier in the evening, not able to muster up the energy for lust. He had tried to look over dispatches and letters from his home domain, but even this activity required too much thought and concentration.

Toyama was a maelstrom of emotions, all involving Tokugawa Ieyasu. He had contempt for Ieyasu, because Toyama’s family was much better than the Tokugawas, yet he now found himself a vassal of the new ruler of Japan. In fact, Ieyasu’s family had been known as Matsudaira until Ieyasu had received permission to change it, so, although the Tokugawa name was an ancient one, it was one that actually belonged to the powerful parvenu for only three decades.

Toyama also had fear of Ieyasu, because the new ruler had shown a willingness to demote daimyo who displeased him to a lesser fief, or to even invite them to commit seppuku and enter the void. He hated Ieyasu because of the power that the new Shogun wielded, yet he wanted Ieyasu to like him, so his current fief and lifestyle would at least remain untouched.

“Damn that Ieyasu! Why did he have to survive that assassination attempt?”

As soon as the words passed his lips, he was sorry he said them.
Kabe ni mimi ari, shoji ni me ari
, Toyama’s mother would say. Walls have ears, shoji have eyes. It was treason to even think such a thing. To say it out loud, especially in a place far from your home castle, was an invitation to join the great beyond. Most of the servants were hired in Edo, so there was no guarantee that there wasn’t a Tokugawa spy among them. In fact, knowing the suspicious Ieyasu, it was almost certain that there was at least one spy among them. Toyama cursed, but this time silently.

It was frustrating that he couldn’t think of an idea that would help cement his position with the Tokugawas. He knew he was on shaky ground with them because he only reluctantly supported them, and only after it was clear Sekigahara was a resounding Tokugawa victory. Then he had an idea. Ieyasu had said it himself. Toyama smiled and was at last able to close his eyes and sleep. His last thought before drifting off was that he couldn’t wait until he had an opportunity to reveal his idea.

T
he next morning, Kaze woke early and took off the costume he slept in. He put his own kimono on, but as he did so he looked at its sleeve. As he thought, there was a hole from a musket ball in it. He felt lucky his scabbard wasn’t hit by this shot. Kaze placed his little finger through the hole and wriggled it around. He put on the kimono and laughed.

Kaze had never been backstage at a theater before, so, out of curiosity, he looked through the various baskets and costumes around him. What he found made him think.

T
he street was bustling with people, and business was brisk. The rice cake seller had his stand set up at a strategic location, and he was enjoying the fruits of the notoriety. His stand consisted of a
waist-high wooden tower. At the top of the tower was a copper box where he burned charcoal, and in the sides of the tower were handles for carrying it around, as well as drawers for merchandise. Painted on the sides of the tower were kanji and pictures of what he was selling, so both the literate and illiterate could understand.

A man hobbled up to the stand. The stand operator looked at him. He had muscular arms and shoulders, but the flowing beard and hair that stuck out from the straw hat he was wearing were white, and he hobbled along with the help of a stick.

“So many people here,
neh
?”

The voice wasn’t exactly old, but it wasn’t young, either. The stand operator decided to err on the side of politeness to an elder and responded, “It’s been this way for several days,
ojiisan
.”

“Is that yagura over there the fire watchtower where the assassin who tried to kill Ieyasu-sama hid?”

“Yes, grandfather, and that castle wall over there is where Ieyasu-sama and the other great lords were standing when the shot was fired. That spot at the bottom of the dry moat is the very place where Lord Nakamura ended up after falling off the wall. That’s why all these people are here. They’re curious to see the exact location of such an infamous deed.”

“As am I, as am I,” said the old man. He looked at the yagura, a small watch-box placed on top of a construct of poles, and looked over to the wall of the unfinished castle. “That’s quite a shot,” he said. “No wonder the assassin missed Ieyasu-sama and killed Nakamura-sama.”

The vendor scratched his head. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he said. “I never fought in any battles. Is that a long shot for a musket?”

“Yes. In fact, a regular musket probably wouldn’t carry that far. I would think it would require a gun by Inatomi Gaiki to carry a musket ball that far, with any hope of accuracy.”

“Inatomi?”

The old man cackled again. “
Gomen nasai
. Excuse me. Just shop talk from an old soldier. Inatomi is the best matchlock musket maker in all of Japan. Only he could make a gun that could shoot that far.”

“I was here on the day of the assassination attempt,” the vendor said.

“So was I,” replied the old man, “but I left before the shot was fired.”

“Well, you missed the excitement then. People were running around everywhere, soldiers everywhere, it was nothing but confusion. When they found the dead watchman in the yagura, they brought the body down and just laid him out on the street. It was awful. His throat was cut and his head was flopping back when they brought him down the yagura ladder.” The vendor shuddered.

“No one heard the watchman cry out when the assassin went into the yagura?”

The vendor frowned. “No, I didn’t hear anyone say they heard the watchman.”

“So the watchman didn’t cry out when an armed stranger entered the yagura?”

“No, I guess he didn’t. That’s strange.”

“And no one noticed a man carrying a musket after the assassination attempt?”

The vendor scratched his head. “No, I didn’t hear of that, either. That’s also strange, isn’t it? You’d think someone would notice a man carrying a musket.”

“Yes, you would.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. They know who the assassin is, anyway, and there’s a huge reward for his head.”

“How do you know that?”

The vendor pointed. “See that big crowd over there? They’re reading the notice board that was put up, telling of the assassin and the reward.”

The old man looked in the direction the vendor pointed, and said, “Thank you. I think I’ll go over there and see for myself.”

“Say, what about some nice hot rice cakes before you go?”

“Gomen nasai. I’m afraid my teeth aren’t good enough to eat them.” He cackled.

“They look plenty good enough to me,” the vendor said rudely as the old man walked away.