Akitada was relieved. “Legallyyou are not guilty of murder,” he said. “This will not prevent you from servingas coroner.”
“I must confess to yet anotheroffense,” Oyoshi said sadly. “When I saw you at Takata, ill, outnumbered,outmanipulated, and surrounded by forces you seemed neither by background norby personality equipped to handle, you seemed lost. Then, when you asked me toserve as your coroner, I formed the somewhat confused idea of throwing in mylot with you. Circumstances favored this, and the more I learned about you, themore convinced I became that joining your downfall would be my personalatonement. I planned to end my life with you and thus make amends for my past.But I was quite wrong. You have fought the evil in this province successfullyand you will prevail, while I must continue to bear my guilt.”
For a moment Akitada was sotaken aback by this that he did not know whether to laugh or be angry. Then heremembered the coming battle and said, “I suppose both my arrogance and myignorance, obvious to everyone but me, blinded me to the local problems in thebeginning. You were not wrong about me. I have little to be proud of, and had Iknown how badly I would bungle, I would have fled in panic. Let us hope thatsome good may still come of our most foolish actions. I want you to stay.”
Oyoshi brushed at his eyes. “Ifyou truly wish it, sir,” he murmured. He rose awkwardly and stumbled from theroom.
¦
Heavygray clouds swirled above and sleet stung their faces. Below them, the forestenclosing the frozen fields looked funereal, like a black stole draped across apallid hempen gown. It was past midday. Hours ago, Akitada and Takesuke hadridden up to the Takata gate and demanded Makio’s surrender. A hail of arrowshad been their answer. After that, Takesuke had withdrawn his troops, andAkitada, along with Hitomaro and Tora, had gone to meet Kaoru.
The four would make the dangerousattempt to get inside the fortified manor. They wore straw rain capes overlight armor and waited hidden among trees where they could see part of the roadleading up to the manor. A quarter of the hour passed before the old womanappeared, walking slowly and leaning on the arm of a girl.
“Isn’t that your sister?”Hitomaro asked Kaoru. “Why risk her life?”
“My cousin. She usually goesalong and I could not stop her.”
They waited again, nervouslynow, until the two women returned. The girl loosened the shawl around her headand let it blow in the wind for a moment before she retied it.
“Good girl! All is ready,” saidKaoru, adding grimly, “Let’s hope we do our part as well.”
Akitada looked up at the sky togauge the time. There was no sun. The icy wind pushed angry gray clouds beforeit, clouds so low that they hid the snowy tops of the distant mountains. Wispsof cloud drifted across the dark roofs of Takata manor- shredded silk gauzefrom a mourner’s train.
They left the trees at a runand dashed across the road. Up the hill, still at a run, they kept mostly to agully, a jagged scar which ran up the barren hillside. The gully gave them somecover, but then they were in the open again and close enough to the manor thata single archer on one of the galleries could pick them off one by one, likerunning deer.
As they ran uphill, the lowclouds finally released the first heavy drops. They congealed into sleet in thecold wind and stung their faces. Akitada clasped his heavy sword to his side soit would not get between his legs and trip him. His armor was also heavy andcumbersome, and the rain-soaked straw cape flapped wetly against him. Hisbreath soon came in hoarse gasps, his chest hurt, and his leg muscles ached,but he was ashamed to fall back behind the others. When they reached the steepoutcropping under the eastern wall, he sagged against the rock, drenched insweat despite the bitter cold.
They huddled there for alittle, in a blind spot where an overhanging gallery hid them from watchingeyes above, and waited for the signal. The icy wind cut through the straw coatsand turned the metal scales of their armor into ice against their wet bodies.Akitada’s teeth chattered from cold and nerves.
Below the land stretched away,empty sere fields traversed by the darker line of the road. They had come fromthe forest to the north and followed a path so narrow and overgrown that onlyKaoru had known how to find it. He had kept an eye on the ramparts above them,but they had seen no watchers. Takesuke and his men were on the other side,below the approach to the manor’s gate, and that was where Uesugi expected theattack to come from.
Here immense slabs of rock roseto an outer wall and to the black timbers of a gallery jutting into the stormygray sky above them. Dry shrubs and stunted trees grew from cracks in therocks. Kaoru moved along the path to one of the slabs of rock and felt it. Hegrunted and gave a push, and Akitada saw a crack widen into a thin blackfissure.
Like the tomb entrance, Akitadathought with a shiver. He said aloud, “What about the signal?”
Kaoru nodded. “We wait a littlelonger, but there isn’t much time left.”
So they stood, shivering in thesleeting rain with their sword grips freezing to their perspiring palms,wondering if Koreburo had been caught. Akitada heard distant drumbeats carriedon the wind in snatches. Takesuke was following instructions and exercising histroops. Akitada wished himself a common foot soldier, trotting briskly andunencumbered by heavy armor to the command of an officer. He was impatient toget this over with, to confront what lay in wait behind the stone door. Action,any kind of action, was preferable to this agonizing process of congealing inthe freezing blasts.
When it finally came, that cryof the snow goose, once, and quickly again, they exchanged glances, then tossedoff their straw wraps and gripped their swords more tightly. Kaoru and Toratogether pushed the stone aside. A dark and narrow stone stairway ascendedinside.
Suddenly, before Kaoru couldtake the lead, Hitomaro pushed past Akitada and disappeared into the darkness.Tora muttered a curse, and Akitada drew his sword and went after Hitomaro intothe murky shaft leading upward. Hitomaro’s rapid steps sounded ahead, but itwas too dark to see. What was the fool doing? At any moment he might run intodanger and give them away. More steps shuffled behind, but Akitada was bent oncatching up with Hitomaro.
The climb through a tight blackspace, only occasionally lit by air holes in the outer walls, seemed to lastforever. The steps twisted, turned, and switched back. Akitada’s sword onceclattered against the wall and he caught it. Someone behind him slipped andcursed softly. Sweat trickled down Akitada’s temples, and his fingers crampedaround the sword hilt. He tried to listen, but his breathing and the bloodpounding in his ears muffled all other sounds. If Hitomaro had encountered aguard, he was already a dead man. And so were they all.
Then he caught a faint whiff ofburning oil. Wood scraped on wood and, as he turned a corner, faint light camethrough a grate just large enough for a man to get through. Hitomaro coweredthere, a hulking black shadow, until Akitada saw his face flushed by the lightas he removed the grate and slipped through the opening.
“Come, sir,” he said softly,holding out a hand to Akitada. “It’s safe.”
“That was a very foolish trick,”Akitada hissed angrily. “You might have ruined everything by rushing ahead whenKaoru knows the way.”
Hitomaro’s face wasexpressionless. “Sorry, sir.”
Akitada climbed out into anempty enclosed gallery. The corridor was a little over a hundred feet long, itsnarrow shutters closed tight against the weather, and the dim space lit at eachend by large metal oil lamps attached to beams. It was silent and deserted, butthey could hear men shouting outside. No doubt Uesugi’s warriors were gettingready for Takesuke’s attack.
The other two joined them.Akitada said, “Very well. Let’s see about finding Uesugi and opening that gate.”It sounded ridiculously simple to his ears and, standing there in the enemy’sstronghold, he half believed it would be.
“Come and see,” Kaoru gruntedand opened one of the shutters a crack.