Sowing Ghosts 17.2

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[continuing chapter 17]

“If you don’t mind, I’ll just set mine down,” Shiro said, crouching. “Don’t want to damage it. Not the most magnificent blade, but it’s the only one I’ve got.”

“Please send someone to tell the arms master that Yoshino Hiroki is here,” Hiroki told the guard captain, who remained only dimly visible outside the glow of Shiro’s torch. “If it will speed up his response, give him my apologies for the lateness of the hour, but that I think it important. I have the solution to his ghost problem.”

From the sharp intake of breath Hiroki guessed that the lord’s sleepless nights had become a topic of conversation amidst the inhabitants of the compound. “Go,” the guard told someone. A dark figure ran back toward the gatehouse.

“Who is this?” the captain asked. “One of you?”


“Oh, not at all,” Hiroki told him. “Though I did think I ought to warn people about him.”

“Good evening,” a new voice said from out of the darkness.

You got here faster than I expected, Hiroki told the newcomer. “Good evening, Lord Hosokawa,” he said. “Have you misplaced someone, by any chance?”

Hosokawa Katsunata stepped into the circle of torchlight. “I had heard that Togashi Shokan had come here tonight,” he said. His voice was cool, utterly without inflection. Looking down at the corpse he said, “Oh. What a pity.” Just as if you hadn’t ordered those bowmen to fire, Hiroki thought.

“I doubt he even had enough money to pay for a funeral,” the boy said. “I suppose I will have to do it, now.”

“Amida save us,” Tetsuo muttered. Yes, Hiroki said silently, this is a most cold and unnatural boy we have been dealing with.

“I see you received my warning,” Hiroki told him, matching Hosokawa’s tone.

“Yes, and thank you. Though I didn’t really need it. Togashi was as clumsy at betrayal as he was in most matters of human interaction.”

“Might I ask you to confirm my guess as to where you were when I tried to pass the warning to you?” Hiroki asked.

“I was having a small, brief meeting with my good friend Miyoshi Motonaga,” Hosokawa said. Hiroki stepped back, startled. That was not what he had guessed — and from the small, tight smile on his face, Hosokawa knew this.

“I had not thought you would be dealing with Lord Miyoshi Motonaga directly,” Hiroki told him, “more accustomed as you are to working obliquely. Now that you are no longer at risk from your unhappy lover, Lord Hosokawa, could I ask you for some simple truth? Why did you decide to offer us up to Miyoshi Motonaga?”

Shiro and Tetsuo both hissed at this, and Hiroki was silently grateful to the guard captain for having disarmed them. This was not the time for a duel of honour. In fact, honour doesn’t have a lot to do with any of this.

“I did nothing of the sort,” Hosokawa Katsunata said. “I merely let Motonaga know that your embassy had come to call on his cousin. After that, Motonaga’s own curiosity and mistrust were responsible for what followed.”

“I can imagine the way you phrased your message to him,” Hiroki said. “It was you, wasn’t it, who suggested the Yanagimoto story to Miyoshi Motonaga?” Hosokawa nodded, smiling. “I did wonder, when I first began to suspect you had played a greater role in this incident, how it was that the Yanagimoto connection was made before Miyoshi Takahashi had asked us to intervene against that man.

“Perhaps you were unaware, though, that Lord Miyoshi Motonaga seems to bear much less ill-will toward men of the provinces than you yourself do.”

Hosokawa shrugged. “It mattered little to me what the actual outcome was, so long as I could distract the Miyoshi for long enough to learn who it was who was trying to sell me to them.”

“I can understand your desire,” Hiroki said. “There must have been a tremendous number of possibilities.”

“Be careful here, Lord Yoshino. You and your companions are immersed very deeply in something you don’t fully understand — yet — and are at risk of going in over your heads. You should believe me when I tell you that I am a much safer friend to you — despite my occasional inconstancy — than I am an enemy.”

“Are you a safer friend than Miyoshi Motonaga?”

“That is an excellent question.” Hosokawa’s grin made him look the sixteen-year-old again, and Hiroki felt some — a very small amount — of his anger leave him. “You might consider as a possible answer the attitude I try to maintain, Lord … Yoshino.” He paused just long enough for Hiroki to realize that Hosokawa was doing him the favour of preserving the secret of his true name. “You should try to stay friends with everyone. Take no sides. For someone from the provinces this ought to be easy.”

“Is this one of the conspiracies, Hiroki?” Tetsuo asked him, quietly. Hiroki nodded. “And is it over, then?” Hiroki thought about that for a moment.

Then he shook his head.

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    Chapter 16    Chapter 17