The
Poetry of Death
(Part 1 of 2)
By John Outram
About the author
THE FORMER CHANCELLOR HUNG IN CHAINS from the dungeon
ceiling, while two soliders, stripped to the waist and sweating,
applied bamboo canes to his back and legs. Fukiwara Yoshiro’s eyes
flickered and rolled as he passed in and out of consciousness. General
Sakaza, ever alert, lifted his hand and signalled for the punishment to
cease. The soldiers stepped back, seemingly more relieved than their
victim, and soused themselves with cold water from the water barrel.
Sakaza seized the dipper from them and poured the contents over his
prisoner’s head. Fukiwara opened one eye and glared balefully at the
peasant-born General.
“You suffer in vain,” barked the General. “Every man has his limits.
Soon you will tell all.”
Fukiwara closed his eyes again and his head drooped. He said nothing.
“You think you will resist me. But soon your spirit will fail.”
“Why, General,” purred Hunglo, the tall foreign archer. “The way you
speak is almost poetry.”
“Very funny!” snapped Sakaza, whirling to face the two men watching and
waiting in the shadows. His face said that he would as happily have
seen either of them hanging in the former Chancellor’s place, and
indeed a glint in his eye suggested that he had not lost hope that the
day would come. Perhaps that would not be difficult in the case of a
mercenary like Hunglo. It might prove more difficult in the case of his
companion, the Samurai Lord Wakibake Toka.
“His Highness is proving a most stubborn subject,” Sakaza snarled, not
deigning to conceal his dislike of the samurai. “Perhaps, Lord Toka, it
is time you delivered your prisoner for questioning.”
Wakibake Toka said nothing. He turned and walked from the chamber,
beckoning Sakaza with the slightest nod of his head. The General
followed, with Hunglo close behind.
Once they were out of earshot of the prisoner, Toka spoke quietly:
“General Sakaza, I delivered the former Chancellor to your custody. He
is your prisoner, to do with as you see fit. But Fukiwara Yoshiro
surrendered to me on honourable terms, and when he did so he commended
his daughter to my custody. I made a promise to keep her safe, I gave
my word as a samurai.”
“Never mind your word,” sneered Sakaza. “You will obey orders!”
“I am obedient to the word of the Son of Light in all things,” replied
Toka.
“Then I order you in the name of the Son of Light to deliver her to me!”
“I have given my word as a samurai,” replied Lord Toka simply. “I may
not break that word without loss of honour. But if the Son of Light
commands it, I will break my word and lose my honour.”
“When I act on the behalf of the Son of Light,” barked Sakaza, “an
order from me is the same as an order from the Son of Light! What? Do
you defy me, Lord Toka?”
“When I receive my orders from the Son of Light, I will obey.”
Sakaza opened his mouth to shout again, to heap threats, insults and
indignities upon the head of the proud Daimyo, but his eyes fell on the
twin hilts of the swords thrust through Lord Toka’s sash. As mildly as
the samurai spoke, Sakaza reminded himself that this was a warrior who
would not hesitate to kill another man for the sake of his honour.
Not having been born to their class, but having risen through the army
ranks to a position that should have made him at least their equal,
Sakaza hated the samurai and the archaic class system they represented.
He hated their arrogance and he hated their incompetence, the
blood-feuds and honour-killings that had left the country in poverty
and chaos for more than ten years. And yet, perversely, he hated the
quietly competent Lord Toka more than anyone else in the service of the
Son of Light. To begin with Sakaza had tried to win the Daimyo’s
respect using a number of approaches: casual familiarity, stiff
formality, hostile braggadocio. The response had always been the same:
polite indifference.
With the slightest of bows, Lord Toka stepped past the General and into
the torture chamber once more. He approached the sorry figure of the
former Chancellor, swaying and blood-streaked, and bowed once more,
this time deeply and reverentially.
“So sorry, my Prince,” he said in a low respectful voice. “I beg of you
to spare us all this undignified and painful experience. Please tell
General Sakaza where the Ceremonial Robes of the Supreme Heir are
hidden.”
Fukiwara again opened one eye and looked the samurai up and down.
“My daughter is safe?” he asked.
“She abides under my protection.”
“You are a fine man, Toka-san. Please convey my apologies to General. I
am sworn to secrecy. A successor to the Supreme Heir will arise one
day. The Ceremonial Robes must remain hidden until that time.”
“Thank you, Prince Fukiwara. While I respect the vows that you have
taken, I must warn you that your intransigence places all of us at
great inconvenience and possible danger.”
“What must be must be. I trust my daughter to your care.”
Toka bowed again, and the former Chancellor nodded his head weakly, as
much acknowledgement as he could muster. The General stood framed in
the doorway, tugging his moustache furiously.
“We are not in the Imperial Court playing fancy games of etiquette!” he
fumed. “You will tell all, Prince, or you will die a death that you
cannot even imagine! And you, Lord Toka! You will deliver the girl to
me! Then we shall see how strongly the former Chancellor holds to his
vow of silence.”
Toka raised his head and met the General’s gaze. He was a good deal
taller than Sakaza, and though his expression was mild there was
something in the firmness of his mouth that made the General step back
a pace. The samurai’s hands rested on the hilts of his two swords, the
heirloom Wakibake blades that had cut a bloody path into the history of
the Sacred Islands for more than two centuries.
“It is time we were going home, Lord Toka,” said the archer, Hunglo.
“Bid the General pleasant dreams.”
“Good evening, General Sakaza,”
The General opened his mouth but found nothing more to say. He turned
on his heel and summoned his two torturers to resume their grisly work.
Lying on his straw mattress that night, Toka
considered the
consequences of his refusal. He had made an enemy of Sakaza, but Sakaza
hated him anyway. Despite Toka’s casual manner, he was always on his
guard when dealing with the peasant-general. Neither could harm the
other without making powerful enemies at court. Each had to put up with
the other.
But what of Fukiwara and his daughter? There was nothing Toka could do
for the Prince, whose fate had been sealed when Hunglo’s arrow had
struck down the Supreme Heir on the battlefield (see “A Lesson in
Warfare” for a full account of
this battle~ The Supreme Plasmate). If he refused to tell
Sakaza where the Ceremonial Robes were hidden, he would die slowly. If
he gave in, he would die quickly. That was his choice, and Toka
respected a man’s choice as to how he should die.
But his weakness was Noriko Fukiwara, his only daughter, only surviving
child. Could the Prince stand to see her endure the same torture that
he withstood – and maybe worse? There was no doubt Sakaza would exploit
this weakness without mercy. He had hardly stretched his imagination in
his maltreatment of the prince, but if the girl fell into his hands he
would no doubt give it full rein.
Toka thought back to the afternoon he had spent with Lady Noriko at the
lakeside house he had made his temporary home – the water playing in
the fountain, the birds and butterflies playing in the jasmine trees,
the sound of her voice laughing, talking and reciting poetry in the
sunshine.
Warm sunlight sparkles
The samisen speaks softly
The fountain laughs loud
She had performed the tea ceremony for him, with the exquisite grace
and precision that marked the etiquette of the Imperial Capital. She
had played the samisen for him, singing songs and telling amusing
stories, entertaining him as if she were the lady of the house and he
were an honoured guest – not her captor, her jailer and the sworn enemy
of her father’s faction.
Breathing deep the jasmine air
Days of butterfly pleasure
This graceful, beautiful, educated and gentle woman will be put to
death slowly and painfully for the sake of a few yards of ancient
embroidery, he thought bitterly. She will die for the crime of being
the daughter of the last man alive who knew their hiding place. It was
one more great injustice in the litany of injustice that had been this
civil war.
And yet he knew that there was more to it than simple cloth. With the
Ceremonial Robes hidden, the Son of Light could not consolidate the
victory his armies had won over his rival. He could never wholly
eliminate the risk that another Supreme Heir might arise, that the
country might once more be plunged into the chaos and turmoil of civil
war. The Ceremonial Robes, brought to light once more, would legitimise
a new claimant. The decade of slaughter and suffering that had been
brought to an end by the Supreme Heir’s death might be replaced by
decades of greater suffering.
Was any woman’s life worth that risk?
Toka remembered the music by the water-fountain and knew that he would
buy her life at any price.
His one hope might be that she knew her father’s secret, and would tell
all to spare her father’s suffering. But she was of noble stock, and as
stubborn and strong-willed as her father. She would not betray him, not
even to save his life. Nor, in truth, would he have such feelings for
her if she was any less faithful to her father’s vow.
The faint sound of a wood and paper screen being drawn awoke him from
his reverie. That screen was decorated with a dozen little chimes that
sounded softly whenever it was moved. This time the screen moved and
the chimes were silent – which meant that someone had silenced them.
Still lying on the mattress, Toka reached over with his left hand and
drew his wakizashi - short sword – from the scabbard that lay beside
the bed. Something moved in the darkness and he thrust upwards. At the
same time a sharp blade buried itself in the wooden pillow where his
head had been a mere heartbeat before. A hooded figure, robed in the
colours of night, groaned and sank down on the bed beside him. Toka
twisted the sword blade and pulled it free, pushing the assassin away,
conscious that while the man lived he might have a second weapon with
which to strike. The assassin groaned again and then lay still. Toka
felt for the hilt of his second sword, the longer katana, drew that too
and then stepped through the screen door into the hearth-room.
The door to the garden was open, and there was enough light from stars
and moon to illuminate the wood and paper panels that delineated the
main room of the house. Wearing only his sleeping-robe but carrying
both swords, Toka stepped purposefully towards the centre of the room,
a sunken area set two steps lower than the rest of the house. He
stopped when he reached the stone-lined square of the fireplace and
looked around. Four black shadows stood out against the white paper of
the panel walls and screen, four black-robed figures. Steel glinted in
the faint light. He could see that one carried a rice-flail, while
another wore metal gauntlets from which protruded six-inch tiger claws.
The remaining two carried short, straight-bladed swords, the
characteristic weapons of the ninja.
Standing in the middle of the room, Toka was surrounded on all sides
and below his opponents; but nowhere else in the house could he command
such space to wield the longer of his swords. He took a moment to
steady himself and to fix in his mind the position of each of the ninja
assassins. Then he raised both swords and began his work...
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to go to Part Two