“Please, no, don’t take me in there, I don’t want to go,” he babbled as his captors disassembled the ladder-cage. Like everyone else, he knew what went on in the jail. Once inside, he could forget about convincing the authorities of his innocence.
No one spoke to him. They dragged and pushed him down a foul-smelling corridor. He heard his own screams mingle with the inhuman howls of the other prisoners. Someone opened a door. A hard shove sent him stumbling into a dim room. He fell facedown in the corner. Rough hands bound his ankles. The door slammed.
Raiden rolled over. He was alone in a tiny cell with high, barred windows. Frantically he writhed on the floor, straining at his bonds.
“Let me out!” he shouted.
No answer came. At last, weakened to exhaustion, he gave up. He lay panting, bathed in sweat that soon turned icy in the draft that poured through the windows. He forced himself to think. Could he bribe the jailers? Failing that, his only hope of survival lay in enduring the torture that he knew would follow. No matter what they did to him, he must not confess to murder. Now he called upon all the self-discipline his twenty years of sumo training had instilled in him. With relief, he felt his mind grow quieter as fear receded. Courage flowed through him, the way it did when he stepped into the ring.
The door swung open. Two jailers entered the room. Each carried a long staff; each wore a spear and a whip at his waist. Raiden kept his eyes off the men and their weapons and concentrated his attention inward. Let them do their worst.
The shorter jailer closed the door and stood beside it, leaning on his staff. The other, a huge brute with one eye sealed shut by shriveled scar tissue, towered over Raiden.
“Ah, Raiden, the mighty warrior,” he mocked. “Lying on the floor like a trussed pig. Now tell me the truth: did you kill Niu
Yukiko?“
“No. I did not. And if you leave me unharmed, I will reward you handsomely.”
One-Eye laughed. “With what?” He leaned over, and with one vicious yank tore off Raiden’s threadbare kimono. He found the money pouch and emptied three zeni from it onto the floor. “This?” To his companion, he called, “Shall I prove that the great Raiden lies?” He flung aside his staff and drew his whip.
The whip whined through the air. It lashed against Raiden’s chest with a crack of fiery agony. Raiden gasped, but managed not to scream.
“I didn’t kill her,” he whispered.
“Yes, you did,” One-Eye said. “You killed her, and you killed Noriyoshi, and then you threw them both into the river. Admit it!”
“No.”
The whip whined again. “You killed them.”
“No.”
“Yes. Say it: I killed Niu Yukiko. I killed Noriyoshi.”
Over and over came the whip and the accusations. Raiden’s world shrank to a space that contained only his anguish and the jailer’s ugly face. He imagined that he was being punished for all the things his demon had done. Mauling other wrestlers, tearing up the practice room, wrecking teahouses and brothels. But none of it was his fault. He wasn’t a bad man, just an unfortunate one.
“No… wasn’t me… don’t deserve this. Good man… good samurai. No. No.” The words blubbered from his bloody, swollen mouth.
Then One-Eye went to work with his spear. Tears ran down Raiden’s face as it gouged his flesh. His muscles shrieked their agony; his bladder and bowels loosened. The floor beneath him grew slick with his blood, urine, and feces. Still he managed to repeat:
“No. I didn’t kill anyone.”
Finally One-Eye stepped back. “He’s a tough one,” he said to his companion. “Maybe he’s telling the truth.”
Raiden’s battered body untensed, savoring the respite from torture. Cautious hope stirred in his pain-befogged mind. Were they going to give up?
The short jailer mumbled something Raiden couldn’t understand. Then they both left the cell, slamming the door behind them.
“Merciful Buddha,” Raiden whispered thankfully.
Now his tears flowed in relief as he waited for someone to come and free him. But he grew uneasy as time passed and no one came. What was taking them so long? The ropes had numbed his hands and feet; he wanted them untied, now. He wanted to leave this terrible place. He wanted a bath, a drink, and medicine for his wounds.
“Hey,” he rasped. “Come back. Let me out.”
The door opened. Through it came his two torturers. One-Eye’s evil smile sent a thrill of fear through Raiden. A smoky metallic smell made his nostrils quiver. It came from the stone ewer that Short Man carried. Then Raiden understood.
“No!” he screamed. “Not neto-zeme! No!”
One-Eye was turning him onto his stomach. Without the strength to resist, Raiden pleaded for mercy. Facedown, he wept and slobbered against the filthy floor.
“No,” he gasped as a spear sliced a long cut down his back. Gritting his teeth against the blade’s sting, he said, “Please, I’ll pay you anything, I don’t have much, but I’ll get the money somehow-Oww!”
He stiffened as One-Eye’s hands stretched open the flesh on either side of the cut. He felt Short Man bending over him, tipping the ewer.
“Aiiiii!”
The molten copper trickled into Raiden’s wound. Pain seared his back, driving him to the brink of madness. As he screamed and sobbed, he could hear his flesh sizzle as it cooked. He imagined the wound’s edges curling and blackening.
“Did you kill Niu Yukiko and Noriyoshi?” One-Eye’s voice sounded distant, indistinct.
Still gripped by agony, Raiden couldn’t answer. He screamed again as more copper poured into him.
“Answer me, pig. Did you kill them?”
With the part of his mind that could still reason, Raiden knew that if he confessed, he was finished. But he couldn’t take any more neto-zeme. The suffering was unbearable, like nothing he’d ever experienced before, or wished to experience again.
“I don’t remember,” he wailed, hoping the truth would satisfy his torturers.
But One-Eye’s derisive laughter assaulted his pain-dazzled senses. “You killed them. Confess!”
Suddenly a flood of liquid fire cascaded onto Raiden’s back. His scream rose so high it caught in his throat. Short Man had dumped the ewer’s entire contents on him. The copper spread across his skin, burning as it went. Raiden’s arms and legs jerked in wild spasms. Involuntary sobs convulsed him. His courage and resolve dwindled to nothing.
He gulped and managed to choke out, “Yes. I killed them.”
Afterward, Raiden was barely conscious of being carried from the jail and transported to the Court of Justice on a litter. Through a cloud of pain and confusion, he heard the old, bald magistrate say in a reedy voice, “Raiden, you have confessed to the murders of Niu Yukiko and Noriyoshi. I sentence you to death.”
Then a cold, nightmarish journey by litter, during which he slipped in and out of delirium. He dreamed of wrestling a faceless opponent in a match that wouldn’t end. Somehow he knew that the opponent was his demon, the other self he’d fought and hated for the past three years. The audience jeered and stamped their feet. He was stumbling backward out of the ring…
Raiden awoke. He was lying on the ground, looking up at a pale, colorless sky. Wisps of fog swirled around him; the sun’s ghostly white globe floated near the horizon. Somewhere nearby, water lapped at the shore. The ring and his opponent had vanished, but Raiden still heard the audience stamping and jeering. He turned his head, wincing at the pain that his effort caused. Horror shocked him into alertness.
“Oh, no,” he murmured.
The jeering audience was a flock of ravens. They fluttered and squawked as their beaks tore at two rotting, headless corpses that lay on the ground near Raiden. Beyond them, men were assembling a rough wooden cross. Their hammers produced the stamping sounds he’d heard in his dream. This was the execution ground by the river. What a disgraceful place for a samurai to die!