The white gravel paths were stained red by the blood of bodies spread around the yard. Most of the bodies were on the main path, which led to a workshop at the back of the garden. The bodies of another woman and three men were sprawled across the path, each twisted in the pain of their death agony. Kaze paused to put on a pair of the wooden geta that were by the back door. These were raised wooden slippers, left conveniently for the use of people leaving the house, where they were in their tabi socks, and going out to the garden and workshop.
Kaze stopped for a moment to examine the cuts on the bodies. He could tell from the slashes that they were made by several men, not a single swordsman. He saw cuts made by at least three different styles of swordsmanship. The men were good swordsmen but not experts. Against unarmed women, servants, and apprentices, it didn’t require much skill.
Kaze walked sadly to the workshop knowing what he would find.
The workshop had a large forge, filled with glowing charcoal, much like the forges used by swordsmiths. In the workshop were a variety of files and jigs that would not be used by swordsmiths; the particular tools of the gunsmith. Kaze glanced up at the corner of the workshop and saw a shrine to the God of the Forge. Then he looked down.
There were two other young men in the workshop, and a gray-haired older man: Inatomi and two apprentices. The face of Inatomi looked surprised, even in death. The slashing cut that half severed his neck must have come suddenly, perhaps from someone he knew. It was probably the signal to start the slaughter of the rest by samurai who stood outside the workshop, guarding the other members of the household in the garden. Two women had apparently managed to flee, one making it to the kitchen before she was cut down and the other almost making it outside the house before she was killed in the hall.
Nine people killed so a tenuous link to the attempted assassination of Ieyasu could be broken. Nine people, including a master who could craft beautiful objects like the musket that Kaze saw in the front room of the house. Life was fleeting. Kaze knew that. And all was an illusion. Kaze knew and believed that, too. But it seemed a colossal waste to snuff out the talent represented by Inatomi and his household.
If you were a dancer, a musician, or an actor, your skills died with you. Even if people talked about your skills after your death, this talk would be a mere shadow of the actual act. Even swordsmen fell into this category, Kaze reflected. Once you ceased to exist, your art ceased with you. If you were a poet, painter, or artisan like Inatomi, some of your creations would exist after your death, but the real art was in the steady hands, the intelligence, the sense of balance and proportion, and the skill to create new poems, pictures, and beautiful objects. This creative ability died with the artist, and even if the work of the artist lived on, this work was now circumscribed by a finite body of work. Nothing new would ever be created by this particular artist, to surprise, delight, and enlighten new audiences.
Kaze sighed. He decided to do something out of respect for the skill of Inatomi-sensei that he usually only did to propitiate the souls of people he had slain. He looked about the workshop and found a piece of fine chestnut wood. Perhaps Inatomi-sensei was going to use it for a musket stock. On a workbench, Kaze found a knife and, amid the carnage and bodies around him, he sat in the doorway of the workshop and started to carve the wood.
Yoshida rode up to Inatomi’s house, leading ten mounted samurai. As he reached the front of the house, one of the samurai leapt off his horse and rushed forward to hold the reins of Yoshida’s stallion.
“Captain!” Yoshida said.
A samurai rode forward. “Yes, Yoshida-sama?”
“Go in and tell Inatomi-sensei that I have arrived. Tell him it is on business from the Shogun himself!”
“Yes, my Lord!” The captain rushed into the house, but returned a few minutes later, puzzled.
“There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the house, my Lord.”
“Ridiculous! Even if Inatomi-sensei is out, his servants or apprentices will be here.”
“I called several times, but no one came to the door to greet me.”
“Did you look in the house?”
“No, Yoshida-sama, I thought-”
“Idiot! We’re here on the Shogun’s business! Take some men and search the house. Find out why there’s no one to greet us.”
Chagrined, the captain motioned to three samurai to dismount and follow him. They entered the house, pausing to remove their sandals at the doorway out of habit and respect. In moments they found the dead maid.
All the samurai took out their swords. “Follow me,” the captain ordered. They quietly made their way through the house, pausing at the office and the kitchen with the second body, and into the back garden. The captain sucked in his breath at the sight of so many bodies in the garden. In the doorway of the workshop at the end of the garden, a flash of movement caught his eye. He signaled his men to follow him, and they didn’t bother to stop to put on the geta. They made their way across the garden, their feet, clad in only tabi socks, muffling their footsteps. They carefully approached the workshop door.
As they reached the doorway, the captain was able to see more bodies in the workshop. He also saw a living person doing something peculiar.
There was what seemed to be an old man placing a wooden statue on a workbench. The figure wore an old but respectable kimono and a farmer’s woven straw hat. Wisps of gray hair peeked out from the edge of the hat and partially obscured the face of the figure, but the man’s muscular arms didn’t look like the wasted limbs of an ojiisan. The captain looked at the statue and was surprised to see it was a Kannon, a statue of the Goddess of Mercy, carved from chestnut wood. The serene face of the Goddess looked out at the carnage in the workshop and garden, providing some grace to the souls of the slaughtered.
“Oi! You!” the captain said. “Stay where you are. I want to talk to you about what happened here.”
Without showing the slightest surprise at the captain’s shout, the old man smoothly placed the Kannon on the shelf and reached forward for a shovel that was sitting next to the forge. He scooped out a shovelful of the forge’s contents and tossed it out the door of the workshop.
Puzzled by this action, the captain told the samurai with him, “Get him.”
With their swords naked, the three samurai rushed forward, only to start hopping about as they approached the workshop door. The red-hot coals from the forge burnt through their tabiclad feet.
In the seconds this bought him, the old man picked up a walking stick and charged out of the shop. His wooden geta shielded his feet from the hot coals.
Still recoiling from the burning coals, the lead samurai took an off-balanced, one-handed cut at the old man. The old man used his stick to knock the sword blade out of the way; then he rapped the wrist of the samurai with a sharp cut, as neatly executed as any fencing teacher using a wooden bokken practice sword. The captain heard a crack as the stick hit the samurai’s wrist, and the samurai, his wrist broken, yelped and dropped his sword.
“That’s not an old man,” the captain barked. “Kill him!”
The man reached down to pick up the dropped sword, and a second samurai took a vicious cut at his arm. The man smoothly changed the movement of his arm, causing the blade to miss by the smallest of measures. Then he picked up the sword and brought it up in time to parry a blow by the third samurai. His agility and balance, perched on the wooden geta, was amazing.