“My daughter …” she said.
“Do you know where she is?” Kaze asked. “I’ll get her, too.”
“No. They took her yesterday. Okubo told me he was going to sell her. He wouldn’t tell me where. He said it was punishment for my husband and me always thinking we were better than him. It’s true. We always did think we were better. Now I know we are. But the revenge he took because of that…” Her voice trailed off. Then she said, “I think he did this to me because he liked it. He liked it very much.”
“My Lady, it’s best if you don’t talk now. We still have to get out of here, and as soon as they find out you’re gone, they’ll come looking for us.” Kaze picked her up in his arms. He kept his sword in his hand and carefully made his way out of the enclosure. He was halfway to the opening in the outer enclosure when a samurai in armor and a helmet came out of one of the tents.
He saw Kaze and drew his sword. “Alarm! Intruders!” he shouted, and started running toward Kaze.
Kaze took a few seconds to put the Lady down, instead of dropping her, and those few seconds almost cost him his life.
Kaze took the first sword blow while he was still bent. The best he could do was to parry the samurai’s blow. A man in armor was hard to kill, because there were only a few vulnerable spots. Even if the armor didn’t completely stop a blow, it could lessen its effectiveness, leaving a man with a cut instead of a mortal wound.
Using all his strength, Kaze pushed the man away. He knew he had to end this duel quickly, because he could hear the camp stirring. Reinforcements would be arriving any moment. His katana was made for slashing, not thrusting, but he knew there was one vulnerable spot on the armored man that would end the contest quickly. He stepped back and dropped his guard.
Seeing his chance, the armored samurai attacked, slashing at Kaze with an over-the-head blow. At the ready, Kaze narrowly dodged the blow and lunged forward, the point of his katana aimed at the man’s neck, right below the chin. Kaze caught the man in this unarmored spot and shoved his sword home. The man dropped his sword and grabbed at Kaze’s blade, now stuck in his neck. Kaze withdrew his sword with a sideways motion, slashing the man’s throat. The man collapsed.
Kaze took a second cut at the man’s throat, not to deliver another death blow, but to cut the ties that held the man’s helmet. He scooped the man’s helmet off his head and placed it on his own head just as the troops, roused from a drunken victory stupor, started rushing out of the tents, holding their weapons.
Kaze looked up with the helmet on his head and shouted, “I’ve killed two of them!” He pointed to the body of the dead samurai and the Lady, who was moaning softly from pain. “Quickly! They’ve gone into the enclosed area and rescued the Lady! Hurry! There’s a dozen of them!” Kaze pointed to the enclosure where he had found the Lady. “They’re in there! Hurry! Get them!”
In the dark, with an Okubo helmet on, the troops took Kaze for an officer and immediately rushed to obey. They ran past in a frenzy, bumping into one another in their confusion and bewilderment. As soon as they were past, Kaze scooped up the Lady and made a dash for the place in the compound barrier where he had entered.
CHAPTER 25
Things man does to man.
Human tears would fill Edo
Bay, if gathered there.
The Lady wasn’t heavy, but by midday Kaze was weary of carrying her. He had not slept or rested for several days, ever since learning of Okubo’s treachery. Kaze had taken to the mountains immediately. He knew that if he stayed on level ground the Okubo troops would soon hunt them down on horseback. In the mountains Kaze had an advantage, because Okubo’s troops would have to proceed on foot and Kaze could stretch his meager head start as the troops tried to track him.
The rain had not abated, and the dreary wet weather matched Kaze’s mood. His children were dead. His wife was dead. The fate of his Lord was unknown. The Lady’s daughter had been kidnapped and presumably sold. The Lady had been tortured and dishonored. In his arms, she made an infrequent moan of pain but never complained as Kaze took her deeper into the mountains to get away from Okubo’s men.
Kaze was exhausted, but he would have willed himself to continue, except that the Lady seemed near the end of her strength. He found a sheltered spot under a crooked tree and made a damp nest for the Lady from pine needles and cut branches.
He sat next to her and asked if she wanted him to find something to eat.
“No. Not for me. Find something for yourself.”
“I’m not hungry,” Kaze lied. “We’ll rest here for a while. The rain seems to have made it difficult for Okubo to pursue us. We’ll go through the mountains, and I’ll find a safe place for you. Then I’ll make contact with the Lord. Just recover so we can plan our next move.”
“You know, I always admired you for your courage. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. The Lord and I used to talk about it often. I wish I had some of that courage now. I don’t want to die.”
“You won’t die.”
She gave a faint smile. With her drawn face it looked more like a grimace. “You always were a very poor liar,” she said. “I can feel my strength and life slipping away. Still, I want to thank you for rescuing me. I wouldn’t want to die strung up like that. It’s a poor death. An inujini. A dog’s death.”
“Don’t die, Lady!”
“I don’t think I have a choice. There are still so many wonderful things I want to do. But the biggest reason I want to live is to make sure my daughter is rescued and safe. I can’t do that now, so I need your help. I don’t know how, but if she’s still alive I want you to find her. It’s my last wish and my last command to you.” She looked at him with feverish eyes black from strain and pain.
Kaze bowed his head in response to the Lady’s order. Hot tears flowed down his cheeks and mingled with the icy raindrops striking his face. Despite the pain, the Lady reached up and, using the sleeve of her kimono, brushed the tears from his face. It was a gesture that had no practical purpose, because his face was covered with raindrops as soon as her sleeve moved across it. Yet Kaze found comfort in the gesture. Her touch was so light it felt like a breeze caressing his cheek, the kind of soft breeze he felt when he climbed into treetops and put his face into the wind.
Kaze found it strange that the dying should be comforting the living. With his children gone, his wife gone, his clan defeated and in disarray, and the fate of his Lord unknown, Kaze thought that it might be best to follow the Lady in death when the time came.
As if reading his thoughts, the Lady stopped brushing away his tears and extended a weak hand. It trembled with the effort to keep it in the air. “Give me your wakizashi.”
Surprised, Kaze removed his short sword from his sash, putting it in her hand. The weight of the sword caused her hand to drop to the ground, but she clutched the scabbard fiercely. At first Kaze thought the Lady had lost heart and was going to use the short sword to commit suicide, but then she said, “This represents your honor and the ability to take your own life. Your honor is now mine until my daughter is found and safe.
“Promise me!” she said fiercely.
“I promise, Lady. But this is not necessary. I will honor my promise to find your daughter, as I have always honored my pledges. And you will be alive to see her and hold her again.”
The Lady looked at him with tired eyes. “I wish that were true.” She said no more and closed her eyes to rest. In a few minutes she had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Kaze tried to remove the wakizashi from her hand so she could rest easier, but even in her sleep she gripped the short sword.
Kaze sat next to her. He held his own kimono sleeve above her, holding it out like a tent flap with his other hand, despite his fatigue, to keep the raindrops off her face. In meditation, he had been taught to listen to his own breathing, because breath means life. Now he listened to the Lady’s ragged breathing. It became shallower and shallower, until it was barely detectable. Then it ceased altogether.