[Continuing chapter 13]
Shiro had backed up to the wine-shop’s entrance, sword in hand, by time Hiroki had limped to it. “Out of my way,” Hiroki told him. “At least until I see what we’re — oh.”Dismounting in the yard was a stranger who could only, Hiroki decided, be Miyoshi Motonaga. Immediately behind him was a bodyguard of at least twenty warriors. All were armoured — And their armour all matches, Hiroki thought, remembering the collections of mismatched pieces he, Shiro and Tetsuo owned. And all of those pieces back at the mansion, where they will do us no good.
“You are a very resourceful man, Yoshino Hiroki,” Lord Miyoshi said, saluting him briefly with a metal war-fan. “I had not expected you to find Nakamura at all, much less this quickly. I see I should not have underestimated you, and should have removed Nakamura from your path more quickly.”
Gesturing Shiro and Tetsuo to stay behind him, Hiroki limped toward Lord Miyoshi. His guards stiffened in their saddles, and several lowered their lances and shifted position to face him. “If you please, my lord, I hardly think that I pose much of a threat to you,” Hiroki said, “not in my current condition. I do honour you, though, for having the courtesy to finally face me.” He’d just been horribly rude, he knew, but as he was likely to die here what difference did it make?
Instead of drawing and charging him, though, Lord Miyoshi stepped back a pace and laughed. “Now I know I have underestimated you,” he said. “And it’s my own fault, too, because I think quite highly of you men from the provinces. Perhaps I misjudged you because of the company you have been keeping here.”
“Your own cousin, my lord Miyoshi,” Hiroki said.
“Not quite the person I was thinking of,” Lord Miyoshi said, and Hiroki shivered. And where is Hosokawa Katsunata now? he asked himself.
“If you are asking me if I think we made a mistake in coming here, I will answer you Yes,” Hiroki said. “If I hadn’t promised your cousin to provide justice to his sister, I would have done everything in my power to drag my superiors back to Kozuke days ago.”
“That is the only acceptable reason I can think of for your staying here, and I honour you for it.” He gestured to one of the servants among his bodyguard, who dismounted and brought a folding stool to him. “Will you do me the honour of sitting while we talk? That leg must be bothering you considerably, to make a man of your experience rely on a staff. How did you come by the injury, if I might ask?”
“You of all people should know, my lord.” Hiroki waved the servant away; for a moment the man stood, uncertain, until Lord Miyoshi took pity on him and nodded for him to retreat.
“I do not recall your being injured in that rōnin’s attack,” Lord Miyoshi said. “My intelligence was that your man, behind you there, was the only one hit.”
“Your intelligence is correct,” Hiroki said. “As concerns the first attack. I was injured in the second.”
Lord Miyoshi frowned, and Hiroki shivered again. Damn, he thought. I’m already feverish. “I did not order a second attack. And I regret having authorized the first one.” Before Hiroki could ask him about the third attack, on Katsumi, Lord Miyoshi gestured at Nakamura. “Yutai, a word with you, please.”
Nakamura managed to pull himself into a relatively virtuous posture and carefully walked across the yard to his lord. He appeared not to have noticed the icy politeness with which he had been summoned, because as he passed Hiroki he turned to leer at him with self-satisfied smugness.
“Yutai, did you commission a second attack on the party from Kozuke?”
“No, my lord. You did not command it.” Nakamura continued to mock Hiroki with his eyes.
“Then who was it who shot at me two days ago? Just how many people are trying to kill us or drive us out of the capital?”
“Who knows?” Lord Miyoshi said. “Anyone you have met could have done it. For that matter, people you’ve never met but have heard of you could have done it. There’s a reason I stay away from the capital, Yoshino Hiroki.”
“I acknowledge your wisdom,” Hiroki said, bowing with as much formality as his knee would permit. “If I might ask, then, why the attack this afternoon? The woman Katsumi is not connected with our embassy except that I am a patron of hers.”
Lord Miyoshi’s eyebrows arched downward and his eyes narrowed. This news surprises him, Hiroki realized. But why?
“She was trying to sniff me out,” Nakamura said. “Her and that turncoat rōnin. I’m sorry, lord, but the rōnin has gone and I was — was unable to ask the woman where he was.”
“I see,” Lord Miyoshi said. “So you burned down half a block and aroused the anger of hundreds of inhabitants in order to hide your tracks.”
“You have it exactly, my lord,” Nakamura said. Hiroki shut his eyes, to hide his incredulity at the man’s stupidity.
“Miyoshi Motonaga offers you his humble apologies,” Lord Miyoshi said to Hiroki. “It now seems obvious to me that while there is indeed wisdom in my staying away from the capital, it sometimes carries the risk that I will be unable to supervise my people as I ought to.”
Shifting on the ball of one foot, he drew his katana and, in a stroke that was a smooth continuation of the drawing motion, separated Nakamura Yutai’s head and neck from his shoulders. The smug grin continued to mock Hiroki when the head had ceased rolling.
“A word of advice to you and your superiors,” Lord Miyoshi said, handing his katana to a bodyguard who wiped the blood from the blade with a piece of thick, soft paper. “Be very careful of your associations in the capital.” He mounted his horse. “And with where you choose to place your lord’s allegiances.”
Hiroki felt a shock of realization go through him. “With all respect my lord, I believe the same advice could apply to you. It is a pity he is now dead, because you might have been interested to know about Nakamura’s relationship with Yanagimoto Kataharu. You may not have ordered Nakamura to attack me through the woman Katsumi—but from what I heard earlier today I would bet you that Yanagimoto did.”
He turned and made his painful way back to Tetsuo and Shiro. “Loyalty, in this city, seems to be as rare a thing as jade.”
Next Characters Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13
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