The Tokaido Road (1991)(528p) (8 page)

Cat also had five silver
mame-ita,
the smallest denomination, and the string of a hundred copper
mon
that Shichisaburo had given her. They were all that he had had on him. He had offered to get more for her when his banker opened his shop in the morning, but Cat had dared not wait for that.

Cat put her arms through the woven straps and adjusted the straw pads under them where they dug into her shoulder. She bowed and once more chanted a prayer to her father’s memory.

“You! What do you want?” Spring Hill Temple’s new assistant abbot was so fat, he rocked from side to side as he rumbled down the steep stone steps of the temple’s main hall.

Cat figured this was as good a place as any to try begging. She held out her cracked wooden bowl and thumped her walking stick, jangling the iron rings on top.

“Namu Amida Butsu.
Homage to Amida Buddha,” she droned through her nose. “I ask a small donation in the name of the All-Loving Buddha for the temple we are building to honor the god often thousand good fortunes.”

“Begone!” The assistant abbot ran out of breath halfway down the steps. He wheezed like a pair of wet sandals and waved his sleeves at Cat.

“Buy a talisman of the Thousandfold Blessing,” she said. “It will banish the danger years. It will make you fertile.” Cat held the bowl out farther.

“Begone!”

“Who is it?” The head abbot stood in the temple’s doorway.

“Some wretched, thieving ‘abandoning-priest.’ “ His assistant trundled back up the stairs toward the clangor of the monks’ bells.

Even though the head abbot couldn’t see Cat’s face, she lowered her head and retreated. Spring Hill Temple was near her former home. The abbot had been an old friend of her father’s.  He had given Cat and her mother religious instruction. Unlike his new assistant, he was a kind man. Even if he thought her no more than a mendicant priest, he might have invited her in for morning tea and a talk.

Cat paused before passing through the gate, though. She turned and looked back toward her father’s grave, surrounded by the hundreds of other gray monuments, the ranks of the dead.

“I will not forget you,” she whispered. “Not even for an interval as short as those between the notes of the bells.”

THE JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND
RI

A tall pole stood near the fence leading to the barrier in Shinagawa. One short crosspiece was lashed near the bottom of the pole and a longer one farther up. A naked man hung with feet braced on the bottom crosspiece and arms outstretched and tied to the top one.

All his blood had drained from the ragged gashes torn in his sides by a spear blade. The ground under the pole was black with it. The executioner had been clumsy or careless or cruel. He had stabbed the man several times before puncturing enough organs to finish the business.

The dead man had been caught trying to sneak around the barrier. His body had been hanging here for three days as a lesson to anyone with similar plans. Men of the
eta,
the outcasts, leaned on their shovels and puffed on their tiny pipes and joked around the open hole where the body would be thrown. The soil of the mass grave was studded with bones, hair, and teeth.

In spite of the stench, only Cat seemed to notice. While they waited their turn, pilgrims and travelers and porters sat on their luggage near the corpse. They chatted as they munched on the rice cakes and pickles and sweet potatoes they had retrieved from their packs and big cloth bundles. Whether they considered themselves too worldly to notice another public execution or whether they were really afraid, Cat couldn’t say.

The TMkaidM Road wove through Shinagawa like a river meandering through a low wooden canyon. Here the highway followed the line of hills on one side and the bay on the other. Shinagawa’s role as a way station for people headed somewhere else was clear. It was famous for its restaurants and its audacious “rice servers,” women who, for a fee, delivered more than rice.

At the end of the commercial district stretched a forbidding wall. It funneled all the foot traffic, for no wheeled vehicles were allowed on the TMkaidM, through one narrow gate. Government officials checked the travel papers of everyone passing through it.

Cat’s nerve almost failed her when she saw the early-morning crowd of travelers bunched at the barrier. A group of
samurai,
each with a pair of swords stuck through his sash, guarded the gate. They were separating out the women and escorting them into a nearby building.

To keep the restive
daimyM
under control, the first Tokugawa
shMgun,
Ieyasu, had devised a form of loyalty-by-hostage called “alternate attendance.” The lords were allowed to spend time on their fiefs scattered about the country; but they had to leave their wives and children in Edo as a guarantee of their good behavior.

If a
daimyM
could smuggle his family out of Edo, he could foment rebellion without fear that their heads would decorate Edo’s execution grounds. So women, especially women of the nobility, were watched very closely. Cat knew the women were being stripped and inspected by female examiners. If they didn’t match the detailed descriptions on their permits, they would be detained or sent back to Edo or punished.

Cat wished she could stop at one of the busy, open-fronted tea houses and spend an hour or so over a steaming cup and a bowl of rice and vegetables. It would give her time to observe the barrier and the procedures there. But to drink tea and eat rice she would have to take off the basket covering her face.

Beyond the narrow alleyways between some of the buildings, Cat could see the quartz-and-sapphire glitter of the bay. Boats bobbed on its surface. Gulls dipped and swooped overhead, unaffected by man-made barriers. Cat envied them.

Shichisaburo had said that priests and nuns and holy men didn’t need travel permits. But what if he were wrong?

Cat read the notices painted on strips of wood and hung on the big, roofed-over board standing outside the gate. She found only the usual admonitions to the lower classes to work hard, avoid frivolous pastimes and showy clothing, and honor one’s superiors. There was no mention of a murder or two in the Yoshiwara. No word of a runaway courtesan.

For the first time since her escape from the House of the Perfumed Lotus, Cat would have to face government officials. She would have to speak to them. And if they discovered she was in disguise, they would arrest her.

In situations like this Musashi advised seizing the initiative. Cat jangled the iron rings on her staff. Those at the rear of the crowd jumped. They were less indifferent to the specter of death by crucifixion than they seemed.

“
Namu Amida Butsu,”
Cat droned.

People glanced up in annoyance and moved away. A few pressed their hands to their sashes or the fronts of their jackets where they kept their purses. Cat approached the roughest men she saw.

“Buy a talisman of the Thousandfold Blessing!” She draped the mendicant’s cloth over her hand and held out her begging bowl to a group of
kago
bearers. They were sprawled in a patch of morning sun, drinking warm
sake
and swapping lies.

“Try this talisman’s virtues,” Cat said. “It will cancel out the danger years. It will banish warts. It will make you fertile.”

One of the men had a dragon tattooed the length of his arm. With his round, woven-bamboo fan he scooped up a pile of dog excrement and dropped it into the bowl. His friends doubled over with laughter.

Cat bowed low. “The Buddha will remember your gift, kind sir,” she said.
And I will remember your face,
she thought.
And if we meet under different circumstances, I will separate your head from your shoulders.

Ignoring their laughter, she moved on through the crowd, begging her way toward the head of the line. By the time she reached the gate she had emptied the bowl of the
kago
bearer’s contribution, but nothing else had taken its place. The people of Edo seemed to have no time for charity or religion.

With heart pounding she passed between the guards and walked to the open-fronted building where the government’s officials sat. White bunting decorated with the three hollyhock leaves of the Tokugawa crest hung from the eaves of the porch.

The magistrate hardly glanced at Cat when she stood before him. He sat cross-legged on a cushion on a
tatami
-covered dais and leaned on an elbow cushion. His assistant sat at a low writing table covered with sheafs of paper and ink pads and stamps.  Behind him, on a lower level, the captain of the guard and three of his men sat back on their heels.

Cat had rehearsed her story, but the magistrate didn’t even question her. His assistant waved her past.

Cat’s knees felt weak as she walked through the opposite gate. Beyond it was the broad TMkaidM, the great road called the Eastern Seaway. While Cat leaned on her staff to calm her racing heart, a pack train passed. The bells on the horses’ bridles jingled merrily. Just ahead of Cat walked a group of pilgrims who also wore bells. They were singing and clapping time and improvising dance steps as they went. Their straw sandals kicked up little explosions of dust.

“Holy man.”

Cat jumped when the old man tugged at her sleeve.

“Holy man, please accept this unworthy donation for your temple.” The man was bent and worn, and his clothes hung about him in tatters. The ten
-mon
piece he held out must have been most of what he had.

“You need this more than I, grandfather,” Cat said.

“Excuse my rudeness, but you would honor me by taking it. It will bring me the blessing of Buddha.” The old man bowed low and hobbled off before Cat could say anything else.

Cat stood in the center of the busy traffic and looked down the wide road. Its raised, hard-packed earthen surface was unmarred by ruts. Wheeled vehicles weren’t allowed on it. Rebel armies could be fed and armed with the contents of wheeled vehicles.

On both sides of the TMkaidM, huge pine trees provided shade. The brown mosaic of rice paddies and irrigation ditches of the plain of Musashi came right to its verges. At the other end of the TMkaidM, one hundred and twenty-five
ri
away, lay KyMto, the Western Capital of Peace and Tranquillity. According to Shichisaburo, Oishi spent his nights in Shimabara, KyMto’s pleasure district. Cat’s hopes and all her prospects of avenging her father resided there.

Musashi wrote that the journey of a thousand
ri
began with the first step. A stranger in her native country, Cat drew a deep breath of chill winter air and took the first step.

THE WHITE WAKE

The parrot perched on a thin cotton towel spread across Old Jug Face’s shoulder. As usual when he was nervous, he searched under the second cloth tied around her head as a kerchief. When he found her pendulous earlobe, he nibbled it and murmured to her.

“Centipede says you’re the best.” Old Jug Face’s dubious expression was understandable. Hanshiro didn’t look prosperous. He didn’t even look solvent. He grunted noncommittally.

“The best is required for this situation,” Old Jug Face hastened on. She didn’t want to offend him. Centipede said he was particular about the jobs he accepted. She shuffled along, close on his
tabi-clad
heels as he crossed the room where Cat had entertained her last guest.

“People in high places want her kept here. Out of the way,” Old Jug Face whispered. She knew that servants, both her own and a few sent by Lord Kira to spy, were listening intently in the nearby rooms.

Hanshiro grunted again. Kira was at quite a disadvantage. The
shMgun
disapproved of him. Members of the upper class ridiculed him. The rabble despised him.

If the mistress of the Perfumed Lotus was telling the truth, Lord Asano had had an outside-wife and child. Kira must fear that the daughter would coalesce a vendetta among Asano’s former retainers. The fact that Asano’s daughter had disappeared on the monthly anniversary of her father’s death must have Kira agitated.

Hanshiro stood in the doorway between Cat’s small dressing room and the bedchamber. They were both tidy. The soiled quilt and the blowfish were gone. After Hanshiro had inspected the single slice of
fugu
and its garnish of dead flies and cockroaches, servants had cleared it away.

Hanshiro read the titles of the books on Cat’s shelf. They consisted of classics and all five volumes of Musashi’s
Book of Five Rings
instead of the usual bawdy romances.

Pretensions of intellect,
he thought. He unrolled a scroll and studied the calligraphy. An exceptionally good hand for a woman. The characters were drawn with a boldness that was almost masculine.

“Is she
kurage,
a change of saddles?”

“No, she’s not a habitual runaway. This is the first time she’s disappeared. All her clothes are still here and at the Carp.”

Hanshiro was bored. He had heard this story many times before, with only the slightest variations. Women had no sense. They ran away with the first man who rolled his eyes, waved his cucumber of love, and pledged his everlasting devotion. As soon as he lured them out of the Yoshiwara, he resold them elsewhere.

The dressing room was elegantly furnished, but that was to be expected. According to what the mistress had reluctantly divulged, the courtesan named Cat had come from a good family. Her mother’s people had been of noble stock, sturdy of arm, strong of spirit, but empty of purse. She was probably pampered. Spoiled. Vain.

“I don’t know how this happened.” Old Jug Face was still frantically sorting through possible ways to avoid blame for the disaster. “Centipede says he saw Lady Asano’s guest near the Great Gate at the hour of the Rat, but he didn’t see her. Of course there was an unfortunate accident at the gate last night.”

Hanshiro didn’t even bother to grunt. He had drawn both arms inside the capacious sleeves of his rumpled, dusty-black jacket and crossed them over his taut stomach. He poked one hand through the frayed diagonal of the neck opening and scratched the dark stubble on his cheek. The beard, streaked with a few wiry gray hairs, blurred the angles of his high cheekbones and strong jaw, but his dark, brooding eyes glowed clear and sharp and with an intensity that bordered on the savage.

He obviously hadn’t been to a hairdresser in a long time. The wide strip of scalp from his forehead to his crown was supposed to have been shaved. Instead it bristled with a half-inch pelt. The long black hair around it had been caught up into a shaggy whisk at the crown of his head and carelessly wrapped and tied with a cord of rice straw.

He was slightly taller than average and solid, with muscular arms and shoulders and big hands. He was forty-one, born in the year of the Tiger. In a lifetime of adversity he had learned that he could depend only on himself.

Hanshiro didn’t like to ask questions, but now and then they were the quickest if not the best way to get answers. He didn’t want to waste any more time on this job than necessary. He was tired of cases involving runaways. He had taken this one because the story of the young woman’s downfall had piqued his curiosity.

“Your servants have checked everywhere?”

“Oh, yes.” Old Jug Face’s parrot muttered to himself and scanned longingly for his cage. “She’s not in the district.”

Hanshiro put his arms back through his sleeves. He was left-handed, and as he knelt, his right hand moved reflexively to his side. He intended to push his long-sword’s sharkskin-covered hilt down so its tip would swing upward away from the
tatami;
but his long-sword was in Centipede’s care.

Hanshiro’s blunt index finger and thumb closed delicately around a few black silken threads lying on the dark green binding where two mats met. When he held the hairs up, they hung down a foot and a half on each side of his fingers. Old Jug Face stared at them as a mouse would watch a snake. Her own stubby fingers were interlaced under the light mauve apron she wore over her brown checked robe. Her hands were clenched so tightly that white ellipses formed at the knuckles.

Old Jug Face was almost thirty-nine in a profession where the foot soldiers were dismissed as middle-aged at twenty-five. She had struggled to fortify herself a comfortable redoubt here. She made a hundred
mon
in squeeze from every
ichibu
a customer spent on food. She made a percentage on the maids’ and servants’ tips and the courtesans’ fees. Now she was terrified that Lord Kira would have her turned out, as she herself had turned out women too old to attract trade.

“The woman’s guest probably didn’t leave,” Hanshiro said.

“But Centipede saw him, just before the
metsuke
...” The possibility of a link between Cat’s disappearance and the fire that had consumed Lord Kira’s cousin hit Old Jug Face. She looked like a crow that had just flown headlong into a wall.

In a daze she plucked the parrot off her shoulder. When she cradled the bird in her arms he struggled briefly, sneezed, then subsided. Hanshiro could tell that his latest employer was staring straight into the leer of her own mortality. He wasn’t given to jocularity, but he almost smiled at the look on her face.

Hanshiro went to the rear wall panel and slid it open. He looked up and down the back corridor. No woman, especially none of Cat’s rank, cut off three feet of her hair unless she intended to become a nun.

“Was she religious?” he asked without turning around.

“Not particularly, although she read the holy scriptures each day.”

“And the
fugu,
the blowfish?”

“A terrible accident.”

“You had an unusual number of accidents here last night.”

“Nothing like that has ever happened in the Perfumed Lotus before. My
fugu
man is a qualified fish surgeon. Never in his ...”

Hanshiro held up a hand to quiet her. He wasn’t concerned with what was probably a murder. He wasn’t being hired to solve that. Nor did he want to be. Missing people weren’t usually very interesting, but they were more interesting than dead ones.

“No one else was with her?”

“Her little maid slept in another room last night.”

Hanshiro prowled the narrow back corridor toward the dark doorway to the storeroom. He walked with a straddle-legged swagger and a slight limp. If the long, divided, pleated skirts of his
hakama
had been new and crisp, they would have flared almost to the wall on either side. But this
hakama
was limp and faded from black to a streaked bluish gray. The hems had raveled into a pale fringe. Even the tips of the fringe were frayed.

Behind him Hanshiro heard the rustle and squeak of women. He knew the maids were fluttering like radiant butterflies behind the paper walls, trying to see and hear. He could picture them whispering behind their sleeves. For a morning, at least, they had more on their minds than hairdos.

Hanshiro stood in the doorway of the storeroom and tried to conjure up the image of Cat, the woman who was to have been Lady Asano. He tried to form her from her handwriting and from the scent that lingered in her rooms. Was she a fugitive or a victim or a murderer?

The sun shone through cracks in the wall and painted gilt stripes on the sacks and barrels. Dust motes frolicked in the sunbeams. When his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Hanshiro saw the traces of Butterfly’s broom and the trail of the quilt. He saw the freshly scattered dust, lighter in color than the rest, on the
sake
barrels. Cat’s white wake, left in her flight.

He thought of the old poem.

To what shall I compare

this world?

To the white wake behind

A ship that has rowed away

at dawn.

Hanshiro rapped the sides of the
sake
barrels with the pry bar. He opened the rear one and peered inside. The corpse was naked. Was Lady Asano wearing the guest’s rented clothes? “Here,” he grunted.

“The woman we seek?” Old Jug Face’s blocky silhouette filled the lighted doorway.

“No.” Hanshiro felt something that was almost admiration, but not quite. After all, she couldn’t have done this herself. She had an accomplice.

He crossed one possibility off the list. She might be a fugitive and/or a murderer, but she probably wasn’t a victim. Yet.

When Old Jug Face looked inside the barrel, she gave a strangled scream and pressed her hands to her painted mouth. She looked around in panic, trying to figure out how she could hide this from the authorities and knowing she couldn’t.

Without another word Hanshiro strode toward the back door. The madam had given him a list of Cat’s regular guests. He would start with them.

Old Jug
Face scurried after him. “Find her before she bothers Lord Kira, and I’ll pay you extra.”
And add the cost to Lady Asano’s debt,
Hanshiro thought. When he reached the back stoop, the Perfumed Lotus’s sandal man appeared on the run around the corner. Lowly as his job was, he was a master at it. He carried Hanshiro’s tattered, muddy straw footgear without a hint of distaste. Hanshiro stood on the back stoop while the sandal bearer tied them over his worn
tabi,
then bowed repeatedly and disappeared.

The broad eaves of the two brothels almost met overhead. Hanshiro looked down the gloomy alley to the ribbon of sunlight at the end, to the slice of bustling street life visible there.

It was happening as it usually did.

Hanshiro was always alert; but once the chase started something stirred and stretched inside him. Something yawned and flashed long, ivory fangs and a pink predator’s tongue. Something sniffed the odors on the eddies of the wind and rumbled hungrily far back in its throat.

When he was twenty-five Hanshiro had joined the ranks of unemployed
samurai
called
rMnin,
which meant, roughly, “men adrift on life’s seas.” In the fifteen years since then he had earned a precarious living in the shifting, elusive field of endeavor called the Water Trade. The Water Trade was made up of gamblers and procurers, of
sake
-and-bathhouse proprietors, aunties, courtesans, prostitutes, and entertainers.

Hanshiro found lost things—people, treasure, honor. Enough people, treasure, and honor were misplaced in the Yoshiwara to keep him busy full-time. He didn’t often have the sums of money necessary to patronize the assignation houses, but he was a familiar figure here nonetheless.