Only a Shadow (2 page)

2.

Tada left the old man's study, sliding the
shoji
shut behind him and doing what he could to restrain a grin. He had passed the test. He would be committing a theft fit for legends. He would save the clan from annihilation. And in so doing he would win Chieko's heart.

The old man took his meetings in a fisherman's house, a simple wooden structure indistinguishable from any other along the sandy lane. The gaps between the houses were narrow, a calculated risk: fire would spread quickly between homes so close together, but the wall of them served as a windbreak, and without it everyone in the village would face a constant barrage of grit whipped up from the beach. Capturing the sun's last rays over the mountains, paper windows in every west-facing wall burned like rectangular fires, rows and columns of them suspended in their
shoji
. Beyond the houses stretched the beach, and beyond that the roaring ocean, the sky still blue above it, a salt air stirring the sand in the road.

Tada turned westward, where in the distance he could see Toba castle atop its steep-walled stony finger, waves foaming white as they clawed at the black rock below. His adopted home lay south and east, a good five or six
ri
from Old Jujiro's hut, and the old man's plan called for him to be up and working by dawn, but there was still an important errand to complete before returning home. Tada could not sleep just yet.

He reflected on that name as he walked. Tada. He never met the mother who'd given him the name. She was a fishwife, some said; a boatwright's woman, said others. All agreed that she'd drowned, though the manner of her passing was disputed too. Had she drowned with her husband on a pleasant evening sail? Or had he forced her head under the waves and fled inland? Tada would never be sure. He didn't even know his own age. He was sure only of his name, and that the Iga had taken him in some fifteen years ago.

Tada. A natural shortening of Tadanao, and of course every little boy had his nickname growing up, but not everyone bore the burden of a name like Tada. Using a different kanji,
tada
meant “only.” Growing up he was
only
a little kid,
only
an orphan,
only
a bastard, an omen of
only
bad luck. His parents were dead;
only
he remained. How many fistfights had he been goaded into because he was
only
this or
only
that? And later, as an adolescent with neither a father's trade nor an apprenticeship to follow, he was
only
a ruffian,
only
dead weight,
only
another mouth to feed,
only
half a man.

But now Tada embraced the name. As a
shinobi
, he would inspire the same fear that ghosts did, the kind that made people calm themselves by pretending he did not exist. He would be
only
a shadow in the dark,
only
a whisper on the wind.
Only
a rumor.
Only
a nightmare. All he needed was the chance to prove himself so the Iga would admit him into their inner circle, showing him the secrets they withheld from outsiders and bastard sons.

Sand accumulated between his sandals and his soles as beneath them one lane connected with the next. Tada walked west, north, west again. Candles flickered to life along the way in the sitting rooms of wooden homes. At last he reached the third house from the end. It was twice as tall as the rest, flanked on every side by a broad garden smelling of mums and honeysuckle. Bamboo posts stood here and there in the gardens, tall as a man, with lines strung between them and enormous fishing nets dangling from the lines. Tada waited for the sun to vanish behind the mountains before he made his birdcall.

In truth he did not think the birdcall fooled Chieko's father at all. He was an Iga too, after all, and his net-tying business was merely a front. He'd killed men before. He'd used the calls of birds and beasts to coordinate assassinations, all in the name of the clan. But Tada thought the net-maker had seen promise in him. He'd allowed Tada to see his only daughter, hadn't he? The birdcall might have fooled his wife, but never a
shinobi
.

And yet Chieko emerged from the house not long after, a long stick across her slender shoulders, two empty clay jars dangling from its ends by cords. She squinted as she peered into the twilit garden, her eyes still accustomed to the indoor light, and Tada slipped into the shadows. He laid his ambush for her at the well, watching her approach the whole way, grinning as she inspected every bush and barrel for some sign of him. Her feet were tiny, her skin pale as a pearl against the dark backdrop of the garden. Her beautiful black hair hung down to her
obi
, and when she turned her head just so it caught the candlelight from within the house, such that a burning orange line reflected across the back of her neck. When she reached the well, he popped up and tickled her ribs.

“Oh, stop,” she said, and took a mock swing at him with her stick. He ducked under the swinging jar and stepped in behind to hug her close.

“Why?” he said, nestling his nose behind her ear. He loved the smoky smell of incense in her hair.

“My mom and dad will see,” she said. She hugged his arms, then stepped out of his embrace to pick up a rope coiled next to the well. She started to tie one of her jars to one end.

“I told you, your father likes me.”

Lowering her jar into the well, she said, “My uncle had better like you too. His house is next door and people say he's the best archer in the Kansai.”

Tada loved this side of her. He'd never met a girl who could flirt while threatening him. Most were too timid, but Chieko had that wonderful toughness about her. She needed more than these village boys could offer. She needed a man of daring, and Tada needed a woman with a sharp edge, one who could be coy and dangerous and keep him on his toes.

“He could shoot you from his back door,” Chieko said, her gaze darting furtively between her chore and her uncle's veranda.

“He'll never see me.”

“Oh no? I heard he shot a blackbird on the wing on a moonless night.”

“
I
heard your grandfather hired a young
shinobi
named Tadanao to help him carry out the greatest theft in history.”

That made her turn around. She beamed at him, forgetting her jar, which fell freely until it sent a loud splash echoing up the throat of the well. “Really?” she said. Her face said the rest: Tada saw relief there, and anticipation, and thrill. An Iga could not marry a boy without name or family, and only by earning distinction could Tada earn a name the elders would respect. Old Jujiro's acceptance was but one step away from permission to marry his granddaughter.

“I've got to finish the task first,” he said. “I must live up to his faith in me. But after that. . . .”

A white-toothed smile split Chieko's round face. At last the waiting would end. She was almost seventeen. Soon she would have to accept a suitor of respectable birth or else disgrace her father's house. But now all that would change. Now she and Tada would finally have their chance to be together.

“Tell me what you'll do,” Chieko said, squeezing his fingers. “What does he need you for?”

“I think he's simply too old to carry this out himself. It will be dangerous. I'll have to break into Lord Hirata's—what's wrong?”

Chieko frowned, making a deep vertical fold between her eyebrows. “He's not old.”

Tada smiled. “Of course he is. Everyone calls him Old Jujiro.”

“He's not too old to be
shinobi
. The elders still look to him, you know.”

Tada's smile broadened. Even her frown-wrinkles were beautiful. “For now, yes. But, Chie-chan, everyone grows old sooner or later.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “He stole that old table, what, forty years ago? Fifty? The Iga can't rely on him forever.”

She blinked. “I think it's time for you to go.”

“Chieko, please.”

“No. I won't stand for you upsetting me and then finding it cute.” She took up the taut rope leading down into the well.

“Let me help you with that, at least. I didn't intend to insult your grandfather—”

“I said go.”

The walk home took forever, and with every step Tada tried to sort out where he'd gone wrong. Nothing was permanent. Even the young died suddenly, grabbed by a rogue wave, maybe, or falling from a roof or a tree. Earthquakes. Fire. Sometimes they died for no reason at all. How much more so the old? Tada had seen that little pinhole between the pearly inlays of Old Jujiro's table. There was a crossbow behind it, its needle-thin darts tipped with poison. Tada was sure of it. And why would the old man have it there if not for the fact that life was fleeting? How many enemies had he made over the years? Someday one of them might come calling. Someday a young upstart, maybe one like Tada himself, might seek to make his name by killing the famous Iga Jujiro. The old man was right to put the table between him and his enemies. He was right to be afraid.

And if the old man had that much sense, why couldn't Chieko? Tada couldn't see how he'd gone so far astray, simply by suggesting that old people would eventually die.

Unless . . . yes, that was it. She'd seen weakness in her grandfather. She must have. She'd glimpsed some sign of it, and now she was afraid for him and his frailty. Then for Tada to be summoned for this theft—well, that sealed it. Chieko knew her grandfather was losing his strength and she wanted to deny it. And now her soon-to-be betrothed had confirmed it in her mind.

As he trudged up the last hill before home he thought, what an awful bitch life can be. I can't marry her unless I do this thing, and I can't do it without giving life to these shades of fears that plague her. There must be a clearer road for me to take, he thought, if only I could see it.

3.

By noon Tada's back was sunburned and his fingers were raw and bleeding. He could see none of the wounds, for they were no bigger than the tiny pinpricks dotting the sharp rocks he'd been collecting all morning. They'd caused more surprise than pain. Ordinarily his hands would have been more than hardy enough to handle sharp rocks. They were callused to the point that the pads of his fingers were as tough as boiled leather. But the rocks he'd been collecting all morning lay where the surf lapped up against the jagged black rock of the shore, and the work had left his hands doused in saltwater for hours. Now his calluses were as soft as prune skins.

So his fingers bled. His shoulders felt like hot, dry roof tiles, and neither his sweat nor the surf's lazy spray could soothe them. But Tada voiced no complaint. It would not do for Old Jujiro's man to report that he was shiftless.

Gyomin was his name. He was of an age with Old Jujiro, his wrinkled skin as brown as a walnut shell. Tada looked up to see him sitting atop a big rock peaked like a
kabuto
, his brown toes clinging like claws to the rough stone, his toenails large, long, and yellowed. His white hair seemed to have migrated from his pate to his chin, where a long snowy beard flowed in the breeze. His back was hunched in just the position he'd take if he were sitting on the bench in a rowboat fixing bait to a tiny hook. Behind him stood the high promontory where Tada could see Lord Hirata's castle overlooking the bay. The castle was far enough away that Tada would be tired if he ran there along the beach, and Tada did not tire easily.

The fortress was a sight to behold. Built to watch over shipping lanes, Toba castle boasted not only the muskets of the southern barbarians but even their cannon. It perched atop a sheer face of black rock draped with emerald kudzu, and its eastern wall formed a single face with the sea cliff. The wall was black, two stories tall, the central donjon twice that high, but from the east face it was a six- or seven-story plunge to the crashing waves. The entire fortress stood atop a sloping stone foundation at least twice the height of a man, and when the sun was at the right angle one could see the gleaming armor of patrolling archers, even from as far away as the fishing village.

There were other defenses too, invisible from this distance. Tada had heard of them, and had once stolen through the forest up there to see them for himself. A moat of soupy mud ringed the castle on three sides. Swimming the moat was not an option: the mud would pull him under. Scaling the one side that the moat did not protect was even more dangerous. Even a climber strong enough not to be knocked off by the waves would still be an easy target for arrows or musket balls. And every obstacle to a burglar was an obstacle to one trying to break out of the castle as well.

Unapproachable, inescapable, and worse yet, Tada was certain Old Jujiro's plan could not succeed. He'd learned most of the details from Old Jujiro himself, and gleaned a bit more here and there in passing conversation with Gyomin. The rocks they gathered—and more important, the seaweed that enfolded them like so many little green nets—were a vital element of the plan, and that alone left Tada feeling uneasy. He could see nothing special about the weed, though he understood full well that his eyes were not the ones that needed to take note of it for the plan to work.

But that was for a later stage of the plan, and Tada's real concern would come early on. It was cunning, Old Jujiro's scheme, so cunning that Tada had to admit he never could have devised it himself. But it turned on a weak hinge, a single decision left in Lord Hirata's hands, a decision only the most naïve would entrust to the enemy. Dying on a Hirata samurai's blade was no way for Tada to make a name for himself, but because of that one simplistic element of the old man's plan, that now seemed to be his destiny. His and Jujiro's too. Two lives of dedication and discipline, snuffed out in needless ignominy.

The Iga clan needed one like Old Jujiro, one it could look to for the impossible tasks. As much as Chieko might not like to admit it, her grandfather could not be that one anymore. Someone else had to take up the role—and if so, why not Tada himself? The old man had placed faith in him. Others among the elders must have done the same, or else Tada would never have met Old Jujiro face-to-face. And if they all believed in his ability, then for all intents and purposes hadn't Tada taken up Iga Jujiro's mantle already?

Yes. Maybe that was why the elders had recommended him to Old Jujiro. They'd watched their veteran lose his edge. Sooner or later even the most powerful warhorse had to be put to pasture. And why should the grand old warhorse feel shamed if someone recommended that he be retired? Hadn't he earned a life of comfort, a life free from labor?

Yes. Tada was certain. He would tell the elders the truth—a truth they knew already—and they would reward him for it. And Chieko would too. He wouldn't say her grandfather was old and dying. No, he'd proclaim Iga Jujiro a venerated hero who had earned the right to enjoy his winter years. Far from calling attention to his frailty, Tada would spare him an ignoble death. How could Chieko not forgive him after he saved her beloved grandfather's life?