Lord Oda's Revenge (9 page)

‘What did you do?' said Taro.

‘I told him that if the woman was truly a ghost, he would start to see a change in his neighbour's face – the signs of death would appear upon it. It was possible, you see, that the man was possessed by a living spirit – such as that of a girl who was obsessively in love with him. But those cases are rarely fatal. In the case of a ghost, though, the effect is much worse. A man whose lover was a
gaki
would not live long. For the spirit of the living is
yoki
, and pure; the spirit of the dead is
inki
, and unclean.'

‘And she was a ghost, of course,' said Taro.

‘Yes. Yusai returned to me a week later. His neighbour's hair had greyed, he had lost weight. He rarely left the house.'

‘What did you do?'

‘I told Hayao that he was consorting with a ghost. He laughed at me – he said he had found his love again, and I wanted to take her away. He accused me of collaborating with the monk who had cheated him. I asked him to at least come with me to the cemetery where Tsuyu was buried, to clear up the matter.'

‘Hayao was angry, but he came with me and the monk to the cemetery, which was planted all around with plum trees. It was not long before we found a relatively new tomb, one befitting a noble. On the tomb, no proper name was written – only the
kaimyo
name that is given after death. I stopped a monk who happened to be walking by, and asked who the tomb belonged to.

‘He said it belonged to a young woman named Tsuyu, as I had known he would. He mentioned what a tragedy it was, that she had died so young of a broken heart. At that, Hayao became very pale. He told us what she had said, about moving to a small house among the plum trees. I took him aside. I told him that the karma that bound him to the girl was not a negative one, and that she was not feeding on him for revenge, but only because she needed him by her side. I told him it seemed likely to me they had been lovers in a previous life; I told him I accused him of no weakness. And I asked him to allow me to help.'

‘Did he?' asked Hiro.

‘Yes. I lent him a powerful
mamoni
. It is a pure gold image of the Buddha – a
shiryo-yoke
that protects the living from the dead. I told him to wear it in his belt. And I gave him a scroll with a holy sutra, the Ubo-Darani-Kyo, the Treasure-Raining Sutra, which he was to read aloud every night. Also, a package of
o-fuda
charms, written on paper, which he was to paste to every window and door of his house. They are meant to prevent the dead from entering.'

‘But it didn't work,' said Hana.

‘No. The next week Yusai came to me again. It seemed that he had looked through the window every night, and every night Hayao had been speaking to his invisible lover. She had attached herself to him so firmly that even those measures would not work against her. Hayao, meanwhile, was so ill as to be lost. We tried to speak to him, but he didn't even see us. He could see only Tsuyu. And the weaker he became, the stronger she grew. Soon she was with him constantly, not just at night.'

‘Couldn't you paint him?' said Taro. ‘Or tattoo him? I mean, put the Heart Sutra on him so she wouldn't see him.'

‘Thinking of Hoichi again,' said the priest approvingly. ‘But no. It wouldn't work. That only prevents an unconnected spirit from seeing you – it doesn't protect against one with which you have a karmic connection. The girl knew him, probably had known him in more than one lifetime. There was no hiding him from her.'

‘But how did she get past the
o-fuda
in the windows? The scroll?'

‘That,' said the priest, ‘is what I don't know. I intend to ask the monks on Mount Hiei – if anyone can help, it is them.'

After that, Oshi fell silent. He was breathing a little heavily now, the cart weighing on him, and Taro offered to take over. He was not a big man either, and so he was careful to draw the cart slowly, so as not to reveal his unnatural strength. Oshi was a Taoist priest, a man who dedicated himself to the exorcism of evil spirits. Taro wasn't about to let on that he himself was a
kyuuketsuki
.

They walked on in this way for several incense sticks, not
speaking much. Hana seemed deep in thought, and Taro saw her glance many times at Hayao, concern written clearly on her features. He knew it was ludicrous to be envious of such a man – a man being slowly killed by his dead lover. But he was – he was envious of those looks; wished Hana would look at him that way. She didn't, though. In fact, it seemed she'd barely looked at him since they left the ninja mountain. He found that a small part of him hoped Hayao would not recover, so that nothing would change. He hated that part of him.

And then they turned a corner on the broad flank of a hill and saw Mount Hiei before them. Taro had never seen the sacred mountain before, but he knew instantly what it was – it was so huge and so perfectly shaped that it couldn't be anything else.

‘Nearly there,' said Oshi.

Hana grinned. ‘It is just as I remembered it,' she said.

The conical mountain rose above the very clouds, so that its peak was beyond the rain, as if too elevated and rarefied to be sullied by such earthly things. Before them, the path ran straight, until it climbed into the foothills in looping swathes and steps.

Just in front of them, though, was a small wood in a natural dip – perhaps a holy wood dedicated to a local
kami
. Indeed it seemed that the peasants of this region had cultivated their paddy fields around it, leaving the grove of trees untouched. It gave Taro a slightly queasy feeling, as they crossed from the light into the dappled place under the leaves. He was just thinking that this would be a perfect place to lie in wait for pilgrims, to ambush them just as they neared the mountain and lowered their guard – when a man dropped from a branch ahead of him, a sword in his hand.

 

S
HUSAKU WISHED HE
could see Lord Tokugawa's eyes, to perceive if his employer was serious.

‘You want me to smuggle the gun into Hongan-ji? Alone?'

‘Yes.'

‘The fortified lair of the Ikko-ikki rebel monks? The most fiercely guarded castle in all of Japan?'

‘Yes.'

Shusaku's head spun. The Ikko-ikki were based only a few
ri
from Mount Hiei, on a hill above Osaka, and their reputation was if anything even more ferocious than that of the Tendai monks from Hiei. Geographically, then, they were close, but philosophically, the Ikko-ikki were as far from the Tendai sect as could be. Where the monks of Mount Hiei participated in the great readings from the Lotus Sutra, believing that the path to enlightenment was gained through careful study of its every word, the Ikko-ikki rejected the idea that enlightenment was something to be learned – claiming that anyone, even a humble peasant, could accede to karmic liberation. They did not use written texts of any kind. They called themselves the Pure Land Sect, after the heaven of Amida Buddha, which they said even an illiterate peasant could reach.

The samurai, of course, hated them. All the lords and nobles followed the Tendai sect. It appealed to them, for it said that holiness was to be found through dedication, money for ceremonies, and the ability to read. To them,
dharma
was contained in a book of ancient scriptures that it cost money to reproduce, and that they could therefore control.

For the Pure Land believers of the Ikko-ikki,
dharma
, and the potential for total perspective, was contained in every leaf of every tree, and in every droplet of rain. Any man could access it – he had only to look. The karma accumulated through a person's past lives – or through the generations of their family's dominion – was meaningless. A person could choose, at any moment, to seek the light of understanding, no matter whether their ancestors were lords, their karma as clean as their robes, or tanners who had spent their lives elbow deep in animal piss.

Needless to say, the Ikko-ikki were exceptionally popular with the untouchable
eta
, whose role it was to carry out the filthy tasks, like tanning, and who were barred by traditional Buddhism from paradise, their status on a plane slightly higher than that of a pig, or a murderer.

Nor was their philosophy the most dangerous thing about the Ikko-ikki. Unlike the Tendai monks, they believed that aggression, not defence, was the best path to survival. In the years since the Portuguese had arrived, the Ikko-ikki had armed themselves with thousands of guns, even setting up a forge on the top of their mountain lair to construct their own. They recruited peasants to their cause, especially those disgruntled with the high levies of the crueller lords, like Oda.

Any intruder – anyone seeking to infiltrate their castle – would simply be shot.

Shusaku swallowed. ‘You realize I'm blind?'

‘Yes.'

Clearly this was to be Lord Tokugawa's response to everything.

‘I'll need the boy, Jun. He is my eyes – without him I don't stand a chance. With him, I might just be able to get up to the monastery. . .'

‘Good, then it's settled.'

‘But – but,' Shusaku stammered, ‘getting there is one thing. Surviving is quite another. The Ikko-ikki hate ninjas just as much as they hate samurai. They'll kill me.'

‘No. They are expecting you. Have you not seen it yet – my plan?'

Shusaku wondered if the daimyo's words were chosen deliberately, to remind him of everything he would never see. This was the way with Lord Tokugawa – it was always difficult to tell exactly what he meant – whether he meant to kill you, hurt you, or only offer you a cup of tea. That was what made him so dangerous, and so successful.

Still, Shusaku tried to think like the other man. Why would Lord Tokugawa give one of these new guns to the Ikko-ikki? There could be only one explanation.

‘You wish them to copy it? To make more?'

Lord Tokugawa clapped softly. ‘Well done. Why?'

‘To arm your men.'

‘No. To arm the Ikko-ikki.'

Shusaku blew out air. ‘But they detest the samurai!'

‘They are men. They may detest whom they wish, but they love power, like anyone else. I have promised them their own province.'

Shusaku spread his hands. ‘Very well. So they will not kill me. All that is required is that I make my way to the castle,
without being able to see, without anyone to help me, and deliver to them a gun that every daimyo in the land – not to mention the Portuguese – is desperate to lay their hands on.'

‘Well,' said Lord Tokugawa, ‘that's mostly it. There is a small complication, though.'

‘Really?' said Shusaku sarcastically. ‘What would that be?'

‘You'll have to get past my army first.'

Shusaku put his face in his hands. ‘You'll have to explain, I'm afraid.'

‘It's very simple,' said Lord Tokugawa. ‘Lord Oda is my ally. He wishes to eliminate the Ikko-ikki. So, to show my support for him, I have sent one of my divisions of samurai to help his cause. Right now, the combined armies of Oda and Tokugawa are laying siege to Hongan-ji monastery, determined to crush the rebels and seize their mountain.'

Shusaku's head was beginning to hurt, and he remembered why he had always been glad to leave Lord Tokugawa's side and set off on dangerous missions, where all he had to worry about was people being very anxious to kill him, rather than someone snarling up his thoughts with twisted logic. ‘You are laying siege to the castle. You are helping Oda to destroy it. Yet you also want to send this gun there, so that the Ikko-ikki can use it to stand by your side when you take the shogunate.'

Lord Tokugawa clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘See?' he said. ‘I told you it was simple.'

 

T
his is it,
thought Taro.
It was all a plot, ever since the pigeon, to bring us to this place to die.