The Diamond Chariot (86 page)

The others remained morosely silent.

‘Line up!’ the commander barked.

Skirting round the terrible pit, from which groans were still emerging, they started walking up on to the porch. The owner of the miraculous amulet held one hand out ahead of him, clutching a dagger, and pulled his head down into his shoulders. He passed the first step, the second, the third. Then he stepped timidly on to the terrace, and at that very instant a heavy section fell out of the thick beam framing the canopy. It smacked the man standing below across the the top of his head with a dull thud and he collapsed face down without even crying out. His hand opened and the amulet in its tiny brocade bag fell out.

The goddess Kannon is good for women and for peaceful occupations, thought Masa. For the affairs of men the god Fudo’s amulet is more appropriate.

‘Well, why have you stopped?’ shouted the Monk. ‘Forward!’

He ran fearlessly up on to the terrace, but stopped there and beckoned with his hand.

‘Come on, come on, don’t be such cowards.’

‘Who’s a coward?’ boomed a great husky fellow, pushing his way forward. Masa stepped aside to let the brave man past. ‘Right, now, let me through!’

He jerked the door open. Masa winced painfully, but nothing terrible happened.

‘Good man, Saburo,’ the commander said to the daredevil. ‘No need to take your shoes off, this isn’t a social call.’

The familiar corridor opened up in front of Masa: three doors on the right, three doors on the left, and one more at the end – with the little bridge into emptiness beyond it.

The hulking brute Saburo stamped his foot on the floor – again nothing happened. He stepped across the threshold, stopped and scratched the back of his head.

‘Where to first?’

‘Try the one on the right,’ ordered the Monk, also entering the corridor. The others followed, crowding together.

Before going in, Masa looked round. A long queue of Black Jackets was lined up on the porch, with their naked swords glittering in the crimson light of the torches. A snake with its head stuck into a tiger’s jaws, Fandorin’s servant thought with a shudder. Of course, he was for the tiger, heart and soul, but he himself was a scale on the body of the snake …

‘Go on!’ said the commander, nudging the valiant (or perhaps simply stupid) Saburo.

The hulk opened the first door on the right and stepped inside. Turning his head this way and that, he took one step, then another. When his foot touched the second tatami, something twanged in the wall. From the corridor Masa couldn’t see what had happened, but Saburo grunted in surprise, clutched at his chest and doubled over.

‘An arrow,’ he gasped in a hoarse voice, turning round.

And there it was, a rod of metal protruding from the centre of his chest.

The Monk aimed his revolver at the wall, but didn’t fire.

‘Mechanical,’ he murmured. ‘A spring under the floor …’

Saburo nodded, as if he was completely satisfied by this explanation, sobbed like a child and tumbled over on to his side.

Stepping over the dying man, the commander rapidly sounded out the walls with the handle of his gun, but didn’t find anything.

‘Move on!’ he shouted. ‘Hey, you! Yes, yes, you! Go!’

The soldier in a hood at whom the Monk was pointing hesitated only for a second before walking up to the next door. Muffled muttering could be heard from under the mask.

‘I entrust myself to the Buddha Amida, I entrust myself to the Buddha Amida …’ Masa heard – it was the invocation used by those who believed in the Way of the Pure Land.

It was a good prayer, just right for a sinful soul thirsting for forgiveness and salvation. But it was really astonishing that in the room which the follower of the Buddha Amida would have to enter there was a scroll hanging on the wall, with a maxim by the great Shinran:
³
‘Even a good man can be resurrected in the Pure Land, even more so a bad man’. What a remarkable coincidence! Perhaps the scroll would recognise one of its own and save him?

It didn’t.

The praying man crossed the room without incident. He read the maxim and bowed respectfully. But then the Monk told him:

‘Take down the scroll! Look to see if there’s some kind of lever hidden behind it!’

There was no lever behind the scroll, but as he fumbled at the wall with his hand, the unfortunate man scratched himself on an invisible nail. He cried out, licked his bleeding palm and a minute later he was writhing on the floor – the nail had been smeared with poison.

Behind the third door was the prayer room. Right, now – what treat would it have in store for visitors? Not staying too close to the Monk (so that he wouldn’t call on him), but not too far away either (otherwise he wouldn’t see anything), Masa craned his neck.

‘Well, who’s next?’ the commander called and, without waiting for volunteers, he grabbed by the scruff of the neck the first man he could reach and pushed him forward. ‘Boldly now!’

Trembling all over, the soldier opened the door. Seeing an altar with a lighted candle, he bowed. He didn’t dare go in wearing his shoes – that would have been blasphemy. He kicked off his straw
jori
, stepped forward – and started hopping about on one leg, clutching his other foot in both hands.

‘Spikes!’ the Monk gasped.

He burst into the room (he was wearing stout
gaijin
boots) and dragged the wounded man out into the corridor, but the man was already wheezing and rolling his eyes up into their lids. The commander sounded out the walls in the prayer room himself. He didn’t find any levers or secret springs.

Back out in the corridor he shouted:

‘There are only four more doors! One of them will lead us to Tamba! Perhaps it’s that one!’ He pointed to the door that closed off the end of the corridor. ‘Tsurumaki-dono promised a reward to the first man to enter the old wolf’s den! Who wants to earn the rank of sergeant and a thousand yen into the bargain?’

There was no one who wanted to. An invisible boundary seemed to run across the corridor: in the section farther on there was plenty of space – the commander was standing there all on his lonesome; but in the first section there was a whole crowd of about fifteen men crammed close together, and more were piling in from the porch.

‘Ah, you chicken-hearts! I’ll manage without you!’

The Monk pushed the door aside and held out his hand with the pistol in it. Seeing the blackness, he started back, but immediately took a grip on himself.

He laughed.

‘Look at what you were afraid of! Emptiness! Well, there are only three doors left! Does anyone want to try his luck? No? All right …’

He opened the farthest door on the left. But he didn’t hurry inside; first he squatted down and waved his hand for them to bring him a lamp. He examined the floor. He struck the tatami with his fist and only then stepped on to it. Then he took another step in the same way.

‘A stick!’

Someone handed him a bamboo pole.

The Monk prodded at the ceiling and the wall. When a board in the corner gave out a hollow sound, he immediately opened fire – one, two, three shots roared out.

Three holes appeared in the light yellow surface. At first it seemed to Masa that the commander was being too cautious, but suddenly there was a creak, the wall swayed open and a man in the black costume of a ninja fell out face first.

There was a dark hollow in the wall – a secret cupboard.

Without wasting a second, the Monk switched the revolver to his left hand, pulled out his sword and hacked at the fallen man’s neck. He pulled off the mask and picked up the head by its pigtail.

Gohei’s pockmarked face glared at his killer with furious bulging eyes. Tossing the trophy into the corridor, right at Masa’s feet, the commander wiped a trickle of blood off his elbow and glanced cautiously into the cavity.

‘Aha, there’s something here!’ he announced eagerly.

He gestured impatiently to call over one of the soldiers who had just removed his hood.

‘Shinjo, come here! Take a look at what’s in there. Climb up!’

He folded his hands into a stirrup. Shinjo stepped on them with one foot and the upper half of his torso disappeared from view.

They heard a muffled howl: ‘A-a-a-a!’

The Monk quickly jumped aside and Shinjo came tumbling down like a sack. A steel star with sharpened edges was lodged in the bridge of his nose.

‘Excellent!’ said the commander. ‘They’re in the attic! You, you and you, come here! Guard the entrance. Don’t stick your noses in the hole any more, or else they’ll throw another
shuriken
. The important thing is not to let any
shinobi
get out this way. The rest of you, follow me! There has to be a way into the basement somewhere here as well.’

Masa knew how to get into the basement. The next room, the second on the right, had a cunning floor – you ended up in the basement before you could even sneeze. Now the man with the shaved head would finally get what he deserved.

But the Monk didn’t blunder here either. He didn’t barge straight in, like Masa, but squatted down again and examined the wooden boards for a long time. He prodded them with his pole, suddenly realised something and gave a grunt of satisfaction. Then he pressed down hard with his fist – and the floor swayed.

‘And there’s the basement!’ The commander chuckled. ‘Three of you stand at the door, and keep your eyes on this!’

The Black Jackets swarmed thickly round the last door. They slid it open and gazed expectantly at their cunning commander.

‘Ri-ight,’ he drawled, running a keen gaze across the bare walls. ‘What do we have here? Aha. I don’t like the look of that projection over there in the corner. What’s it needed for? It’s suspicious. Come on, then.’ Without looking, the Monk reached his hand backwards and grabbed Masa by the sleeve. ‘Go and sound it out.’

Oh, he really didn’t want to go and sound out that suspicious projection! But how could he disobey? And the Monk was egging him on too!

‘What are you hanging about for? Get a move on! Who are you? Ryuhei? Take that hood off, you don’t need it here, it just stops you looking at things properly.’

I’m done for anyway, thought Masa, and pulled off the hood – he was standing with his back to the Black Jackets and their commander.

He prayed silently: Tamba-sensei, if you’re looking through some cunning little crack right now, don’t think I’m a traitor. I came to save my master. Just in case, he winked at the suspicious wall, as if to say: It’s me, I’m one of you.

‘That’s not Ryuhei,’ he heard someone say behind him. ‘Ryuhei doesn’t have a haircut like that, does he?’

‘Hey, who are you? Right, turn round!’ the Monk ordered.

Masa took two rapid steps forward. He couldn’t take a third – the tatami closest to the suspicious projection was false: just straw, with nothing underneath it. With a howl of despair, Masa tumbled through the floor.

A strip of metal glinted right in front of him, but no blow followed.

‘Masa!’ a familiar voice whispered. Then some Russian words: ‘Ya chut ne ubil tebya!’

The master! Alive! Pale, with his forehead contracted into a frown. A dagger in one hand and a little revolver in the other.

Midori-san was beside him – in black battle costume, only without a mask.

‘We can’t stay here any longer. Let’s leave!’ the mistress said, then adding something in the
gaijin
language, and all three of them dashed away from the rectangular hole with gentle yellow light pouring down through it.

In the very corner of the basement there was a black shape that looked like some kind of chute, and Masa made out two jute ropes in it – that must have been the projection that had seemed suspicious to the Monk.

The master took hold of one of the ropes and went flying upwards as if by magic.

‘Now you!’ Midori-san told him.

Masa grabbed the rough jute and it pulled him up towards the ceiling. It was absolutely dark and a little cramped, but the ascent was over in just half a minute.

First Masa saw a wooden floor, then the rope pulled him through a hatch up to his waist and after that he scrambled out by himself.

He looked round and realised he had ended up in the attic. He saw the sloping pitches of the roof on both sides of him, with pale light seeping in through the wooden grilles of the windows.

After blinking so that he could see better in the semi-darkness, Masa made out three figures: one tall (that was the master), one short (Tamba) and one middle-sized (the red-faced ninja Tanshin, who was like the sensei’s senior deputy). Midori soared up out of the hatch and the wooden lid slammed shut.

Apparently all the surviving inhabitants of the village of Kakusimura were gathered here.

The first thing to do was look to see what was happening outside. Masa moved over to the window with glimmers of scarlet light dancing in it and pressed his face to it.

A fiery border of torches ran round the house in a half-circle, from cliff-edge to cliff-edge. Loitering between the tongues of flame were dark silhouettes with guns held at the ready. There was no point in sticking their noses out that way, that was clear.

Masa ran across to the other window, but that way was really bad – there was just the black yawning abyss.

So where did that leave them? A precipice on one side and guns on the other. The sky up above and down below … In the far corner of the attic there was a yellow square of light in the floor – the hatch discovered by the Monk in the third room on the left. There were Black Jackets in there with naked daggers. So they couldn’t go down there either.

But what about all the way down, into the basement?

Masa ran over to the lifting device and opened the hatch slightly – the one he had clambered out of only a couple of minutes earlier.

Down below he could hear the tramping of feet and a buzz of voices – the enemy was already getting up to his tricks in the basement.

That meant they would soon reach the attic too.

It was all over. It was impossible to save the master.

Well then, it was a vassal’s duty to die with him. But first to render his master a final service: help him leave this life with dignity. In a hopeless situation, when a man was surrounded on all sides by enemies, the only thing left was to deprive the enemies of the pleasure of seeing your death agony. Let them have nothing but the indifferent corpse, and your dead face gazing at them with superior contempt.