‘If there was an underground passage, then why didn’t they all leave?’
‘Because then Nobunaga’s warriors would have pursued them.’
‘And why was it absolutely necessary to wait until dawn?’
‘So that the enemy would see the three ravens.’
Erast Petrovich shook his head, totally bamboozled by this exotic oriental reasoning.
‘What have the three ravens got to do with it? What were they n-needed for?’
‘Their enemies knew how many warriors were ensconced in the temple – seventy-eight men. Afterwards they would be certain to count the corpses. If three were missing, Nobunaga would have guessed that Tamba had got away and ordered a search for him throughout the empire. But this way the samurai decided that Tamba and two of his deputies had turned into ravens. The besieging forces were prepared for every kind of magic, they brought with them dogs, trained to kill rodents, lizards and snakes. They had hunting falcons with them as well. The falcons pecked the ravens to death. One raven had a wound instead of its right eye and so the ninjas’ enemies, knowing of Tamba’s wound, stopped worrying. The dead raven was displayed at a point where eight roads met and a sign was nailed up: “The Wizard Momochi Tamba, defeated by the Ruler of the West and the East, Protector of the Imperial Throne, Prince Nobunaga”. Less than a year later, Nobunaga was killed, but no one ever discovered that it was Tamba who did it. The Momochi clan was transformed into a ghost, that is, it became invisible. For three hundred years we have preserved and developed the art of ninjutsu. Tamba the First would be pleased with us.’
‘And none of the three lines has been interrupted?’
‘No, because the head of the family is obliged to select a successor in good time.’
‘What does “select” mean?’
‘Choose. And not necessarily his own son. The boy must have the necessary abilities.’
‘Wait,’ Fandorin exclaimed in disappointment. ‘So you are not a direct descendant of Tamba the First?’
The old man was surprised.
‘By blood? Of course not. What difference does that make? Here in Japan, kinship and succession are based on the spirit. A man’s son is the one into whom his soul has migrated. I, for instance, have no sons, only a daughter. I do have nephews, though, and cousins, once removed and twice removed. But the spirit of the great Tamba does not dwell in them, it dwells in eight-year-old Yaichi. I chose him five years ago, in a village of untouchables. In his grubby little face I saw signs that I thought looked promising. And it seems that I was not mistaken. If Yaichi continues to make the same kind of progress, after me he will become Tamba the Twelfth.’
Erast Petrovich decided to wait a little with the other questions – his head was already spinning as it was.
Their second conversation took place in the evening, at the same spot, only this time the two of them sat facing the opposite direction. Watching the sun slipping down on to the summit of the next mountain.
Tamba sucked on his eternal pipe, but now Fandorin was also smoking a cigar. The selfless Masa, who was suffering morally because he had slept right through the night battle, had spent half the day supplying all of his master’s needs by bringing his baggage from the ravaged camp through the underground passage, as well as using a cable hoist (it turned out that there was one of those too). The only thing left on the other side was the untransportable Royal Crescent Tricycle, and there was nowhere to ride that in the village in any case. The mule, set free, wandered through the meadows, dazed and delighted by the luscious mountain grass.
‘I have a request for you,’ said Erast Petrovich. ‘Teach me your art. I will be a zealous student.’
He had spent most of the day observing the shinobi training and had seen things that left his face frozen in an expression of dumb bewilderment entirely alien to him in normal life.
First Fandorin had watched the children playing. A little six-year-old had demonstrated quite incredible patience in training a mouse – teaching it to run to a saucer and come back again. Every time the mouse coped with its mission successfully, he moved the saucer a bit farther away.
‘In a few months’ time the mouse will learn to cover distances of four hundred or even five hundred yards. Then it can be used for delivering secret notes,’ explained the ninja called Rakuda, who had been attached to the vice-consul.
‘Rakuda’ meant ‘camel’, but the ninja was nothing at all like a camel. He was a middle-aged man with a plump, extremely good-natured face, the kind of man that people say ‘wouldn’t hurt a fly’. He spoke excellent English – which was why he had been assigned to accompany Erast Petrovich. He suggested that the titular counsellor call him ‘Jonathan’, but Fandorin liked the resounding ‘Rakuda’ better.
Two little girls were playing at funerals. They dug a little pit, one of them lay down in it and the other covered her with earth.
‘Won’t she suffocate?’ Fandorin asked in alarm.
Rakuda laughed and pointed to a reed protruding from the ‘grave’.
‘No, she’s learning to breathe with a quarter of her chest, it’s very useful.’
But of course, the young man was interested most of all in eight-year-old Yaichi, whom Tamba had designated as his successor.
The skinny little boy – nothing exceptional to look at – was clambering up the wall of a house. He fell off, scraping himself so that he bled, and climbed back on the wall again.
It was incredible! The wall was made of wooden planks, there was absolutely nothing to cling to, but Yaichi dug his nails into the wood and pulled himself up, and in the end he climbed on to the roof. He sat there, dangled his legs and stuck his tongue out at Fandorin.
‘It’s some kind of witchcraft!’ the vice-consul exclaimed.
‘No, it’s not witchcraft. It’s kakeume,’ said Rakuda, beckoning to the boy, who simply jumped straight down from a height of two sazhens. He showed them his hands and Erast Petrovich saw iron thimbles with curved talons on his fingers. He himself tried using them to climb a wall, but he couldn’t. What strength the fingertips must have to support the weight of the body!
‘Come on, come on,’ Rakuda called to him. ‘Etsuko is going to kill the daijin.’
‘Who is the daijin?’ asked Fandorin, following his guide into one of the houses.
There were four people there in a large empty room: two men, a girl with broad cheekbones and someone wearing a tunic and cap, sitting over by the wall at one side. When he looked more closely, Fandorin saw it was a life-sized doll with a painted face and luxurious moustache.
‘“Daijin” means “big man”,’ Rakuda explained in a whisper. ‘Etsuko has to kill him, and Gohei and Tanshin are his bodyguards. It’s a kind of test that she has to pass before she can move on to the next level of training. Etsuko has already tried twice and failed.’
‘A sort of exam, right?’ the titular counsellor asked curiously as he observed what was happening.
Pock-faced Gohei and sullen, red-faced Tanshin searched the girl thoroughly – she was obviously playing the part of a petitioner who had come for an audience with the ‘big man’.
The search was so scrupulous that Erast Petrovich blushed furiously. Not only was the ‘petitioner’ stripped naked, all the cavities of her body were explored. Young Etsuko played her part diligently – bowing abjectly, giggling timidly, turning this way and that. The ‘bodyguards’ felt the clothing she had taken off, her sandals, her wide belt. They extracted a tobacco pipe from a sleeve and confiscated it. In her belt they found a small cloth bag with hashi – wooden sticks for eating – and a jade charm. They gave back the sticks, but turned the charm this way and that and then kept it, just in case. They made the girl let down her hair and took out two sharp hairpins. Only then did they allow her to get dressed and go through to the daijin. But they wouldn’t let her get really close – they stood between her and the dolclass="underline" one on the right, one on the left.