Year of the Demon (13 page)

“What does it have to do with you? You took on the cloth. A man’s old crimes are cut away when he shaves his head.”

“Among the honorable, yes.”

“Well, then, this is easy,” said Daigoro. “Hideyoshi was named regent. Perhaps he wasn’t born samurai, but he is certainly samurai now. He has no choice but to live up to it. I’ll tell Hideyoshi the truth, he’ll take Shichio’s head, and this ridiculous drama will come to an end.”

“You are more than welcome to try. But do remember, Shichio manipulates men as deftly as a potter shapes clay. If you tell Hideyoshi the truth, you will also have to tell him it was your father who bested him in his most public defeat. And more than bested:
duped
. What will Shichio be able to shape out of your story?”

“Nothing. The emperor bestowed Hideyoshi with name and title. Let Shichio weave his webs; Hideyoshi will cut through them with a sword. He is samurai now.”

“And yet you’ve taken to calling him Hideyoshi rather than General Toyotomi.”

Daigoro grunted and stared at the pebbles in the rock garden. The abbot had a point. Even the emperor could not change what a man was in his heart. The world might regard Hideyoshi as a trueborn samurai, but Daigoro doubted whether one who was born a peasant could ever walk the
bushido
path.

“So what am I to do?”

“Behead me. Save your family and yourself. Buy peace.”

“No. You’ve committed no sin.”

“Oh, but I have.”

“I won’t accept that. Yes, all of us have done wrong in our lives, but you’ve done no wrong by Shichio—and even if you had, all your crimes were absolved when you took on the tonsure.”

The abbot shrugged. “That’s as may be. But if the price of peace is the head of one innocent man, I think any daimyo in the land would consider it a bargain.”

“No. It’s wrong.” But even as he heard himself say it, Daigoro knew it was the easiest path. The abbot had no family, nor even any fear of death. He had embraced his own impermanence. Outside the walls of Katto-ji, the world would scarcely notice his passing. And in taking his head, Daigoro could appease this Shichio, a man with the might of a warlord but the conscience of a petty thief. Who knew what he might do if he felt slighted? Daigoro couldn’t even guess. All his life Daigoro had striven to live up to his name, his birth, his father’s image. He had no idea what went on in the minds of dishonorable men.

Daigoro took his leave, and allowed his mare to set her own slow pace on the ride back down to the Okuma compound. He was thankful to be alone in making this decision. Tomo was a good servant and a better friend, but he was lowborn. And Katsushima had strayed from the path as soon as he dedicated himself to his sword over his master. Neither of them could fully understand what
bushido
demanded.

If it were as simple as delivering his own head to Hideyoshi, Daigoro would have known what to do. Self-sacrifice in the name of family came as naturally to him as breathing. But killing an innocent man in the name of family smacked of cowardice, not selflessness. And yet the abbot was right. Usually peace was bought with the blood of thousands. Heroes died for it. Why could a monk not be as heroic as any samurai? The abbot had offered his own neck and offered it freely. He’d neither insisted nor shied away. Daigoro could ask no more of any soldier in his command.

But the abbot was no soldier. He’d renounced the sword, and in so doing he’d put himself on the opposite side of a line Daigoro was loath to cross. Peace, at the cost of moral compromise. Principle, at the cost of endangering his family.

Daigoro knew what he had to do. He just didn’t know what to do with the fear. Too often doing the right thing had made him suffer. This time it made him tremble.

11

S
hichio’s favorite room in the Jurakudai was the highest deck of the moon tower. Hashiba liked it too, but for very different reasons. Hashiba enjoyed the view of the city; the lofty perspective made him feel more powerful, and the quiet made him feel more at peace. Shichio liked the moon tower for its austerity. It was one of the only places in the entire palace that hadn’t yet been gilded and painted and overdone. Hashiba was oddly embarrassed by that fact; he seemed to equate ostentation with wealth, and, by extension, tastefulness with poverty. That meant the upper deck of the moon tower was an intimate place for him, a good place for dalliances and for private meetings with his closest advisers.

Shichio was content to serve in both capacities. At the moment that meant wiping Hashiba clean after they’d finished. The demon mask seemed suddenly heavier—or rather, Shichio suddenly felt its weight on his neck muscles, now that he wasn’t otherwise distracted—and so he shifted it to sit atop his head. Moonlight streamed in through the open walls, and a cool breeze raised goose bumps all up and down Shichio’s naked, sweat-slicked body. Hashiba never seemed to feel the cold. He was tougher than Shichio, in that way and many others.

“Look at you,” Hashiba said, chuckling. He bunched Shichio’s silken kimono in his fist and threw it at him. “Why do you carry on this way? I’ve concubines enough. Why not invite a few of them up here to warm you?”

Shichio understood the subtext well enough. Hashiba didn’t understand that sex might be like the moon tower for them: enjoyable for two very different reasons. For him, real men did the penetrating, not the receiving, and so he found their liaisons shameful—not for himself, but for Shichio. That was why he wanted a consort to join them: so that Shichio could be the conqueror for once. But there were two ways of conquering too. That was something else Hashiba didn’t understand.

“Tell me,” Shichio said, “has there been any word from that Okuma boy?”

Hashiba laughed. “Him again? We can bring some of our own boys up here some night if you like.”

Shichio’s hand slipped down to the inside of Hashiba’s upper thigh. “Come on. Tell me.”

Hashiba sighed. “He married. I can only assume it was to forge an alliance with that Inoue clan. That’s good. I can use one to apply leverage against the other.”

“I don’t care who some bumpkin boy shares his bed with. I want to know about my present.”

“Ah. That.” Hashiba folded a pillow under his head and settled back in. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any monk’s heads for you. Don’t we have enough monks around here? Go march on Mount Hiei. Collecting a few heads up there will help keep the rest of the monasteries in line.”

Shichio made a pouting face. “I don’t want
a
head, I want
his
head.”

“Well, you can’t have it.”

Shichio slipped the mask off his head. “You’re certain of that?”

“What is it with that mask of yours?” Hashiba pushed Shichio’s hand away, got to his feet, and strode forward to look down at his capital city. His shadow bisected a broad rectangle of moonlight on the floor. “You’re too fond of that thing,” he said. “You pet it like a house cat.”

Shichio was surprised to discover it was true. His thumb was running over the tips of the mask’s teeth, over and over, wholly independently of his will. It was an unconscious habit, but now that Hashiba had drawn his attention to it, Shichio recognized that caressing the mask and speaking of violence were two faces of one coin. Visions of swords, of stabbing and being stabbed, of penetrating and being penetrated. The mask inspired these things in him. That was why he wore it during their liaisons, and why all this talk of beheading had aroused similar feelings. Shichio felt himself begin to stiffen.

“It’s the craftsmanship,” he said, still stroking the mask. “Come back here. Look at how expressive it is. In gold, this kind of detail is pedestrian, but in iron? Never. It’s as rare as anything. It’s the most rugged sort of beauty, don’t you think?”

Just like you, Shichio thought to himself, but Hashiba’s musings went in a different direction. “I think I should have buried it right beside the assassin you took it from.”

Shichio remembered that night all too well. It was the first time he’d killed a man. It was the night he made himself valuable to Hashiba, the night his fortunes started changing for the better. Rightly or wrongly, Shichio attributed his success to the mask. He often wondered what would be different if he’d purchased it instead of killed for it. Might its touch bring thoughts of money to his mind instead? Perhaps the obsession with swords was innate to its iron, or perhaps the mask just gave focus to Shichio’s hatred of the samurai caste. It was impossible to know for certain.

“You should throw away that demon of yours,” Hashiba said. “And throw away thoughts of this northern monk as well. He’s no threat to anyone.”

“So you
have
heard from the Okuma boy. And not just a wedding announcement.”

Hashiba sighed, dropped back among the silken pillows, and surrendered. “Yes.”

Shichio only had to think about it for a second. “You received a letter, didn’t you? You brought it here? Tonight?”

Hashiba’s only answer was to glance in the direction of the door. Shichio walked saucily to the entryway and found a large, carefully folded page among Hashiba’s other things. Smiling, Shichio sauntered back, sitting next to Hashiba again and opening the letter.

As he began to read, Hashiba took hold of Shichio’s hand and guided it back down to his crotch. Shichio skipped over the standard salutations and looked for mention of the monk. “
I respectfully recommend against beheading our abbot of Katto-ji,
” he read. “
He is an old man who does harm to no one, but more than this, he has taken the tonsure. I fear I may bring bad karma upon you by fulfilling your order to execute one such as him, and it is every samurai’s sworn duty not to harm his lord.
”

Shichio felt his heart race, but he kept reading. “
Given the choice between obeying and harming the emperor’s chosen regent on the one hand and disobeying to protect his interests on the other, I must choose disobedience.
Can you believe the impudence of this boy?”

Hashiba laughed. “I thought him rather clever.”

“He disobeys a direct order from his regent!”

“He’s the only samurai in the land who vows to protect me even in my future lives. Think of it! A bodyguard for my next reincarnation. Shichio, can you not just laugh this off and let it pass?”

“I tell you, that monk is a threat to you and your house. Kill him.”

“The boy has done as much already. Read the next paragraph.”

Shichio glanced down at the Okuma brat’s scribblings. What he read there made him angry enough to stand up and start pacing. “A garrison? That’s all? Just a garrison outside the monastery?”

“It is more than enough. That old man won’t leave until he floats out on the smoke rising from his pyre.”

Shichio crumpled the letter and flung it at the floor. “He can still talk. He can still teach. He wouldn’t be the first monk to turn his order against you.”

“That again?” Hashiba dropped his head heavily back on his pillow. “How many times have I told you? The Ikko sect is no more. Oda and I wiped them out years ago. The only ones to escape the sword did it by swearing their eternal loyalty to me.”

“This one is in the north. You never got any loyalty oaths from the north.”

“That’s because they’re all dead. Tokugawa saw to that. He was as scared of them as you are.”

Shichio sat heavily and laid his head on Hashiba’s belly. His hand wandered back down to Hashiba’s cock. “I want his head.”

“You can’t have it and you’d best get used to it. That old man is worth a lot more to me alive. Killing him would only cost me a future allegiance with this Okuma, and the rest of the Izu daimyo will be harder to get without him.”

Shichio’s hand quickened its pace. Hashiba’s pulse did too. “Are you sure?”

“Oh no, you don’t.”

“Absolutely certain? No doubt in your mind?”

“Shichio, I’m not killing that old monk for you and that’s that.”

His heart beating in Shichio’s ear told a different story. Shichio resituated himself between Hashiba’s knees. The demon mask had two long, sharp fangs that framed either side of his mouth. If he angled his head just so, he could trace the pointed tip of a fang along Hashiba’s skin. Done roughly, it could puncture. Done in just the right spot with just the right pressure, it was heavenly.

“Maybe we don’t have to kill him,” said Shichio, swaying the mask back and forth. “Maybe we can just go and pay him a visit.”

Hashiba took in a long quivering breath.

“It’s a long way. Lots of time at sea. Hours a day with nothing to do.”

Hashiba clenched two silk pillows in his fists.

“Do any of your wives care for sailing? No, they don’t, do they?”

Hashiba’s fists tightened.

“Maybe I’ll just go by myself. You don’t want to come, do you?”

“Yes.”

“You do? You want to come?”

“Yes, yes, yesss.”

“All right, then. You can come.”

12

T
he Okuma compound had received a messenger from Toyotomi Hideyoshi once before. Almost a year had passed since then, and the experience still left an indelible impression on Daigoro’s young mind. Shiramatsu Shozaemon, Hideyoshi’s emissary, had come with a battalion at his back to chastise Daigoro’s brother, Ichiro, for showing hubris in his duels. It was not far wrong to say Ichiro died because he had failed to heed that advice.

Daigoro had always assumed that Shiramatsu arrived with a show of force in order to cow House Okuma into submission. The daimyo of Izu sometimes rode with an honor guard, but only on special occasions; usually a few bodyguards were protection enough. Shiramatsu Shozaemon had arrived with an entire battalion as his escort. At the time Daigoro had been duly impressed, but he’d never guessed at what the imperial regent himself might consider to be an appropriate bodyguard.

When Daigoro saw the first junk, he feared the worst. She was twice the size of any Izu fishing vessel. The
kiri
flowers on her enormous sails were as unmistakable as the samurai standing in formation on the deck or their spearheads glinting in the sun. There were dozens of them, and Daigoro had no illusions about whether they came in peace. Surely they’ve come for the abbot, he thought, and maybe for my head as well.