“Well?” Kaze asked.
“My husband is still out…” The wife spoke haltingly, then stopped.
“Yes?” Kaze encouraged.
“And, ah, and …”
Kaze was puzzled. The two women looked at each other nervously, then back at Kaze. He smiled, to encourage the wife.
“And …” the wife began, before halting again.
“My mistress wants to say,” the maid broke in, “that we are both grateful for what you did, saving us from the gamblers.”
“Yes?”
“And, ah, and …”
Kaze was losing patience with the wife’s halting explanation. He frowned. The maid saw this and once again broke in.
“Anyway, my mistress and I are so grateful that we want to show our gratitude by giving you a most exciting night.”
“Exciting?” Kaze asked, puzzled.
By way of answer, the maid loosened her kimono sash and shrugged the garment off her shoulders. She was wearing the cloth wrap that served as a foundation garment and underwear beneath. She quickly undid the wrap and let that fall to the floor, too. She stood naked, giving Kaze a nervous smile.
Seeing her maid’s actions, the merchant’s wife did likewise, and in an instant, Kaze was confronted with two nervous and naked women. The wife had an arm across her breast and a hand across her loins, but the maid stood brazenly, looking at Kaze’s reaction.
Kaze’s reaction was surprise. Another surprise on a most surprising night. He was about to speak when he saw the eyes of the wife dart nervously toward the stairs. In an instant, he was on his feet, his sword drawn from its scabbard. He dashed to the stairwell and looked down it. Looking up at him in surprise was an armored samurai, creeping up the stairs, sword in hand, with at least a half-dozen men behind him.
Seeing Kaze, the samurai shouted and charged up the stairs. Kaze allowed him to get his head and shoulders past the top stair. The samurai took a cut at Kaze’s legs with his drawn sword. Kaze dropped his sword blade to block the officer’s blow; then he immediately twisted his blade to the side and thrust the point into one of the few places not protected by the armor, right under the samurai’s chin.
The samurai grabbed at the blade as Kaze withdrew his sword, then immediately collapsed, knocking the two men behind him off the stairs and down on the remaining men on the ground floor.
The wife and maid shrank away from Kaze, snatching up their kimonos and huddling together in a corner of the room. They looked at Kaze with fear, uncertain about what revenge he might take. Instead, Kaze picked up his scabbard and ran to the shuttered window, opening it. Shoving his scabbard into his kimono sash, he started stepping out of the window and onto the tiled roof. Despite the sound of men running up the stairs, he paused before he completely exited the room, looking over his shoulder at the merchant’s wife and the maid.
“It has already been an exciting night,” he said. “You didn’t have to add to it.” Then, he added, “By the way, I would have turned you down.”
There was a pale quarter-moon casting long gray shadows when Kaze went out on the roof. He looked down and was surprised to see hordes of soldiers rushing out of nearby houses and running to the vegetable merchant’s house. Evidently the men on the stairs were just the vanguard of a larger party of troops sent to kill or capture him. Kaze surmised that Boss Akinari, unable to collect the ten-thousand-ryo reward, had settled for the thousand for turning him in.
It’s not convenient to be the most wanted man in Edo, Kaze thought as he made his way up the roof and over the peak. He had seen red glows moving with several of the men and he knew that meant they had guns. He wanted to be on the opposite side of the roof from men with matchlock muskets.
Behind him, he could hear the men shouting and passing through the window onto the roof. The houses of Edo were jammed together, so often two, three, and even four houses had their roofs touching. The roofs were made of board and tile. Because of cost, board was the most popular, but there was talk of the Tokugawas requiring tile roofs, to cut down on fires. Many of the side streets and alleys were so narrow that Kaze thought he could easily jump them.
Kaze had left his sandals at the entry to the merchant’s house, but he still had on his tabi socks and they were slippery on the sloping roof. He almost slid off the roof when he tried to stop and had to put one hand down to maintain his balance. As soon as he regained his equilibrium, he ripped one of the tabi off.
This delay allowed the first pursuer to catch him. Kaze caught the pursuer’s blow on his blade, and his tabi-covered foot slipped, making it impossible for Kaze to immediately counterattack. Another man might have cursed this situation, but Kaze simply shifted his stance so his weight was primarily on his bare foot, which had much better purchase on the slippery slope.
His opponent was well trained and disciplined, the hallmark of a good swordsman. Kaze parried two of his cuts, but the other swordsman wasn’t trying to press his advantage. Kaze realized that his opponent didn’t have to. All he had to do was hold Kaze in place until his comrades arrived or a musketeer could get a shot from the ground. Despite his lack of a firm stance, Kaze went on the attack.
The other swordsman parried two of Kaze’s cuts, but not the third. Kaze’s sword caught him on the side of the neck, and the man fell to the roof, sliding to the edge, almost taking Kaze with him as he tumbled over.
Kaze still wanted to remove the other tabi sock, but he had no time. The next man out of the window was over the roof’s peak and upon him. This man wasn’t as disciplined or as good a swordsman as the first. Kaze dodged his cut and brought his own blade down across the man’s forearm, slicing it in two. The man was holding his sword in two hands, and he looked down with surprise as suddenly he was holding it with one. He saw the severed arm hit the roof and a look of befuddlement passed across his face, the shock, pain, and reality of the situation not yet registering.
Not waiting to see the man’s reaction, Kaze immediately ripped off the other tabi and started running across the roof. The merchant’s house was so close to his neighbor’s that Kaze was able to easily step from one roof to the other without breaking stride. Behind him, he could hear shouts and running feet.
At the end of this roof, Kaze had to make a short leap to cover the distance across a side street. As he did so, he heard the crack of a musket firing. Kaze didn’t feel the ball whistle past, but he knew the shot was aimed at him. On the next roof, he changed direction, jumping to a roof behind the house he was running on. He looked over his shoulder and saw at least three samurai in pursuit. He knew that was just the vanguard and that there would be others.
He ran up the slope of the new roof and over the peak. He cut to the left and started running again. Behind him he heard one of his pursuers crest the roof and start after him. With sandals on, however, his pursuer didn’t make the change in direction in time, and he skidded off the roof, falling down to the street below with a yell. Probably not high enough to kill a man, Kaze thought, but the fall certainly resulted in broken bones.
Kaze ran across three more roofs. Though he could keep ahead of the men pursuing him across the rooftops, he couldn’t run faster on the uneven and steep roofs of Edo than the men pursuing him on the ground. As he changed directions, the men on the ground fanned out, searching for him. Sometimes his pursuers on the rooftops shouted directions to the men on the ground, and sometimes the men on the ground directed the pursuers on the roof. Occasionally, a musketeer on the ground fired a shot at him, but none of the shots came close, and they may have been fired more as a signal to the other men of Kaze’s location than as an attempt to hit him.