Sowing Ghosts 15.3

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[continuing chapter 15]

“Why are you sure it’s Akamatsu Noritoyo she went to see?” Hiroki wanted to tell Shiro to slow down, but he knew that an easier pace was not a luxury he could afford.

“That was how she referred to her visits to him,” Shiro said. “On behalf of Lady Tomiko. Offerings to love, sacrifices to love — that was how she described the way she had taken news of her mistress’s death to Akamatsu.”

“Lady Tomiko has been dead and burned for days now,” Tetsuo said, not in the slightest out of breath. “What could Aki possibly be taking to him now, after all this time?”


“We’re going to find out,” Hiroki told them. Aki’s life is likely to be an offering to love, when this is all over.

They heard the clash of swords from the end of the block in which Akamatsu’s tiny house was set.

“Who in all the hells?” gasped Tetsuo as he broke into a run. Another ringing clash, and a shout, came from the ruined garden out back of the house.

“Not good,” Shiro said, sprinting after him, and Hiroki thought, Gods, no it isn’t.

Before Hiroki could reach the yard in back of the house he heard Shiro’s screamed Bastard! merge seamlessly into his battle-cry. Hiroki kicked his way through the flapping gate, noted Tetsuo struggling up from the ground, drew his sword — however useless he might be with it on an injured leg — and then stopped.

Shiro and a short, stocky stranger circled one another, sunlight flashing from their blades as they turned, seeking an opening. I’ve seen him before, Hiroki thought, searching his memory until he came up with an image of a silhouette against the setting sun.

And then it was over. As Tetsuo drew his own blade Shiro darted the point of his katana inside the protective circle of the other man’s parrying stroke. Hiroki heard a curse on a sharp intake of breath, the man’s step faltered and his blade drooped —

— and Shiro brought the edge of his katana down in a sweeping motion that cut the man through, from shoulder to the opposite hip.

Before the man’s shattered body had hit the ground Hiroki was assessing the scene into which they had stumbled. As his brain caught up with his eyes he realized he had seen three bodies on the ground when he had arrived. One was Tetsuo’s; Hiroki saw now that he had tripped over one of the bodies on his way toward the now-dead man.

A small, insignificant body, which lay in a slowly spreading pool of red the colour of new lacquer.
Whatever sins Aki might have committed against Hiroki, she was paying for them now.

The second body was that of Akamatsu, but Hiroki could see little blood on the ground around him. Perhaps it wasn’t too late for him, if Shiro and Tetsuo had burst into the yard before the killer could finish off his target.

Did Akamatsu kill you, he asked Aki’s corpse, when he realize you had betrayed him? A betrayal at this late date made no sense, though. “Tetsuo, see if Akamatsu is still breathing,” Hiroki said. “Shiro, are you hurt?”

He turned to see Shiro driving the man’s blade into his skull, his mouth forming curses Hiroki could not hear. There was an uncanny expression in the young man’s eyes, something no longer human. “Shiro?

“Shiro!”

The shout apparently penetrated Shiro’s blood-lust, and he stopped his vile actions, straightened up and looked at Hiroki, as if seeing him for the first time. “Did you say something?” he asked in a voice as mild as if he were asking if the rice was cooked yet.

“I wanted to know if you were hurt,” Hiroki told him.

“I’m fine,” Shiro said, again in that unnaturally calm voice. “I’m afraid this haori and kimono will have to be burned, though.” Hiroki couldn’t remember what colour that jacket and robe had been this morning, but now they were a dark red rapidly drying to rust. How are we going to get him home, looking like that?

“Akamatsu is still alive, Hiroki,” Tetsuo called from the back of the garden. “He’s not conscious and his pulse is very weak, but he’s not dead yet.”

“You two pick him up, then,” Hiroki told them. This will at least provide an excuse for all the blood on Shiro’s clothes. “We’ll take him back to the mansion and I’ll see if I can save him.”

“The place is really filling up with wounded bodies,” Shiro said. “Somebody will declare it a temple soon if we’re not careful.”

“What about these other two?” Tetsuo asked.

“I’ll think about it,” Hiroki said. “You two get going.”

After they had gone, Hiroki leaned on his staff for a moment, staring at the dead man. You are going to have to spend a whole week under a waterfall to purify yourself after this, he told himself. It had to be done, though. Swallowing hard against the revulsion he felt, he went to the body and began to search it.

The note was in the first place he looked; fortunately the dead man — whose name, it appeared, was Kita Hayato — behaved identically with most of his fellow-warriors and had, after reading the instructions, tucked the paper into the left sleeve of his kimono before setting out to do as he’d been instructed.

Please let this answer my questions, he prayed.

Then he read the note.

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    Chapter 14
Chapter 15