I have news,” Yoshida reported.
Ieyasu raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, waiting for Yoshida’s report. Ieyasu had an undistinguished face, with jowly cheeks and a thin mustache. His eyes were close-set but intense, and his pate was shaved in the standard samurai fashion. His hair was now mostly gray, with only a few stray strands of black.
“We found the fire observer killed in the yagura across from the wall. His throat was slit. So the assassin must have been waiting in the fire watchtower. It’s around one hundred and forty paces from the watchtower to the wall, so you were correct that no ordinary gun was used. More importantly, we know who the assassin is.”
Ieyasu sat impassively, waiting for Yoshida to finish, but the other daimyo in the teahouse couldn’t keep excitement and surprise off their faces.
“One of the guard captains was patrolling the crowd when he saw a street entertainer. The entertainer looked familiar to him, but he couldn’t place his face. Then we appeared on the wall and the guard was busy making sure everyone in the crowd was showing proper obeisance.
“After the shot was fired, there was pandemonium in the crowd. The common people were very concerned about your safety, Ieyasu-sama. The guard said he started a search immediately, because, like us, he thought the shot must have come from the crowd. The excited crowd made such a search difficult, but the guard captain swears the street entertainer who caught his eye was no longer in the crowd. Obviously, he had left the crowd to go to the yagura to try to assassinate you, Ieyasu-sama.”
“For goodness’ sake! Who was this entertainer?” the blunt Honda broke in. Years of friendship made Ieyasu indulge his companion’s lack of proper protocol.
Yoshida said a name. “He’s still on the list of men we are looking for after Sekigahara,” Yoshida added. Ieyasu took a quick glance at Okubo, and he saw the tall daimyo’s thin, scarred face cloud over with hate. Interesting.
“Who is that?” asked Toyama. Ieyasu had already decided that Toyama was a fool and that he would be sending him to a new, remote fief in Shikoku or Kyushu to get rid of him. Although Ieyasu hoped to ensure peace, Toyama’s ignorance of military matters was still unacceptable.
“He’s the one who won the sword contest Hideyoshi-sama had many years ago,” Honda said. “Okubo-san has reason to know him!” Honda’s braying laughter filled the small teahouse.
Even Toyama understood this reference. Okubo was crippled because he was a finalist in Hideyoshi’s sword contest. Although they used wooden swords for the contest, one samurai was killed because every man tried his utmost to win. In the final match, Okubo was defeated by the overall winner. In the course of this match, the winner had maimed Okubo for life, putting a scar on his face and damaging his left leg.
Okubo tightened his jaw but controlled his anger, something Ieyasu saw and approved of. Many times in his life, Ieyasu had controlled his anger and every other emotion, when he found it beneficial.
“I have some information about that man,” Okubo said tightly. “He no longer goes by that name. He now calls himself Matsuyama Kaze, Wind on Pine Mountain.”
“What a weird name,” Honda said. “How do you know this?”
“After Sekigahara, that man made trouble for me; then he disappeared,” Okubo said. “I thought he had taken the honorable way and killed himself, but recently my men spotted him in Kamakura. They couldn’t capture him, but they made inquiries in the town and were able to learn his new name. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to locate him before he slaughtered a prominent merchant and his entire household. He’s obviously become an outlaw of the worst order and now he’s dared to try and kill the Shogun! He must be hunted down like a dog and killed.”
“Okubo-san, Honda-san, why don’t you both try to find this ‘Wind on Pine Mountain’ for me,” Ieyasu said.
“Hai! Yes, Ieyasu-sama,” both lords said.
“Good. Yoshida-san will be joining you in this search. In fact, I want him to lead the search.” Both daimyo showed considerably less enthusiasm when Ieyasu mentioned Yoshida. With Nakamura gone, perhaps Yoshida would make a good substitute. He dismissed the daimyo with a motion of his hand. They left the teahouse, making the proper bows to the ruler of Japan. Trading on his friendship and status as a hatamoto, a direct vassal of the Shogun, Honda lingered after the rest had left.
“You know, I don’t think I can be killed with a musket ball,” Ieyasu mused.
Honda looked at him with surprise. “Why do you say that?”
Honda counted on his long relationship with Ieyasu to leave off Ieyasu’s tide, not addressing him as “Ieyasu-sama” when they were together.
“Well, in one battle I was shot twice by musket balls,” Ieyasu said. “Both times, the musket balls lodged themselves in my armor and didn’t kill me or even wound me. Now I’ve been shot at again, but this time the ball hit Nakamura-san by mistake, killing him and leaving me totally untouched.”
“It’s all well and good to believe in your own destiny,” Honda said. “But destiny or no, a man is dead if a musket ball hits him in the right spot.”
Ieyasu laughed, looking fondly at his old camp companion and fellow warrior. “It’s a shame that my new responsibilities take me away from talking to you and my other generals,” Ieyasu said. “But my life is changing, and I must take care to establish my rule and my family’s rule, and that takes time. I miss the old days, when we would share the warmth of a campfire, talking frankly about any topic that comes up.”
Honda looked at Ieyasu, thinking that Ieyasu’s words paralleled his own feelings and thoughts. He hated the way life was turning and much preferred the path of war, where he understood the rules. The new age they were moving into disturbed Honda and made him feel like an outsider whose skills were no longer needed.
Ieyasu picked up a cup of tea and took a sip. “So, Honda, what have you been up to?”
Honda looked at Ieyasu and almost blushed. Sitting with his old lord, swapping opinions just as they would do on military campaigns, Honda almost weakened and was ready to confess to Ieyasu what he was doing. But Honda knew that his customary bluntness was not always beneficial.
“I’ll be spending my time looking for your would-be assassin, so that we don’t have to put to the test your theory that you can’t be killed with a musket ball,” Honda said. “What do you think? Is this ronin, Matsuyama Kaze, the man who tried to shoot you today?”
Ieyasu, who rarely told people what he thought, answered Honda’s question with some questions of his own.
“Do you think this Matsuyama Kaze is a true samurai?”
Honda thought a minute. “He’s a dangerous man. That’s why he’s still on our list of men we want captured. Still, he had a reputation for courage and honor before the war, so I suppose he is probably a true samurai.”
“And what are the weapons of the true samurai?”
“The sword and the bow,” Honda said without hesitation.
“Exactly,” Ieyasu answered.
CHAPTER 4
The bottom of a
deep well on a moonless night.
Darker still a heart.
Toyama put one hand on his sword. It was scary dealing with these people, and now that he saw the meeting place, his apprehensions unfolded like the petals of the night-blooming lotus.
The small abandoned temple was in a grove of bamboo. The roof sagged from rot and neglect, and the tall weeds grew in profusion right up to the door. A light breeze blew, lifting dried leaves and idly tossing them against the decaying walls. In the light of the half-moon, the temple looked deserted and empty, and Toyama briefly wondered if he could have gotten confused on the directions and somehow ended up at the wrong place.
Toyama lifted the reed basket covering his head to get a better look. He was disguised as a komuso, an adherent to the strange Fuke sect of Buddhism. These men wandered the countryside, wearing an inverted basket with eyeholes to mask their identity. They played the shakuhachi, the bamboo flute, as their way of asking for alms. Increasingly, samurai and ronin were converting to this sect as they sought escape from defeat and shelter in the sect’s temples. They were becoming a familiar sight on the streets of Edo, and their unusual headgear formed a perfect disguise. Since so many samurai were komuso, the disguise had the advantage of letting Toyama wear his swords as he masked his face.