“He wanted to collect the reward. He knows.”
For a moment, Kaze thought that Akinari knew that he was a man wanted by the Tokugawas because of his ties to the Toyotomis. He decided to clarify this. “He knows what?”
“That you tried to assassinate the Shogun.”
Now it was Kaze’s turn to be surprised. He stayed silent, to see if silence would extract more information. It did.
Nobu licked his lips. Then he said, “I didn’t want you to be killed, but the reward for your head is ten thousand ryo. No one could pass that up. There’s a thousand ryo just for leading the authorities to you.”
Even a thousand ryo was considerably larger than the reward for turning in a Toyotomi loyalist.
Kaze stayed silent for several more minutes, but Nobu didn’t volunteer more. Finally, Kaze asked, “How does Boss Akinari know about this reward? I haven’t seen notice boards posted around the city.”
“The district captain told him. We give a payoff to him every month. Otherwise we couldn’t operate a gambling den in this place. He said they don’t want to post the reward on public notice boards yet, so you won’t know and will be surprised.”
Kaze was indeed surprised, but not because someone had suddenly tried to take his life. That had happened often enough. It was the thought that the Tokugawas had identified him as Ieyasu’s would-be assassin that surprised him.
“Why do they think I’m the one who tried to kill the Shogun?”
“You were spotted near the place where the gunman hid.”
The young captain who looked at Kaze so strangely when Kaze was doing his street act with the tops.
“Well, I didn’t try to kill Ieyasu-sama,” Kaze said conversationally. “If I had, he would be dead. But I suppose that doesn’t matter if the authorities think I’m the one who tried to kill him. What a bother!”
Nobu looked like he was going to ask about what kind of bother it was, but Kaze stood up. He wasn’t going to explain to the big wrestler about his quest to find the daughter of his Lord and Lady. Becoming the most hunted man in Edo would make it difficult to observe the Little Flower Whorehouse to see if the girl was still there, and to develop a plan to rescue her if she was. “What a bother!” he said again.
Kaze pointed to Nobu with his sword. “You’re a good fellow, and I like you. I should kill you now, to keep you quiet. Instead, I’m going to walk out of here and I want you to treat our conversation as a dream. You must be tired, spending the night in the cold looking for me. I suggest you crawl onto the futon and go to bed. But whatever you do, please don’t make me sorry I let you live. If you do, I promise I will do my best to come back and correct that mistake.”
Then, without warning, Kaze took a cut at the candle. The sword moved with such speed that Nobu heard it more than saw it. A quick swish of air that seemed too gentle a sound to carry death with it. Nobu didn’t see the sword hit the candle, but the light was snuffed out. Nobu could see the dying ember of the wick, fading to orange in the darkness. Incredibly, the ronin had cut off the burning wick of the candle, but left the rest intact.
Too stunned to move, Nobu strained to hear where the ronin was. He heard nothing, but suddenly, behind him, the door to his room opened. The dim light of the hall spilled into the darkened room. He turned to see who was entering the room and instead he saw the ronin leaving. Nobu’s spine tingled at the thought of a man who could move so quickly and so silently. He watched the ronin’s feet as he left the room. He wanted to make sure the ronin walked with his heel touching the ground before his toes. Ghosts walked with their toes touching first, and he wanted to assure himself that this ronin was a man, and not an obake.
After he was sure the ronin was gone, Nobu made his way to the bath. His body was covered with sticky, dried sweat. He tried to tell himself that the sweat had come from the search, but he knew he had not been sweaty when he walked into his room.
The bathhouse had been cleaned up. The bodies of the slain men were removed, and the walls and floor were still wet from countless buckets of water used to wash off the blood. Because of this extra effort, the attendant was not around. Nobu surmised that, like all of them, the attendant was tired after this extraordinary night. He stuck his hand into the ofuro and the water was hot enough, so he decided to take his bath without getting the attendant to help scrub his back and tend to the fire.
As Nobu started stripping down, he noticed that only one of the wooden stools was sitting on the bathhouse floor. There were usually two stools in the bathhouse, and Nobu was so large that he generally put the two of them side by side to sit on.
He looked around for the second stool, and found the pieces of it neatly stacked in a corner. Nobu was puzzled. In another corner of the bathhouse, he saw something curious. He went over and picked it up, holding it up to the lantern that illuminated the bathhouse so he could see it better. Someone had taken one of the legs from the broken stool and carved a Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy. Then the artist had placed the Kannon so it looked upon the place where the two men had died.
Nobu looked around and saw nothing else to explain the little statue. He looked back at the Kannon, seeing a face of infinite beauty and tranquility. Reverently, he placed the Kannon back in place.
Kaze continued to move as silently as a shadow cast by a swinging lantern as he made his way back to the merchant’s house. He had decided he would not spend the night, but there was something there he wanted; his sword-cleaning materials. It was common for a samurai to get his sword wet, in rain or when fording streams, but every samurai also took care of his sword, because the sword was an expression of his spirit and soul.
Kaze had just immersed his sword in water. Now he wanted to clean his sword and give it a light coating of oil, to protect it. “Fly Cutter” was precious to him. It was new, and he had never had a sword so lively and finely balanced. It was a natural extension of his arms, and was rapidly becoming part of his spiritual core.
Kaze approached the merchant’s house and observed it for several minutes. All seemed normal, with light peeking out through tiny gaps in the shutters. Kaze crossed to the house and opened the door.
“Tadaima. I’m home,” Kaze said.
The merchant’s wife and the maid were sitting on the floor, whispering to each other across a low table. They looked up when Kaze entered, and gave an answering bow of their heads as Kaze dipped his head in greeting. He was puzzled that they were still up, but he didn’t want to engage them in conversation.
Kaze made his way up the steep stairs, almost a ladder, to his room. Next to the folded futon sitting on a shelf was a bundle wrapped in a cloth. Kaze took the bundle and unwrapped it, taking out soft cloths and a small flask of oil. He carefully wiped down his blade, cleaning it. After he had cleaned it to his satisfaction, he took the flask of oil, poured some on a cloth, and coated the blade. He thought of disassembling the handle to clean the tang, but decided he didn’t want to feel vulnerable while his sword was taken apart. He would do that when he had a safer place.
Just as he was sliding the blade back into its scabbard, he heard some footsteps on the stairs.
“Sumimasen! Excuse us! May we come up to see you?” It was the voice of the merchant’s wife.
“Dozo. Please.” Kaze was curious about what she wanted.
The wife and the maid came up the stairs, entering Kaze’s small room and standing next to the stairwell, looking nervous. They were dressed in plain kimonos, but Kaze realized they were probably the finest kimonos they owned, because they were not patched. Clothes were expensive and were often given as a special present by a lord to a vassal. Most common people had their everyday kimonos patched in some way. Every other day he was in the house, Kaze had noticed the patches on the kimonos of the wife and servant, and he was curious about why they had apparently put on their best kimonos tonight.