The Clever Hawk

By Ronan Frost

Copyright 2015 Ronan Frost

Smashwords Edition

Chapter One

My stride tracked the irregularities of the forest floor unfurling beneath my running feet, self-awareness but lightly tethered to the world. It is with a sudden absence of that omnipresent roar, a sound beyond awareness until it is gone, and I return with a sharp displacement and a distinct popping in my ears -

- and I was back in that wretched compartment.

Motes of dust loft through a narrow shaft of light, reminding me of my place. I wished I could shift and ease the muffled agony of cramp in my legs, but the box was designed for a child even smaller than myself, and I cannot budge my gangly limbs folded all akimbo hard up against the walls. In the heavy silence all I heard were bumps muffled by distance bleeding through the wattle and daub walls of the castle.

I silently cursed myself, for I was trapped now. The Hatakeyama family could return at any moment, and no amount of explanation would suffice if they found me emerging from the secret compartment into their guest chamber.

How much did I remember? The clink of chopsticks upon bowls, the smell of rice and marinated fish permeating through the wall. For a time I had feared my stomach would growl and betray my presence. The choked stream of cramp had worked its way up my legs and into my lower back, and as I listened I had tried without success to accept the pain and absorb it, as my master had taught.

“We can’t do it,” one of the family had said, his voice only slightly muffled by the thin wall between us. “The whole plan, it’s foolish. Why risk his wrath?”

“Lord Date is becoming ruthless; it’s only a matter of time before he comes for our lands. He cares not if we are kin.”

“But this plan is lunacy!”

“Quiet, both of you,” another older voice had cautioned. “We will speak no more of it.”

My curiosity piqued, yet the warning had obviously been enough, for nobody spoke again. In that silence I sensed the spark of friction caused by the heightened nerves and the disparity of opinion. Yet after that I had only hazy memories, merging into visions of running through green tendrils of vines, with damp loam underfoot, details now evaporating like mist in that way dreams have upon awakening. I had not even realised I was tired, it was impossible to think I had fallen asleep. With no sense of how much time had passed I struggled to think of what to tell my master.

I flinched as sudden lamplight spilled onto my face striking my eyes with such force it seemed a physical slap, the false section of wall ripped away and my field of view filled with Master Nobushige’s face, his eyes small and set far apart and his jaw a weak dimple in the jowls of his cheeks. Despite the superficial lifelessness to those eyes I knew a quick and sharp mind resided behind that gaze.

“Get out, boy.” His iron hand grasped my upper arm, hauling me to my feet, the slippery texture of his formal kimono brushing against my side. My legs, weakened by both the atrophy of long inactivity and that familiar flooding of intense fear buckled like cooked noodles beneath my weight.

Master Nobushige’s head rose, his chest expanding, and he looked down upon me with scorn. “You look like an idiot, boy. Speak, don’t just twitch like an imbecile.”

“My master… They drank tea,” I managed. My legs found some measure of strength and I stood but still my master held my upper arm. I was bound to him, his grip tight.

“That is all?” Master Nobushige lifted me higher, skewing me sideways. “They now dine with the father of Lord Date,” he said, pronouncing the name of the warlord of the castle with careful deliberation upon both syllables; Dah-Teh. He knew that the mere mention of the name would snap me into obedience. “If there is something I need to know, now is the time.”

“I…” The blood in my veins sounded a furious rushing roar in my inner ear, and although my eyes were fixed firmly upon the woven reeds of the floor, I could feel his eyes delving deep into my soul. For a moment, I thought of fabricating something, but my mind balked, empty and stupid. Words tumbled from my mouth. “They were arguing about something, a plan. But I didn’t hear, I mean…”

Master Nobushige did not blink, his grip about my arm relentless, and it seemed his will sliced into my mind like a blade into the belly of a fish.

I hung my head. “I think I fell asleep.”

“You did what?” he burst, spittle flying from his lips. “Seven years, boy! Seven years I have wasted on you. I should not have bothered dragging you from your village if this is how you repay my kindness. I gave you a chance boy, a chance to raise above your peasant origins! I should have known better. The son of a frog is a frog still. It is just as well your family and all kin are long dead and cold in the ground for the shame you bring!”

I reeled to the floor, his words slapping me harder than his thrust. He did not linger to see how I fell, but turned his back and strode out of the door. I picked myself up, finding I had upset the low table in the centre of the room and strewn cups and small dishes over the floor. My back gave a pulsing ache from where it had struck the edge but I tried to ignore it, hurrying instead to pick up what I had scattered and straightening the table. By the time I had finished and rushed to the door Master Nobushige was halfway down the corridor. I scampered after him like a cowed beast, half-running to catch up. From behind the wide shoulders of his starched kamishimo gave his silhouette an imperious aspect. He did not slacken his pace or deign to look behind, his voice flat and cold.

“Go away.”

I froze in my tracks, sagging inwards, wishing fervently I could wipe myself from this world. If a pit had opened in the earth at my feet I would have unflinchingly thrown myself into its depths. My vision swam as I ground a palm against my forehead, as if that pressure alone could hold back the brimming tears, feeling my face twist into a grimace that could not help but show my deject loneliness and utter worthlessness.

My feet took me to a narrow side corridors, a servant’s route that twisted through the castle. I chose the darkest and least used, so that although sounds of activity were close at hand I passed nobody. I reached the servants vestibule and stepped down to a section of flooring lower than the main floor. My small feet slipped into a pair of the neatly arranged outdoor slippers by the door and I ducked outside.

The frigid night air dashed upon exposed skin and penetrated my thin layer of clothing, drawing instant gooseflesh, yet I welcomed that cold embrace. With every chill inhalation came a searing pain and the giddy satisfaction of self-flagellation. As the moments passed I realised it was more than that, for as my core temperature waned so too did my misery. Shame bleed away leaving nothing but numbness. I took a score of steps into the darkness, looking up at the vast dome of an inky black and starless sky. At my back the sounds and smells from the small windows of warm orange light in the main building seemed a world away. I could see by the yellow light that the chill air had even driven the guards to their quarters beyond the courtyard.

Perhaps, I thought, Master Nobushige would give me another chance to redeem myself, an opportunity to gain a small measure of self-worth in that servitude.

Chapter Two

Eventually the cold was starting to make my jaw ache so I moved further into the shadows and dropped into a crouch, holding my hands about my ankles, head between my knees. Thoughts spun through my head but none made any sense and I simply waited, fearing to return and face my master’s wrath, knowing the longer I lingered the worse it would be, and the deeper the lines of his cane would be drawn across my back.

A loud, unusual bump from within the castle caught my attention. Lights flared into life in windows, sounds of shouting and in the darkness some distance away a group of people running. I knuckled tears from my eyes and dropped into a crouch, suddenly afraid. I saw through the small leaves of a manicured hemlock shrub a confused bunch of shapes dash through the darkness, and what appeared to be someone carrying a bulky load upon their shoulder. They argued between one another in urgent tones but I was not close enough to catch words. After some confusion they disappeared out of my view and I heard the clink of metal upon metal. A moment later, louder than a thunderclap, came the clatter of hooves dancing upon stones.

I rose upon my haunches to see the fugitives had mounted and were milling from the stables, still seemingly in heated discussion. They found their way seemingly by chance through the open castle gates and then a straggler, fumbling with the reins, kicked and huddled low on his horse dashed behind. No shout of challenge rose; either the guards at the gate were absent or they too had been taken by surprise.

The quiet after their passing seemed unnatural. A slight wind lifted and rustled the leaves, and somewhere far off came the croaking of frogs.

With every instinct and frayed nerve in me crying out for caution I edged toward the snickering and uneasy settling of upset horses. No light shone from the inky darkness within the stables. As a servant to Master Nobushige it was my task to gather information, and such was the peculiar haste of the riders that I knew he would want to know what had happened here.

This was my chance at redemption. I would discover the cause of the disturbance, report it immediately. Perhaps it might go some way to alleviate my failure.

I stood there with every hair on my body standing on edge with both the cold and fear and pushed open the door. It was dark inside, yet the wave of warmth that washed out carried with it the comforting smells of and horses and straw. Of the stablemaster and his boys I could see or hear nothing.

A bright shaft of light came from the castle; I stepped backwards sharply into the shadows again. A bunch of young men holding aloft lanterns fanned into the yard, casting a dancing array of shadows as they searched, dispersed like spilling water and shouting at one another. A cry was raised as someone questioned the guards at the gate, and a second later another man’s voice;

“The stable doors are open!”

I backed further into the bushes away from the light and activity, confused, heart racing. My place of concealment grew stark with approaching lanterns. In the confusion of the moment I took an opportunity and merged from the bushes and into the crowd, blending in as a humble servant boy, moving with the surge of people carrying me through the wide doorway. A series of lanterns were raised and set upon hooks in the walls, filling the stable with light. Someone raised a cry, “They’ve taken their horses! Call the stablemaster!”

I could see little but the backs of servants’ coarsely woven jackets but craning my neck caught a glimpse of an open stall door. I felt suddenly weak, for I knew those horses missing to be those belonging to the Hatakeyama family. Like something from a half-forgotten dream talk of their plan came back to me. What had they done?

The crowd of servants and courtiers parted, pushed by some invisible force. Like everyone around me, I dropped to my knees, hands folded on the dirt, as four of Lord Date’s personal retainers strode for the stables. Like Lord Date, these were men ordained by fate, born into the samurai class and inherently superior; merchants, artisans, farmers all beneath their rule. It was not uncommon for a samurai to simply strike out and kill if for some reason they felt their pride had been damaged in some way, doing it with such impunity and speed that the sword could be returned to the sheath before the victims head had even toppled off his shoulders. The combination of such deadly skill and sensitivity to slight made all those beneath them exceedingly wary. Bedecked in full battle ensemble they looked more demon than man. The curtain of their bell helmets curved to protect the back of the neck, faces hidden beneath metal faceplates cast into permanent scowls. Plates of glistening black lacquered armour bound together with white lacing skirted down to the knees, a golden mesh of metal chainmail reaching down their arms and legs, terminating in gauntlets and tall boots. At their waist, they wore the two signature swords of the samurai: the shorter bladed wakizashi, and the slender double-handed katana.

I pressed my face to the ground and I did not look up as they passed, hearing the creak of their articulated armour and the heavy thud of their footfall.

Someone barked curt orders and warhorses were saddled with such infectious rapidity the beasts stamped at the ground, pawing sideways and exhaling noisily their agitation. In unison the four samurai placed foot in stirrup, the horses already moving into a run as the riders swung atop their mounts, ducking low to avoid the low ceiling of the stable doors and into the night bright with torchlight. Like the others in the crowd I remained upon my knees for a time, only slowly getting to my feet after the thunder of hooves had disappeared through the castle gates. Looks of confusion were exchanged between the servants and slowly, like the refilling of a babbling stream, talk grew again with mounting speculation and argument.

A hand fell upon my shoulder, fingers tightening. Weakened by shock I spun under the pressure with my heart leaping, expecting the worst.

I blinked in surprise.

It was her.

It is odd how memory can capture a particular moment in time, an image set crystal clear while those events immediately preceding and following are lost. That image that shot to my mind was when I had first seen her, when the summer heat seemed driven hotter by the endlessly escalating calls of the cicadas, the air swooning with humidity. In that moment I was mid-step, passing by the open doors of the laundries and chanced to see the laundry girls were working in a huge wooden tub, pounding clothes. Two of the girls were facing away, but this girl had glanced aside and caught my eyes, freezing that instant in my memory: she wore only a thin yukata hitched up to her unblemished thigh, sashed only loosely about her waist and clinging wetly the contours of her breasts, one hand raised to wipe away some loose strands of hair that had escaped from the knotted bun atop her head. When our gazes met for that fleeting moment it felt like we had shared something. The laughter she shared with her friends yet remained in the corners of her lips; I felt my own smile reflect hers. The world seemed to pause. Then it was over. My footsteps had carried me onward, past the door, and I had hurried on.

With her so close, hearing her carefully modulated voice again, it seemed like the intervening years had never happened.

“Atsushi? What are you doing here? You have to leave the castle immediately! He’s looking for you.”

My mind would not function and I was aware my face had flushed a bright red, even my ears felt like they were emanating scarlet heat. Her name rang through my thoughts, Yuki. She was looking at me, expecting an answer, and I struggled for a moment to recall what she had said.

“Looking for me? Who is?”

“Look at me, Atsushi! Here, look at me! He blames you for this. Leave this place and never come back!”

Yuki was a little taller than me so I had to look up to meet her eyes for a fraction of a second. No matter how I moved my lips no words came.

She tightened her grip on my arm and her eyes flashed with impatience. “Run away - now,” she said, glancing aside and releasing her grip, aware suddenly of curious eyes of onlookers. Then she was gone, simply vanishing into the crowd.

“Wait, what’s going on?” I called after her, too late.

I spun about, confused. Two young boys pushed past me, I overheard the older talking with breathless excitement.

“No, I don’t know how. Look, see for yourself, their horses are gone. I told you it was true. The Hatakeyama -they’ve abducted Lord Date’s father.”

A high-pitched ringing in my ears made everything feel suddenly distant. I hardly heard the cries of alarm as word spread, the castle coming alive. The father of Lord Date had been stolen from the castle at the very heart of his domain; surely there was no worse calamity. The Hatekeyama had come to petition for peace, yet had taken a powerful bargaining chip. How could I have been so foolish? I had suspected something was suspicious, if I hadn’t fallen asleep I would have surely heard something of their plans. I could have then told my master, he could have passed on a warning… How different things would have been.

My thoughts spiralled about the undeniable conclusion: this was all my fault. I had to seek out my master.

I set out at a half-run towards the castle, forcing my way through the gathered and useless milling of servants and onlookers. I entered a vestibule and slipped off the oversized slippers. It was unusual to see the other pairs scattered about the floor, evidence to the haste overcoming the castle, yet I took the time to arrange the ones I had used neatly and square against the step ready for the next person. I hesitated; my ostensible task in the castle as a messenger boy was also to clean up the rest and I felt the pressure of habit before shaking my head to clear it; this was no time to be rearranging slippers!

I darted down the corridor just as a group of men rounded the corner. I knew their faces as councillors to the Lord Date. They spoke quickly over the top of one another as they walked, hardly seeing me as I hugged the wall, holding my breath in an effort to seem small. As they passed I caught fragments of conversation.

“Has Lord Date been informed his father has been taken?”

“Word had been relayed.”

“Where are…”

The voices faded as the councillors rounded a corner. I broke into a quick run, backing to the wall twice more, once for a cook as he came from a side corridor, and again as a bent-backed old man hobbled along, taking up a goodly portion of the width of the corridor. All the while Yuki was in my thoughts, the encounter had set my nerves afire, the distraction of her beauty and the nervous rush of emotions her very proximity had caused. I tried to keep the image of her face clear in my mind, her jet black hair, almond eyes, and those lips.... I was a good way towards my master’s room when her words bubbled from my subconscious.

Was I really in danger? Should I simply run away?

The thought would never have occurred to me had not she suggested it. I found my feet had slowed. I stood still. But where would I go? I had nothing. That was simply not an option. If Lord Date’s father had been kidnapped, surely my master would take the blame, and that blame would likely pass on directly to me. What was the worst that could happen? I swallowed and forced my ragged breathing to settle. The One-Eyed Dragon had a fearsome reputation; the worst I could imagine was bad.

That was no reason to abandon my duty. My feet had carried me to the door to my master’s room; it was open. A lantern illuminated a small tatami room lined with shelves stacked with ledgers and scrolls. To the unassuming, the smell of ink and paper associated to a master scribe, yet to my nose it was the heavy air of a tiger’s den.

I held together hands that were shaking. The weight of this incident was surely too much for my skinny shoulders to bear. An enervating dizziness almost made me drop and I had to grab at the wall for support, that moment when everything was so lost to me I could drop no further, my soul bled out like an empty shell arranged in the semblance of life like the discarded husk of a cicada.

Chapter Three

Free of ego, a new thought formed. Was Yuki right? With her simple words she had given me permission to be myself, words I had never heard from anyone, words that broke those invisible bindings around my heart and mind that had held me like a moth to the flame of my masters will.

I could escape.

I should escape.

My eyes shot open.

It was then I heard the distinct bark of my master’s voice, approaching from one end of the corridor and an instant later he strode around the corner. He wore a formal gown and billowing pants cinched at the waist with a sash that fell to his ankles whipping like a snake, the shoulders of his sleeveless jacket exaggerated into points. At first I thought he had seen me, but he was engaged in debate with a messenger boy who trailed his footsteps.

I looked down the length of the corridor. It was too late, I could not flee. I rolled my shoulders over the door and into my master’s room. Had the movement been seen? I stood in the middle of that room, turning circles, the tatami matting at my feet creaking and feeling like thin ice cracking and spidering outwards, announcing my uninvited presence. Two, three, four times I spun, looking for a place to hide as I faintly registered my master’s words growing clearer and clearer.

“…told you before boy, I don’t want another message boy, I want him! How can nobody know where he is?”

Master Nobushige was suddenly at the door. I lay as still as I possibly could and watched from beneath the shelving. Dust was in my nose. With dread I saw a corner of my sleeve still lay exposed; I dare not move for fear the movement would attract immediate attention. Master Nobushige paced into the centre of the room and then, from the attitude of his feet, I judged he turned his back on me and faced the door. I took a gamble and withdrew my exposed sleeve out of view, bringing it close to my body.

A boy’s voice came from the door.

“I’ve searched everywhere, Master Nobushige - nobody knows where he is. I… I heard that the last someone saw of him, he was in the stables –”

My master’s tone sharpened. “The stables? Then the skinny runt was part of it all along! The bastard helped them escape!”

I almost started from my hiding spot to protest the unjust conclusion, for indeed it seemed my guilt was undeniable - I could add betrayal to the list of crimes that already included stupidity and failure of duty. The aching urge to throw myself at his mercy, to plead ignorance, was almost unstoppable.

The messenger boy spoke again. “In the stables, he was with the girl from the laundry.”

Master Nobushige’s reaction was so vehement it made the boy jump. “Girl! Which girl? Where is she now?”

“I… I think her name is Yuki, sir.”

“What are you doing here, you useless cretin? If you can’t find him, then at least bring her! What are you doing still standing here? Go!”

I heard the door shut with a savage swish-swish-clack and the receding footfalls as the boys ran off. I then saw my master’s feet peeking from beneath his long robe as he stepped across the room, directly toward me. This was it, I thought. Why had I even bothered to hide?

To my surprise, a hand did not reach down and haul me out. Instead, I heard a thunk as he placed the candle holder on the shelving top and felt the creak of the wood as he slumped onto it, his spread feet so close I saw individual threads in his winter socks.

I tried to calm my breathing, to take only tiny sips of air, but my lungs burned. The air rasped in and out like the crinkle of a paper lantern and my heart beat a heavy staccato, pumping straight up into my head, coming up against the drum of my inner ear with an incompressible thud-thud-thud. In the silence I felt sure I would be found within moments, yet time passed, and still Nobushige did not move. Was he toying with me?

There was a sudden crash, the sound of a fist coming down, and everything upon the shelf leapt and clattered. I barely restrained a yelp of fear.

Then there was a choke of indrawn breath.

I couldn’t believe it. It was the sound of defeat; the old man’s sighs had turned into barely restrained sobs.

The sounds of a beaten man.

Surely nobody had ever been privileged to peer into this crack, to see within the impenetrable shield; Nobushige was a man who was always right, always in control. Not once had he openly praised me, only occasionally had I gained the merest nod of approval; I had lived for those fleeting moments of acceptance. Other than that, his face was always a mask, as confident as a god. To see him crack, to see this humanity… Shame washed over me, that I should be the cause of it.

At last he sighed and his feet shuffled back and the shadows within the room skewed mightily as he took the lantern with him towards the door. At the door he paused mid-stride and there was an odd silence, which was then marred by a strange sound, and it took me a moment to place it: the sound of him sniffing the air. Then master Nobushige’s feet disappeared and the door slid closed once again.

I lay there a time, my head spinning, unable to break the heavy spell of inertia, yet battling a fear of remaining within my master’s private quarters a moment longer. Feeling a deep sense of disconnect from the world I pushed against the wall and wiggled from beneath the shelves. On my elbows in the darkness of the room the only light was the rectangular outline of the door from the candles beyond in the hallway. Hunching my shoulders I made for the door, daring not to even think about what punishment lay in store for me. If I was accused of aiding the Hatakeyama in their abduction of the Lord…

I held the indentation of the door handle with two hands, easing it open ever so quietly, sliding it only enough for me to slip out into the hallway –

– a strong pair of hands suddenly seized my shoulders.

“Got you, you rat!”

Master Nobushige. Standing in ambush.

I flailed and shrunk instinctively, and somehow I was free. Nobushige, left holding only my sleeveless jacket, tossed it aside furiously and pounced at me again but I was already running, stumbled, and on my feet again. I felt his claws of fingers pluck at my back as he dove desperately at my heels.

“Get back here, I’ll flay that miserable skin from your bones!”

The base part of my mind powered my instinctive flight leaving my conscious thoughts reeling, the churning froth of his manic pursuit propelling me past reason and logic. If only he would give a chance to regain myself I would stop, and simply give myself in. My feet found a path through the twisted network of corridors and stairs, staying in the narrow places where I had the advantage over my taller pursuer. People turned, startled, as we raced through, the cries of “Stop him!” reaching their ears too late, their reactions slow. Master Nobushige would have some explaining to do after this if he were to keep his reputation as the unassuming scroll-master of accounts.

I slammed up against a door, rattling it upon its tracks: if I’d had any bulk to me I’d have gone straight through the flimsy paper and wood screen. I slid the door open, Nobushige’s running footfalls pounding closer. I darted inside, straight into the belly of a portly man. I rolled aside just as Nobushige careened through the door and the two came together, the air driven from the man’s lungs with an surprised ooooof!

Shouts railed after me as I dashed towards the central stairs, bounding up two at a time as it wound flight by flight upwards. I had gained some distance and my pace slowed, my breath heaving, throat parched dry in terror. I looked back down. Nobushige was two flights down, no longer shouting. My steps faltered and stopped, but as he drew closer the silent fury in his eyes flashed upward at me.

Stop! I wanted to shout. Stop and I will give myself in!

But I could not speak, and again I started fleeing again, turning my head and dashing up the sparsely lit stairs. The higher I went the darker it became. Further and further I went, to the very top of the castle. The smell here, intensified in the darkness, spoke of unimaginable age, heavy with mingled dust of hundreds of years and the heady stench of long habitation.

The stairs came to an end. I broke free of the door to the castle roof and suddenly I was outside, a roof of stars overhead. Those same stars I had gazed upon but a short time ago seemed to belong to another life entirely. To my surprise there were no guards here and in that moment of solitude the silence was serene. Clouds scudding overhead gave the illusion of movement to the full moon heavy in the sky. From this height the chorus of frogs inhabiting the chills waters of the moat was a distant, soothing chorus.

I knew there was no way out; the castle gate would be locked and doubled guarded. I looked at the parapet wall.

I was up and over the edge before I could think, dropping over the far side, keeping my fingers hooked over the top edge of the wooden frame. My feet found a narrow ledge in the wattle and daub wall no wider than my toes and I fought for purchase just as Master Nobushige came crashing through the door and emerged onto the rooftop, breathing heavily.

My hands were by my side now, I knew he could not see me, yet I felt ridiculously exposed. The cold dampness of the fibrous wall bled through the thin material of my vest and moisture seeped into my socks. Bruises and welts to my shins, evidence of my headlong blind haste, started to ache. I dared to look over my shoulder, feeling the yawning gap of incredible height. I was above the shadowy crowns of even the loftiest of trees, the ground impossibly far away in the flat grey light; it seemed the houses clustered on the hillside surrounding the castle were like a growths of moss about the trunk of a tree.

My hands were suddenly sweating. The void below was dizzying, intoxicating in its power and simplicity, forcing my senses to narrow until I heard no other sound but the roar of blood in my ears, felt no other touch but the wall at my fingertips. I took a shallow breath, closing my eyes, not daring to move.

I heard the creak of armour as guards came running from another section of the rooftop, and a challenge as they came across my master.

“You there! What are you doing here?”

“Where is he?” hissed Nobushige. “The boy! Where did he go?”

“What boy - ?”

“Fools! You, search over there, in those shadows, he must be here somewhere.”

His tone held command and demanded respect; the guards knew better than to argue. There were sounds of footsteps as they spread out. I heard master Nobushige call out to the wind.

“You are here, boy, I know it.”

I could not move.

Master Nobushige paced the length of the wall. “Coward! Come and face your misdeeds. You have betrayed us all!” As he searched, his voice came closer then further away. “How did you know? She told you to flee, didn’t she? I know you - you wouldn’t have the gall, you’re too gutless to do it yourself.” Under his breath he added softly, “Not like that impertinent bitch.”

All of a sudden he was very close. If he had leaned over the edge he would have seen me trembling, stuck like a bug on a web.

“Reveal yourself now, and I shall be lenient. You have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, no one to care for you but me. I know you are loyal. Come on boy, do your duty!”

He lavished emotion upon his last word such that it rang in my ears. Duty. Service.

“Come out and I will spare both of your lives. Remain there, and I swear, she will pay.”

My head felt empty of thought, ringing with two words; duty, freedom. My guilt now was doubled; the beautiful, innocent girl who would pay for my stupidity, and my failure of duty to my master to whom I owed my life. The gentle breeze eased for a just a moment, and in that conspiring silence I heard master Nobushige whisper to the guard at his side.

“As soon as you see the boy, do not hesitate - skewer him through.”

The world reeled. I was well used to the beatings; my back bore the many overlaid cicatrices from master Nobushige’s cord, from those long since healed puckered scars, through to those still weeping. Yet this time he had real deathly intent. My guts clenched, daring not to think of how it would feel to have cold steel driven through my body. Would that be worse than the terror of that awful drop?

A cold licked at the nape of my neck. Somehow familiar. Then I knew.

It was back.

A cold race of gooseflesh pricked my entire body as I felt it hovering in the air behind me, an invisible presence but with a touch so very real. The voice was a small boy’s, whispering so close it tickled the small hairs in my ear.

“Jump,” it said.

Fear and loss caved the brittle shell of my chest, swamping the core of my being. I felt hands shove squarely at my chest, and the next thing I knew I no longer touched the wall.

My arms pinwheeling, I pivoted backwards over my heels and wordlessly fell into that black void.

The wind roared as I gained speed and my mind emptied of reason and fear; there was no past, no future, only the now. My feet caught and I was spinning. As I fell the wattle and daub walls of the uppermost structure gave way to massive stones, angling outwards the nearer the ground I fell, plunging now head first, the inky blackness hiding the ground. Instinctively I curled, my back hitting the waters of the moat with a mighty splash I only half-heard before my head was immersed and my ears roared with bubbled turbulence.

Deep underwater, I had stopped moving. I had no bearings, no clue as to which way the surface lay. Still in shock, my conscious mind returned, realising that my lungs were emptied and burning with the drive to breathe. I started kicking blindly, thrashing at the waters, but I knew not if I was moving, or indeed, if I were struggling deeper to my death.

Suddenly my head broke the surface and I gasped before bobbing back beneath the waters again, flailing. Driven by blind panic my hands slipped upon the algae slick stems of weeds against the bank, ripping and pulling until finally I found the edge and hauled my upper body free. I felt as if the ghost of the boy were here still, at my back in the darkness. The fear and shock made my chest heave. I was weak; here in the wet and dark I was at the mercy of the power of the ancient and dead world. I had to get clear of the water and its cloying embrace. My legs buckled as I tried to stand and I fell heavily into the mud.

I lay still, exhausted and trembling. The roaring in my ears slowly drained, sounds of the world slowly fading back. The frogs were much louder here, almost thunderous. My breathing slowed.

I realised I was free, and I had survived.

Chapter Four

With an odd sense of detachment the shivering tightness imprisoning my flesh eased, the cramp unwinding strand by strand as my body gave up and opens the gate of its defences, relinquishing to the soporific cold. How could I have not seen how easy and how simple it could be.

Something ticked at my face.

My eyes cracked open. Through that narrow slit of vision fickle puffs of wind toyed lazily with the drifting flakes of the first snow of the year. I watched for a time, entranced.

The sound of cracking branches startled me with their sudden proximity and the dancing light of a lantern splashed over the thicket. “Over here,” a guard shouted. “It landed here!”

I surprised myself with the will to live, a stubbornly glowing ember of desire that made me roll to my stomach. I heard several more footsteps running through the mud.

In my state of shock I did not feel the pain of my injuries, yet when I eased weight through the bones of my arms the joints gave way. Surprised at this sudden weakness my chest almost fell to the ground, yet somehow I held myself, and forced myself to crawl like a beast with a broken back, dragging myself deeper into the reeds as the lantern light chased at my feet.

Another guard had joined the first. “Do you see it?”

“Spread out!” cried the first voice. “Someone fell, I saw it! Find him!”

Feeling a fraction of my strength returning I kept moving, managing now to bring my legs up beneath me, raising myself to all fours. Unfeeling blocks of ice had replaced where my feet and hands had once been, and I wondered if the sharp twigs and thorns should be causing me pain. My nose was packed solid with frozen mucous forcing my breath of freezing air directly through my mouth, splitting my lips. Behind me I heard the guards hesitate to leave one another’s company in the darkness, standing in a tight circle and rattling their weapons. Exchanging orders, they gathered courage to fan outward, beating at the undergrowth.

Somehow, without realising it, I had collapsed. I lay immobile, my clothing soaked through to my skin, ice forming in the strands of my hair, with no shelter other than the concealment of scrubby bushes. Slowly the light from the lanterns of the guards grew stronger, shafts of light skewing across my body the darkness.

The snow had grown heavier and thicker, a sudden downpour of swirling eddies gathering in and around the branches of the scrub. I did not move, speck by speck the snow building up over my body. Tickles of snow melted under my head, filling my ears with water.

The sound of thwacking of bushes grew loud and suddenly very close. I remained motionless, beyond caring, my eyes moving under snow bristled eyelashes. The lantern light, bespeckled in the falling snow, drifting right above my head and a pair of booted feet stalked before my eyes. A blanket of snow fell with a wet thump as the reeds were struck. I would be discovered as soon as he took one more step…

There was a cry from the guard post.

“Riders approach! Riders!”

The guard stopped and I saw his feet pivot away. The sound of a score of galloping hooves upon the road grew suddenly loud. The guard shouted to his companion, making me jump in fright, as he rushed back to his post.

“Let them through! Lord Date approaches!”

The rapid tattoo of distant hooves came louder, pitch changing as they went from the hard packed gravel of the road to the hollowness of wood of the drawbridge.

I took advantage of the distraction and noise to break the mould my body had made in the snow, rising to my feet. I half-ran, half-stumbled further down the sparsely treed slope. I stumbled downhill, away from my defied master, my home, and a lifetime of training. It seemed I walked among people, but what where they doing here in this snowfall and darkness? As I staggered closer they would stop moving and my forearm would come up against the hardness of a tree trunk.

Then, rising like a wall before me in the darkness were the shadows of the houses closest to the castle, those of the samurai and monks. How much to trust my senses? My course was set between the buildings, my breath pluming before my eyes as it passed through the shafts of light coming from the windows. There was a narrow corridor of low bushes between houses, my chances of being seen where high if I were to cross through. Yet I had little other choice. I plunged forward, dragging heavy footprints in the snow. Warm yellow light shone within the house as I passed, and I heard from within sounds of activity. That world seemed far removed from my world of grey light and bone deep cold.

As I stumbled down the hillside the density of houses began to thin and the trees of the forest grew taller. I tripped upon fallen branches that lay obscured beneath the blanket of unblemished snow, feeling oafish as I destroyed this stark and serene beauty. I wondered if it would be best if I just sat down and rested a while and let that snow cover me and take me into the next life…

I broke free of tangled underground and onto tended fields, where the moonlight peeking through occasional gaps in the cloud shed a pale light through the whorls of falling snow. I instantly felt lost in the vastness. It was only when I had reached the bottom of the hill that I turned and saw the castle at the crest, a spark of light high in the distance. It had been my only home, and from here, everything that had mattered to me seemed so remote and small. Powerful emotions arose from the hollowness of my gut, uncontrollable sobs racking my chest. My feet curled with pain, every ligament in my body taut, the clothes against my skin had frozen into solid boards. I tasted that metallic tang of blood in my mouth and spat viscid strands to the ground.

Somehow, I kept walking, but my mind was gone. I had no sense of the passage of time other than the slow sinking of the moon in the sky and the steadily dropping temperature. The night was the coldest when the moon set and I found myself slowing almost to a stop. My clenched jaws ached, the cold seeping to my inner core. I tried to imagine the faraway warmth of a summer’s day, the strength of the sun upon skin, but a thing seemed so unreal and impossible and was no solace.

I blinked the snow from my eyes, for it seemed somehow I was close to a hamlet of houses, the outlines of the buildings vague shadow upon shadow. I approached the nearest of them, a small one, aged, set a little apart from the others. It was only the size of a single room, set up on stilts above the mud. Feeling myself distant from my body I climbed the few stairs and rapped my knuckles upon the door.

There were no noises or response from within, and I slumped down against the door, feeling the strength leaving me. A tiny thought echoed in my head. Something I had forgotten to do, or something I had to think before I died.

Yuki.

Summer, three years ago, a golden vignette of memory. Memories flooded back…

A large basket under one arm she was accompanied by an older woman likewise burdened as she crossed my line of sight. Lord Date’s archers were practicing that day, taking up the entire courtyard with their field, forcing the two women to walk the long way around from the main castle towards the washhouses. From my vantage upon the second storey I saw the Lord Date Masamune himself prowling the ranks of archers, dressed in black and gold armour. He wore no helm upon his head and even from this height I could see the sternness upon his face, deep lines bracketing the downturn of his mouth serving to highlight the savageness to his scowl, puckered flesh surrounding his right eye. It was said that the empty socket granted him vision into the netherworld.

I had paused, torn for a moment in indecision. The front rank of archers with bows almost as tall as themselves had completed the careful action of pointing the nocked arrow skywards and drawing back the bow in the same action as lowering to take aim, elbows high, stance wide. They held that pose and with it seemed to stop time itself.

The tension of the moment broke as Lord Date barked a command and the archers released, the volley slicing the air and impacting straw targets with a rapid tattoo. I reached my decision and broke into a run in a direction that would parallel the Yuki’s path, making for a point to intercept her.

I lost sight of them and stopped running, catching my breath. Perhaps I had misjudged their direction. From the other side of the building I heard another volley of arrows hitting their target. Then I saw movement; they had been walking slower than I had supposed. I was now in front of them, they were headed in my direction. Feeling a blush rise to my face I lowered my head and acted as if I was upon some urgent errand, clinging close to the side of the path, seeing them only from my peripheral vision, feeling the sternness of the matron, knowing the girl did not even glance in my direction.

At that last moment, just as we passed each other, I shot my gaze in her direction. I could not be sure, but was that a hint of a smile plucking the corner of her beautiful cheek?

I felt a fool and a hot blush coloured my face as I hurried back to my duties, with thoughts of her in my mind.

The memory of that smile resonated in my heart like the quivering string of an empty bowstring.

Suddenly I awoke.

“Who are you?” asked the woman leaning over me. “Are you a soldier?”

She had been sitting by my bed, watching me, at her back the low angled sunlight through the window. Feeling the imperative to her question I rapidly fought to separate dream from reality and place myself; my head swimming with confusion after my long sleep, piecing together memories of deep stumbling coldness. It all seemed disjointed from reality, dry beneath the weight of coarse honest blankets. A nub of icy cold still clung to my core, my limbs heavy, and I could not feel my fingers or toes.

“Well?”

What was she asking again? A solider?

I shook my head.

“You didn’t look like one,” she muttered, almost to herself. “But you can never be sure. The One-Eyed Dragon will even take the skinny ones like you for his army.”

Only my eyes moved as I lay prostrate upon the thin futon, my head too heavy for my neck. I saw her poking at the fire that burned low, red and hot and almost without flame. She pushed a singed corner of cloth further into the coals and a brief yellow light flared to light her wrinkled face. My clothes. She had burnt the last scraps of my clothes.

Hooves sounded in a muffled thunder upon the mud of the road outside. She shot to her feet with the alacrity of an old crow and hopped to the window. She cracked the shutter open, a draft of chill morning air gusting in along the floor.

She peeked out, remained there a time until the sound had died away.

“Lord Date’s samurai,” she said quietly, remaining a moment longer as if to satisfy herself they had gone. “Something has happened at the castle.”

My temples pounded with a savage headache and I tried to speak but found no words.

The woman glanced at me and I saw in her eyes a flickering of compassion within that loneliness.

“You’re safe here,” she said, her voice hardening with a bitter edge. “I owe Lord Date and his pointless armies no love.”

She returned to my side, dropping into a crouch before the fire, agitated and nervous as she stirred the ashes.

“Safe, but for how long…? No, I can’t hide you here,” she said to herself, shaking her heading and on her feet again and crossing the room. She threw open a low cupboard, tossing out clothing in my direction.

I still could not find my voice and simply lay there, transfixed and confused, wondering why she simply did not just give me up to the soldiers. My gaze moved about the room with its quiet arrangement of simple furnishings. Despite the blockage in my nose, I could taste on the back of my tongue the musty odour of one who has lived alone for many years.

Racing thoughts chased each other around in spirals. Yuki surely needed my help, I should give myself up and free her. A wild fantasy took me, somehow I had my hands in hers, I could feel her touch. I heard again her words of warning she had spoken in the stables, telling me to flee. I closed my eyes and shook my head, miserable in my worthlessness.

The woman was at the front door again, her sharp ears catching something mine had not. A moment later I heard it too, voices raised in sharp command. She was at the window, up upon her tiptoes and peering out.

“They come!” she hissed.

I did not move. The old woman rushed to the back of the house, speaking as she went.

“They are searching, you cannot stay!”

I struggled upright to my elbows, fighting to find my balance despite the pain swimming in my head.

“You need go to Mount Haguro. The monks there can protect you.”

Haguro. The name sounded ominous, like something lifted from the pages of a child’s story.

She slid open the panel of the rear window. “Many years ago I sought their powers of healing…but I… I was too late. I hope this time for you it will be different.”

When she returned to my side she saw I had not moved. Her brows furrowed and she read the bleakness of my expression, and reached down and shoved the pile of clothes in my direction.

“You have your entire life ahead of you!” she barked. “Get that look out of your eyes, and get moving, boy!”

I struggled stiffly from the blankets. The clothing she had stuffed into my lap was of woven hemp, well worn. I noticed stitched patches of repair in the knees of the pants as I pulled them on, coming up to mid-calf and with clumsy fingers I tied the string. I pulled on ankle-high socks with a separation between the big toe and other toes, and could not help but wince as it felt like the skin on the soles of my battered feet soughed away. Meanwhile, the woman had been rooting in the cupboard and at last found what she searched for, returned with a pair of boots. Her hands had made fingerprints in the thin layer of dust clinging to their surface. I sorted left boot from right and pulled them over my feet; the fit was perfect, the leather so worn as to be almost like skin.

“Oh my sweet boy… You look just like him.” Her eyes were suddenly rheumy with some ancient memory.

A strange misgiving struck a shiver over my flesh that was not due to the cold. Whose ghost did I supplant?

A heavy knock on the door to the cottage snapped us both back to the present.

“Take the path up the hill by the well, head north to Kanayama Pass,” she whispered urgently. “The Three Mountains of Dewa. And stay out of sight!”

With those words she hoisted me through the low window at the rear of the cottage. As I fell I heard two noises simultaneously; the window being slid closed and the front door forcibly opened. I hit the ground, landing heavily upon a cushion of new snow and reeds. I lay for a moment in the sudden chill, the air holding that special kind of heavy muffled silence that comes after snowfall. I heard noises of footfalls within the cottage. I hesitated a moment, waiting, yet no cries of alarm were raised.

For a moment I considered just lying there, giving up, yet the woman had risked her life to save me, and I felt I had to continue.

I rolled to my feet, staying low, moving away from the village and the open fields and into the trees. The low angle of the winter sun shone through the snow upon the trees, white and clean and without a shred of warmth or compassion. Clutching my arms and hunching my shoulders I slogged through the shin deep snow up the hill where I saw the low roof of a communal well.

I wondered if the samurai searched for me. Perhaps they did not care about one foolish servant, but were instead looking for members of the double-crossing Hatakeyama family. This gave me pause.

I blinked. No. My master wanted me dead. I could not go back.

The path the woman talked of was almost impossible to find with the new snowfall. Nobody had trodden it for days, and all that was evident of it as it wound up through the sparse trees was a slight dip and smoothness in the snow. It was heavy walking, and my boots soon seeped water, likewise the shins of my pants.

The path, such as it was, angled across the slope until it met with small stream. A makeshift bridge of two logs bound together spanned the running water, and as I crossed I saw by miniature castles of ice in that flow, a world of tiny caves and crystals carved and created by an untold number of tiny hands with infinite patience.

I found myself staring into the icy waters as they swirled down the hill, the implacable flow running counter to my direction seemingly a sign that I was upon the wrong path, and that I should turn back. I thought of Yuki, of her words to me. I wondered if she was thinking of me. What retaliation had master Nobushige taken out on her? Death? Disfigurement that would forever ruin her perfect face? Tears of the coward that I was brimmed upon my eyes yet did not fall, and I could not move for a long time. My heart had stopped in my chest. Swaying at the midpoint of that narrow bridge I felt the ice cold water draw me, my mind feverish with the thought of returning, of somehow saving Yuki. If I could redeem myself, there might be some way I could be with her.

Chapter Five

It had been a warm summer’s night when I had seen Yuki for the third time. My spying duties carried me to a post outside the servants’ quarters: tasked with observing a certain young courtier who my master suspected of some growing discontent. As the evening deepened this courtier at last emerged dressed in a gaudy summer robe printed with red and white flowers, and I shadowed after him as he strode through the castle gates and descended the road into town. It was the time of a festival, and the way was lit with colourful lanterns. Street-vendors peddled all manner of delicacies; the aromas of fried squid, savoury pancakes, noodles, baked sweet potatoes mingling in the still summer air. I knew only a little of the origins of the annual festival named Tanabata, only that it was held on the seventh day of the seventh month and had something to do with a story of star-crossed lovers being able to meet only on this one night of the year. That would explain the profusion of young couples leaning close against one another wandering the stalls, I thought. I felt more alone than ever in my brown clothes of a street urchin, staying in the shadows I trailed the courtier at a distance.

The high born lords and ladies of the castle, dressed in their finest, had descended upon the festivities. Their samurai bodyguards wore no armour but were immediately recognisable with their shaved heads and topknots of hair, the curved double-handed swords sheathed at their sides dissuading any to venture too close.

The courtier paused and I was brought up to a halt, almost at his heels. Between the bodies of the flanking samurai I was close enough to see details of the print upon one of the mistresses of Lord Date’s gown, and smell the wonderful fragrance of her yuzu citrus perfume. With sudden panic, I saw the courtier’s hand move to the deep sleeves of his robe; did my master suspect an assassination attempt? I was close to the courtier. Should I reached out, grab at him? If I had been a braver soul, perhaps I would have.

The courier’s hand came out from the folds of his sleeve with a flask of sake. He uncorked it and took a draft. The mistress and the samurai moved on, and the courtier turned his attention back to the market stalls. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief.

The evening that followed dragged on. I stayed within sight of the courtier, shuffling along, my head bowed and gaze fixed to the ground, keeping a watch with only my peripheral vision as my master had taught me. If you must watch someone, he had said, keep your face turned. If you look directly, your face is a beacon, it will call attention to yourself as surely as if it shone like the full of the moon.

So it was that I collided with Yuki.

I was apologising before I had even seen whom it was. The words died in my throat as I took in the scene: she was with her friends, they were still crouched around a small tank, and Yuki stood and took a step backward. Our touch had been a light brushing of shoulders that I felt now radiated a curious sensitivity, as if I had been touched by some spark.

She turned and looked at me, a broad smile still on her face. She wore a simple cotton gown of deep blue, hair bound into an intricate knot shot through with a long needle high at the back her head, exposing the whiteness of her neck. My heart was beating wildly.

Her two friends called to her, waving her back and handing a scoop in her direction. I saw the girls had been attempting a game where the aim was to scoop as many baby turtles as possible using the small net, and judging by their laughter were not having much success.

Yuki handed me the scoop.

“Care to have a try? We aren’t getting anywhere!”

I felt the focus of her attention. Her eyes, almond and perfect, looked straight into mine. My gaze dropped immediately, but before I could refuse, a mighty flash and explosion tore the night air. Bright sparks of fireworks shot into the air accompanied by a series of cracking explosions.

Yuki had fallen back and somehow I had caught her. The crowds around us gave a delighted scream. The roar of the fireworks was already spluttering to a halt. Yuki recovered and found her feet again, her hands, cool and delicate, on my shoulder.

The bare-chested young man who had proven his bravery with the fireworks held aloft the bamboo stick and the crowd shouted their approval. Next to him, another man was preparing, holding the tube stuffed with gunpowder in a bear hug, legs bowed, preparing as a flame was brought nearer.

Shrieking in delight Yuki and her companions moved further away and somehow I was caught up with them. Yuki looked at me and in that moment everything in the world took a step backwards. The fireworks erupted but the sound seemed to come from far away, her eyes, limpid pool of the purest black, reflecting the myriad of bright points of dancing light. I felt I could drown in those depths.

The moment stretched for as long as those fireworks crackled, but when they stopped the world snapped back into focus. Sounds of the festival assaulted me once more, as if a door to my ears had been opened.

Yuki tilted her head, and strange expression on her face.

“I like your smile,” she said. “I can tell you are a kind and gentle person.” She paused, and looked at me as if truly seeing me for the first time. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

“My name is Atsushi,” I stammered, suddenly embarrassed of the coarsely woven, street dirty hemp clothing.

“Pleased to meet you, Atsushi,” she said, each word a song through the blood pounding in my ears. “My name is Yuki.”

Yuki. I spoke her name back to myself, as I would do a thousand times again. My mouth worked for a reply but my mind was a blank. Panic gripped me; I twisted my hands together to stop them from shaking. I bowed stiffly and before I knew quite what I was doing backed away and fled, berating myself in a breathless harangue, calling myself an idiot in as many ways I could think of, each insult flowing freely into the next with head low, gaze fixed to the ground a pace before me.

I glanced over my shoulder. The crowds had filled in the space between us yet through a chance opening I saw her again. Our eyes met. She was smiling, coyly amused, as if she had been waiting for me to turn.

An image strikes me. In the castle there is a smithy with a huge bellows set in the floor; to work it, a team of four men take turns to step upon either side, holding an overhead rope for balance, driving air into the furnace, creating an intense rush of smelting heat hot enough to forge a blade. In that moment I felt as if Yuki’s smile plucking at the corners of her lips were as strong as that sudden rush of warmth. Intense, dizzying, and impossible to stand before. I tried to smile in return, aware it was more of a rictus, before the crowd filled between us and swept her away.

Filled with sudden self-loathing and scared because of it, I cursed myself a fool again, savouring the syllables with grim relish as they rolled over my tongue. My vision blurred, I stumbled and somehow found myself back in the present; snow, alone, deep in the forest, the furnace in my heart now a cold and black iron weight. I found myself on my knees on the far bank of the stream, trembling, with the knowledge that there was no going back. Wallowing like a beast in the mud I threw myself deep into that chill of abandonment and remained there some time, with no place to go and nobody to turn to, a speck of blight upon the world. The only solace of my solitude was that nobody observed the depths of my misery; the embarrassment would have added untold shame to my already overburdened cart of self-criticism. Knuckling tears, I found my feet once again, letting that trembling energy of fear burn through my legs as I stumbled up the path.

I had no idea how many hours had passed when I came across a woodcutter’s shack, a simple building with a low roof. Snow had blown mounds against the derelict walls. I brushed clear a patch of ground and collapsed against the inner corner of the shack, my legs tight up against my chest for warmth, muscles quivering with pathetic fatigue, toes and fingers aching, my head ringing with constant pain. I knew I should keep moving, but somehow I could not, and simply stayed there, drifting in and out of a light sleep, as the short winter day drew to a close. With the coming of night my stomach growled for food and water, but I simply hunched my shoulders and passed the night fitfully, hearing the increasing wind toy with the ramshackle structure.

The sun of the next day came slowly, almost reluctantly, marking the end to the long night. As soon as the sky had changed to a pale grey I gathered my strength to go to the stream’s edge, leaving twin furrows in the deep snow. Squatting upon my haunches I cupped my hand to drink from the chill water. The sustenance of the old woman’s soup had long since faded from my belly and I wished there had been time for her to prepare provisions for me. I had not a scrap of food, nor, should I come across any merchant, any means to buy any, not even a single coin; in the castle I had no need of money.

Quite suddenly, the rising sun found clear path through the trees. For the first time in days its orange light held a hint of warmth that fell upon my upturned face. Like the slow melting of ice my thoughts shifted and it seemed I had opened my eyes for the first time - how could I have not seen it before? The awe of natural beauty surrounding me; the way the air was alive with reflective flecks of suspended ice, the gentle mounds and hollows of the ground. Sounds carried clearly in the windless air, birds in the distance, I even heard distant shouting and galloping hooves as Lord Date’s samurai scoured the fields and farmlands below. Ridgelines snaked away in all directions and rising up into the sky upon the horizon were a line of stacked mountains, their shade becoming lighter and lighter2 grey in the distance, and I wondered how far into those hills my path would take me.

Chapter Six

Despite the danger, the warm light of the camp drew me. The entire day had passed, and I had not eaten a single thing and I was weak and delirious with hunger. Through the trees I saw only a single man as he tended a pot suspended by a rope from an overhead branch over the small fire. A handcart was an instinct shadow parked by the light’s edge.

A dog that had been laying at the man’s side sprang to its feet, barking in my direction. The man stood, alerted to my presence and squinting into the darkness. I was shocked to see his two-headed silhouette against the firelight, each head pivoting independently.

It was as if I were in a dream, my legs refused to move. The barking grew incessant and the man called out a challenge to the night.

“Come here boy, I can see you skulking around back there!”

The man’s second head detached suddenly and leapt to the ground, making a screeching noise. Relief flooded through me as I saw it had been a monkey perched upon his shoulder. The man reached down and lay a hand on the dog’s back. The barking stopped.

“It’s warm here boy, come on.” He turned and sat back down, his back once again to me. He raised a hand and beckoned me. “I won’t hurt you.”

I stepped closer, slowly. At the edge of the firelight I stopped. The man was a rotund merchant, his ruddy face framed by an unruly head of hair and thick black beard. The front of his heavy winter jacket was unbuttoned, open to the heat of the fire, revealing a bead of bronze coins strung through holes in their centres about his neck glowing in the light. The merchant was wealthy, judging from their number.

The white furred dog once again lay upon the ground, nose to belly, one ear rotating in my direction and twitching lazily, but otherwise now apathetic to my approach. His pet monkey however, who had taken up residence once again on the man’s shoulder, glared at me with baleful little eyes. Then I heard a flutter of feathers from the man’s handcart parked at the edge of the firelight. The cart was stacked high with all manner of haphazard items so at first I couldn’t see what had made the noise, and then the movement came again and from the shadows and I distinguished what looked like a pheasant, perched upon the snow crusted rim of one of the wooden wheels. This man seemed a travelling menagerie.

He turned his broad back on me and resumed eating from the bowl he held up to his mouth, chopsticks working quickly. He was looking at the fire, so startled me when he spoke.

“What’s your name boy?”

“I… I….”

The man pivoted at the hip, looking in my direction. He sized me up. “You might be dressed like one, but I can tell you’re no farmer.” He thought for a moment, then added, “And if you are a solider, it’s high time to find a new profession.” He gave a bark of laughter at his own wit. I tried a smile.

“You look like you’ve had a bad day. Don’t be shy, come on.” He shuffled a little upon the log, inviting me.

The monkey spun to the far side of the man’s shoulder, its tiny face screwed up in comical agitation as it danced. The man distracted it by passing a piece of food from his bowl, and it took it with both hands and became silent, eating with rapid nibbles.

With his bowl upended in one hand and chopsticks in the other he shovelled the last of the stew into his mouth with the quick precise motions of obvious relish. He smacked his lips in appreciation and indicated to the pot with his chopsticks.

“Ahh, not bad! You hungry, boy?”

I peered at the cook pot suspended over the fire by a long taut rope tied to a tree branch high overhead. The firelight was underneath so it was black inside, but stewed vegetables had never smelt so good. Despite the tightness in my gut I shook my head, afraid to impose.

“No, thank you.”

The man barked again with laughter. “You can’t stop looking at it, so I’m going to take that as a yes.” He felt at his side and retrieved a large spoon and without raising himself, reached to the pot and ladled out a generous serving into his bowl, which he then gave to me.

“Go right ahead, take it, and sit down.” He reached down and absently ruffled the dog’s thick fur, either in affection or to clean his hands I wasn’t sure. The dog’s ear twitched and tail gave an answering thump-thump upon the snow but its eyes did not open.

For a time there was silence, and I ate with single-minded purpose, forgetting all else. Each mouthful was steaming hot, tracing a ray of warmth and it seemed I could not swallow fast enough. It felt as if I could keep eating forever, yet all to quickly I found myself scrapping at the empty bowl.

“So where was the battle?” The man waved his chopsticks in my direction before lifting his bowl and taking a noisy slurp, speaking with his mouth full. “Looks like you’ll have a scar to remember that one.”

I reached up and my fingers traced over my swollen cheek and the ridge of bone below my eye. It felt numb. “No, I had an accident.”

“That must have been quite something,” he said.

I swallowed, my mind conjuring up the dizzying vertigo atop the castle wall, clinging by my fingernails with that void between my feet… Before I was pushed… I shivered, and it shook me back to reality. “I fell,” I said. “From a very high place.”

“High to low, that’s how it happens,” he replied. He noticed my reticence to say anything more and after a brief pause added, “Well then, best we ask no more questions, eh?” His chopsticks waggled in the air with emphasis. “Here, sit yourself closer lad. No, closer, here where it’s warm. Here, let me get you another bowl of soup.”

The man took the ladle again, causing the monkey on his shoulder to give a shriek of annoyance as it clambered to regain balance. This time when I ate it was slower, without that frenetic rush of quivering hunger.

I tried to sort the litany of my injuries into order of severity, but I was unable to decide which pain was worse; my fingers stiff and uselessly immobile, my feet feeling like frozen blocks of ice, my head aching, a tightness across my shoulders and back, a pain in my ribs when I breathed. I tried to remain as still as possible, sitting so close to the glowing embers of the campfire that the lazy radiative heat singed my eyebrows and made my eyes water, steam rising from my damp clothing. With his boot the man pushed a fresh cord of kindling into the red coals, coaxing them back into the flickering yellow flame. The only fires I had seen were tamed by stone hearth; I had never sat before a fire in the forest before. It was wild and free, bright sparks lofting joyously upward where they merged with the stars. I found myself simply staring into the flicker of flame moving faster than the eye could see, absorbed in the simplicity and untold complexity as it burned; licks of yellow flame consuming the newly placed piece of kindling slowly merging into the bed of red and white coals. At my back the air was cold, the trees melding into a seamless inky black.

It was when I lowered my gaze from the heavens that I noticed him. The boy, half in the shadows.

He would have been about four or five years old, sitting calmly on the edge of the firelight, swinging his feet as he sat upon a fallen tree, his wet hair plastered flat to his face, running rivulets as if he had only moments ago been pulled from the water. He looked up and met my gaze, and an unearthly knowledge in those eyes sent a jarring shudder clanging through my nerves and I although I tried to cry out my jaw was locked.

The merchant saw the alarm in my eyes, for he looked into the trees, but too late. The ghost of the boy was gone - nothing there but darkness and the flickering of firelight upon tree trunks.. The man shook his head, and turned back to the fire, a quizzical look twisting his features.

“What’s the matter boy?”

“I thought…” I blinked, my vision smearing for a moment. My heart was still racing.

The man’s lips hardened in concern as he once again studied the spot I had indicated.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Here, I think I have just the thing you need.” He placed both hands upon his knees and stood. The dog curled at his feet gave a brief sleepy whine as cold air drafted over the place he had just vacated. With the monkey still balanced upon his shoulder the man walked to his handcart, the pheasant fluttering its wings as the man rummaged around looking for something. I paid this strange orchestra little attention, my eyes locked to that point in the darkness where the boy had appeared, yet there was no sign of movement. I startled to my senses when the man spoke.

“Here, eat this.”

He passed me a small package wrapped in waxed paper.

“Millet dumpling,” he explained. “It will give you strength.”

I took the sweet: a neatly made sticky rice ball. I managed to pinch two fingers stiff-jointed fingers together enough to lift the ball to my mouth, where it dissolved with delicious sweetness. Almost immediately I felt warmth flush from my core.

“Thank you.”

“My mother made it.” The man belched and shifted his weight upon the log to stretch one leg straight. “I wouldn’t normally give them away, but you look like you need it.”

Inside of me the sweetness seemed to be like a block of ice melting in the sun, taking away with it the aches and pains of that long day. Somehow, I managed to dismiss that strange experience: the boy sitting on the far side of the fire. It had happened so quickly, it must have been a trick of the light combined with my hunger and light-headedness. I no longer had that sensation of being watched, and felt myself relaxing.

The man shifted and broke the growing silence.

“So what happened?” he asked.

“When?”

“Everything. You look like one step from death, you’re jumping at shadows, you’re wearing a farmer’s clothing yet your fingers are without callouses – something has obviously driven you.”

Thoughts ran through my head. Everything in my life had fallen apart, a pulled thread unravelling the whole tapestry of my worthless life. I hesitated a moment, but was unable to put these feelings of deep desolation into coherent words. “I made a terrible mistake.”

“Your life has yet to run its course, don’t be too quick to judge which turns are the wrong and which are right.”

“There is no way what I have done can be right. I failed in my task and I fled my home. My master thinks me a traitor, and I have brought blame on another, someone totally innocent…”

“Is she waiting for you?”

It seemed as if he had been reading my thoughts. Yuki. I flushed, and tried to keep my voice level. “No.”

He grunted. “I can tell when a man – or a boy – is infatuated. And you, my boy, have it written all over your face. Let me guess, she doesn’t know you from a block a wood?”

I shook my head. “It’s more complicated than that. She knows me, although I had no idea that she cared for me.”

“Can you save her from this… situation?”

“It is already too late. Yet…”

“You feel you have to go back.”

I nodded. “I have to try to see her again. She is all I can think about.”

“I’m getting the feeling you won’t be welcome wherever ‘back there’ is.”

“No.” I trailed off into silence.

Quite suddenly, I realised that where my day had been filled with unending pain and misery, now my head felt light and clear, my joints and muscles no longer stiff and empty. Yet it was a strange kind of relief, for with that added vitality and energy came a sense that my body had become a shadow, as if I had taken a step away from it.

The man smiled. “Feeling better?”

“Yes, those dumplings…?”

He smiled. “I told you they were good. But that strength you feel is a temporary fix.”

“I was told there are healers at Mount Haguro, do you know it?”

“Do I know it? It’s the temple of the yamabushi!”

I shook my head, indicating the word meant nothing to me.

“The yamabushi, the legend of Prince Hachiko surely you know of that!”

Again, I shook my head.

He paused a moment. “Did you want to hear it?”

I nodded cautiously.

“Well, where to begin…A thousand years ago the Emperor was assassinated, as I’m sure you are aware, and in the ensuing chaos his eldest son, Prince Hachiko, was forced to flee for his life. Bent by grief he was driven up the coast and wandered into the wilderness, all claim to his title lost and with nobody to call kin. Now, it so came to be that a three-legged crow took pity upon him, and guided the prince up a mountainside. Such was the exquisite serenity of the place he remained there for the rest of his long life, and in time others joined him. He led them in tasks of reflection and trials of self-denial, founding the order of the yamabushi. Do you know your characters, boy? Yama…” he traced the character for mountain in the air with three flamboyant strokes. “Bushi…” He drew the character meaning to lay down to rest. “And the mountain they named after the crow that had led him there: Hagu… Ro…” He drew characters for feathers, and for black. “The yamabushi run vast distances in the deep forests, practice martial arts and mediation, and are great healers.” He lowered his voice and added conspiratorially, “They have powers beyond those of this world. The yamabushi can metamorphosis like the tanuki – but unlike the shape shifting racoon dogs, who are simply mischievous and do it to play tricks on humans – the yamabushi change into ferocious warriors. I would take great care not to cross them. I will tell you another tale. Hundreds of years ago, a yamabushi named En no Ozunu lived in the mountains near Kyoto, praying beneath the hammering of a freezing mountain waterfall. At that time, the neighbouring towns were terrorised by a pair of ogres, Zenki and Goki, so the yamabushi monk En no Ozunu used his powers to capture the ogres’ five children, sealing them within a huge cauldron.”

The man used a finger to pluck at something between his teeth. Finding something, he held it upon his nail and inspected it in the light before flicking it into the fire.

“En no Ozunu confronted the ogres Zenki and Goki,” he continued. “He told them he had killed all five of their children, and they screamed their remorse, for at last they knew the loss they had inflicted upon their own victims. At En no Ozunu’s orders, the ogres pledged to give up their evil ways. But En no Ozunu had not harmed the children, and he reunited them with their overcome parents. The ogres pledged to remain allies to the yamabushi forever.”

I could not help but shake my head a little. “This all sounds like a folktale.”

“Folktales have more truth in them that you might suspect.” He grinned and his eyes glinted with some secret. “One day you might see something yourself that makes you believe things you had thought tales are otherwise.”

I didn’t know if I were being made fool of, and my expression must have betrayed my hesitation.

“Ah, it’s getting late and you have a long day ahead of you tomorrow.” He stood and stretched expansively and the monkey at his shoulder, who had been napping, suddenly slipped and woke itself. It gave an angry mutter as it regained purchase. Throughout it all the furry white ball that was the dog did not move as it slept nose to tail.

The man walked into the darkness, feet crunching in the snow that had become crusty with the gathering chill of night, and I heard him noisily urinate against a tree. He then collected some things from his handcart, and when he returned he threw a coarse goat hair blanket in my lap and his own sleeping roll next to the fire.

“Thank you,” I said, clutching the blanket with the feeble claws of my hands. It was damp in places but felt infinitely better than the scraps of clothing I had been using.

“Don’t mention it.”

By the time the small rustling noises of the big man settling into his bedding grew quiet the dying fire had reduced to glow of red spots upon a bed of black. In the silence it made a soft, comforting tinkling like the discordant working of thousand tiny smiths working metal with a thousand tiny hammers. The stars shone bright and clear overhead and in the distance, river frogs croaked at one another. Soon, the man’s light snoring joined the chorus.

I slept well for the first time in my entire life that night, free from the walls of the castle and the will of my master, even the unconnected fragment memory of that boy across the fire fading and softening. In my dreams I moved with fluidity and ease, darting through a forest vibrant with life. Glimpsed through the foliage on the trail before me was a man dressed in white, and in that omnipresent way of a dream I knew that another companion kept pace at my heels. I ran with the yamabushi, the mountain monks.

When I awoke, the snow-dappled forest was grey with the light of dawn. I stretched, raising myself to an elbow, and then blinked in sudden confusion.

I was alone in a clearing; there was no sign of the man or the handcart. The ash of the fire, the goat hair blanket; everything had vanished as if it had never existed.

Chapter Seven

The weather continued clear and cold as the sun rose, spreading feeble heatless light over the land. Whether real or imagined, the strength given to me by that dumplings filled me with steady energy. As I walked on the narrow forest path I watched only my feet. The trail had dropped low and now followed a valley formed by the cupped hands of mountains on either side. The snow was thinner here, yet that made the path all the more treacherous and I had to place each step carefully against twisting an ankle on frozen mud, or slipping upon the mush. At last I paused for breath and took a moment to survey my surrounds. I realised in that moment I was hopelessly lost. The trail I had been following had long since dwindled away, and I had been fooling myself into thinking I still followed it. I was among tall bamboo and could not see the sun; even the shadows were complex making it impossible to judge which way was north, every direction seemingly identical.

Then I heard a rustling and the noise of running footsteps. I spun about but saw nothing, the vertical bars of bamboo forming a cage on my vision. The footsteps were coming closer. I found myself dropping to a defensive crouch, eyes darting and trying to pierce through the maze. The footsteps were passing now, no longer coming straight on, it seemed whoever it was had a course set and was following it like an arrow. A shadow flashed between the stalks. It was a very young boy. He ran past, head forward, and in moments had disappeared again, footsteps receding into silence. The boy had been soaking wet.

With rising panic, I snatched up a fallen piece of bamboo, holding it about the middle as a kind of defensive staff. My enfeebled hands, like numb clubs, could barely hold its weight, let alone use it as a weapon.

Nothing happened for a long time. I lowered the staff, finding myself leaning upon it. I hesitated, and then started walking in the direction the boy had run. I feared that if I remained motionless any longer I would lock to the spot and find myself unable to move at all. Using the staff as a walking stick, I battled forward through the branches.

After some time the bamboo started to open up, and I heard sounds of activity. Finally, I stepped over a muddy stream and out of the forest, the sky broad overhead, and suddenly I was on a highway. I stood there at the junction, leaning on my walking staff that had become more of a crutch, my senses overwhelmed. After my long solitude of the forest, it seemed alien to be once again among others. I ducked my head and shrunk inwards, irrationally feeling as if the very sight of me would cause cries of alarm and panic.

I saw farmers, bent to the ground under the weight of their load upon their backs, passed in either direction, the more prosperous accompanied by laden donkeys. A score of pilgrims, clustered together in a knot, all wearing identical hats and garb shuffled by, through which a fleet-footed messenger wove his way with a word of apology. I saw no foot soldiers or samurai, and though I searched for it, no merchant nor carriage bore the crest of the Date clan: two facing sparrows, wings outspread, enclosed in a circle of branches.

Which direction? The words of the farmer woman still rang in my head; the monks of Haguro would help me. The Three Mountains of Dewa, I said to myself. I glanced up at the sky and reorientated myself from the sun and starting walking west, keeping to the very edge of the highway.

It seemed my progress was under constant watch from tiny stone statues peering from the undergrowth. Tiny bibs tied about their necks, red, the colour to expel the demons of sickness and the colour of fertility, stood in vivid stark contrast to the white blanket of snow, lending their stone visages an eerie life. The profusion of these little roadside gods concentrated about the many shrines set back from the highway which as I passed, my eyes would travel over enclaves in the trees. Mostly, the shrines were small red-painted wooden boxes filled with candles and incense, yet others were huge towers, twisted fibres of symbolic rope thicker than my arm hanging over the entrance. Unlike many other travellers, I did not pause at any to pray; I did not deserve any pity or mercy from the gods.

As I walked that day I passed two rest houses, high two storied affairs, steam from natural hot baths drifting from the windows into the chill winter’s air, the smell of cooking food. Out the front of one stood a signpost, and I stopped to study the characters engraved into the wood. My hopes fluttered higher as I recognised the symbols of Dewa.

I determinedly kept walking, leaving the rest-house behind. I had no coin to pay my fare, and did not have the courage to beg for aid. The thought of simply engaging in conversation was enough to keep me resolutely marching forward. The misery of my own company seemed a fitting and just punishment for my worthlessness.

I have only fragmented memories of the rest of that day; the rapid failing of the light, vast clouds brooding on the edges of the horizon, ominously dark yet beautiful in their intricacy, birds moving unseen in the gathering darkness, calling the coming night.

The highway was bathed in clear bright white light. The trees were sparse here and I stopped and tilted my head backward, gazing upward at the moon; it seemed a fragile and small thing as the choking fingers of encircling clouds slowly crept inwards. In the darkened dapples upon its surface I clearly saw the silhouette of the rabbit, standing upright upon hind legs, pounding rice cakes with a long pole. It seemed impossible that I had gazed up this same rabbit as a child, how could it be the same when so much had changed? I was struck suddenly by the bitter pang of regret, wishing things had been otherwise; wishing I had not done what I had done to my brother, my wasted childhood, and the failure to do my duty for Master Nobushige. My life seemed a series of blunders one after another, and now, because of my stupidity, I had lost everything. I was hungry, cold, and alone.

The desire to be with Yuki struck me from nowhere. All of a sudden it felt like I was in deep water and sinking; a rush of panic that felt like my stomach was coming out my throat. It had only been half a year ago, but already it felt like a lifetime; summer, early in the morning when the heat of the day had yet to come, yet already a heavy sweat hung in the air. The castle was quiet and it seemed like I was the only one in it. I was tired, I had not slept all night, but it was a strange kind of tiredness; a kind of detached lightness. I felt strangely content as I padded silently along the corridors, it was the hour of the Hare, the first beams of morning sun shafting through the windows, the omnipresent song of the cicadas heralding the dawn.

When Yuki rounded the corner we both gave a start. She almost dropped the basket she was carrying and her eyes widened.

Clearly, she too had thought she was the only soul awake this early, and to meet one another was like some strange dream.

She backed away from me, regathering her composure, her fluster more extreme than the unexpected encounter would give credit. It was as if I had almost caught her at some secret business that she hurried to conceal. Her eyes darted guiltily to the basket.

Seeing the direction of my gaze she hurriedly shifted the clothes, hiding whatever was within. She stood to her full height so that she was able to look down at me slightly.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

I shrugged, my mouth working but could not think of a reply. I was extending every sense, trying to open up everything so it would be imprinted upon my mind. The sound of her voice, the smell of laundry, and the stillness of the air we shared. Her face, framed by long and straight ink black hair, both drew my gaze yet at the same time made me shy away, my eyes defilers to her purity with the simple act of looking upon her.

She only gave me a moment before she spoke again: “Stop following me. Leave me alone.”

Despite the harshness of her words, she did not move away. There was something in her voice that confused me; it were as if she was waiting for something, waiting for me to find the right words.

I dared raise my gaze once again, past her pouting lips, over those high flushed cheeks and up into her eyes, feeling a rush of giddy emotion as something connected between us. Was there something in me, a skinny boy, humble and unassuming, that made her linger? In her, I saw a strength and exquisite beauty, yet also a fragility and longing. It was a feeling that made me want to be strong, to given everything for her, including my life, if only I knew how.

The moment passed. I was but a youth; I had neither the strength nor the courage to act upon my conviction. Yuki’s eyes filmed over and she spun on her heel, basket under one arm. My heart seemed to stop in my chest, waiting and watching impotently, but she did not look back. She simply disappeared around a far corner and was gone.

The perfume of her scent hung in the air. I felt hollow inside. My good mood evaporated. I sensed that something of major import had just happened. As if my life were a stream, and that moment had been a fork in the current. With crushed spirits I did not even know what it was I had missed.

My reverie broke.

I shook myself, and started moving again, each footstep slow and deliberate, thinking with each stride how much I hated walking; hated it to my very core. With the chill nightfall the highway was empty of travellers as all had disappeared within roadside inns. Only the poor or pious had set up camps. These I passed a few of these camps occasionally, the lights of their fires cupped pockets of warmth that served only to deepen my isolation. I dared not approach any after my encounter with that strange man and his animals, for it still disturbed me deeply to know that I could not trust my own senses. As I kept walking I found myself focussing only on each puff of breath, feeling that immense solitude and silence at once intimidating and yet somehow in a strange way, liberating.

I awoke.

I hadn’t realised it, but I had drifted into sleep, fallen into a crouch, hugging my legs to my chest sitting upright at the edge of the road.

Unnerved, I fought to regain my senses, disorientated in the chill darkness. The moon had disappeared, swamped by the thick clouds. I leapt to my feet, feeling the chill push of the gusting wind, hearing it move through the trees, feeling as if a thousand eyes watched with maleficent intent from the shadows. I hobbled to the middle of the road, favouring my right leg; somewhere along the way I had dropped my walking staff. I spun about in the pitch darkness, unable to determine which way I had been walking before I had fallen asleep, for I had no memory at all of the last few hours.

Panic flushed through my being and my skin prickled. The night felt suddenly oppressive. I started walking one way and then stopped, reversing my steps and going the other, running now, breathless. It was useless. The night sky was heavy with cloud; there would be no judging my direction from where the stars lay. Even if it were clear, I berated myself, it was a map I could not read. I sank to a squat, defensive and scared, hunching my shoulders against the wind that wailed and thrashed through the branches overhead.

It seemed a long time before the clouds began to glow a pale pink. I waited only long enough to distinguish grey from shadow. East. I at least knew that much. I began walking again, with the rising sun at my back. I hoped that the movement would spark warmth. My mouth was parched, my stomach an empty hard ball beyond hunger.

I came across the towering gate set beside the road, the three simple carved beams of wood forming a simple archway, the topmost horizontal beam peppered with a dusting of snow. Next to it engraved into the wood was a marker, and for the first time I read the characters of Mount Haguro, just as the man with the animals had described; Mount Black Wing. If that encounter had been a dream, how could I have known that? I thought. I shook my head ruefully. The marker indicated to a side trail leading off the main highway and into the forest.

The narrow path wound through the forest, trees that I had no name for that were hundreds if not thousands of years old standing straight as the shaft of an arrow into the sky with such impossible height they dwarfed all else, their nobility serving as an anchor to the soul. The path dropped and the roar of rushing water grew louder until I came to the base of a bridge spanning a small river. I walked the supple rising arc and stood upon the middle, where the sound of rushing water through rock and ice was at its crescendo, drowning all other thought. Stepping down the other side it seemed that intense roar has flushed my mind clear.

It was in a daze that I climbed the hill as the path rose upwards, for all I saw only what was right before me, as if I viewed the world through a long tube. My gaze swung left and right, the bright red of scarves garbing statues of monkeys and foxes with furious little faces catching my eye. The crashing of the river faded with distance as I climbed, when suddenly the woods opened up into a clearing, and I saw it rising into the trees.

The rising sun suffused indirect light, strengthened just enough at that moment to resolve features to the shadows. A five storied pagoda, surrounded by snow heavy branches.

Suddenly the odd roar of silence pressed upon my inner ear. There was nothing, no birdsong, no wind, no sound of the river I had just crossed. Even the sound of my own rasping breath had vanished.

I walked forward and the pagoda towered overhead, with every muted step my perspective changing the angles of the structure. Throughout my life, earthquakes had shaken the ground, at least every month stacks of shelving lost their contents, sometimes even parts of the castle had needed repair. How could such a structure of this enormity withstand such forces? This could only be a dream. My legs trembled with fatigue and I stumbled over heavy feet, my hand reaching out for support -

My fingers, numb and blackened with cold, touched the polished wood. Instantly it felt as if a hood had been suddenly removed; the narrow corridor my field of vision flung wide open, swamped with sensation, the forest erupting to a roar of life. I was a stone in the bed of a fast rushing stream, buffeted on all sides by a crowd of monks flowing quickly past, jostling my shoulders. I felt the sun appear from behind a cloud, the natural beauty striking awe in my heart. Above me loomed the pagoda’s grace of curved roofs, each storey stacked upon the other like a sculpture, irresolute in its fortitude as it stood among the forest giants. Patches of melting snow pooled in the shade of the larger trees, everything soaked with early morning dew, a light mist in the air making the distance grey and mysterious, rocks shiny with water and gleaming patches of vine cling to the southern bores of the thousand-year-old trees, themselves a rich brown with absorbed water.

I withdrew my hand, and the scene vanished, and I was alone in the winter once again.

I backed hastily away from the pagoda, blinking rapidly, scared of what I had just witnessed yet feeling that suffocating silence press on my skull once again. Certainty of knowledge lay suddenly in my mind. I set my eyes upon the path leading up the hill, where I knew the temple of the yamabushi stood. Closing my eyes, I could picture it now, as clearly as if I had lived there my entire life.

A flush of cold sweat traced down my back, and I stood for a time, confused and afraid. I dug a finger into my ears and shook my head savagely, yet that awful silence continued, and tears welled in the corners of my eyes.

There was nothing to be done. I had to keep going. I started up the path again, the hill rising and the ground underfoot becoming slippery. There were no steps, and in places running water had hollowed a channel. I had to reach out and grab the tough stalks of the grass half buried by the snow to keep from sliding back down. My breathing became heavier and at last I began to hear it through that silence, and as I climbed my senses began to return as if I were ascending from a very deep dive.

Later, hours perhaps, the trail finally levelled off and the path quite suddenly broke into a clearing. My gaze fixed to a point just before me tracked upward to find the temple towering before me.

I had made it.

The temple grounds were expansive and well-tended; not a leaf lay upon the swept gravel free of snow, even the trees growing behind picket fences seemed manicured, perfect, unblemished. The central building was huge, a set of at least twenty stone stairs leading up to the door. Two giant lion statues stood guard at the entrance, facing one another, heavily muscled, their manes and tail dense with curls. The pedestals of these stone guardians showed a rising carpet of verdant green clawing algae, the higher surfaces mottled white. Massive pillars traced with intricate woodworking ran upward to the thatch of the roof; thicker in width that the height of even the tallest man. The shutters were all open but the temple remained quiet, apparently empty. I opened my mouth to call out a greeting but my mind was a sudden blank. What was I doing here? It felt like I had been suddenly plucked from my service in the castle and by some invisible hand; the events of the past handful of days like a vivid dream. This sense of misplacement shook me, and I realised I had not thought of my master or the girl at all since that morning. What was real, that life, or this one? There was no reconciling the two.

I was a fool who has striven for more than he deserved. My life was over, why did I not accept that? I simply stood there a time unable to move. I should go, I thought. This was not my place.

From my peripheral vision a trick of the shadows made it appear that the eyes of the lion statues moved. I noticed ones mouth was open and the others was closed, for one spoke “a” and the other “n”, the first and last letters of the alphabet, the beginning and end, the birth and death of all things. I shook my head, wondering where I had picked up that strange thought of ancient memory.

Almost as if I was not in control of my own body, I found myself moving forward, closer to the temple, moving into its mighty shadow. I passed between the stands that held the wooden tags of prayer tokens and placed one foot on the lower step of the flight leading up to the main door. It felt like I was in a walking dream as the stairs leading upwards seemed to stretch longer before my eyes.

“Hello…?”

No answer. I took another step. The melded noises of the encircling forest, the wind ghosting through the upper branches heavy with snow, the trickle of water against rock, formed its own kind of gentle rhythm. The mud on my shoes against the stone made a scratching noise and looking back I saw I left a line of dirty footprints on the impeccably clean stairs. I tried to tread lightly upon the ball of my foot as I took several more steps.

“Is there anyone there?” My croaking voice was barely above a whisper.

I stopped and cocked my head, hearing movement. It was the swishing of a broom, and the clack-clack of wood. It grew louder, until a head appeared at the top of the stairs. The sweeping noise stopped as the man saw me and he peered forward, face screwed up in concern. My vision doubled, blurred, and recovered.

The groundskeeper stood his straw broom against the wall and hurried down the steps. He wore yellow and white robes, hakama pants cinched tight at the waist and about his shins terminating in white split-toe tabi socks. The top of his head was completely bald and mottled with age spots, deep wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. Curiously, the most striking impression the groundsman made on me was his wooden sandals. Most geta were constructed from two vertical tooth-like planks atop a wooden platform, keeping the wearer’s feet, most often a peasant or farm worker, above the mud. This groundsman’s sandals, however, had only a single vertical plank about a hands-width high affixed at the midpoint. They were tengu-geta: goblin-sandals. I could not keep my focus away from them as he descended the stairs, a rapid clack-clack tattoo upon the stone as he danced upon the impossible-looking constructions with an agility that belied his apparent age.

The groundsman stood before me, the extra height bestowed by the tengu-geta forcing me to look up to meet his eyes. His eyebrows were an almost comical profusion of grey hairs, furrowed with concern, pursing his lips, revealing a row of gaped teeth.

“You look you’ve had your share of bad luck, my boy. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. Take my arm.”

I hesitated.

He did not move his proffered elbow, but simply waited, smiling and patient. My head spun once again and I was forced to grab hold about his sleeve before I fell. He led me up the steep stone stairs, with every step the entrance of the building looming larger overhead.

The vastness was overwhelming; I saw each exposed beam of the structure was constructed of massive yet identical tree bores, twin entry doors flung wide open and taller than two men standing atop of one another. They seemed to spin around me, a giddy sick feeling in my stomach. I had been walking for so long that it seemed every fibre in my body were shrunk as tight as a drum. When we stopped in the vestibule it was torture as the groundskeeper plucked at the laces of my boots, shucking them off before we entered the temple.

Inside was deserted. The wooden storm shutters on all sides were hitched open, swivelled upon hinges like massive eyelids, yet despite the fresh air gusting inwards, the atmosphere held the heavy presence of the divine. Starkly empty and immaculately clean, the room was a vast expanse of tatami matting so bare and quiet it seemed an eternity since it had seen inhabitation. The coldness of the air only added to the impression of desolation.

“The yamabushi…” I muttered. I knew I had come to the wrong place. This place was empty. I tried to resist, only then realising how weak I had become as the groundskeeper held me upon the course that crossed the room. As we walked the tatami gave fractionally underfoot, joints in the beams and joists creaked in various echoes as the temple spoke in its own unique voice. In my delirium, I felt it were trying to tell me something. The groundskeeper lowered me to a flat square cushion at the foot of a knee-high table set at the back of the room.

All struggle had gone out of me. I collapsed with weary resignation; if I were in the wrong place, then so be it. I watched dumbly as the groundskeeper crossed the room to a low cupboard set discretely along the wall below the windows and slid the door open. He returned to the table with a solid wooden box held in both hands, which he placed wordlessly on the table then moved away once again. Disappearing again from my sight I heard the sounds pouring water and he returned a moment later with earthenware teapot and cup, obvious from the steam escaping the top of the teapot and the way he carried it, heavy with hot water. He placed them on the table alongside the box before lowering himself to sit upon the folds of his feet. I noticed he had to use the table for support as he did so, as if his back pained him.

He took the small earthenware cup and placed it square before him; it did not sit flat, but rocked slightly upon an imperfect base, simple in design, rustic-looking in texture. He poured tea and indicated with a nod that I should take it.

“Yamabushi -” I tried again.

“Stop talking and drink. It will dull the pain, and give you strength.”

Unable to use the numb immobile sticks of my fingers, I pressed the cup between the palms of my two palsied hands and raised it from the table to my parched lips. The tea was steaming hot, holding a strange mix of spice I could not identify. It had always been my mistake, I reflected, to trust people too much.

The groundskeeper’s face flashed an expression too quickly for me to identify. “Drink it all,” was all he said.

Suspicious, I lifted the cup again, letting the hot aromatic tea touch upon my lips, but I did not let it pass into my mouth.

“What happened to you Atsushi?”

Alertness brought a flash of sweat to my skin.

“How do you know my name?” I demanded.

The groundsman did not flinch, but replied with concerned query in his voice. “You told me.”

“I… Did I?” As I spoke, I felt that moment of false strength ebb almost as quickly as it had come. “I fell... I had to run…” My voice broke. Very suddenly, it seemed impossible to push air from the paper lantern of my lungs. Memories of that intense cold flooded my mind, melding together into a blanketing headache of impressions and images.

“Does it hurt to breathe in?” I heard the groundskeeper ask, his voice distant.

I tried to shake my head, but I was not sure if I was successful. The magic of the yamabushi, I thought to myself.

“I’m not sure about magic, but we’ll see what we can do,” said the groundskeeper.

Had I been speaking aloud?

“Stop talking, try to drink. It will help you to relax.”

There was something in the manner of the old man I distrusted, some sense impelling me to raise my guard, but it seemed all the blood had rushed away from my head, leaving me dizzy, clawing for my grasp upon reality.

I felt the cup fall from my hands, hitting the edge of the tabletop with an awful crash.

“Oh!” I cried, fumbling to retrieve it, seeing with dismay a fresh chip now splintered its lip.

“Nothing lasts,” came his reply, soft, droning, as if from far away. “Nothing is finished, and nothing lasts forever.”

I wondered how the groundskeeper had moved away so quickly, but when I looked up I was confused to see he was still right there, opposite me at the table.

Quite suddenly a droning roar filled my ears, and all faded into whiteness.

Chapter Eight

My eyes opened with a snap, breaking the crust thick at their edges.

A grey light bled from overhead somewhere, so faint it taunted the vision with only vague outlines of shapes. I was laying upon a thin futon stuffed with reeds, coarsely woven blankets pulled up to my chin pressing wonderfully heavily over my body. I heard movement close by, a stream of softly spoken sibilant words near my ear. Although I had only heard her voice once before I recognised it instantly.

“Yuki?” I asked in a croaking whisper.

She seemed not to hear me, for her voice did not pause. Frustratingly, I could not make out the meaning of any words, it was as if she spoke in a child’s made-up tongue. I struggled but my body refused to move. In that particular way of dreams, I knew that Nobushige was closing in, taking huge strides down the corridor with deadly purpose, his hand reaching out for the door. Any moment now, it would be flung open.

I tried to shout out a warning, to cry out over the top of Yuki’s sing-song voice. Something shifted inside of me, and I slipped into inky blackness.

Waking again, it felt as if some considerable time had passed. The room was silent, yet from the way sounds came muted from the floor beneath the futon I suspected we were upstairs somewhere. This time, I could open eyes properly, crusty with sleep.

The room felt close, dimly lit by the light of a single candle, its flame still and upright. A figure sat upon the floor beside my futon. He moved to press a warm damp cloth upon my brow.

“Awake again?” he said.

“How long…?” Disoriented, at my core I felt a deep sense loneliness, as if I had been on a long journey lost and adrift upon a vast sea. I flailed for an anchor to bring me back to reality.

“Easy there, sit back,” said the groundskeeper.

I wasn’t sure if I had actually asked it the first time. I tried again. “How long have I been asleep?”

“I wouldn’t call it sleep. In all, it has been two days since you arrived here. You are young and have taken well to the healing, in a few days you’ll be fine.”

I struggled to my elbows, my head spinning.

“Where am I?”

“Mount Haguro. You are among friends here.”

“I heard her. I heard Yuki.” My mind was a jumble of a sharp edged discordant thought, trying to separate dream from reality.

“Rest, rest,” said the groundskeeper.

It seemed his voice came from far away, my eyes had closed, and I sunk back into dreamless sleep.

Chapter Nine

Somebody must have released the catch on the shutter for the narrow window stood open, admitting a chill mountain air cascading delightfully across my sleeping pallet where I lay warm beneath the heavy blankets. The dawn sky outside was a clear and a rosy pink, the tops of evergreens standing still and silent, their burdens of snow poised upon sagging branches. How long had I been awake and staring at that view? The panic that had gripped me had fled, as had that insidious cold that had eaten its way up from my fingers and toes. I still hurt, but it was the dull throbbing of a body under repair. Moving my hands beneath the blankets I could flex my fingers and feel the texture of the fabric. It felt truly like a miracle to have them restored.

My eyes closed to let my situation sink in, trying to recall events of the past few days. At least two days of constant care - I didn’t deserve such attention.

I lay there some time, my attention drifting until the warming sun sloughed snow from a branch with sudden flick and drumming tattoo of soft wetness on the ground brought me back to wakefulness. I moved slowly push away the blankets, feeling the stale captured warmth of air dissipate quickly into the chill of the unheated room. I sat upright, shivering and naked. My travel worn clothes had been laundered and were folded on the tatami by the bed. I felt raw, exposed both physically and emotionally, and hurried to dress into the farmer boy’s clothing. I found my feet, pausing a moment as my head spun. What had happened to me? It felt like I had been on a long journey not of this world, and I had a sensation that what had happened to me was no ordinary healing. In some strange way I wore my body oddly; just like the farmer boy’s clothes, it felt like it was not my own.

With sudden resolve I slid open the door upon its well-waxed tracks and stepped out into a corridor. At its end, the staircase was narrow and dark and I had to move carefully, feeling my way forward. My gait was hobbled from the shrinking pain of the tender and soft soles of my feet that adhered to the floorboards, my steps mincing as the long muscles in my legs refused to stretch. Wryly, I reflected that I felt like an animated version of the koto, the thirteen-stringed long-boarded instrument I had sometimes heard in the court of Lord Date. The discordant plucking and twanging of those muscles, however, was far from the sweetly sad tones of such music.

The temple, which had seemed alive and vibrant in my dreams, was silent. I came from the stairs and into the lonely vastness of the main room, crossing it with slow steps.

“Excuse me,” I called out in soft query, but my voice was swallowed whole by that emptiness. I felt a slow awareness of something growing by invisible degrees, like a lengthening shadow as the sun sank. This place of devotion where the gods and spirits were revered had the effect of bringing their presence all the more into this world, the act of prayer and belief giving them very real form and substance. I felt eyes watching me. I had to escape, to find someone living. I dashed stiff-legged towards the door and the floorboards gave slightly underfoot, as if those eternal souls had found their voice, but whether benign or malevolent I could not discern. I fancied that somewhere in those creaks and calls was the voice of my drowned brother.

I stepped into my boots that were neatly aligned at the entryway and, clutching myself against the cold, stepped outside.

The oppressive feeling lifted. It was a clear winter’s day, a low sun in a clear blue sky. Long shadows of the towering sugi trees reached over the clearing, and the sunlight that made it through the canopy was sparse and patchy. The stairs where I stood were in shadow, and my breath condensed and swirled. From my vantage atop the stairs, I saw the network of stone paths, swept clear of snow, every stone and twig looking as if it were carefully placed and tended. Nothing stirred. The stillness of the air mirrored the quiet in my mind, and I was reminded of the silence that comes the day after the fury of a typhoon.

Standing was becoming painful upon my ravaged feet and, spying a patch of inviting sunlight at the base of the stairs, I crabbed downward. As I walked there came a distant clack of wood upon stone, a few steps, and then silence again. I knew it could only be the sound of the tengu-geta. I moved in the direction that I had heard it, and rounding a bend in the path saw a lone figure. It was the groundskeeper, his head bowed and features hidden beneath the brim of a round straw hat. He still wore those distinctive goblin-sandals a good hand span in height, somehow finding balance upon the single vertical planks as he squatted and worked at the earth with a small hoe.

I approached, my soft boots quiet upon the flagstones, yet his hearing must have been sharp for his head shot up.

“Good morning, Atsushi,” he called. “You’re looking much better.” His smile was genuine yet held a fond sadness, as if I had caught in him in the midst of sombre thoughts.

I nodded, tongue thick in my mouth, unable to find any words, confused as to how I felt about this mysterious old man. He had brought me back from a dark place - by dint of means of this world or another I was not sure. I was struck my a sudden thought: surely he had seen the crosshatching of scars across my back, evidence of the beatings I had endured. He must know I am a failure, unreliable and incompetent.

The old man raised his face and the light of the sun shone under the brim of his broad hat, and for the first time I really noticed his features. His wrinkled skin, even now, mid-winter, was tanned and suffused with a ruddy health. His eyes, however, were the most striking. There was no look of scorn there, only a deep calmness and kindness in their depths.

“I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Tosabo Yobutomo of Haguro.”

My mind fumbled to untie the name; the bo suffix. “You are a monk?”

Yobutomo tilted his head quizzically. “Of course! What do you think I was?”

“I… I thought you a groundskeeper.”

Yobutomo laughed. “That I am, too! Come on, take a seat, before you fall down.”

He indicated to a low stone wall, and as he did so I noticed that all four fingers on that hand were missing at the second joint, scarred over like old tree stumps. I sat upon a square-cut stone at the base of the skeleton of a tree. The dry cold pressed through the fabric of my pants. I found that my short exertions had taxed me, and took a few deep breaths.

“So,” Yobutomo said at last. “Who is Yuki?”

I gasped. She too must have found her way here! My heart soared as if launched from a bow. Yobutomo must have seen my widening eyes, for he rushed to explain.

“You talked about her in your sleep.”

My hopes ripped to tattered shreds in an instant. I furrowed my brows, berating myself an idiot for even daring to think such thoughts.

“What… What did I say about her?” I whispered beneath my breath, not even looking up.

He laughed. “Nothing that made any sense. Which is why I’m asking.”

I shook my head, firmly. I could feel myself retreating inwards, shutting out everything, falling deeper and deeper into myself.

“What happened to you, Atsushi. Why did you run?”

A sweat broke out on my brow, and I stared at hands twisting in my lap all the more furiously.

“Forgive me,” Yobutomo said. “What business you have is yours alone. You are fresh out of bed and the first words I have for you are a thousand questions. Please sit, rest. Excuse me, allow an old man to continue his chores.”

He clapped his hands together and walked a few paces back to the vegetable garden, his tengu-geta sharp and clattering against the stone path, picking up his hoe again and continuing his work.

The chill of the temple, my disorientation, followed by the shock of hearing Yuki’s name spoken upon a stranger’s lips had shunted my mind into a protective knot. Even Master Nobushige had been unaware my thoughts constantly reverted to Yuki; to have my secret exposed made me feel even weaker and lost than before.

I tried to force myself to relax, to lay claim on my senses once again. By degrees, I opened my awareness. I sat in a patch of sun that pierced the trees, and I focussed on its warmth, making that my only thought, letting it soak into my being and dissipate that inner tension. I realised it felt good to be outside, with the sounds of the birds and the smell of the earth. Yobutomo evidently did not feel the need to fill the silence with empty words. He shuffled along the small field in a squat upon the raised platform of his sandals, the basket by his side slowly filling with uprooted vegetables.

There came a sound from the forest, muffled by distance. It was so faint I was not sure if I had imagined it, but Yobutomo stopped his task and cocked his head.

Yobutomo guessed my unasked question.

“A yamabushi sounds his approach,” he said.

I shook my head slowly, indicating my confusion, oddly moved by that that unearthly sound. Its rich bass quickened my blood, stirring ancient memories deep in solemn meaning.

“It is a conch-shell, the voice of Buddha. It is how the yamabushi communicate.” Yobutomo straightened his back and stepped towards me, all the while his eyes on the forest towards the sound. “Often we yamabushi are dispersed throughout the mountains, with no fixed home, sleeping alone under the stars in the mountains. Even those who are married and have children embark on long solitary runs lasting days or weeks, close to nature and in communion with the world. It may look deserted now, but this place serves as a central point to gather and to train, and many will return tonight, you will see.”

My lips firmed into a tight line.

Yobutomo smiled disarmingly. “Don’t worry, my boy. You are among friends.”

The sound of the conch shell came again, by fancy of the wind much louder this time. It did not carry a single note, but sung in three distinct pitches. We waited, and it wasn’t long before a group of three men broke free of the forest, climbing the steep trail to enter the clearing of the temple grounds. They wore layered clothes; long hems reaching past their knees and long flowing sleeves. As they ran their feet shot from beneath their robes to tread lightly upon the ground, their legs wrapped in a binding that became a part of their flexible shoes, split at the toe. They showed no signs of fatigue, slowing their pace as they approached, as if their momentum were a thing to be reined in.

“Yobutomo, it is good to see you,” said the foremost, the palms of his hands pressed together as he bowed. Despite the chill in the air beads of sweat glistened on his face, his skin glowing. His two companions remained silent at his flanks, likewise flushed.

“Welcome back, Hatano. This is Atsushi, he is staying here for a short while until he recovers from his injuries.”

For a brief moment I thought I saw the glint of metal of the edge of a long blade beneath the monk’s gown as he bowed a greeting to me, hidden once again as Hatano bowed.

“You are injured?” asked Hatano.

I shrunk into myself. Eyes downcast, shoulders hunched, I tried to find the words among those swarming through my mind to force into my mouth. “Not so badly.”

“You are fortunate to find Yobutomo, he is a master healer.”

Yobutomo made a dismissive sound. “The boy is young, his body did all the healing, and all it needed was a little help.”

“You are as humble as you are skilled,” quipped Hatano.

Yobutomo nodded in the direction of the temple, an invitation to start walking. “So tell me, Hatano, did the meeting go well?”

“An alliance between the Takeda clan and the yamabushi is likely,” Hatano said as we passed a neatly trimmed square of hedge, walking along the smoothed round flagstones, reaching the base of the towering temple. “It comes at an opportune time, news has come from Kyoto that Warlord Oda is extending his protection to the Jesuit missionaries, and has slaughtered many Buddhist priests.”

“Then a continuation of war is inevitable,” said Yobutomo.

“And the very nature of war is changing. We’ve had reports that Oda has worked on improving the effectiveness of the arquebus.”

“An archer can fire off fifteen arrows in the time it takes a gunner to load and fire one of those contraptions, that’s if it’s not raining and the damp hasn’t affected the powder. No, we need not concern ourselves with those.”

“Oda thinks otherwise,” said Hatano. “He is producing the hook guns in large numbers, recruiting and arming vast numbers men to wield them.”

Yobutomo sucked in his breath and held it, considering. He released it with whistle between pursed lips. “If our enemy places such confidence in such devices then we would be wise to investigate further.”

Throughout the afternoon a score more yamabushi monks returned to the temple, mostly alone, all dressed similarly in robes of yellow and white. Hatano took me under his wing and fetched a meal for me and we sat together at a low table and ate. The meal consisted of a small portion of rice, miso soup, and a plate berries, pine needles, and bamboo shoots. Although spare, I could tell it had been prepared with care, and it tasted delicious. We did not speak as we ate, the room huge and empty about us, with Hatano seemingly content with his own thoughts. Bleeding through the walls from outside came sounds of the other yamabushi as they trained, the clack of wood upon wood of practice swords.

I suddenly realised my mind had been wandering yet at the same time taking in everything. If Master Nobushige were to ask a report, he would want to know every detail. I shook my head, reminding myself that I was far from Miyamori Castle.

“Are you in pain?” Hatano asked.

I shook my head, keeping my gaze downcast into my empty bowls as I replied. “I was just thinking.”

Hatano smiled.

“You were directing your thoughts, or were your thoughts directing you?”

I glanced up from beneath my fringe and shook my head. “I’m not much of a philosopher.”

“Ahh, please excuse me! A morning no doubt filled with such talk if you have been with Yobutomo.” He lifted an porcelain pot and two small cups between the spread of his fingers and poured a clear liquid into both. He passed one of the cups to me. I smelt rice wine.

“Sake?” I asked. “But you are monks, how can you drink sake?”

“We may be monks, but we are not ascetics.” Hatano threw back his head and with obvious relish tipped the entire contents of the cup into his mouth in one quick motion. A smile played at his lips. “The purpose of our teachings is not to torture the body, but to discover the joy of life.”

Although I had often smelt sake, I had never been permitted to drink. I put the cup to my lips, feeling the vapour rush into my nose, but before I could tip it into my mouth the sound of a struggle and a shout of alarm curtailed my actions. We both looked in stunned shock as Yobutomo staggered into the room, his back arched too far to be natural, a shadowy figure at his back. He struggled to breathe, the blade of a glinting knife held to the flesh of his exposed throat.

Hatano was on his feet in an instant and crouched into an aggressive stance, a katana in his hand, his flowing monk robes an obscuring wall. I had not even seen where his weapon had come from.

The intruder jerked Yobutomo like a doll and shouted at Hatano.

“The boy, hand him over!”

I saw Yobutomo give a fierce shake of his head before his eyes flashed with pain, a thin line of blood welling beneath the blade at his throat.

“Who are you?” demanded Hatano.

“Give me the boy!”

The intruder wore the garb of a peasant villager, his head cowled with a cloth wrap, yet there was no mistaking that voice. Heat crashed through my body, washing outwards to my extremities like a wave and with it raising my skin in terrified gooseflesh. Such was its strength it seemed to turn all muscles slack. I tried to stand but in the rush of fear and guilt I simply skidded on the floor like a lamed animal, wild-eyed and useless.

It was my master. He had found me.

“Let him go,” ordered Hatano. He shuffled forward between us, his katana flashing silver in the torchlight, his legs splayed in readiness of battle.

Master Nobushige gave Yobutomo a twist. “Do not play games. That boy is mine, give him to me now and I will leave you to your business.”

“You are mistaken, he is nobody’s boy. He is with us. Let him go, and make your way from this place.”

From beneath that dark cowl Master Nobushige’s eyes narrowed to slits, seeking me out and holding me in that terrible gaze. “You have made many suffer, foolish boy! Yes, that’s right, I can see you flinch! Even that laundry wench who told you to run!”

“What did you...” I swallowed, my throat pained and dry, and forced myself to continue. “Yuki? What did you do to her?”

“Come with me and see for yourself!” he leered, gesturing expansively. “Her head is on a stake alongside all those other betrayers.” His voice dropped. “I will see to it that your head sits alongside hers. Lovers until the end, ha!”

Nobushige said something further, his mouth flapping, but I heard nothing; I was detached from the world, in a place without sound. Time itself stopped, the moment in balance at the crest of a heartbeat.

Then with a sudden twist Yobutomo threw Nobushige over his shoulder, a move so swift and natural it seemed he did not need to apply any physical force. My senses returned with a rush and I heard Nobushige slam bodily to the floor upon his back. My eyes found Yobutomo again, startled at the transformation in the old man. I did not see where he had gotten it but he now held a wakizashi in his left hand, the single edged blade as long as his forearm, slender and keen in the lamplight. In the stumps of his missing fingers of his right he held the now empty lacquered sheath.

Nobushige’s instincts were swift and he was on his feet, knife in hand. The cries of alarm would bring the other monks running; he knew he had only seconds to strike. I had never seen anyone move so fast as my did, a blur of motion beggaring the eye. Somehow Yobutomo moved his blade upwards in time to deflect the backhanded slash. Master Nobushige twisted and his second attack came as a continuation of the first, slashing across the knuckles of Yobutomo’s knife hand. There was none of the easy fluidity that I had seen in choreographed sparing between men in practice; here everything happened so quickly that it was instinct alone that drove action, a scuffle without pattern or hesitation, only deadly intent. Yobutomo twisted his grip and angled his opponent’s swipe. There was a keen scraping sound and both men were flung apart; Master Nobushige’s knife had penetrated Yobutomo’s perimeter, the slice meant to open arteries in the wrist had been thwarted by the leather kote braces hidden under the sleeves of the monk’s robe.

Master Nobushige feigned to one side, his blade trying to exploit the weakness on Yobutomo’s exposed right. Yobutomo turned with him, his expression resolute. I saw from the flicker in his eyes that he had heard sounds of approaching feet. The yamabushi would be here in moments.

An upward slash forced Yobutomo to defend his face, both weapons clashing skyward, and Nobushige danced in, striking with his left elbow into the concavity just below Yobutomo’s ribs. Breath whooshed out of the old man. Nobushige spun his bulk upon his heels, his knife plunging down, yet Yobutomo twisted his shoulders and, with the consummate skill of a samurai flicked his wakizashi and deflected the strike away. With two quick mincing steps away, putting distance between him and his opponent to favour his longer blade, Yobutomo swiped a wide seemingly desperate arc to gain breathing room. Nobushige saw the opening in the after-stroke and leapt in with a driving stab, realising too late that the move had been a ploy. With a quick twist of his wrist, Yobutomo sent his opponent’s blade spinning to the darkened corner of the room.

At last the monks who had been training in the yard rushed into the room with a thunder of feet upon the tatami. They all bore weapons, the room suddenly full of glinting steel. I found a moment for wonder – what kind of monks were these that held weapons so deftly and fought with such skill?

Nobushige lay on the floor, arms over his head.

“I’m unarmed. Please, I’m unarmed!” he cried.

Yobutomo’s wakizashi pushed into Nobushige’s soft flesh, an artery throbbing just beneath the surface, where neck joined shoulder. Nobushige dare not move.

“You do not belong here,” said Yobutomo calmly. “Speak, who do you serve?”

Don’t hurt him! I wanted to yell, surprising myself with the flood of emotion. My master was a wielder of words and information, he was no warrior, and despite all he had done, he was still the man who had raised me. Hatano held my shoulder, his grip tight, as if he feared I would leap into the teeth of a bear.

“I serve justice!” spat Nobushige. “I seek that boy traitor who caused the death of the father of the great Lord Date!”

I shrunk before the pointed finger that seemed to drive daggers into my flesh. Hatano moved himself fractionally, protecting me.

Yobutomo cocked his head. “The father of the One-Eyed Dragon is dead? How?”

“Deliver the boy to me, and I will leave this place.”

“Even if I were inclined to bargain with you, the yamabushi have no love for the Date clan,” said Yobutomo. “And you didn’t answer my question – how did Date’s father die?”

I swallowed, my throat dry. Just as I was about to give voice to my protests Nobushige twisted and flicked his feet beneath him, coming up with something that flashed silver in the lamplight. Yobutomo yelled something. Hatano pummelled into me, shoving me to one side, his body atop of mine. An enormous crash of rending wood filled the room as I hit the floor, my ears ringing. My vision smothered into darkness as I was pushed again, something hard and sharp pushing into the soft spot below my ribs. When I struggled free Nobushige was gone, the slats of the shutters burst outwards.

A handful of monks raced off in pursuit, throwing themselves through the broken shutters. With rising dread I pushed at the dead weight pinning me to the ground, the weight of a body, a head lolling face upturned to mine. Hatano stared straight ahead, eyes wide, unblinking. Half a metallic disc protruded from his right temple, the other half driven clean into his brain, dead before he had even hit the floor.

Everything seemed to be happening at once. Several of the monks kneeled close and took his body and one took Hatano’s head in his lap. There were shouts for a bandage. There was little blood, but then the disc was withdrawn and it seemed a bucket had been upturned. I crabbed backwards as the sticky spreading pool reached my socks. A pair of hands grabbed by shoulders and Yobutomo dropped to his haunches, looking me eye-to-eye. He spoke quickly, urgently. The lines of kindness around his eyes were gone.

“That man, who was he?”

I could only shake my head. “It’s impossible. How… how did he find me?”

“Boy, listen to me: do you know him?”

I swallowed, found my voice. “He was my master.”

“Your master of what?”

Yobutomo glanced at Hatano’s body upon the floor. The monks were chanting some strange tongue in unison as if conducting a spell. With shock I saw Hatano’s eyelids give a flicker.

“Speak, boy!”

I forced my attention back to Hatano. “He serves Lord Date at Miyamori castle. He is a scroll master, an advisor.”

“No, he is no advisor. He is a ‘hidden-one’, a shinbone assassin.”

I reeled as if slapped hard, the word ringing in my head. Shinobi. The very antithesis to the code of honour that the samurai warrior strove toward, the very characters used to write the word consisted of a blade above a heart, they are the hidden ones who worked in the darkness, deception as their weapon, ruthless schemes and machinations in blatant contempt of the honours of warfare and sanctity of life. The shinobi are despised by all ranks of men and women, and even those lords who employ their services do not make such dealings public.

“No, you’re wrong.” Yet even as I said the words, I knew it to be otherwise; the many opportune deaths, silencing of voices that were ever raised within the court in opposition to Lord Date. Somehow, the notion that Master Nobushige dealt quiet murder, that he was one of the hidden assassins, had never entered my conscious thoughts.

“Is that what you are? Did he train you to kill?” The monk’s eyes were level and close to my own; an intent and depthless stare that held me immobile.

I shook my head emphatically at the accusation. “I was taught to move quietly, to watch and listen. That is all, I swear.”

“So you are a spy?” he demanded.

I had never thought directly about it, but of course it was the truth. Yobutomo’s words brought a memory flashing into my mind; when I stood with Nobushige atop a balcony, looking down at the courtyard.

“We can stand here all day watching this crowd pass beneath us,” Nobushige had mused, half to himself as I stood by his side, looking down at the heads of the people as they went about their business. “In all that time, not one man or woman will look up. And yet, do you see? That child has seen us.”

I had looked down between the bars of the balustrade, and sure enough, a small girl had craned her neck upward and studied us for a few seconds before she was pulled by her mother’s hand, swallowed back into the crowd.

“A child’s awareness is broad. They are not blinded by the focus that directs an adult.” Nobushige’s lips curled into a mirthless grin as he turned and dropped into a squat, looking at me. It was in that moment I first saw a hint of the malevolence lay within the gleam of those small dark eyes.

“Am I right?” he asked. “Can you watch well for me boy?”

My heart froze in my chest and with a start I was brought back to the present, blinking and sweating. Where Nobushige’s face had been, now Yobutomo’s was there. I sunk my head into my shoulders, turning aside as best I could, and I would have fled had not the monk held both my shoulders.

“Yes. I am a spy.”

“Why are you here?”

“I made a… mistake.”

“And you knew your master pursued you?”

“Yes, no! It is not possible! How could he have followed me so far?”

“Did you speak to any on your journey?”

The strange man with the trio of animals by the fireside that disappeared in the morning light? No, surely that had been fantasy, I thought.

“One,” I said at last. “An old lady, a farmer, in a village by the castle. She told me to come here.”

“Then it would have not taken much to follow your trail to her, and once he had made her talk.”

How could I have been so stupid?

“Why did you not warn us?” His grip about my shoulders tightening in grief and for a moment I saw a flash of anger deep in his hooded eyes. He bowed his head, and when he raised it again that look was gone. “If only we had been ready,” he said softly.

There was a shout and thump as Hatano’s body gave a heave and his back arched backward like a fish. The monks struggled to hold him, fighting against something unseen but very real, and in flash of shadow I thought I saw dark claws of ethereal hands.

Yobutomo released me and stood, striding to Hatano’s side. “Stop! He has gone. We cannot struggle any more!”

The chanting continued as one of the yamabushi monks refused to relent. Hatano’s vacant eyes rolled back in his head until only the whites showed, his arms clubbing erratically through the air, the tendons in his neck standing out like cords of rope.

“Enough!” shouted Yobutomo. “Hashiba, stop this, now!”

The monk ceased chanting, and immediately Hatano’s body stopped thrashing. A heavy, bated silence fell.

“Why, boy?” asked Yobutomo, turning again in my direction. “Why didn’t you warn us death was on your heels?”

I threw myself at his feet, my head pressed to the matting.

“Please, take my life. If it will bring him back, take my life.”

The monk looked up and I could not tell if the tremble in his clenched fists were from grief or barely suppressed anger. “Be careful what debts you lay claim to, boy.”

Chapter Ten

I sat in the centre of the darkened room upstairs, clutching my knees to my chest and quivering with the empty fatigue of shock. The soles of my socks had hardened as Hatano’s dark blood thickened. I cursed my dull-witted stupidity as my mind wound back through those ancient childhood memories. For as long as I could remember I had been in master Nobushige’s service. Of my family, and life before the castle I knew almost nothing. Even among those isolated fragments of memory I could not distinguish between those of truth or those crafted by dint of my master’s telling. Raised as a watcher and listener, why hadn’t I seen what was obvious? Master Nobushige was a shinobi assassin, and now he believed I had betrayed his confidence. He believed I aided the enemy that had led to the capture of the father of the Lord Date. No, not only the capture, I thought to myself with a flash of recurring dread. His death. The father of the lord of the Miyamori castle was dead because of my failure. Surely there was no hope in continuing this pointless flight, I had no choice but to face my punishment.

Long hours passed. I grew chill and my shaking grew more intense but I did not budge from that darkened room. The air was very still and all throughout the night I heard sounds of activity from the rooms below, reports coming in that Nobushige had eluded the pursuing monks, although the search continued. Towards morning I heard a chanting lament that rose and fell, the words alien to my ear.

I heard slow footsteps up the creaking stairs and Yobutomo slid open the door, entered, and slid it closed behind him. He slowly sank to the tatami, cross-legged, straight-backed, hands upon his knees. Purple bruises mottled his wiry neck; work of my master’s hands. I sought kinship in the meeting of his gaze but his face was an impassive mask.

“Lord Date the One-Eyed Dragon is aggressive and ambitious,” he said. “The yamabushi have clashed with his forces on more than one occasion; he won’t hesitate to strike again if he knows you remain here. Is it true what that assassin said, that you are traitor?”

“Yes.” I croaked.

How had I so easily dismissed my master, had not considered the extent of his fury? My mind flittered atop the peaks of thoughts, knowing that if I were to linger upon any I would find an entire mountain of sorrow. Hatano, the kindly young monk, had died for me; what dreams of his had I destroyed? The old farmer woman, I knew she would have been stubborn to the last; had torture at last bought truth from her? And Yuki. My head twitched involuntarily as if some string had been pulled and I refused to think of her, for I simply could not accept the reality of her death. It was all too much.

“I am a fool,” I said, sliding my knees under me and lowering myself into a low bow upon the floor, head pressed to the tatami with the weight of guilt stacked upon guilt. “I failed my duty, I have betrayed my family, and I have brought death to your home. The debt is mine.”

“Then you will pay with your life.”

It seemed the world receded several paces as my sense of proprioception faded. I heard only the pounding of my heart in my ears and that resonant voice like a pronouncement from the gods themselves. It was an exceedingly odd sensation to feel as if my hands stretched off into the distance, with no feeling of the centre of self.

“You will end your life as Atsushi, servant of Lord Date,” he continued. “You will vow to take up a new name and a new life. You will become but one man, a whole unto himself.”

If this was leniency I did not feel it. It felt like my tongue was too big for my mouth as I fought to find the words to describe my anguish. The tears I had for so long restrained threatened again at the corners of my eyes and I wiped them with the back of my hand, a wash of anger and shame flushed through the core of my being. “I have nothing in this world, I deserve to die.”

“Your death is no penance for Hatano’s life,” Yobutomo countered. “For no price you pay will bring back that young man. You are weak, you have no inner strength, and you carry a darkness…” Yobutomo paused, licked his lips. “But have also seen something deeper in you. You and I - although you are yet at the beginning and I am at the end - we have a lot in common.”

It seemed Yobutomo’s words came from far away, piece by piece as if carried down a swift stream; I had to focus on plucking individual words, my mind sluggish and muddled.

“This is no place to find refuge,” Yobutomo continued. “The assassin will return, and to stay here will mean living the rest of your life in constant wariness. You must flee, far away, where he cannot find you.”

“I… I have nowhere to go.”

“I will help you.”

I raised my eyes from the floor, but did not have the courage to meet his eye.

“From the moment we leave this place you must never again go by the name Atsushi,” he said. “Do you understand? And you must never again breathe word of Miyamori Castle. The assassin will track you to the ends of the earth, use every power and dark art at his disposal. We must counter with devices of our own.”

“I am nothing,” I whispered, but then realised my voice had failed me. All that escaped was a pathetic inaudible whisper.

“Will you go with me?” Yobutomo demanded into the stretching silence.

This time I found the breath to speak.

“I put myself at your mercy and your command.” I stretched my arms forward, bent double at the waist, prostrate upon the tatami.

I heard Yobutomo give a sigh. “All your life you have been a servant, boy, and still you cannot free yourself. You have a long way to go and a lot to learn.”

Chapter Eleven

A rising wind brushed the branches of the evergreen trees against the shuttered windows of the temple in seeming harmony with the low monotonous moans of grief within. A light rain was falling and the returning runner was soaked and chill.

I was close enough to overhear his report.

“What the assassin said is true, Lord Date’s father is dead,” he said, still breathing heavily from his run. “From what talk I could gather, he was kidnapped six days ago by the Hatakeyama family and pursued by Lord Date himself. They trapped the kidnappers against a river, and Date’s father cried out for his son to kill all the enemies, even if it should cost him his own life. It is said that Lord Date fell upon them without mercy, massacring all. As he had predicted, Lord Date’s father was among those who died in the fury of the attack. Over the past few days, several of his innermost samurai warriors along with their wives have committed ritual suicide, slicing open their bellies and freeing their souls of the disgrace. Now, Lord Date is scouring the land, tracking down and torturing all belonging to the Hatakeyama clan in vengeance for the loss of his father’s life.”

Yobutomo shot me a look.

“Tell me boy, do you know how Lord Date lost his eye?”

“A sickness, as a child,” I said. “The demon of smallpox.”

Yobutomo nodded, and when he spoke his words were directed not only at me, but loud enough to address the attendant yamabushi. “That’s how he lost sight in the eye, but it was when his military advisors told him it was a weakness in battle that he took up a knife and gouged the socket clean with his own hand. That is the strength of will of a man who would even slay his own father to revenge upon those who would go against him. The One-Eyed Dragon will stop at nothing until he has what he wants.”

I remained silent as a low hubbub of conversation rose between conferring yamabushi. They speculated as to how best to defend themselves against this new focus of interest from Lord Date’s forces. I dropped my gaze quickly and shuffled aside. Then I looked around, and saw it laying there in the weak morning light.

Hatano’s body, wrapped in cloth, cleaned and prepared for cremation.

So it had not been a dream.

This still and silent bulk of flesh would be burned until only blackened dust and bones remained. Then his loved ones would sift carefully through those ashes and pluck out the bones, passing them between themselves, from chopstick to chopstick, placing them within an urn to be crushed into powder. Only hours before this man had sat with me and talked, upon whose clothes had still lingered the scent of the forest. How could that be reconciled with what was to come?

All this I saw within my mind’s eye, accompanied by a furious rushing of blood in my ears, guilt crowding the narrow confines of the cavity of my skull. With no outlet, the cramp of thoughts circled, sending shuddering spasms of unease throughout my entire cursed body.

It was then I knew I had to go, I could not stand to remain here any longer. I had to get away, to give myself in, let everything go.

Flooded with shame, I seized an opportunity where nobody was looking in my direction. I walked quickly to the door; it felt sickeningly satisfying to give in to my craven impulses and urge to flee. My focus narrowed, the roaring in my ears growing until it seemed a roar like a waterfall.

At the door to the temple I pulled on the boots, tying the laces quickly and carelessly. I heard a voice raised in protest as I fled down the tall stone stairs and into the drizzle of rain hanging in the air, instantly soaking my face and clothing, welcoming the bracing chill that disguised the tears that now ran down my face. I crossed the clearing and entering the path dropping sharply down the hill.

It was not long until my breath came in ragged hitches, a tight stitch of pain forming just under my lungs, yet I forced myself on, thinking only of getting away, if I could somehow move fast enough I could undo what I had wrought here. Fleeing quickly enough, perhaps Hatano would find life again.

As I descended the hill I passed the five-storied pagoda, sparing it only a quick glance. I had half suspected, like everything else, that I had simply dreamt of it, yet here it was, irresolute and very real. I kept stumbling along, my pace now no more than a hobble. If I forced myself to think only of moving as fast as I could so that there would be no more room to think of anything else.

I do not know how long I ran, but after a time my pace slowed and my body temperature dropped, my clothes wet and clinging to my body, the rain a constant chill mist in the air. My pace was a heavy trudge when I came to a turn in the trail and stopped short, my breath catching in my throat. Through the mist, I saw a figure relaxed against a log by the trail, dressed in the garb of an itinerant samurai, eyes hidden under the shelter of the flattened cone of a broad-brimmed hat. My first irrational instinct was that it was a minion of Lord Date, a rash of panic washing over every part of my skin in an instant, as if the air suddenly held that deadly tension before a lightning strike.

The figure looked up casually at my approach; he did not wear the signature double swords of the samurai, nor bear any family clan emblem. Rather he bore only the short bladed wakizashi in his belt, and an axe rested on the log by his side - short helved and serviceable it looked more like a farmer’s tool than a weapon. From beneath the shadows of the brim of his circular hat, I saw a familiar face.

“You left in a hurry,” Yobutomo said, proffering a roughly folded cloak.

I hesitated, then stepped forward a score of paces. Yobutomo watched me silently and I studied him cautiously but saw no malice, only patience and sympathy. I took the cloak, finding the edges and shaking it out; travel-worn, yet finely woven.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

I dropped my eyes, not wanting to give in to gratitude that threatened to surge, my mouth felt numb and I fumbled the words.

“I’m don’t deserve this. Please -”

“Enough. You are not to blame as much as you think you are. Come on, let’s leave this behind us.” Yobutomo stood and settled the diagonal of the string of his pack across his chest. He took up his axe and, passing it through his belt, smiled at me from beneath the shelter of his broad brimmed hat. His manner was so beguiling I wondered how I had ever mistaken him for a samurai.

With both hands Yobutomo raised a conch shell to his lips and directing the blast towards the trees sounded a short signal. The deep resonance bled away without echo into the trees.

At last the words that had been in my heart all that morning found their way to my tongue. “I cannot keep you from your home.”

Yobutomo straightened, letting the conch shell fall back to his side upon its strap. He stood a head taller than me. “The yamabushi have no home, boy. Their home is the trail.”

From the distance, back in the direction of the temple, there came an answering call. The old man looked at me.

“They wish us well on our journey.”

I could not place it, but there was something else beneath those hooded eyes and broad smile.

Chapter Twelve

Yobutomo walked and I followed at his heels. The trail felt like a hidden secret, wide enough only for one man, snaking through the trees. As we descended the rain did not relent, and throughout the forest it had washed away any remaining trace of fallen snow, leaving slush and mud. We walked slowly, picking our way carefully down the hill, and I could sense that my pace was much slower than what Yobutomo was accustomed to as he made conscious effort to keep me in tow. He still wore his distinctive single planked goblin-sandals, and far from making progress difficult, they endowed him with agility over the uneven ground, his feet clear of the mud, his upper body so upright the pack on his back and axe at his belt did not jostle or bounce as he floated from stride to stride.

“How do you do it?” I dared to ask finally, my breath heaving from the constant exertion. It seemed this endless walking was consuming me; I had come the furthest from my home in my whole life, I hated the way my flesh was raised in red furiously itchy patches, and could only think of when it would end.

He paused and grabbed long strips of resilient sasa grass, chopping the stems low with his belt knife and adding the strips to the collection growing in his belt.

He was not even breathing heavily.

“We all feel pain,” he said. “It is the suffering that is optional.”

I saw that the morning mist of rain had finally stopped, leaving the forest gleaming with hanging beads of water. Yobutomo passed me a container of water and I drank deeply.

The break was but a short one, and Yobutomo once again set off. He led us along snaking exposed ridge lines and dipping low through forests. The mud on the slopes was slippy with ice and, unlike my guide, I had to tread with care, holding the narrow trunks of trees lining the path.

As the long hours passed that indirect low light of the winter sun hidden by cloud started to fade, and we finally stopped to make camp. I felt like marionette that had every string tensed up so tightly I could hardly move; the tendons where my thighs joined my hips at the front tight, the muscles of my calves hard, and toenails pinpricks of pain.

At the base of an evergreen the needles were soft and relatively dry underfoot. Yobutomo took up his woodman’s axe and set about gathering standing wood for a campfire in the growing darkness. In my exhaustion I could not even think nor move to help him, but simply watched. After creating a modest, carefully stacked construction, Yobutomo shrugged free of the slender bag slung over his shoulder and, laying it upon the ground, untied one end. Then, one by one, he removed the things within; a handful of vegetables with earth still clinging to them, a small square of white cloth, some bamboo leaves, a pouch of uncooked rice, and a small lacquer box from which wisps of smoke drifted, billowing out in a little cloud as he slid it open and withdrew a tightly wrapped tinder bundle, placing it low and precisely in the stacked wood, blowing a long measured breath until flame licked at the pine needles. The way he carried out each action seemed a ritual performed so often it hardly required thought, yet at the same time, performed with the reverence of prayer.

Slowly the hungry yellow flames grew, yet it was a small fire, no bigger than the spread of my hands, and although I sat practically atop of it, it did little to drive the chill dampness from my clothing.

“Can we not make it bigger?” I asked.

It was quick, but saw Yobutomo glancing into the darkness. I was immediately suspicious.

“What is it? Can you hear something?”

He smiled reassuringly. “No. But I think this fire is large enough for our purposes.”

He lay the square of cloth flat upon the earth, brushing it clean before dashing a handful of hard brown grains of rice into the centre. He shoot me a look from beneath the tangle of his bushy grey brows, as if measuring up my hunger, and without expression cast another handful in. He then tied the ends of the cloth together and, holding it away from himself, doused it liberally with water from his egg-shaped suito drinking gourd,. He replaced the stopper in the gourd, laying it aside, then lifted the soaking pouch of rice towards the fire, the dripping cloth making hissing noises as he placed it deep into the hot ashes to cook.

He slid his short sword, a wakizashi, clear of its lacquered sheath. It was a beautiful blade, the metal gleaning the most perfect silver. No doubt the work of a master artisan, it were as if the hundreds of folded layers gone into its forging were still molten. Yobutomo casually held the hilt up close to the guard and used the edge to slice up the vegetables, dropping them into a wrapping of bamboo leaves at his feet. I noticed he held the weapon with his left hand, while his right hand – the one missing all but the stumps of all four fingers – he used to hold the vegetables, the wickedly sharp blade slicing them without any apparent effort. He looked up, noticing my attention, and smiled.

“It was my grandfather’s,” he said, flipping the blade over his fingers and sliding it back into the sheath.

“He was a samurai?” I asked, for only the ruling class were permitted such a weapon.

“As was my father after him,” Yobutomo replied simply. His attention seemed focused on wrapping vegetables in bamboo leaves, and moving them close to the base of the fire.

I blinked, intrigued and confused, and in my eyes the mountain monk before me took on another depth. Yobutomo saw my look and his voice softened and he spoke so quietly it was barely above the crackling of the sticks as they burned. “I was not always like this, calm and in control of my emotions. In the prime of my youth, I had a terrible temper. It would sweep over me. I did some things to those I loved the most that I regret most deeply, things that cannot ever be undone.”

He gave a wan smile and looked down at his right hand, flexing what remained of his fingers. “But that is a story for another day.”

He slapped his palms upon his knees, as if to seal away that lifted strip of the past. His motions were deliberate and quick as he took two small bowls and two pairs of chopsticks, laying them before him in readiness.

Some long moments passed, but my thoughts would not stray from the tantalising revelation.

“Is that how you do it?” I asked at last. “Your strength. You have the blood of the samurai?”

Yobutomo laughed; a natural, casual laugh. “Despite all that is told, I believe it is the same blood that flows in all veins, peasants, warriors, and kings.”

I shook my head, feeling the ache deep in my muscles. “No, there must be truth in it. You don’t even look tired.”

“I’ve had a little more practice than you.” Yobutomo dusted his hands upon the gown at his knee and sat back, satisfied with the progress of the cook. He gathered the handful of the grass stems he had collected during the day and sorted through them, finding the longest. He started to weave them together, his hands seemingly once set on their task working independently of thought. “All of us have the ability for change. You feel it, don’t you?”

“Feel what?”

He smiled as if at a shared secret. “Calmness.”

I dropped my eyes, staring back to into the fire, and took a moment of reflection. I saw in my fatigue there lay a kind of quietude, a silencing of the inner monologue that had always ridden my thoughts.

“I think perhaps I do,” I said.

“Then you are already on the path to enlightenment.”

I made a snort of dismissal that sounded harsher than I had intended.

Yobutomo smiled down at his lap where he worked. “Part of the yamabushi training, and core to our philosophy, is running.”

“That doesn’t sound very spiritual.”

“What could be more spiritual? Exertion of the body beyond limits of exhaustion, opening the mind to the natural order of the world…” He paused in his task and looked directly at me, his eyes gleaming in the firelight. “A moving mediation that puts us in the present, in the now. As you run, you are able to venerate every blade of grass, every stone, in all things see the manifestation of Buddha.”

“I’ve been to the limits of exhaustion,” I said, recalling my harrowing journey to Mount Haguro. “That brought me no closer to enlightenment. I’m afraid I am no monk.”

Yobutomo had seemed to finish a part of whatever he was weaving. He placed it at his feet and, reaching out across the small fire, placed his hand companionably upon my shoulder. Despite the lightness to his touch, I flinched at the unfamiliar contact.

“You might surprise yourself one day, my boy, with the things a man can become.”

I flushed with sudden heat until at last he withdrew his hand from my shoulder.

“So are you a monk, or a warrior?” I asked.

“I am yamabushi, and all yamabushi are both. Not only do we run, but we also train in the martial arts. We align ourselves with those lords whose goals match our own, and at times fight alongside their armies.”

“The yamabushi are an army?”

“No. We have leaders, but no master. The yamabushi are a collection of individuals, each of their own free will, joining together for strength in unity, to fight for and protect those we love.”

“But with no master, how do you survive?”

“Man is a social creature; the hardest battle to find freedom is the inner one, as you yourself know. You have seen that without a master and without duty, there is no belonging. I can see it in your eyes - you now face loneliness, without direction, without purpose.” Yobutomo tilted his head, eyes glinting with a depthless knowledge, black upon black. “In time, you will learn that it is not a hollow that needs to be filled, it is the container than needs to be broken.”

I felt a stirring thread of kindred to this old man, but before I could ask more the aching hollow of my stomach chose that inopportune moment to give a mighty rumble.

Yobutomo shook himself back to the present. Using the end of a thick stick he pushed aside the glowing red ashes, pushing out the sack of rice until it lay upon the edge of the fire, steaming. “But enough of this talk – we’ve been on the trail all day and I’m sure you are starving. Dinner is done; well enough in any case – I don’t think I can hold you back any longer.”

He plucked the knot in the cloth and spread it upon the ground, freeing clumps of steaming rice and serving out a generous portion into my bowl with his chopsticks.

Food had never tasted so good.

Chapter Thirteen

I woke.

A mist of rain hung in the air, deathly cold and still. Sometime in the night the fire had long since died, the ashes dull grey. It was that deep hour of the night when even the moon had fled, darkness filling everything, dawn a forgotten promise. Yobutomo was awake, upon his haunches at my side, the blade of his axe a crescent shadow upon shadows. I could not see Yobutomo’s features, but I saw him shake his head with slow deliberation and indicate to his mouth that I should be silent. My ears strained but heard nothing but frogs calling in the distance and the far away wind rising and falling through the treetops.

I held still for a long time, my eyes darting from shadow to shadow, trying to look in all directions at once, the action of rotating my head seemingly making the joints in my spine click deafeningly. It felt that as soon as I looked in one direction I would feel someone’s gaze boring into the back of my head so I would spin about again.

Yobutomo didn’t move, yet I felt the tension in his crouch.

I do not know how much time passed. Nothing happened; the frogs continued to cry, the darkness of the night held. At some point my confused thoughts met with troubled dreams, and everything melded into darkness.

Somehow, I must have slept again. I was laying down and opening my eyes met with the pale suffused light of dawn.

I rubbed crusted sleep from my eyes and levered myself upright; the old man was gone. Fog shrouded the forest so densely that all I saw was the trunks of trees fading into the grey. I had no idea of the time of day, the light from the rising sun grey and indistinct. My skin crawled, the atmosphere eerie and ethereal; with no wind all sounds seemed to be without direction, whispers of ghosts and spirits.

I threw aside the damp cloak that covered me and stood into a crouch. I had not removed my boots in the night so was able to step a few cautious paces away from where I had slept. I hesitated, torn between wanting to call out for Yobutomo and fearing to break that foreboding silence.

I saw movement of vague outlines deep in the mist, taking a long moment to confirm that it was Yobutomo, his upright manner of walking distinct in his goblin-sandals. Appearing from the mist I saw he was with another yamabushi, and a moment later joined by a third emerging from a different direction. One held a longbow in the manner of mounted archers, with the arrow nocked at one-third of the way up its length, half-raised and ready at a moment’s notice to draw and fire. The other was armed with a naginata, the signature glaive-type weapon of the warrior monk: a thick wooden staff taller than a man, inlaid with metal grips and guards, with a single-edged blade as long as a katana affixed to the end.

They approached and I found my voice.

“What’s going on?” I whispered. I blinked away cold beads of moisture that hung from my eyelashes.

The yamabushi ignored me as they knelt in the ground, examining something. They conversed in low muffled conspiratorial voices becoming clearer as I neared.

“He was here alright - but suspected a trap, and fled.” Yobutomo said.

One of the other yamabushi, the one with the naginata, was a tall man with high cheekbones and almost regal bearing. He said: “We took every care not to show our presence.”

“It’s not your fault, if I hadn’t known to look for the signs I wouldn’t have seen you. No, this one is cunning.”

“With this mist he could be right here and we wouldn’t notice it,” said the third.

Yobutomo thought for a while, his eyes travelling over the grey-upon-grey surrounds. “For now, I think not. He has lost the element of surprise, and he knows he is outnumbered.”

“Will he be back?”

“No doubt, and with reinforcements to even the odds. See if you can find his trail.”

The two yamabushi exchanged glances and nodded to one another. They moved away, swallowed into the depths of the still pools of mist. Yobutomo at last acknowledged my presence and gestured for me to come closer. I dropped into a crouch beside him and saw the slightest imprint of the toe of a boot in the mud.

Yobutomo nodded to my unasked question.

“Yes, it is the assassin.”

The weakness of panic suffusing through my limbs, the woods suddenly colder, and my skin pricked at the nape of my neck as if I were being watched. Realisation dawned.

“We were bait.”

Yobutomo’s brows raised and lowered in quick acquiesce to my statement.

“You lied to me.”

They all will betray you, I thought. Every person on this earth will betray you. I felt a fool.

“I didn’t lie,” Yobutomo said. “I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

He stood and extended a hand down to me where I knelt in the mud. I pretended not to notice and heaved myself up unaided, my mood dark. It did not help that my whole body ached with cold and hunger.

“You aimed to trap and kill him.”

Yobutomo nodded.

The sudden anger welling from my heart surprised, my mouth seemingly circumventing my mind. “How could you do this? He is not to blame, he is simply doing his duty serving Lord Date. I am the one who failed.”

Yobutomo’s tone hardened. “That assassin stole into the temple of the yamabushi and slew one of our own. He will answer for that.”

“No, you can’t! He raised me since I was a child! He is like a…” I hesitated, the word refusing to unbind from my tongue.

“A father? Boy, have you so quickly forgotten? To us, Hatano was a brother.”

The monk with the longbow returned. “His tracks are light. It’s almost as they say in the fables, the shinobi seemed to fly from tree to tree.”

“Don’t worry, he walks with care, but is still very much human.”

“His tracks vanish heading east. Do we try the ruse again?”

“I fear we have already overplayed ourselves, it was a desperate attempt, and it failed.” Yobutomo turned to me. “Boy, that assassin is not your father and he has no love for you, do you understand that? He wants you dead.”

The anger was a sullen red, receding to the edges of my skull.

“Boy, are you listening? I am willing to aid you as best I can, I will take you wherever you want to go.”

The scrutiny was almost too much for me to bear. The words were on the very tip of my tongue.

Take me back to the castle.

It would solve everything, a satisfying act of self-destruction fuelled by desperation, exhaustion and not a little spite. The more I dwelt on that sting of betrayal, the more I realised that the yamabushi were only acting as they should: I was to blame as I had brought an assassin to their home. I forced myself to overcome my churlish mood at the sight of Yobutomo’s face, furrowed with concern, devoid of malice.

“I have nowhere,” I said, at last giving in.

The yamabushi shared a look. Yobutomo glanced back at me.

“Then I have an idea.”

The tall yamabushi thrust the butt of his naginata into the ground and studied Yobutomo. “Mount Hiei? Are you sure you want to take him there, after what has happened?”

“Do he have a choice?” interjected the monk who carried the bow.

He gave a huff in reply, shaking his head ruefully. Clearly, this was something they had discussed earlier.

“Then we have no time to waste,” said Yobutomo. He raised one arm and guided me back to the remains of our camp. He passed something to me. A pair of lightweight sandals woven together from grass. I realised it they were what he had been industriously creating the previous evening. He sat upon the ground and removed his wooden goblin-sandals, indicating that I should do the same with my boots.

“We have to disguise our trail,” he said, strapping the sandals over his split-toe socks. “Put them on.”

Reluctantly I sat, pulling off my boots. The straw sandals were light in comparison, almost ethereal.

“They’re too big,” I said, flexing my toes through the strapping.

“Exactly,” said Yobutomo as he stood. “They are the same size as ours.”

As I likewise got to my feet I noted with surprise that he was much shorter without the height of his goblin-sandals, and now stood only a hand or so taller than me. I started to reach for my boots but he shook his head, indicating to his discarded goblin-sandals.

“We will leave them both,” he said. “Unless something is absolutely necessary, or can function in more than one task, do not burden yourself with it. Speaking of burdens…”

He bent, searching for a moment, before picking up a large stone with both hands. He stood, waiting for me. “You’ll need to carry this for a while.”

I took the stone, feeling its weight settle through my aching joints and knees. Leaving behind worn yet perfectly serviceable boots yet carrying a massive stone struck me as ridiculous. The old man read my expression.

“Don’t worry, I’m not totally mad – not yet, in any case. Best to leave your boots here, if the assassin were to happen on them later he would be sure of our trail.”

“And this stone?”

“That is to make your prints the same depth as ours. He won’t know which path to track.”

“Where is it we are going?”

Yobutomo looked at me; his eyes did not share his smile.

“Kyoto,” he said.

Chapter Fourteen

This time there had been no advertising trumpeting of the conch shell when we left the others as they vanished into the mist, they simply slipped away like ghosts. I struggled to keep pace with Yubotomo, the heavy stone sloshing back and forth between my hands with every step.

Yobutomo led me through the forest, treading lightly, almost dancing, upon twisted lattice of interlocking roots and I stumbled after. It had been a relief to find a trail once again, where walking was a little easier, yet still reaching tendrils of undergrowth wet with dew snatched at my feet on the long unused path. I had suspected this was a secret way known only to the yamabushi.

Some long time later, Yobutomo paused and bent to retie the strapping of his sandals. A gap in the trees afforded a view, the sun now above the horizon, driving away the fog so that the entire morning seemed but some strange dream.

I had placed the heavy stone down at my feet and stood, stretching my aching back, and looked at the line of mountains stretching into the distance. I remained there a while in thought.

Kyoto, the imperial capital. The seat of the Emperor. It seemed impossibly distant.

“How far is it?” I asked.

Yobutomo stood, his sandals re-tied. “In in your condition, the journey will take months.”

“What is there for me?”

Yobutomo paused, seemingly weighing up something in his mind. “The details will have to wait, but for now I can tell you my idea. There is a special place, on a mountain on the outskirts of Kyoto, a place that has none like it in the world. A place of the gods.”

I blinked, and slowly shook my head. “I am no monk, don’t ask me to become one.”

“I don’t ask anything, I simply give you an opportunity. You’re the one who asked for help.”

My lowered head must have betrayed my emotion, for Yobutomo was quick to come to my side, his hand on my shoulder.

“And I give it willingly. There, you will find a home, at least for a while. A place where Lord Date and his servants cannot find you.”

“A temple?” I asked.

“Like none other. It is called Enryaku-ji. It sits at the summit of Mount Hiei, and they call it the protector standing at the door of the demon gate of Kyoto.”

“Demon gate?”

Yobutomo looked at me, broken from his reverie. “Mount Hiei is fortified by those opposed to the forces of tyranny sweeping across the land. You will be protected.”

“How long do I have to hide?”

“The memories of those who have been betrayed are long.” Yobutomo must have seen the panic flashing in my eyes, for he was quick to add: “You have inner strength of spirit to endure, my boy.”

I did not respond. I wanted to plead my innocence - everything had been an innocent mistake, but I knew it was the wrong person to talk to. There was only one person who mattered; Master Nobushige, and he would not give me the chance.

Yobutomo echoed my thoughts as he indicated to the trail. “Let’s keep moving, we need to put as much distance as possible between us and the assassin before nightfall.” He indicated to the large stone that I had placed by the trailside. “You don’t need to carry that any more. For now, you need to forget Kyoto, forget Mount Hiei; focus only on the moment. Let’s run.”

Chapter Fifteen

If I had thought I would feel better in the morning of the second day, I was wrong. I awoke from a deep slumber, my mind foggy and body feeling as if it could lay there forever. Surely, today we would rest, I thought. The previous day we have moved at what I had considered a swift pace; sections of walking interspersed with running if the trail were downhill, or became wide and smooth enough to allow it. Free to wander, my mind strayed often to Yuki and Master Nobushige, my eyes locked at a point a pace or two ahead on the rutted and scant trail. I admit I saw little of the forest; it was something to pass through, to be done with, something in the way of our destination.

Yobutomo was already awake, his fresh vitality annoying.

“I need to rest today,” I said, and couldn’t keep the petulant whine from my voice.

Yobutomo saw me rubbing at my feet my feet bloated with blisters, raw where the strapping of the straw sandals had worn through socks. He crouched and with the nimble fingers of his left hand untied the strapping of the sandals, repositioning them.

“Try that.” He smiled indulgently.

“They are too flat and hard,” I said. “I can hardly walk, let along run. Every step hurts.”

“You need to get used to them. Tread carefully, with your forefoot striking first. Let your foot rotate freely about your ankle, take up the weight of each step smoothly. Here, drink this.”

I took the offered water gourd and sipped from the slender opening, the water so cold it stung my throat. I found myself simply sitting there, wondering what I was doing, how I had found myself in this position. I was a servant of Miyamori castle under Lord Date, not a forest monk who ran through the hills and slept under trees. Waves a lethargy washed over me, the feeling of not knowing what I was supposed to be draining any sense of urgency.

Yobutomo had already packed everything in the shoulder bag slung at his side. He had his hands upon his hips as he breathed in the view, and after a moment, seeing I did not stir, turned to me.

“Come on, boy.”

“Boy,” I said to myself, wallowing in frustration and self-pity. “Even my name has been taken from me.”

I hadn’t intended to him to hear it, but his ears were sharper than I had given credit. He came back to me and dropped to his haunches. His gaze softened at whatever he saw in my eyes.

“They used to call me Tonbo, when I was a boy. Until you find a name that suits, let’s call you that.”

I tasted the word on my tongue; it sounded strange, how could I name myself ‘dragonfly’?

Yobutomo smiled, again reading my thoughts. “It symbolises rebirth and renewal. It is a good name. Now let’s see if we can make that next summit in time for sunrise and breakfast.”

For the next three days, we travelled that secret path snaking through the mountains and the painful itching rash that had driven me to frustration started to fade. The weather held fair and no rain or snow fell. The sky at times became a pale cold blue when cloud cleared, the winter sun distant and low, the daylight hours short.

That inner voice rose in multiple times in protest, telling me that I should not be here, that I did not belong, but I forced it down and trusted the old man. I took his advice and tried as best as I was able to focus only on the moment.

We saw no other travellers, and the only sign people had ever been here was a long abandoned shack on the trail, half-collapsed under its own weight, the shadows within ink black. I slowed my pace and walked past slowly. It seemed the forest were reclaiming its territory, saplings growing from between splintered planks and vines clawing over every surface.

Yobutomo would often move ahead, his pace naturally faster than mine, and he would wait by the trailside at regular intervals. He was always collecting long strands of grass, loping them off low with his knife and adding to the collection at his belt, and in the evenings, his hands would be engaged in constant weaving. I saw why soon enough; the sandals wore out quickly, and a constant supply was necessary.

When we stopped to drink from the chill jewel of a mountain stream I noticed the hair at my temples stuck out. Reaching up, I felt the tips crusted in ice, yet despite the cold, sweat beaded upon my face.

On the fourth day, we reached the main highway leading down the coast to Kyoto, a broad and flat road where the dirt was smooth enough for wagons and wide enough for an army to march ten abreast. Along with the countless tiny stone statues by the roadside there were on occasion milestones marking the distance to Kyoto. I would look for these markers and calculate how far we travelled, and slowly but surely the distance to Kyoto decreased.

At towns along the way we would separate, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves as a boy travelling in the company of a yamabushi monk. In many places Yobutomo was welcomed and sometimes invited into homes, and in return for healing prayers the villagers would give him parcels of food, which he packed into his bag to share with me when we met up at the far end of the town.

I felt a strange loneliness whenever we parted, watching with a strange jealousy the respectful reactions as people saw his distinctive yellow and white robes and round straw hat. It was always with a sense of relief that I saw him leave the houses and return to where I waited.

Yobutomo would often lecture me as he kept pace beside me.

Keep your head upright, he would say. Lift your gaze, keep your eyes level with the horizon, your chest out.

I found my habitual stride was long and he schooled me to keep it short, to minimise the time each foot was on the ground. Lean forward, he had said, keep your legs behind you. Do not lean backward.

I was to carry his advice in my head for the many long years to come, for quite suddenly I felt it; I reached a certain speed at a pace slightly faster than was comfortable to maintain for long. The wind made an agreeable rushing noise past my ears and I found the truth to his words; to run is a continuous fall.

Chapter Sixteen

One evening we made camp some distance from the highway. A wordless routine of carrying out our evening tasks had developed between us; I collected firewood while Yobutomo unpacked his bag and prepared for our meal, and then I would clear a space for us to sleep while he started the fire.

A heavy spell of rain had caught us that afternoon and our clothes were soaked through, and it took a little longer before Yobutomo could get a flame to catch, and even when it did, the wood hissed and steamed fitfully. With the heavy cloud cover it was much darker than usual, and the mood sombre. That initial elation of finding my stride was giving way to fatigue and discomfort, and I could not help but think of Miyamori Castle, where if things had been different, I would be right now, warm and dry. At that moment, such things seemed almost worth the price I had to pay in beatings and derision from Master Nobushige.

I held my hands out, squatting close to the feeble flames in an attempt to dry to drive the wetness from my clothing and socks. I looked across at Yobutomo, once again at work at weaving new sandals. He seemed pained, and more than once flexed his right hand, curling the stumps of his fingers into his palm. He saw the focus of my attention and dropped his hand back to his work.

“It aches with the weather,” he said, looking up into the darkness. “I’d judge we are in for more this evening.”

I could only nod. I too felt something heavy in the air, a foreboding, but to me it seemed not just the weather; I had the uncanny sensation we were being watched. It were as if the wetly dripping forest whispered cold breath around us, a feeling of malevolence, something hidden just beyond the shadows.

I shuddered, and sought for something to distract me.

“Can I help?” I asked. The mud and rain had meant the flimsy strands of our sandals had worn out even faster that day, leaving but a semblance of a shoe upon our feet.

Wordlessly he passed me a handful of the flat bladed grass stems.

My fingers were stiff and slow to move, and I had to painstakingly direct each small motion, yet slowly I followed his directions and fumbled the strands together. The result, some time later, was an odd-looking thing, but I was proud of it. Sitting there, with the long muscles in my legs aching agreeably, I forgot that creeping sensation of being watched. Had I been of a different mindset, I might have believed I delved into the memories of a long-past and ancient life. My thoughts led me back in a circle, to my childhood.

“Master Nobushige never let me outside the castle,” I said, more to myself than to Yobutomo. “He sometimes made me stay in the roof space for days, he wanted me to endure hardships and solitude. I hated every moment of it.”

Yobutomo smiled. “We can transform his teachings into something useful. I see that you are not kind to yourself - I see the way your face twitches, as if you are being reprimanded by some inner voice. Our first step is to silence that voice.”

I hung my head, at once sorry I had opened my mouth.

“It is part of human nature to want to feel included,” Yobutomo continued, his voice softening. “To fit in, society requires elements of one’s self to be sacrificed. The result is a pervasive malaise, from the lowest servant right through to the mighty samurai. Despite his cruelty, your old master has done you a service of sorts.” He paused and looked at me, deep conviction in his voice. “You have learnt to be with yourself - that is a difficult skill that many cannot do. It will serve you well in Enryaku-ji.”

“Mount Hiei,” I said after a long pause. “Are the monks there like the yamabushi?”

“In a way, yes, but in other ways, no. Like the yamabushi, they have the reputation of the monks who run, perhaps they are best known for the home of the kaihogyo.”

“What is that?”

“The kaihogyo are the running trials of circling the mountain ridges in a sacred course lasting for seven years, and demanding the most extreme of devotion and focus. They will strip the soul raw, they will awaken and transform. If the monk becomes sick or injured there is no recourse, no escape from the sacred vow. The monk must be prepared to take his own life.”

There was a pause, filled by the distant call of a night bird in the forest.

“How can they have the courage?” I asked softly, more to myself than to Yobutomo.

“Those taking up the vow have reasons of their own that give them the strength, for better or worse.” He gave a shake as if to shake away ancient memories.

“Is it a dangerous place?” I asked. “You mentioned something before, something about a demon gate?”

“Ah, the demon gate.” He shifted his weight, his voice taking on a different tone. “Hundreds of years ago, when the Emperor abandoned Nara as his capital, he searched for a new site. They came to what seemed an auspicious place, with places for each of the four celestial guardians of the city. To the east was a river for the home of the Green Dragon, to the west a vast plain for the territory of the White Tiger. To the south, a basin for the Red Phoenix, and in the north hills for the Black Tortoise to dwell. ‘There is only one drawback,’ the Emperor had said. ‘That large mountain to the northeast. That is the direction of the demon gate where evil enters a city, and that mountain looks forbidding.’ His advisors reassured him, telling him that upon that peak there were dedicated monks in service of the emperor who would pray day and night for peace and protect the city. So it was that the Emperor brought his court to the new site that was to become Kyoto. To ensure divine protection of the city, the Emperor appointed the leader of those atop Mount Hiei an imperial monk, and their temple given full support of the Emperor’s funds.”

“The monks still serve the Emperor?”

Yobutomo broke from his reverie and gave a laugh. “That was a long time ago, and since then, things have changed. For many years the warrior monks of Enryaku-ji have been opposed to the emperor, sweeping down at will from the hillside to show their displeasure. The emperor has great symbolic authority, but has little political power to stop the monks from getting what they desire. He is just a puppet for the Shogun, the Field Marshall of the military, who commands the real power.”

“If it is not safe, then why do we go there?”

“Where is safe?” I saw a flicker of sadness and I recalled with a guilty start Hatano’s recent bloody murder in the home of the yamabushi.

I lay awake staring at the stars, and was long in getting to sleep that night.

Chapter Seventeen

A hand touched my shoulder.

I shrugged it aside, and the hand found me again.

I awoke with a start.

The fire had burnt low, glowing fragments of red among black. I sat up. Across the fire Yobutomo, lay upon his side, still asleep.

Then who…?

I spun about as the hand touched me again. A boy stood there, cloaked in a heavy wet blanket from head to toe. The light of the dying campfire cast enough light that I saw his feet were bare, mud between his toes. I cried out, half in surprise, half in fear.

The figure spun and darted away with a faint childish giggle, as if he had played some pleasing trick. In the light of day, an innocuous, delightful sound; in the depths of this coldness it was ice.

I glanced over at Yobutomo. Impossibly, he still slept.

I heard the slap of the boy’s bare feet as he ran the perimeter of our camp, beyond the firelight and invisible.

I found myself on my feet, spinning about trying to catch another glimpse of him. Why hadn’t Yobutomo awoken with those sounds?

“Come on.”

I froze at the boy’s words whispering from the reeds close to my right. I retreated a step, warding my face with my arms.

A hand seized about my wrist and hauled me forward. The fingers were icy cold, pressing into my skin, pulling me off balance. I fought against it, but although the boy was of my height, he had a strength far greater. Silhouetted against the stars I caught a glimpse of his face, the hood of his cloak now thrown back, a chance beam of moonlight revealing his face -

It was Takatora. My brother, his face stretched with the macabre imitation of a playful smile of this game.

I cried out in panic, collapsing to my knees. Takatora continued to pull with implacable force and the tug wrenched my arm. Scores of dancing orbs of light emerged from the ground, shining as cold as a full moon behind veils of cloud. They moved around us, looping and arcing through the air.

A shouted question came from the night; “Tonbo?”

I wanted to call, my chest worked, yet still my throat would not form words and all I could manage was a weak wheeze. My free hand flailed at the earth, fingernails digging in the mud, feet bucking and kicking, but I could not stop that terrible inexorable force that dragged upon my captured wrist. I saw Yobutomo had cast something, a piece of cloth, into the glowing fragments of the fire, pressing it deep until it burst afire into yellow flame. He held his makeshift torch aloft upon a stick and ran towards me. My eyes locked upon his advancing form, the flaming light bouncing with every step, his shadow beneath it, fearing to look upon Takatora now that the bright cold lights danced about us. He seemed to come on so very slowly, my breath held in my lungs, my muscles quivering with weakness, willing Yobutomo on, urging impotently for him to run faster.

My brother too sensed the monk’s approach and he pulled all the harder. I cried out, twisting from side to side, refusing in my terror to look anywhere but at Yobutomo, but still he seemed so very distant, as if I were being carried away down a swift dark torrent. I closed my eyes.

Then, impossibly, he was there, his voice close.

“Boy! What are you doing?”

I opened my eyes. The hand about my wrist was gone. I was in the mud, alone, fighting for breath. The cold dancing lights slowly faded. Between gasps, I said: “He… he was here.”

Yobutomo held the stick with the burning cloth higher, the flickering feeble light hardly reaching into the blackness.

“Who was here? Tonbo, look at me! Who was here?”

I blinked, wishing desperately the terror would abate. “My brother.”

The flame of the torch made a whooshing noise as he cast it about all points of the compass. A prickling wave flashed over my skin; running the length of my back and arms, every hair standing on end. The lights could only be seen from the corners of vision where sensitivity to faint light was greater: faint hovering balls swirling like ethereal smoke in a breeze I did not feel. I swallowed the hard ball of tightness in my throat. “Do you... Do you see them too?”

“An ancient battle was fought here,” Yobutomo said, glancing upward to the suffuse glow hidden by cloud. “The moon draws the blood soaked into the earth of those who have not passed into the next life. They will not harm you, but we should not linger.”

I could not stop shaking. I turned my wrist over and in the flickering orange light of the flame saw the clear imprints of fingers driven into the flesh as clearly as if they had been pushed into soft clay. Instinctively I clasped my other hand to it, pressing hard, as if I could isolate that part of my body and stop that dread cold from clawing up my arm.

“What’s wrong, Tonbo?”

I shook my head, my mouth working but words would not issue forth.

“Are you injured?” Yobutomo persisted. “Let me see.”

Shame flooded over me and I held myself close, almost doubling over. My brother’s hand served only to remind me of my guilt and my thoughts roared loud and chaotic in my ears.

“No, it’s nothing,” I managed, but I could not meet Yobutomo’s eye.

He gave another grunt and shepherded me back to the campfire. I watched, mute, as he collected his few belongings and slung his bag. On the dark of the highway I glanced back, but nothing followed.

I forced my thoughts to focus on my movement. A cold pre-dawn wind blew in our faces, flapping at our clothes, stinging and cracking my lips, yet I welcomed it as a purging that seemed to dissipate the noisome vapours of death in our wake. When I sensed Yobutomo was not looking I peeled back my hand and inspected my wrist. The prints had faded.

We moved under a spell of silence and Yobutomo did not speak until the grey light of dawn appeared in the east. His voice, after so long a time of quiet, seemed strangely odd to my ears.

“You saw your brother?”

The highway was devoid of travellers, our breath visible as rising plumes, frozen earth making crunching noise under the soles of our straw sandals. It was some time before I answered: “My brother is dead.”

Yobutomo absorbed these words and said nothing, simply keeping pace at my side.

“We were playing by a river,” I said. “Somehow, it turned into an argument, and we fought, and he slipped and fell. There was an accident, I didn’t mean it...” I shook my head, my swollen tongue filling my mouth, the backlog of tumbled emotion jamming the words in my throat, edged upon the border between distant past and a breath that would bring them to the present. Again, those thoughts; they were never submerged deep, bloated and fetid, they were always ready to float to the surface. Takatora, he was the older of us, always the strong one, always the one to protect me – how could it be that my stupidity caused him harm? Surely I had not the strength to keep him pressed under the water against his will? How could a single moment in time have such profound ramifications?

I blinked, finding my eyes filmed and glassy. I bundled every part of that blackness, all the words and the tangle of feelings, swallowed them up into a ball deep inside, and I felt my mouth tighten into a firm line.

“Master Nobushige was there, passing through the village,” I said curtly. “He saved me.”

“From what?”

“My father.”

This seemed to strike a chord in Yobutomo and his stride faltered a moment. “Your feared your father?”

“He was angry,” I said softly. It was the only true memory burned into my mind, the rest that followed were only vague pictures drawn by Master Nobushige’s telling. I remember clearly the fury in my father’s eyes, for he had seen what I had done to my brother, his favourite son. I closed my eyes and I could see the expression on my father’s face shift into betrayed outrage, his brows furrowing deeper as I was hauled up by one arm by Master Nobushige. My father had doubled his pace, breaking into a run, racing impotently towards the fleeing horse. I felt the strange smells and roughness imbued in the rough texture of Nobushige’s cloak. It was the first time I had been horseback, impossibly high, and through the saddle I felt massive muscles shifting and moving as we galloped away.

“Master Nobushige saved my life that day,” I said. “A few days later he returned to the village and left word where I could be found if ever they wanted to reclaim me.”

“A moment of anger can undo years of affection, and cause guilt and regret lasting a lifetime...” Yobutomo spoke so softly I hardly caught it. He turned to me, the smile that usual lingered on the lines in the corners of his face had vanished. “Do not doubt a father’s love for his child. There is a special kind of keen hurt for a father who has lost a son.”

“Well, he never came,” I replied sullenly. “Nor my mother.”

“Did you seek them out?”

I just shrugged, and looked away. “A few months later Master Nobushige told me my village had been raided by the Shingen Clan. None survived.”

I saw Yobutomo’s great bushy brows dip in a concerned frown so deep they seemed to knot together. I could not tell if it was of concern, anger, or something else entirely.

Chapter Eighteen

Yobutomo’s voice came down at me in the mist.

“Tonbo, are you alright?”

The heavy air as we climbed the mountain path was warm, water clinging to every surface, glistening upon trees and rocks. As usual we had risen from our camp before sunrise and still after a few hours the mist had still not lifted with the growing light. If anything, it grew deeper and deeper the higher we climbed into the stillness. I shook myself at Yobutomo’s voice, tearing my gaze away from the simple unmarked wooden stake in the ground. I hurried to catch up, climbing the few steps between us, my breathing laboured.

“You were wondering about those markers?” he asked, scratching at the patch of grizzled hair at his chin that had grown over the weeks, although his pate remained as bald as ever.

I nodded silently. I had seen at least a dozen on the narrow path we climbed that morning.

“This trail is part of the kaihogyo. These markers are the graves of those that could not endure. We now climb Mount Hiei, and Enryaku-ji is at its summit. We are almost at our destination. You have done well, Tonbo.”

He smiled, then gestured with raised brows that we should continue. As we climbed closer to the summit sounds of voices and activity filtering down through the trees grew louder. We reached the top of the climb, the ground levelling out and free of trees, the mud flattened with the passage of feet. I saw no people, although heard the sounds as if of an army thousands strong. Mysterious shadows loomed in the mist; the upturned curve of temple roofs, lantern posts standing like silent stone sentinels, some leaning as if weary and about to topple, water dripping from every surface. From somewhere deep in the mist came the tolling of a huge bell, the immediate sound of impact falling quickly into rich harmonics of sonorous reverberation that drew on and on, slowing fading like evaporating dreams.

I stood there, one foot upon a step in the path, watching Yobutomo as he strode through the mud towards the buildings, his straw hat down low over his head, robe flung over one shoulder partially obscuring the axe in his belt. I felt in that moment disjoined from reality, as if I had been suddenly plucked from my life in Miyamori castle and placed in this strange place by a giant hand.

With a start I realised Yobutomo was not pausing. Afraid to lose sight of him, I hurried down, catching him as we treaded our way through the complex of buildings. Unlike the single large temple upon Mount Haguro, it seemed Enryaku-ji had hundreds, if not thousands, of buildings, the towering trees a wall about the perimeter, the mountain continuing to rise gently into the grey middle distance to my left. Figures moved about in the swirling mist, the noise of construction and penned animals reaching my ears. Most wore monastic robes, with weapons at their belt.

Yobutomo gave no indication that he noticed anyone, and I tried not to meet the gaze of those who gave intense surly looks of distrust.

“Keep close to me.”

I did not need further encouragement, and hugged close as we continued to walk deeper and deeper into the complex. Buildings arose from the mist as we walked, emerging from the sea of ethereal white and taking incongruous form of solidity and permanence, the aged stones of the walls and paths and monuments each imbued with their own kind of personality, mottled with growths of white age spots, green moss flourishing between cracks where sunlight scarcely fell. From somewhere off in the hidden mists I felt through the earth the stamp of feet of warriors training and heard their unified shouts and the rending of the air as they thrust fist and blade.

Yobutomo knew exactly where he was going and our path led us through the tunnel of mist to the base of a large temple, its ultimate extent lost to the damp greyness in the air. At the base of the stone stairs two monks armed with long bladed naginata challenged us. At a word from Yobutomo one of the guards nodded and indicated that we may enter.

We followed closely up the slick and slippery stairs and into the temple, removing our trail worn sandals. The guard called to someone within and a slender woman approached. She had a special kind of grace and beauty; the high ridge of a straight nose, lips slightly downturned at the corners, her silken hair long and unbound reaching down to her waist. She had an air of quiet authority about her, and the guardless braided grip of a tanto sword in a slender lacquered scabbard thrust through the cloth of her belt. I dropped my eyes to the floor and kept them there. Following Yobutomo’s lead I stepped up from the genkan vestibule, feeling the tatami cool beneath my bare feet. After so long on the trail it felt strange to be indoors where things were clean.

“Follow me,” the woman said, and started walking. My eyes still upon the flooring as we walked, I followed as she led us into a corridor until we reached a room, the sliding door already open. Inside, a man sat upon a cushion at the far side of a low table, stacks of books in various states of disorder around him. I saw only the glistening top of the man’s shaved head, for he did not pause in his task of tallying numbers upon a parchment.

“Yes?”

Yobutomo stepped to the door and bowed deeply from the waist.

“Kaibo Kan’emon, it has been a long time.”

The man, Kan’emon, looked up. He had the face of a grizzled old warrior given to a life of lassitude and excess; his eyes deep-set in a face rounded by fat, his jowls and cheeks wobbling as he squinted short-sightedly at us. The scars across his face were a record of his past, his unusually prominent bulbous nose kinked from a long since healed break.

“Yobutomo?” I could not read the expression that passed over Kan’emon’s face. The hard line of his mouth softened a little but his round cheeks did not go so far as to relax into a smile. His eyes flickered over Yobutomo’s yellow and white robes, taking in the conch shell and accoutrements at his belt. His words were more statement than question: “You are a yamabushi now.”

Yobutomo nodded. “I am with those of Mount Haguro.”

“Come in.” Kan’emon nodded a reassurance to the woman who still stood at our shoulder. “Thank you, Tomoe-sama.”

The slender woman bowed and took her silent leave.

Kan’emon looked at me askant. “And who is this boy?”

“He is someone I trust. He seeks protection here.”

“You bring payment?”

“He is strong, he can work.”

Kan’emon shook his head and with an odd dexterity lay down the quill of his pen from the clubs of his fingers. “He looks too skinny to even stand on his own two feet.”

“He has fortitude and endurance.”

“I turn away scores of men every day who are stronger.”

“Mercenaries looking for an easy meal, who would just as soon turn on you if given half a chance,” countered Yobutomo. “This boy is honest.”

Kan’emon shrugged and slowly, almost sadly, shook his head.

“I’m sorry, but it is impossible. Please, sit down, it has been a long time. Let’s share some tea. My welcome can extend at least that far.”

Yobutomo did not sit on the indicated cushions. Instead, he moved to the low knee-high table where Kan’emon sat and placed his hands upon it, dropping to a squat on his haunches. “Take this boy, and I promise you the yamabushi of Mount Haguro will come to the aid of the monks of Enryaku-ji in the fight against Warlord Oda.”

Kan’emon sat back at his desk, furthering the distance between them a little.

“You have the authority to speak for the yamabushi? They are a disorganised band at best.”

“I give you my word.”

“And I trust you at that.” He held his gaze steady for a moment as mark of his conviction, but then gave a bark of laugh. “However, things have changed. Warlord Oda brings the battle to all Buddhism. I can guarantee you the yamabushi are now commitment to this war, an alliance with us or not.”

“Is there nothing you can do?”

Kan’emon’s spread his arms expansively, taking in the piles of parchments. “It has been many years since you have been here, and much has changed. Temple funds are critically low. We cannot feed another mouth.”

“What about the teachings? ‘Set your mind on the Way and clothing and food will be there.’”

“We need coin.”

“The yamabushi have none.”

“Then we simply cannot take him on.”

Yobutomo paused, and then seemed to reach some decision. He turned to me. “Tonbo, please, wait outside a moment. I would like to discuss something in private.”

My gaze swung back and forth between them; Kan’emon’s eyebrows gave an intrigued twitch but Yobutomo’s expression gave nothing away. Left with no choice, I backed out into the corridor, the wooden door sliding closed behind me.

From within, the voices were low, and I could not make anything out. Only a short time later I heard the creaking of the table as if weight were placed upon it; judging from the grunts it must have been Kan’emon levering himself to his feet. When the door opened Kan’emon was there; now that he was standing his height struck me, for he was much taller than I had at first judged, he was a giant. Yobutomo, who was not a short man, stood only shoulder height to the rounded slabs of Kan’emon’s shoulders, and as he came through the door he had to duck.

Kan’emon looked down at me from that lofty height with those unusual beady eyes that did not stop darting from one place to another. He grunted. He said: “Well then, boy, let’s get you settled.”

He said no more and did not pause his stride. I saw he walked in a manner particular to the obese; swinging the fleshy pads of his hands beside his body as if he paddled his bulk through the air.

I looked past Kan’emon, sought out Yobutomo’s attention. Even in that dim light I saw the old man’s face heavy with some secret knowledge.

“What is it you said to him?” I demanded, when Kan’emon was out of earshot.

“Later, when this is over, ask me then.”

I was taken into the washroom to bathe. The clothes pulled over my head smelt of wood smoke permeated into the cloth, and I realised it had been many weeks since I had last bathe properly. It felt odd, for in the service of my old master Nobushige I was forced to wash every day, lest any hint of odour give away my presence while I spied; I was a blank page, a ghost. Now, however, the chill water dashed by the bucketful over my body carried with it layers of dirt that formed the sentences filling the book of my journey.

I was not given long before I was taken outside and seated, and a monk proceeded to cut handfuls of my hair low to my scalp and then began to shave it completely, my head cold and strangely sticky to the touch.

I was given instructions: as the newest of the monks my tasks were the most menial: cleaning the vast expanse of floor in the temple with cloth and bucket, sweeping the paths surrounding it, and braving the stench of the toilets to empty the buckets.

In addition to my daily chores, I was charged with attending to Kan’emon’s needs; fetching his meals, folding and stowing his bedding in the cupboards every morning and making it afresh each evening. That evening, my head spinning with all I had been told, I was given a small pallet to sleep upon in a room with other temple workers, mostly older men than myself. I was relieved to see Yobutomo had joined me.

I had not seen him all day, and at the sight of him fought a sudden rise of a desperate panic, feeling as if the ground were slipping away from beneath my feet. “I can’t do it.”

He looked surprised. “Are you not comfortable here?”

I looked down at my hands, found that I was holding them together tight. “Kan’emon, he despises me. And this… It is not my home. I am alone.”

Yobutomo bent his head from side to side, straightening a crick in his neck. Finally, he broke the growing silence. “Remember, you serve no man but yourself. At any time, you may leave. Perhaps you may find shelter and food elsewhere, but it is dangerous, far more so than you realise.” He then turned to me, a kindly fondness tinged with some deep sorrow in his eye. “I only bring you here because I know you will find protection, as I myself once did.”

“Can’t I come back with you to Mount Haguro?” I hated the way the hopeless waver crept into my voice, I sounded weak. I cowered; Master Nobushige would surely have struck me for such mewling.

“There is no protection there. The yamabushi do not linger there long; we have no standing army, unlike here. The assassin knows you were there and will no doubt return; until we can track him down it is not safe for you to return.”

I had never truly thought of Miyamori castle as a home, but now, after such a prolonged absence, after so long on the road, it felt as if I were adrift upon a vast sea; no landmarks to mark my way, only the ever shifting waves and vast emptiness overhead.

I could not help but feel a pang of heartache, yearning for Yuki. I had harboured dreams that I could somehow be with her if I passed from this world and into the afterlife. My vision blurred, and despite myself, I felt memories resurface. Details were losing their edge in my mind’s eye, yet that feeling of compulsion would never pass, the way my senses were compelled to drink in every detail about her. Like a sudden stomach cramp, something twisted inside of me, and in that moment, Yobutomo’s hand upon my shoulder was the only thing tethering me to world.

Chapter Nineteen

I counted the passing of every single day. A week passed, then two. Each day I was given three meals, simple affairs of rice and mountain vegetables, soup flavoured with soybeans. It was different to the heavier, meaty meals of the castle. I found I felt lighter, stronger, and leaner, and by incremental degrees, my awareness grew, taking in the aura of divinity that imbued the forest and the hillside. There was no doubting the feeling of power bestowed upon the temple by its lofty position overlooking the city of Kyoto below.

I worked with a fierce resolve, trying to find some kind of routine. I found that the harder I laboured and the more taxed my body, the deeper I slept and the less dreams plagued my thoughts. The depth of the slumber, that moment before I fell asleep when it seemed every part of my body were anchored with ten times its own weight, that was worth every drop of sweat. Yet despite my efforts, I saw in the eyes of those around me a distrust and felt the prick of their distain.

The longer I worked the more the Kan’emon annoyed me. His great beard and tangle of unruly hair stood in stark contrast to the mostly hairless men around him. He would lounge around all day, and was never satisfied with the speed or quality of my work. He would complain of his hunger and demand food when quite clearly I was working as fast as I could in preparing it.

I was not the only one he treated this way, yet I felt his sting more keenly as I was closest to him. At times I wondered if he knew how to do anything at all, for he would often complain at the most menial of tasks. For instance, he would call me to come running to fetch a towel after his bath that he himself could have gotten more easily. I would be soaked to the elbows from scrubbing clean huge pots in the kitchen and hand him his towel and he would reprimand me for making it damp where I held it, and send for another.

Bent over double at the hip, running a cleaning cloth over the reeded flooring, I paused at a doorway, the chill wind gusting in. I saw monks drilling martial arts in the courtyard as they had done every day, no matter the weather. All the time Kan’emon would remain indoors, yet this morning he had joined his fellows and I felt drawn to watch. He moved with the ponderous minimalism of the obese, in battle he was unmatched. The monks had divided themselves into two groups, and were fighting a mock battle with naginata; cushioned bags slipped over the bladed ends. Their black robes were tied back in the manner of the samurai; sleeves tied with a sash crossed at the back, legs of his trousers tucked through the belt to give freedom of movement.

I watched the practice battle unfold, finding myself urging whoever was against Kan’emon, wishing to see the big man at least bruised. Yet despite everything, Kan’emon dispatched foe after foe, his movements apparently slow but somehow just enough to deflect a blow, each offensive strike holding measured power and deliberation. With a twist of his naginata he knocked a man off his feet and shoved the padded end into his stomach while still in mid-air. Landing with a heavy thump the unfortunate monk gasped to catch his breath.

From his flank another monk had approached, his staff arcing through the air. Kan’emon sensed the attack and twisted, but not quite fast enough, and the weapon hit his shoulder. My smirking satisfaction was short-lived, for as he ducked away from the blow, minimising its impact, Kan’emon’s naginata pivoted about and swatted, using his opponent’s momentum to cause him to stumble and crash to the ground.

The battle seemed over. I could see Kan’emon’s chest working, his breath only slightly elevated and he walked easily, helping the recently fallen monk to his feet. The others picked themselves up, some walking with more care than others. Sensing my gaze, Kan’emon looked in my direction, and I quickly resumed my chores.

Enryaku-ji was like no place I had ever seen before. Now and again there would be a brawl between rival sub-temples due, from what I could gather, as each vied for the attention of rich patrons. Each faction claimed its own special mystic power of healing or of wisdom, and to claim the wealth of a dispirited nobleman or merchant who had come to the temple seeking enlightenment was a prize worth more than a little deception and even physical aggression. I came to distinguish those who were true monks and those who had been brought in as mercenaries simply dressed to look the part, leading to an arms race of purchased muscle. This infiltration of swords-for-hire brought with them prostitutes, and it was not uncommon to see them wander between buildings of the temple grounds, walking with seductive step and clothing that drew and tempted the eye. I confess that more than once I found myself enraptured as they walked, but this strange new feeling of rising lust inevitably led to bleakness, for always my thoughts would revert to Yuki, now long since cold in the ground.

Not only were women and children allowed within the temple complex, I had even seen groups of women training in the martial yards; most were excellent shots with the longbow, and a few skirmished with the naginata, using the length and reach of the long pole-arm to compensate for their smaller stature. They also, like many of the warrior monks, they were practiced in the use of the arquebuses; long barrelled firearms, much more sleek and refined than the ones I had seen used in Miyamori castle. The sizzle and sharp crack of gunpowder was not an uncommon sound during the day, both in the training yard and also, less commonly, wielded against their fellow monk in angry skirmishes. The smell of firearms would linger in the air, and brought back memories of festivals and fireworks. Again, thoughts that led to Yuki.

Despite the occasional violence, and although the whole mountain was but one large armed camp threatened to be overrun with drunkards and whores, it was still a holy place, and there was a certain sense of kinship between the temples, if only in the fact they were drawn together against a common enemy, the Warlord Oda Nobunaga. People spoke of him as if he were a demon, and once Yobutomo told me a story of the circumstances Oda inherited his father’s castle in Kiyosu. The young Oda Nobunaga took it from his uncle, who had been charged care of it, and forced him to commit ritual suicide. Later, he assassinated his own younger brother for conspiracy. He quickly eliminated all opposition within Owari Province, faking illness to get close to his enemy in order to assassinate them. The tipping point was the battle of Okehazama, were Oda was outnumbered ten to one, surrounded by his enemy, forced into a defensive position. A brilliant tactician, he using straw decoys and the cover of a thunderstorm he manoeuvred his forces to the rear of the enemy and struck hard and fast, his samurai killing the clan leader as he emerged from his tent.

Yobutomo did not stay at Enryaku-ji for long, and the next morning disappeared into the forest, leaving me at the temple with the promise he would soon return. Although I had never felt at home within the castle I at least knew many faces there, albeit not friendly ones, and I knew my place. Now I found myself constantly scanning the faces of strangers, knowing it was pointless, yet unable to stop myself from trying to find shadows of recognisable features. Unpinned from the world, lost in the sea of strangers, I realised how much comfort I had come to gain in that sense of belonging.

Yet internally I roiled with conflicting emotions. The journey upon foot with Yobutomo through the forests and mountains imbued a tantalising taste of what freedom could be, a feeling that I toed the edge of something vast. The key was my own body working in synchrony with the world, propelling me along that infinite tunnel formed by overhead branches, a world that did not require the crutch of familiarity.

Chapter Twenty

I startled awake, the building silent and dark. I sat up from my bed, my head foggy, and fought to clear my vision. Somehow, I was not surprised to see Yuki calmly asleep by my side, the inky jet black pool of her hair spilling over her forehead and the rice-bean stuffed pillow. I watched her chest move in and out with each breath, the press of her breasts beneath her gown, my eyes tracing down the curve of her side as it dipped into the demure hollow of her waist. I could not help but feel a rising stir of base emotion, my heartbeat rapid.

Then I heard the footsteps.

I knew whoever approached was trying to be quiet. Long silence of a span of heartbeats followed each soft pad, yet the creak of timber gave soft warning no matter how carefully the intruder walked.

I could not move. It felt like even moving my eyes in their sockets would advertise my position. The steps grew closer, step by slow step, and I realised he was drawn to the sound of Yuki’s gentle sleeping breath. I tensed my weight on my feet and hands, the floor beneath me protesting alarmingly. The footsteps quickened, I sensed a special determination to them now.

I cast a desperate look towards Yuki. Her face was so calm, so innocent, her lips slightly parted. Then, as I looked, she slowly opened her eyes with such deliberate control I knew she had not been asleep at all, but simply waiting for this moment. I saw beneath the long curve of her eyelashes her eyes were damp and glistening.

“I miss you,” she said.

Her words struck away the supports of whatever it was that held my being, for every emotion and urge inside my heart collapsed with a painful compression. The footsteps suddenly closed in a rapid tattoo and Yuki flinched, I drew in breath to shout, everything tore away in a rapid swirling as a typhoon descended up the building, yet it was all done with an eerie silence. I felt the buffeting, saw shards of flooring and bedding scatter to the mercy of the destructive wind, yet my ears registered nothing but my ragged breath.

Through the maelstrom, I saw an approaching figure, his cloak whipping furiously at his heels. I was on my feet, fighting to stay upright. Yuki was gone. I sheltered my eyes against stinging sand, squinting, trying desperately to find her and at the same time see who approached.

Then I knew. It was my old master, Nobushige the assassin. The whole building had been swept away. All that remained was stumps and crushed debris. I fled, stumbling through water up to my knees, the mud sucking at my bare feet, pulling me backwards. Still the entire world was soundless, yet I was not deaf, the rasping of my breath and thump of my pulse loud in my ears. Nobushige was close now, without turning I could feel him at my heels. I gave one last terrific struggle to free my feet from the mud -

- and awoke, feeling a very real weight of something sat atop my chest, crushing breath from my lungs. I bucked and from the way the weight shifted I knew it was something alive, some animal or child, wet and dripping and reeking to its very bones of stagnant river water.

My brother, Takatora.

My heart skittering in the chasm of my chest I gave a heave and Takatora lost his balance and fell away. He gave a tittering laugh, and in the darkness bare feet padded away in a quick run across the tatami floor.

I heaved in a breath, disorientated and frightened, sitting bolt upright upon my futon drenched in rapidly cooling sweat. Wild loneliness of despair mixed with fear, for I keenly felt Yuki’s absence. Just as real as Takatora had been, she had been right here, in this room. I found myself shivering, searching every corner of the darkness, fearing the return of Takatora, and aching with wistful agony as I sought for Yuki’s ghost.

As my heart slowed I realised the room was quiet, faint moonlight leaking through the window. I pushed aside the heavy covers that lay over my feet and raised myself, my uneasiness making my shoulders hunch in a tight concavity about my chest, and took careful steps to the door.

My feet met with something chill upon the floor. A wet footstep.

I crossed the distance to the door quickly and slid it open to night, almost falling over myself in my haste to flee the darkness of that room. In the winter night, moonlight ebbed and swelled as deep black snow-laded clouds swept across the sky. The night was absolutely still, without even the faintest breath of wind. I had forgotten my shoes, but I hardly felt the cold sharp stones in the soles of my feet.

Was I still in a dream? Everything had that otherworldly quality, where things moved silently and deliberately, as if orchestrated by some invisible hand. The forest surrounding the temple seemed to be breathing, towering shadows of evergreens upon the night sky, the undergrowth heavy with old snow. From one of the other buildings drifted the sound of the plucking of the strings of a koto, sadly haunting and wistful, the notes bending and sighing their regret into the night. It seemed they sung for me, knowing I was an imposter of my own life.

I felt I was moving as if upon a raft on a swiftly flowing stream, that endless sense of motion echoing the dreams of running that plagued my nights, ever since that first time: that evening when I supposed to be spying upon the Hatakeyama family.

I could not help but think; What if I hadn’t slept? Where would I be now? That was the first time the dream of running had struck, and it was the strongest. Striking as quickly and expectantly as an earthquake, with the dreams in the months that followed like the aftershocks of the settling earth. It had swept me under into a deep sleep, a dream of forest and mountains. It made no sense; at the time I had spent most of my life inside the walls of that castle, and before that, only faint memories of my peasant family working the rice paddies in the flatlands - at no point in my life had I been exposed to the forest. Where had that vision come from? I could still remember it even now, and I realised that Yobutomo had given me names to label what I had seen; the majesty of the towering sugi trees entwined with climbing creepers, the bladed fronds of the sasa grass understory like a diminutive audience of bobbing heads, broad leaves of the satoimo creating a vast canopy as wide as a man's outstretched arms. The detail had been incredible, and beyond what my earthly eyes had ever seen. Was it not simple lassitude that had made me sleep: had I instead been lured away from my watch by some ethereal power? Because of it, I had missed vital information that could have prevented the abduction of the father of Lord Date Masamune, and his subsequent death.  How many other deaths had followed? I knew already that Yuki's life had been cut horrifically short, but Lord Date’s rage was well known; I had no doubt that the toll ran at least into the hundreds. I had born that weight of guilt. I had been the lynchpin holding everything in balance, and when I failed my duty, I had caused a cascade of killing and destruction. 

I shook my head to myself. Perhaps I should see it in a different light. Things had been stacked, top heavy, ready to tumble into disorder; if it had not of been my failure, then inevitably some other point must have given way. It was poor consolation, and I could not make myself believe it.

I knew what I had to do.

When I arose, I sought out Kan’emon to ask permission to begin the seven year kaihogyo.

Chapter Twenty One

“What are you doing boy, do you have no respect of another man’s privacy?”

I ducked my head low, my face burning a furious scarlet. I kept my eyes to the floor, studying the woven detail of the tatami with far more intensity that it deserved.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered.

“It is just as well we have finished our business here,” Kam’emon said. I could hear from the direction of his voice that he had stood and was moving towards the door.

Two high feminine voices tittered prettily in laughter, and from the corner of my eye I saw their bare feet dancing as they shrugged into their clothing. When I looked up again both of the young women were dressed in their kimono, eyes sparkling as they noticed my attention.

I shot my eyes back down to the floor.

I heard the sounds of coins tinkling as Kan’emon up-ended his money pouch into the palm of his broad hand, counting and handing a quantity to the girls. I could smell their perfume as they swished past, a mixture of delicate flowery scents, light and dancing. I was yet a boy still, and had not known the touch of a woman and as the edge of their kimono whispered against my side it brought Yuki into my thoughts. My head swum as I held that bittersweet breath in my lungs.

When they had gone Kan’emon strode past me, sliding closed the door to the room with a firm clack, shaking me from my thoughts. I pivoted and stood, hurrying after him as he made for the adjacent room. I did not cross the doorway, but only watched from my place of humble beseech as Kan’emon crossed the floor and sat heavily at his writing desk.

“Well, what is it?” he asked.

I swallowed, gathering my courage, my gaze directed firmly at the floor.

“I wish to begin the kaihogyo.”

There was a pause. At last my curiosity got the better of me, and I looked up.

Kan’emon had not moved, but the line of his lips thinned and hardened.

“That damn fool Yobutomo,” he grunted at last, beneath his breath. “What has he put in your head? He may be strong enough to have done it twice, but you are much weaker than he ever was.”

I hesitated at the revelation: Yobutomo had completed the trials? Was Kan’emon right, had he subtly planted the idea?

“He has nothing to do with it,” I said.

Kan’emon ignored me. “No. You are no good to me dead. Now go back to your chores.”

I thought about trying my voice against his, but quickly discarded the idea; I had often enough overheard Kan’emon’s bellow of anger. I lingered, and Kan’emon let fall a hefty tome upon his desk.

“Are you deaf? Get out of here!”

He then opened up the book midway through and began searching for his place, resuming his work. Left with no other choice, I backed out of the room, my knees feeling each smooth blade of the tatami matting.

Kan’emon did not look up as he bellowed: “And shut the door!”

With sweating palms I did as I was asked, sliding the framed door closed gently and noiselessly. I raised myself to my feet, and paused there.

I found that my feet did not take me down the hallway back into the kitchens where I belonged, but instead took a turn, taking me to the vestibule where I slipped into a pair of sandals and slid open the door and into the brisk winter air outside. The previous night heavy snow had fallen, upon which few had trod. I wallowed out into the drifts of powder. There I stopped, dropping down, and sat cross-legged in the snow; I did not fully know what I intended, all I knew is that I had had enough. I would wait here. I would begin the trials, or I would perish.

After a time snow began falling again, a vast countless number of flakes so vaporous they seemed immune to the pull of the earth, drifting upward as much as downward through the still air. A soft white blanket grew steadily upon the ground and my body inexorably chilled and for a time I thought my protest pure stupidity. The falling snow became heavier and visibility less than a score of paces, and it seemed likely I would simply die a useless death..

Then I see a figure emerge from the whiteness. I squint at the slender form, and know by the grace of her movement it is Tomoe, the onna-bu-giesha. I had often seen her at Kan’emon’s side, and indeed, had heard many rumours of her skill with the naginata; the legend that in all her battles she has never let a single drop of blood touch her. Her exceptional beauty captures my attention yet at the same time fills me with nervousness, as if I am in the presence of something not quite human. It was with real relief I see her path has left a mar in the fallen snow, each step squeaking like that upon a nightingale floor, and I knew then that she was no ghost.

“Kan’emon told me you asked to begin the kaihogyo,” she said to me. “I know you grieve, but the trials are not a salve your heart.”

I did not say a word.

“Wait until you can reach a decision without emotion,” she said. “A rash decision now will end your life.”

I looked at her. Snowflakes eddied about us, where some landed upon her face. Those that struck her perfect cheek remained there, poised, as if her pale flesh were as cold as they.

“Come inside when you are done,” she said. The corners of her lips twitched, forming a smile, but the expression was fleeting. She stood and moved away, leaving me alone with my conflicting thoughts, lost in that moving mottle of white.

At some point in the night I must have fallen, for when I awoke I was curled into a foetal position, shivering.

Tomoe returned at sunrise. My shoulders were hunched up over my ears and my whole body ached with shivers. She squatted next to me, and wordlessly extended her hand, palm up.

I wanted so desperately to stand against Kan’emon’s will, to prove that I had some measure of internal fortitude, yet quite suddenly, my resolve cracked. My hunched shoulders heaving with silent sobs I reached out a clawed hand.

Without a word, she led me inside.

Chapter Twenty Two

I felt sick. The vegetable soup sat high and tight in my belly, my body tingling with the warmth of the bath, yet in this comfort I despised myself for the useless display of protest. It was with shamefaced humiliation that bowed and entered Kan’emon’s office. A flush of surprise went through me as I saw Yobutomo sat with him. I could not hold my tongue in my surprise.

“Where have you been?” I asked. I did not suspect that my loneliness had affected me so, and could not keep the edge from my voice.

“The yamabushi of free passage to all domains in the country,” he said, at last turning to look at me. “I have been nowhere, but everywhere.”

“I think you owe me an apology,” Kan’emon interrupted.

I dropped my eyes and lowered myself to my knees, then with hands on the floor I pressed my head to the reed matting, but I did not speak. All I could hear was my breath as I waited.

“Kan’emon is not an evil man,” I heard Yobutomo say. “You must try to understand his motivations. You are important to us all; we cannot afford to lose you.”

I kept my face to the floor.

“I am nothing.”

“That is not true!” Kan’emon spoke with such vehemence my head shot up. “There is only one reason you are here and you are a bigger fool that I had supposed if you do not realise – ”

“No, Kan’emon, not now,” interrupted Yobutomo, holding up his hand to silence the other, his voice carrying such cryptic overtones it gave me pause. “We will discuss that matter later. For now, let us put this behind us. Tonbo, return to your tasks.”

I closed my eyes and felt everything swim. My stomach was so tight I tasted acrid bile rising into the back of my throat. I gave in to the dizziness. I knew I was useless. In the past, lashings of Master Nobushige’s rod across my back had at least paid penance to the self-disgust that seethed in my gut; yet since I had fled I had been untouched, and it left the guilt unassuaged. Was it that dreadful hollowness that drove me to the kaihogyo? Or was it something nobler, the desire to push myself to the edge of self, to wake up to that echo I had glimpsed while running through the forest? In either case, my decision was ruled by the naivety of youth; it was only years later that I would come to fully understand my own mortality.

“Boy, are you alright?”

I opened my eyes to find both men looking at me, expecting an answer. I worked my lips. Never had I been able to articulate my thoughts, and this time was no different; despite the surging ocean of emotion within, I could not speak.

“What’s the matter, are you mute?”

“Please, Kan’emon. We can only guess at the pain this boy has gone through. It is his character to be circumspect, a trait we could all perhaps benefit from.”

Kan’emon gave a humph, and turned to me. “You couldn’t survive one night, how do expect to survive nine?”

I looked at Yobutomo, not understanding. Kan’emon’s gaze flicked between the two of us.

“He doesn’t even know of the nine days of stillness?” he asked.

“The kaihogyo trials are not only about movement,” explained Yobutomo to me. “In the final year, the monk must survive nine days without food, without water, and without sleep.”

Kan’emon’s voice softened as he approached and lowered his massive frame upon one knee, his motions ponderous. “You fail to understand how difficult these trials are. After ten days without food or water, all will perish, that is certain. Indeed, in times past, nearly every monk attempting it died before the period was reduced to nine days. You must understand that extreme starvation pushes even the strongest of men to the very brink of death.”

“I may die,” I said, the words coming slowly and with difficulty. “But I might also live. I want to take this chance, or else leave this place and find my own fate.”

“If you leave, Nobushige the assassin will find you,” Yobutomo said.

“Then let me begin.”

“Now is no time to begin seven years of commitment to this place. With the coming war, it is not safe,” said Kan’emon.

“Oda is still many years distant,” Yobutomo interrupted. I felt a surge of relief that he had taken up my cause, even if momentarily. “He needs years to gather enough strength to march on Kyoto.”

“The demon’s territory grows by the month,” said Kan’emon. “Lord Date has aligned himself with Oda, and now, despite decades of hostility between them, the house of Matsudaira Motoyasu has also joined the growing alliance. Oh yes, Oda has strength enough. The prize of Kyoto draws him. Only there, from the Emperor himself, may he gain recognition for installing a Shogun of his own choosing, a puppet to his will, and once he has taken the city he will not suffer the thorn of Mount Hiei in his side. It is then that we will most surely suffer the focus of his ruthless brutality.”

“The martial strength of Enryaku-ji is well known,” said Yobutomo. “Even emperors dare not oppose the warrior monks.”

Kan’emon shook his head. “Oda Nobunaga dares, and it is the zeal of the warrior monks that may very well be its undoing! For years, we have made the most of our position of power; if ever we found dispute with any of the Emperor’s decisions we have descended into the city and marched through the streets until our wishes are granted. I have seen it for myself; it has made the city weak. It will not take much for it to fall into Oda’s hands.”

“Then what are you suggesting? That we leave?”

“No. I have given you my word that I will protect the boy. But understand me clearly; embarking upon the seven year trial now is out of the question.”

“Then I cannot stay,” I said.

Kan’emon’s fist crashed down upon the low table, launching the assortment of parchments and pots and quills into the air. “Open your ears and listen! This argument is going in circles. We don’t want you dead.”

“I am already dead.”

Kan’emon had turned his back, and I saw the two men exchange glances.

“Seven years,” Yobutomo said. “That may work to our advantage.”

Kan’emon pursed his lips and huffed in what sounded like reluctant acquiesce.

Yobutomo approached me.

“Should you begin, I cannot help you. Do you understand? You will have no one to help you. Not only am I overdue at Mount Haguro, but the trials must be done alone.”

I nodded with certainty, clinging to my resolve even though it seemed my world was dropping away around me.

“For seven years you must run the course alone, mostly in the darkness before dawn. Despite everything, sickness, injury, fatigue, you must continue. If you fail, you must die by your own hand.”

“I am not afraid,” I said.

Yobutomo smiled, those deep lines within his face easily accepting the expression as if formed solely for that purpose, his jet black eyes pools of beatific serenity. He was not fooled. “It is good to be afraid,” he said. “Without fear, there is no courage.”

Kan’emon’s pacing brought him around the room, where he stopped before me. He did not crouch, but spoke from where he stood, looking down his broad nose at me.

“No leniency will be permitted, do you understand? Not only must you run the course every day, but you must also take up studies and continue your usual tasks of maintaining the temple.” He paused, and then added, “Anytime within the first hundred days you may withdraw without penalty, and go back to your usual tasks. Neither I nor anyone else will look upon you with any less respect. Nothing more will be said of it.”

I could tell by the sharp look in his eye that he intended to make those days long and hard for me. I also saw a look of confidence; he knew that I would not last.

My bedding was moved to another room, a small narrow and dark place reserved for those undergoing the kaihogyo.

“It is a little dusty,” said the old monk who helped me relocate my scant possessions, his apology an understatement. The walls showed cracks that had opened to the elements, where leaves and dirt had blown in over time, pushed up in drifts against the corners. “Nobody has undertaken the kaihogyo in two years.”

He spoke as he swept the floor with a stiff broom, sending gusts of dust and leaves spiralling out of the open door.

“You know the way through the forest, boy?” he asked.

I made a small noise in the affirmative: the day after Kan’emon had accepted my proposal, Yobutomo had shown me the course I must run. It was an eighteen mile loop through the forest, punctuated by a score of small shrines along the way. Although it was but a fraction of the larger course that I must run in later years, it had taken several hours, and my muscles had ached for two days afterward.

The monk gave his broom a final flourish and straightened his back. “And you have the handbook?”

Again, I nodded, checking for the hundredth time that it still lay within my satchel, for I was told to keep it close and secret. It had taken me two days hunched over a desk to copy the characters from the original kept in Kan’emon’s library.

The monk gave a grunt, and helped me lay my thin mat upon the reeded flooring, as well as a candle and some flint. He brought from basket a folded white cloth which he lay upon the bed. He then withdrew a curious long and narrow rectangular hat that would extend out far past the face and back of the head, wide enough to cover only the width of the head, which he placed carefully atop the white cloth. Finally, next to these items, he placed a length of cord and a well-worn sheathed knife. His tasks completed, he paused and looked at me askant. He stood a little taller than me, despite the hunch to his back. “A watchman will call the hour of the Ox, just after midnight, to awaken you,” he said. He studied me a moment, then added: “I wish you better fortune than the last few men who were here.”

With that final remark, he took his leave.

I sat for a time in the growing dark of that room. Finally, I moved to pick up the white cloth. It felt slick under my fingers, the cotton as finely woven as those imported from across the western sea. A shiver traced my spine as I shook it out, for, unlike the robes of the other monks, who wore traditional black, this robe was bleached entirely white. It was the colour of death.

There was a noise and a sudden inrush of air as the door opened, startling me from my reverie.

“Would you take a short walk with me, Tonbo?” Yobutomo asked.

I nodded quickly, welcoming the interruption, and crossed the floor, found my shoes, and went outside.

Yobutomo was already walking slowly away, and I hurried those few steps to catch up. He smiled with fond sadness as I joined him at his elbow, as if his thoughts were far away. Fluttering moths swarmed under lanterns strung under eaves that cast gentle pools of light like islands in the deepening shadows. Yobutomo did not speak, and I simply followed his steady pace, keeping close to his side, feeling very much a small boy. We seemed to be moving to a quiet area, where the noises of activity of the bustling temple complex receded into the background. At last, we came to a low stone wall, where Yobutomo stopped, and placed his palms upon the top. Here the sound of insects chorusing was louder than that of anything else.

“I was very lonely when I first came here, as a young man,” he said, looking over the wall. “This place used to bring me comfort.”

I peered over the edge of the waist high wall and saw a small pond. The clouded sky overhead made it almost impossible to see the quiet, inky surface. The smell of standing water was heavy in the air. Yobutomo answered my unspoken question.

“This is the mirror pond,” he said. “When a loved one has passed from this earth, they may in some manner have a window upon us here.”

I glanced at Yobutomo. My eyes has grown used to the darkness, yet his expression remained hidden. I wet my lips, and spoke.

“You have completed the trials,” I said.

Yobutomo was looking back into the mirror pond, and when he spoke again, his voice was laden with a heavy sadness.

“I was a proud man, full of hubris and arrogance, as only a samurai can be. Like my father and his father before him, I served the family of my Lord, and I did it with all of my heart. I devoted myself entirely to the art of battle and to service.” He paused, his eyes still upon the surface of the water.

“That part of me feels like a dark dream, and even as an old man, with the past far behind me, it is still difficult to talk. But I leave tomorrow, and I don’t know if I will return, and I want you to know this about me.”

His voice seemed to come as part of the forest, barely louder than that of the singing insects. I glanced in his direction, and he too looked at me, and I nodded jerkily.

He drew in a breath and expelled it slowly.

“I had a wife, and a child - a boy - almost two years old… I didn’t spend much time with him, but on occasion, he would smile up at me with pure and unrestrained joy, and it would bleed a little light into my ironclad heart. He was always so calm, even when he could run, he would move with careful certitude, unlike the unbound flailing of other children I had seen. There was a hidden depth in his eyes, a kind of wisdom… You remind me so much of him,” he said, and looked at me with a fond, sad smile. “One evening I came home from my Lord’s training ground. Things had not gone well that day; I had been reprimanded for some slight, a minor infraction the details of which I forget, and I was brooding and angry with myself. I ate sullenly the food my wife prepared, hardly tasting it, and made preparations to sleep. I do not recall how, but all I can remember is my boy’s cries that night – he would not be quiet. I was so tired, all I wanted was to rest, but there was that incessant whine. My wife slept soundly at my side, I wondered how she could sleep through such noise.” Yobutomo huffed breath through his noise and his mouth turned up wryly. “I guess she too was exhausted.”

Yobutomo ran his hand along the top of the stone, feeling its smoothness, tracing its curves with his fingers.

“At last, I got up to attend the child. My temper in those days was quick to rise, and a white-hot frustration was running in my veins. Something was bothering him, and nothing I could do would calm him. He was not used to being with me, and wailed for his mother, fractious and thrashing in my arms. I… I slapped him, a backhand blow…” Yobutomo’s voice quavered and he swallowed, and shook his head. “I knew instantly what I had done, and my cries must have awoken my wife. How can something be so delicate, so fragile, that life can be snuffed so very easily…?”

Yobutomo reached into his waist sash and withdrew his wakizashi, the dagger traditionally twinned with the larger katana, the blades of the samurai. He handled it carefully with both hands, and laying it flat upon the stonework.

“That moment of temper changed my entire life. I tried to fool myself into thinking things could be repaired, my ridiculous samurai pride swelled my head, refusing to believe I could be at fault. With nothing to assuage my guilt, I was a weak man hiding behind harsh words, and I blamed my wife, I told her she had spoilt our boy, made him soft. Day by day our misery grew, my wife became quieter and quieter. After her suicide, I had nothing, and I woke up to myself and realised the demon I had become. I sat, alone in that small room, and prepared myself for harakiri, ritual suicide, seated with the point of my sword at my gut, tensing to rip my innards out. There would be no reprieve; I had nobody standing at my side to behead me once I made the cut, nobody to bring a swift and painless end. My death would be writhing agony. My guilt and shame deserved only that.”

Yobutomo picked up the wakizashi again, and withdrew a handspan of its length from the sheath. Clouds overhead had parted, and starlight glistened coldly from the mirrored surface.

“This blade, and its companion katana,” he said, “Belonged to my father and his father before him. Both were forged by a master craftsman, they do not break. Yet as I pulled the katana toward me, the blade hit the folds of my robe at my stomach and separated neatly from the haft, and all I held was the harmless handle. It is simply not possible for the katana to break clean like that – the blade runs into the grip.

“I grabbed furiously at the blade that lay on the floor. At first, there was no pain, but everything went wet and slippery in my grasp. I couldn’t hold the blade, and it felt again to the floor. Then I saw the blood.” Yobutomo turned the fingerless pad of his right hand over before his eyes, studying it in the starlight as if it were something he had just discovered, flexing and cupping the palm and curling his thumb. The stumps moved only fractionally, useless nubs of flesh.

He said, “For a time, I just watched as the pool of blood grew larger, and then the pain crept up my arm. With that fresh agony I realised that there would be no easy escape for me, it was a sign that I would have to pay for my crimes. I staunched the flow of blood with rags, and knotted it tight about the club of my right hand with my left hand and teeth. I fled the castle that night in shame. I left almost everything; the broken katana, my armour, my gold, and took only the clothes on my back and this wakizashi, the blade to forever remind me of what I had done. I struck out into the wilderness, looking for something to kill me.”

Yobutomo raised his head, bringing himself out of his reverie, and swept his gaze from left to right. “Eventually, I found this place. And I learnt of the trials, and in a manner of speaking, it did kill me. When I completed them I was a new man. With nothing else to hold me, I did it again. Fourteen years of running through the forests scoured my soul.”

Yobutomo’s eyes met mine, and he held my gaze. His hand touched my shoulder, held it firmly.

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, drew a breath, and said; “I will live with that bitter seed of my past for every day of my life. It is something that can never be forgiven, but I have come to allow it to be part of my past, not a burden, but to let it shape who I am today. Like I once did, I hope that in the kaihogyo you will find self-acceptance.”

I hardly slept that night, and lay awake hearing every small noise. Every time I dipped into sleep my thoughts would return to what lay ahead, and a rush of nerves would shoot my eyes open to the darkness.

At last the hour came for me to rise, when the night was at its deepest, the temple bell tolling a single time. I slipped from my bedding, the night air holding a chill edge. I fumbled with the flint until I had the candle lit and by its tiny flickering light I made my preparations. My straw sandals were inside the door, rather than at the genkan vestibule near the door of the house. I roped them on while sitting on the low pad of my bed. The wrongness of it wrenched my heart more that I would have expected; donning shoes inside the room symbolised that the running monks had no intention of returning.

It seemed the entire world was my own as I stood on the doorstep, hesitating to place my foot down into the earth. My toes, sockless and naked in flimsy straw sandals, were already numb with cold, the joints in my knees and hip ached, the rising sun yet hours away. In the faint light of the half-moon, the quietude of the forest seemed ominous, its hidden ghosts and spirits of those long dead. The vast dome of the night sky overhead echoed the loneliness in my soul, yet in that boundless distance I found liberation.

Something shifted inside of me, a settling of a load. In that moment, I was not suddenly a changed man, struck with courage in a grand moment of realisation; it was more like enough small stones had collected to swing the almost perfect balance between those forces pushing me backwards and forward. It was with a gentle tipping that I let go of the tangle of conscious thoughts, stepping forward: one step, two, three, until I had built a rhythm, jogging at a steady pace, my head level, shoulders relaxed, nose and navel aligned, plunging directly into the depths of that dark forest.

Beneath that canopy, my fears evaporated, and I ran.

Chapter Twenty Three

I know that I dream.

My feet track the irregularities of the forest floor as the trail rises and falls. My centre of being is floating flat and even as my legs accommodate irregularities. The sandal of each foot kisses the ground but a moment, landing forefoot first and then kicking back high. In the soft sections of mud small pools of brown water have collected in the footprints of others, in other sections the ground is loamy and yielding, or hard and slippery with gravel, under the trees a heaving hopelessly twisted blanket of roots. I move over all with a feeling removed from reality yet connected to the forest; the way the sunlight flashes through the trunks of the trees as I run is my heartbeat, the wind rushing past my ears like that of uppermost branches sighing in a breeze. My breathing is in time with my steps; an inhalation over one-two-three strides, deep and long into the lowest part of my lungs, expelled in one stride as it starts to burn. Again, again, again.

This is no ordinary dream.

Some part of me can still feel my body, reciting mantras in the lotus position in the room stuffy with incense smoke. My eyes are still open, and I know that if I shake myself even a fraction I can bring myself back, but I don’t want to, I want to see where this vision is taking me. I relax.

Then I am in a clearing and I realise I’m almost there; the five-storied pagoda.

It is mid-summer, the snow-laden branches of the pine trees of my memory replaced by verdant green. The worn flagstones leading to the base of the pagoda are grey and dry like rounded islands in a sea of grass. Bright patches of sunlight cast deep shadows beneath each of the five roofs, leaving but vague hints of the intricate carvings in the cypress beams.

I stand in the shade listening to the chorus of cicadas, lost in thought, aware that their distinctive song marks the season as the height of summer. I feel light inside, blades of grass beneath my soles springing upward as the weight upon my feet lessens. I drift upwards into the canopy and see the enormous thickness of the thatched roof, even more striking from my vantage among the trees. It sits in the shade of the forest, every door and window thrown open to the sticky summer air. There is a young monk I don’t know dressed in the yellow and white of the yamabushi at the temple stairs, bent in some task. I can’t see his face as I fly silently overhead, seeing only the top of his head and his shoulders.

Something is drawing me around the back of the temple, as water is drawn towards a hole in a bucket. My thoughts darken, realising that hole is the small graveyard at the rear of the temple. Tall wooden rods stand upright in metal caskets where the ceramic pots containing the ashes of the dead lay, the painted characters on the rods faded in varying degrees corresponding to their age, inscribing the new names given to the dead. One particular painted rod, although seemingly identical stacked among its peers, somehow distinguishes itself like a familiar face in a crowd. The sinkhole into which all things are draining is centred upon this marker, and as I am drawn closer, I see the words marked on the rod and my heart gives a tight squeeze within my chest. I know it instantly, for elements of Hatano’s name in life have been incorporated into the eight characters of his posthumous name. The ink is not among the newest of those here; already his death is a part of the past.

There is a presence at my shoulder, I can feel it close, a drowned boy trying to speak, grabbing at my shoulder, mouth open, but instead of words he can only cough gouts of water as cold and sharp as a winter stream.

With a start, I snap back to reality. My eyes are still open and they refocus on the shrine before me. I realise I have stopped reciting the mantra and the monk at my side casts a sharp look of reproach.

I shake myself. It is only the second day of the period of stillness, I still have another seven to endure. Memories come flooding back of the dinner I had with the other monks before it began; a farewell feast in case I did not survive. A great array of delicacies covered the table; battered tofu and bonito flakes, shitake mushroom, pickled eggplant and baked river fish. Following Kan’emon’s advice, I had eaten sparely, only a few token mouthfuls and a sip of water, despite the allure of the meticulously prepared dishes. I had been long in preparing for this moment, tapering down my meals, and paradoxically, to gorge myself in the final feast would mean certain failure. I had made the prostrations before the shrine, the guests had departed, and I had begun.

Two days, I reflect once again as my mouth moves of its own accord as I chant the mantras, my mind free to wander. My stomach is a constant pit of hollowness and thirst has dried my throat, but I feel in control of both; it is the lack of sleep that is beginning to turn my head, visions of my brother invading reality.

Of the days, weeks and years of running itself, most has melded into a continuous flow and I remember only fragments over the years, preserved as vignettes of memory. As I sit and mediate, I recognise the importance of reflection. It is only in moments of quiet reflection can we truly make the most of experiences, to integrate our memories into who we are and shape what we become. Without such introspection, life is a flash of fleeting sensation that cannot become form or substance.

I bathe myself in memories of the softness of fallen leaves underfoot as summer drew to an end, as the forest changed to a bright display of reds and gold. My pulse quickens with the exhilaration of recalling fierce storms that lashed the upper branches, debris littering the path, the skies bellowing ground-shaking rolls of thunder. On occasion, earthquakes would shake me from my sleep, the windows of the temple rattling and rallying in their frames, and the whole wooden structure of aching and groaning for interminably long breaths.

I hold those precious moments of memory when the forest gave me its gifts: the rush of awe upon seeing a stag rushing down the hill and into my path, crashing onto the trail for an instant, quivering, all muscle and grandeur, before launching down again, headlong through the forest. Another time I had been passing an escarpment, and, sensing something, turned to see in the shadows of the night a bear, huge and magnificent, looking over its shoulder at me with entrancing placidity, bleeding away my fear so that I simply stood watching for long moments, until at last I slowly backed away.

There were times my whole body ached and cried out for rest, yet taken one day at a time, I have overcome. The light of the moon, and the multitude of chirping, rustling and moving lives within the forest had been a calming and buoying balm.

I ran through the mountains, my vast course extending year by year. I have come to learn the famous four characteristics of Mount Hiei monastery: incessant study, high humidity, freezing cold, and poverty. True to his word, Kan’emon made those first one-hundred days a living hell, yet my fortitude held. Against all expectations, I was given permission to continue, embarking upon the unbreakable vow.

For seven years I have run the paths around the mountain; seven blocks of one-hundred days of constant motion, of shivering cold and sweltering heat. A routine of constant physical and mental exertion, of sleeping less than four hours a night to awake at midnight, strapping on woven straw sandals that had to be made new every day. For the first four years I ran with bare feet in the sandals, my toes overhanging the lip and open to the mud of summer monsoons and ice of winter snows. It was only in the fifth year that I was permitted split-toe socks to protect my feet. I carried the rope and blade at all times, and every morning I tied them to my belt it reminded me of my oath; the cord for hanging, and the knife for self-disembowelment should I lack the courage to continue.

I wore the characteristic narrow rectangular hat of the running monks. My studies told me it represented enlightenment, the shape of a lotus leaf breaking the surface of water. I soon saw in it a more practical function: it kept the branches and rain out of my eyes, yet was narrow to fit between trees. This practicality was surely no accident, and it made me smile, feeling a stirring of kinship to those monks who had gone before me.

I developed the kind of gait I had seen in Yobutomo; short quick steps, upper body held erect, not so fast as to draw laboured breath, but neither was it languid; a pace able to be maintained for hours on end, eating away at the distance.

At the end of each day’s arduous circuit I would take up broom and mop to work the various tasks of temple upkeep, a small bowl of rice and soup, tofu and vegetables for my midday meal. Then my studies would begin, and I would pour myself into the books, my eyes blurring at times, fighting fatigue, as I laboriously deciphered each character in my mind, thankful that Master Nobushige had instructed me not only in the common alphabet of the so-called “woman’s hand”, but also some of the Chinese characters used by officialdom and the educated.

As the days shortened I ran though the frost, rain and snow. Although I was already well accustomed to being in my own company, long periods of walking through the dark trails forced me to become comfortable with myself. It was no easy thing, for often that inner voice in my head would torment me, a monologue playing in my head criticising everything, and I came once again to doubt myself. More than once, I saw the ghost of my brother racing along the path before me, laughing playfully, flitting between trees, as real to my eyes as every other creature in the forest. These heart-wrenching visions brought with them thoughts of Yuki, and the image of her severed head upon a spike often haunted my dreams. These were the times I missed Yobutomo the most. I wished quite selfishly that he had not departed so soon after I had begun my trials, returning to his home of Mount Haguro. The sting of isolation is two-edged, such terrible loneliness that strikes so bitterly into the very core of my being, yet if I embrace it, I find strength and truth in Yobutomo’s words: It only when one is solitary can we find enlightenment, only through deprivation can we find truth.

In the sixth year, my course took me through the magnificence of the forest, along the steep ridge of the Kirara slope overlooking Kyoto. I started at midnight and the thirty six miles I ran every day took me almost fourteen hours to complete, leaving me but little time to rest and eat. It pushed my body to extremes of endurance, but I was able to focus entirely upon each moment and each step and was never miserable, even in my most desperate hour. It is odd that the old proverbs take on such significance in times of extreme, and that time the one always in my thoughts was: Even dust amassed will grow into a mountain.

There were two blocks of one-hundred days in the seventh year; the first, fifty two miles per day included eighteen miles around Mount Hiei, six miles of the Kirara slope, and an extended twenty seven miles around the flat lands of Kyoto city, through the outskirts of the city. Not only was the circuit vast, but it included obligatory stops at two hundred and sixty stations of worship. This I did every single day, reversing the course on alternating days, for one hundred days.

I knew that the Warlord Oda now swept west, conquering all in his path, coming closer and closer to the capital. The Rokkaku clan, allies to the monks of Enryaku-ji, had resisted the advance, but Oda led his army on to a rapid and decisive attack. Oda brought with him Yoshiaki, the brother of the murdered thirteenth Shogun, whom he would make Shogun if given the chance to enter the capital. Reports from afar told news that Oda had taken to using a new seal; characters that read Tenka Fubu: One realm under one sword.

The sense of impeding battle lay upon the land. The warrior monks drilled in the yard with fervour, the thousands-strong army practising swordplay and the firing of arquebuses, their shouts and cries and echoing shots of their practise a constant drone throughout the entire temple complex.

I sensed the unease in the streets of the city of Kyoto also. It was a strange sensation; all those living there knew war is almost upon then, yet they went about their daily tasks, choosing to ignore what is obvious, for they do not want to leave their homes. I find I am not so different to the townspeople; I too shrugged away the feeling of the coming war, for I could not let anything distract me from my goal of completing the trials.

Although my prescribed course saw me come into close proximity with all manner of people, I moved through them as if I did not exist. It was not so different to running through the trees and dense forest, for in both I am alone and free. I saw myself as they must see me, a true mountain monk: wearing the elongated straw hat, pure white robes, and split-toed socks, my gait even and smooth, head forward, upright, flying without obstruction.

It was not only that itch of war, however, that had set my nerves upon edge. There was something else, a certain nagging feeling that I could not place.

As if the city held a ghost for me.

It had been early morning, more than one year ago. I remember it clearly - the sky just hinting at dawn, suffused with a gentle pink light, as I ran through the broad, nearly deserted streets. As I passed through an intersection I happened to glance to my right and saw the back of a tall-wheeled courtesan’s cart, emblazoned with a motif of cranes and bamboo leaves. It was not unusual to see the women of the night returning from customer’s houses at this early hour, yet something drew my eye, and I slowed my steps to watch. The runner lay down the poles he had been pulling and ran his forearm across his face, a white sweatband knotted about this forehead and a light sleeveless top darkened by sweat. He moved around the side of the cart and opened the low door, aiding a young woman dressed in a rich gown of red and gold from the compartment. The runner moved quickly to ensure her comfort, while the woman’s movements were in contrast measured and graceful, holding herself with perfect poise. The gown hugged her slender and shapely body, the wide collar exposing her neck, her coiffure shining like a heavy black stone, bound up high and held by comb. She bowed her head in thanks to her driver and paused a moment, head cocked as if she had heard something, and she looked up. Her eyes met mine, and a tiny smile, no more than a delicate upturn at the corner of her painted red lips, set a physical jolt through me.

It was Yuki.

Yuki looked away, and like the flashing of a silver fish in a swift stream, stepped into the building. I could not tear my eyes away as the runner stood, pivoting the whole handcart upright about the two high wheels and hauling upon the poles under his arms. Moments later, he has turned a corner and disappeared, and I am alone.

I remember running a shaking hand over my face, fear quaking my limbs, a rising dread in my mind: Must I always be haunted by spirits of those who have been murdered at my hand? Not only must I see the ghost of my brother Takatora, but now Yuki must also flit into my thoughts.

I lingered there a while, watching the house that the courtesan had disappeared into. There were no lights or movements from within. For a moment, I played with the idea of going up to that door and presenting myself, to chase after my demon, to prove to myself it had simply been a trick of the light. Perhaps things may have turned out differently had I done so; perhaps she would have looked similar enough to Yuki for me to quench my rising urges. I do not deny that I felt a base desire come surging through my body, fearful in its strength.

I shook myself. The weight of my vow and trials precluded such carnal thoughts. I could not afford to have my head become muddy with confusion and sorrow, and to unearth the graves of the past. Were I to see that courtesan again, surely, the differences would become all-too apparent, and I would be reminded that Yuki was gone.

I can almost hear her voice…

My head nods forward and I start from my reverie. Although my eyes are still open, for a moment, I don’t know where I am. A headache bunches at the base of my neck, radiating pain. I feel every muscle hanging from my face, feeling as if it has been flayed of skin.

Then I remember: the nine days of deprivation, where failure means death.

I glance to my left, where a monk works the shift to keep me awake. It is two hours past midnight, at the hour of the Ox. He nods his head almost imperceptibility, and signals it is time to take the water ritual for the third time.

Hours of sitting unmoving upon my legs has made them tingle with weakness and cramp as I stretch them before me. I move slowly, incrementally straightening feeling that it is impossible that they can bear my weight, but after some time I am able to get them beneath me and stand. I shuffle out of the room heavy with incense and into the bracing mountain air towards the well. There, under the watchful eye of the monk, I take a mouthful of water from the cup, rinsing my mouth slowly and deliberately, keeping my attention focused. I know if I relax, primal instincts will take over and I will not be able to stop from swallowing to slake my crying thirst. I linger a little longer until my resolve begins to weaken then spit the water back into the cup. The monk moves closer, inspecting the cup to ensure that the level remains as before. Satisfied, he nods.

I am told the water taking ritual is necessary to stop the mouth adhering permanently closed: another lesson discovered by painful experience from early practitioners. I wonder if my willpower will be strong enough to stop from swallowing in the coming days. As I walk back to the temple, my steps have regained a little more strength, and the third day of the trials begins.

It is several hours later that the weakness takes me. It has remained silent, lurking, and when it strikes it does so with surprising rapidity, taking me off-guard, robbing me of my inflated sense of confidence. I realise I had been a fool, thinking the seven years of strenuous activity had hardened my body and strengthened my mind. It seems my subconscious, my most base self, has rebelled against my conscious mind. Deprived of sustenance, it has waited long enough, and demands action. My senses are becoming sharper, and I can smell food being prepared somewhere distant, carried upon the breeze. I can even smell the moisture and food on the breath of the monk who sits motionless at the far end of the room up against the wall. I study him from the corner of my eye, and his form shimmers and flickers before my eyes. It is only when I look at him askant do I see it, but I fancy I can see his true shape; he is no man, he is a tengu: a crafty beast of black feathers, half-dog, half-raven, a harbinger of death. His shadow looms huge against the squared paper wall, bristles raised in the massive arched curl of his back, rising and falling with each foul breath. My thoughts turning to schemes how I can trick him and escape. I reject the notion of trying to overpower him, tengu have the strength of twenty men. My mind flashes with what he will do to me, the images horribly graphic: those claws cutting away at the white net of root-bound nerves of my skinless skull, the orbs of my lidless eyes spinning.

I gasp for air.

My only choice is to simply stand and flee into the forest, and hope my legs, folded so long in the lotus position, do not fail me. If I run deep and long enough, there is a chance he will not find me. I picture myself dropping to my knees and bring cupped hands brimming with chill clear mountain water to my mouth. It would only take a few great gulps and my body would once again be mine.

I blink. The monk is a man again, and I rein in control of my thoughts, shaken at how vivid and how urgent the urge to take flight had been. Such was the reality of the vision I cannot help but take another look at the monk, lingering and studying him for so long that he eventually sensed my gaze, raising his head and meeting my eyes. I break contact and resume my head forward position, facing directly towards the shrine. I blink again, my eyelashes seeming to stick and only just breaking free to open halfway. I closed my eyes again, resting the dry surface in the balm of blackness behind closed lids. I held that position with held breath, basking in the delicious feeling of rest. All I needed were a few seconds, just to snatch a little rest…

I snap alert as my nodding head jerks me back from sleep, startled at how my emotions swirling from extreme to extreme; from a moment of pure terror and readiness to run, to the heaviness of deep sleep. I began to feel the very real concern that I cannot do this, that I have made a terrible mistake.

My thoughts keep returning to food and water that entire day. I sense the sun moving through the sky but can see no shadow in this cloistered room heavy with incense and stillness. My back starts to ache and, although I struggled not to, I have to shift my position upon the mat more than a few times. The excruciating pain of sitting motionless overwhelms my mind until every part of my body is screaming. I develop a headache and pass the rest of that day and into the night feeling miserable and knowing that surely I could not survive a further four days of this.

Abruptly the monk by the wall stands and tells me in a soft voice that it is time for the water ritual. I shake my head, seeing that it is a different man to before; I had not noticed that they had swapped shifts.

On the fourth day, I feel no hunger, and on the fifth I have no saliva and can taste blood in my mouth. Fatigue claws constantly at my mind and I break free with starts that crack the hardened layer of quick-setting crust. Keeping my awareness is a constant struggle, and each time I ease my guard I am drawn back down again where things solidify. My eyes feel like they are rasping over grains of sand and lifting my eyelids is a conscious effort increasing fuelled by desperation. It is a long searing battle, a terrible light fluttering of defiance before a foe that does not relent. I can feel life bleed from my body, every ridge of the sun-bleached driftwood of my ribcage exposed as the tide of my flesh ebbs, my skin stretching like waxed paper.

In my seven years of running the sacred course about the mountain, I had found escape from myself. Here, I am forced to confront my fears and weakness. I find myself wondering if Yuki suffered as she died. No matter how my morbid thoughts dwell upon the pain, I cannot picture her decapitated head mounted atop a pike; that image of gruesome death is incongruous to the image I hold of her in my mind that cannot be reconciled.

I flip back to the present. My senses are as keen as the pain of running a finger down the edge of a knife blade. I can hear the soft avalanche of ash falling from the incense sticks burning in the altar before me. I can taste on the back of my tongue the mingled scents of far-distant food, a sharp contrast to the fetid stench of acidic decay of my own breath. I can feel the touch of beams of starlight angling through the single high window of the room. All have deserted me, and I will surely die, and not a single soul will mourn my passing from this world.

Suddenly a thunderous crashing breaks the moment, the fluttering of papery wings. My heart constricts, my breathing stops, a flush comes over my body as that bat struggles to free itself from the corner of the room. It is impossible. How did it get inside?

The monk on duty to watch me springs to his feet in alarm. There is a brief commotion as he rushes to throw a blanket over the bat, at last capturing it, and holding the bundle lightly as he takes it outside.

I am alone in the room.

I am still shaken. I try to tell myself it is only an accident, but I cannot shake the chill. The air temperature has lurched sharply down into winter, frosting the surfaces in a film of condensation. Footsteps sound upon the tatami mats at my back. Footsteps that squelch with water.

I am still sitting cross-legged. The skin at my back crawls and I know he is here. Everything dims. In a state beyond panic I do not move as he comes toward me and I hear his footsteps patter closer and then I see him, his hair plastered to his face, his clothes clinging wetly to his body. In the years since his death I have grown and he has stayed a small boy, frozen in time. Although I sit, his face is level with mine.

My tongue is thick and heavy in my mouth, swollen ten times its size, my words slurred. “No. You are dead.”

“I am your memories, constructed by your dreams. But you did not kill me.”

He reaches out. I shrink back, but he advances rapidly. The touch of his hand upon my shoulder is a jolt of power.

In a rush, I am back in my boy’s body. I am standing waist deep in the river, Takatora’s face is underwater, and I am pulling him to the surface, dragging his body towards the muddy bank. Things are subtly different, more real, as if I had dug into black soil and had unearthed the hard edge of a truth long buried.

“All your life you have sought to find your place,” says Takatora in that same voice I now realise I had never forgotten. “You blinded yourself. What do you truly remember of that day in the river? Your true memories, not what you were told.”

“We were fighting, I pushed you, and you slipped and fell into the water, and I fell after you. I was so angry that I kept pushing you – ”

“No, that’s Nobushige’s story. That was not what killed me.”

“The arrow,” I said in a moment of sudden clarity. I saw it then; it had hit Takatora in the back, the metal arrowhead pieced through his chest and tearing a hole in his tunic. The blow had swept him from the riverbank and cast him into the waters below. In a rush I leapt into the sluggish brown waters, raising Takatora to the surface, his body twitching and thrashing in a way that scared me so much I almost dropped him.

“It was a raid,” I say slowly.

Takatora nods. “The Date clan attacked our village, slaughtered everyone but for a few young children who were taken back to the castle as servants.”

“But I saw our father, he was so angry at me. Master Nobushige, he was on his horse at the riverbank, he saved me.”

“Was it anger or desperation in our father’s eyes?”

I hesitate. Once again, I am atop Nobushige’s horse, covered by his cloak, hauled up impossibly high, our father’s face contorted as he runs after me. I am looking back, confused and breathless, watching as my father is intercepted and felled by a foot soldier who runs him through with a lance.

“Forgive yourself. Shut down that inner voice of torment. You have the strength, my brother, and you are not alone.”

There is a shifting to the air, the room temperature rockets back up and the lanterns which had guttered to a feeble glow burst back into life, casting a warm soft light. My brother is gone. The monk returns from outside, shaking the empty blanket. He pauses, looking suspiciously at twin impressions of dark dampness in the tatami by my side where Takatora stood. I think he is about to speak, but just as his mouth opens from outside comes the tolling of the temple bell signalling midnight.

It is time for the water ritual.

The monk shakes his head, his eyes narrowed and I sense he has put aside the mystery for the moment. He indicates I should stand.

I nod, bring my legs out in front of me then bending one knee at a time, and moving my weight forward. I raise myself carefully and slowly, feeling the world spin. I cannot shake my brother’s words from my head. His presence had been chill, yet I cannot deny the bolstering of my spirits. The truth of that day has always been within.

The walk from the hall which had taken but minutes the first night now takes an eternity. I wonder how much time is passing as I shuffle forward, and wonder at the patience of the monk at my shoulder. My small mincing steps are filled with riling thoughts, confusion mixed with the myriad aches of my starving body that skirts close to death, every sensation heightened to giddying heights. In the moment of realisation I feel a profound shift in the seating of my soul.

I did not kill him, I think. I did not kill him.

I step outside the temple and the instant my foot eases over the threshold into the bracing mountain air my head clears. Laden with smells of the earth and forest the wind seemingly rushes through my lungs as if they were clearing out a long shuttered and musty room and I feel the pores of my skin opening up, absorbing water from the dew hanging in the air. This is why Takatora had long haunted me - he wanted me to know the truth.

I am released.

I am suddenly aware a silent crowd has gathered upon the path up ahead, about the well. They stand still, yet my senses are so sharp I hear the individual threads of their clothing catching and rustling as they breath, their overpowering scent of vitality and life. I wonder why they are here.

I move towards them, achingly slow yet my body can go no faster, and as I approach they part before me, creating a corridor. I do no look up or seek anyone’s eye; purged of all desires and thought, my emptiness is a keen and painful thing. The wood of the well is worn smooth by an age of hands as I place my palms upon it.

I take the ceramic cup and reach down, filling it from the waters. I hold it to the light of the midnight moon, its surface rippling, tantalising. I take some water into my mouth, rinsing, fighting that incredible urge to swallow. Every part of my body demands it, my mind skimming upon some strange plane, my thoughts fleeting wisps of cloud through which my body and its litany of demands perpetually tumble.

I shake myself, realising I still hold the water in my mouth. I wonder how long it has been, and am worried that I have swallowed some. That tumult of noises of the crowd is a constant assault to my ears; shifting upon their feet, the thunderous roar of their breath, the creaking of their bones and cartilage like some precession of rickety wagons. I carefully spit back into the cup, relived to see that the level is restored.

A familiar scent washes in with my next inhalation and am not startled by the distinctive timbre of the voice at my side. It is a voice I have not heard in three long and lonely years.

“It is over,” says Yobutomo. His hand rests lightly upon my shoulder. “Enryaku-ji no Tonbo.”

I turn and find that I have grown and Yobutomo and I are now of a height, my eyes level with his. They hold that same mischievous glint. That distance I had always felt between us vanishes and I raise my right hand and place it upon his right shoulder.

Where were parted as master and student, we are now brothers.

Chapter Twenty Four

There is a polite knock at the door and I look up as the new yukata is placed in a neat folded pile at the foot of my bed. The monk places next to it a steaming bowl of soup and retires.

My stomach revolts at the overpowering smells. For now, I will stay with the water. I take another sip that has melted. It dissolves in my mouth with a thousand quick needles, my body expanding like a dried sponge. The ice shavings have been taken from a sacred spring, and are all I can stomach for now.

I have not slept more than a handful of minutes, the night passing in a stop-start motion.

Standing there only in my fundoshi loincloth in the pre-dawn light I feel the skin stretch like a drum over the stacked rows of my ribs. I run a hand over my face, feeling the stubble on my chin and upper lip. I will need to go to the temple baths to shave, and I wonder what the others will think when they see my emancipated body.

I dress into the new clothing, a nondescript robe and belt, plain and unadorned. It feels good. It feels new. I cross the room to the folded white robes of death I have worn for the past seven years. They lie flat and exhausted, the once fine cloth torn in countless small places, stained and threadbare. The trappings I have had to carry those many years lay in a neat pile atop the white robes: the book of mantras, candles, a knife, and the black, sleek length of slender rope that had always seemed so repellent. Slowly, my mind is coming to accept that I do not need them anymore.

Over the next few days I rest and slowly feed my body. Everything seems stilled around me as I feel myself coming back to the world, my body gaining strength with every mouthful of food. Sleep is difficult to find, and the nights are long as I lay in my bed, my mind skipping far afield.

One morning I leave my room to find Yobutomo is there, waiting. I have not seen him since that last day of the trials. We do not need to speak to one another and with a grin we set out together, striking for the forest path.

I can’t help myself. It feels so good to be back on the trails again. There is not a more glorious time of the year; summer, early morning, just as the sun is rising. The air teems with life, of sound and of smell. Every twisted root and branch holds infinite complexity that, if I am not careful, captures my mind and draws me in deeper and deeper. Chest expanding, head level, feet light beneath me, it feels as if I am getting a small measure of my proper form back. I find that I have raised my pace from a brisk walk, approaching that steady, distance-devouring lope of the mountain-monk. Behind me, Yobutomo has matched his stride to mine.

I hear him give a cautioning reprimand, the first words he has spoken to me this morning.

“Do not push yourself.”

It makes me aware my breath is becoming laboured and I recall the teaching; to first control the breathing, and then control the mind. I force myself to slow, accepting that my body is not yet ready to move as it once did. As I slow I feel my mind calm. I let my thoughts drift as we run. I feel the atrophied muscles in my legs regaining a little of their strength as I move through the trail I know so very intimately, brushing past leaves and over roots as we descend the mountain. For so long have I run in isolation, alone for vast stretches of endless days upon days with my own thoughts, that it feels odd to be with another at my heels.

Suddenly, it is hard to keep my focus. Things blur, then go black, and I hear as if from far away Yobutomo calling, asking if I am alright.

I nod. My hand is against a tree, the world is spinning, my head light. It is hard to find balance.

“Take a moment to get your bearings,” Yobutomo says, joining me at my side. “Do you want to go back and rest?”

I find that I have stopped near a half-hidden shrine by the trailside, set within a profusion of hollyhocks. The small stone statues are overgrown by green moss, their red bibs faded, yet they seem animated into life by the star-shaped leaves of the hollyhocks shooting spires of white flowers as tall as man into the air. Beside the shrine is small marker where once, years ago, a nameless monk died while undergoing the kaihogyo.

It strikes me hard. I blink as the memories come flooding back.

“I was prepared to do it,” I breathe to myself in a voice so low that Yobutomo cannot hear it above the rushing of the wind in the trees overhead. I glance away from the shrine, and find him looking at me, concern creasing his brow.

“I used to wonder how it could be possible,” I say, in a voice louder this time so he can hear. “To have the determination to die rather than fail.”

I find I am sitting upon a gnarled root, my legs have weakened beneath me. Yobutomo finds a place on the root and sits beside me and we sit and stare forward at the forest together.

I find my voice, and say softly; “In the third year I became ill, a fever so bad it wracked the very breath from my lungs. Do you know the kind? Every bone and muscle and sinew ached, and I could not even look at food without my stomach coiling into a knot, and it seemed everything crawled with foul humors. I still remember that desperate feeling, that if only I could somehow disconnect my mind from my body, yet I could feel every stone underfoot and the prick of the air in my chest.”

I pause and draw breath. I find that unconsciously I have taken the sheathed knife from my belt and examine it, the leather thickened by repeated cycles of heat and dry until it has taken on its own form, melding to the contour of my body. I thought I had left it behind, atop of my white clothing, and I wonder why I have brought it with me. I glance up at Yobutomo and see he listens intently, but then drop my gaze. It is easier to talk if I simply look at the ground before me.

“I could go no further, and stopped on the trail, far into the dark of the forest and shin deep in snow,” I continue. “A far distant sun lit the forest with a grey half-light, and I remember the way my breath came out in plumes. Cramps came from deep within my stomach and I simply could not move for the pain, so I drew the knife from my belt and positioned it against my chest so that if I fell it would strike through my heart.

“I must have wavered there for a time, and I did indeed fall, but my ineptitude saved my life, for the knife struck at an angle and skidded away. I awoke much later, my cramps were better and I got to my feet, and managed to complete the day’s distance with less than an hour to spare. I did not sleep at all that night, and had to leave to run again after only a short break, but I was over the worst of it. I endured.”

I turn the knife over in my hands, and withdraw the blade from the sheath, reflecting upon the character it has imbued after it has been with me for so long. It is a quiet thing, unassuming, yet perfect in its simplicity and function.

“I thought it was courage - to die rather than fail. But is it? It is not just another form of coercion, an expectation from a structure we have boxed around ourselves? A blind amalgam that weakens the will of the individual; surely that is the very antithesis to the freedom we seek.”

Yobutomo breathes out through his nose, and says at last, “The moment the blade of my katana broke I questioned the easy escape so often praised by the samurai. Escape to the next life, preservation of honour, to ensure reincarnation of one’s soul.” He pauses, then shakes himself. “It may indeed by expectation of an external structure but nothing can live in isolation, and without complete devotion to the rules of such a system, we can never truly excel. The possibility of death lends the ultimate in compulsion to the drive for life.”

I try to take this into my mind, but the concepts feel like the gossamer silk of a spider web torn under the focus of my brutish thoughts. 

I am not sure if it is my imagination, but the air has a faint taste of distant smoke. I lift my head.

“Do you smell it?” I ask Yobutomo.

“Battle,” he says simply, his expression grave, as he stands with hands upon hips, head tilted and watching the breeze move the trees above us.

“It comes from Kyoto,” he says at last. “Something has happened this night.”

A noise bleeds through the forest; far off and on the very verge of hearing.

“What was that?” I ask after the sound slowly dies away.

Yobutomo’s brows furrow, holding his hand palm towards me, indicating that I be still. The noise comes again, a long mournful note of the conch shell coming from the temple complex atop the mountain. Our eyes meet. I nod carefully, indicating that I too recognise its origin. Yobutomo purses his lips.

“The war that all have feared comes to us at last.”

“War?”

“Much has happened during your fast. Oda has taken Kyoto,” he says simply.

I feel my heart give a lurch. “Was there bloodshed?”

“Little. Oda lured the heads of the clans out on the basis of a peace treaty, and massacred them where they stood. The Miyoshi clan have been driven from the city.” He glances up the hillside, then back at me. He speaks quickly, but calmly. “As we have expected, Oda has installed Yoshiaka as the new Shogun, but all know he is but a puppet. It is Oda who pulls the strings.”

Yobutomo opens his mouth to say more, but the distant conch shell sounds once more. He shakes his head, swallows what he was about to say, and instead states;

“We must return at once.”

Chapter Twenty Five

A hubbub of shouts grow steadily as we approach and my pulse quickens; I feel we are drawn by a power greater than our own rationality, impelled towards that call to arms of the conch shell. If the conch shell draws the heart, then it is the tolling of the great bell as it echoes over hills that draws the mind, each languid peel washing between my ears, driving out all other thought. We break free of the forest and into the clearing of the temple complex, and my senses reel.

In those few hours since we left Enryaku-ji that morning it has become a swarm of activity, warrior monks organising themselves into ranks, signal fires blazing thick black smoke, the noise of the conch shell and bell almost ear-splitting. Over their robes the monks wear lacquered plates of do-maru and yoroi armour covering their shoulders and chest, heavy shinguards atop split-toe sandals, some heads covered with cowls, others bald and gleaming with sweat. They bunch into groups, readying naginata, bows, swords and arquebuses. Boys haul upon the halters of lowing cattle, moving them into stalls to make room for the growing army, but the beasts feet are spread and refuse to move in the confusion. Clusters of women, wives and concubines with outstretched arms herd wide-eyed children towards the centre of the temple complex to take shelter in the main hall.

It is the first time I have seen such concerted co-operation between the camps, the swelling numbers growing into the thousands. I can only stand stock still, my eyes roving over the tumult, the obvious military power of the Buddhist army awe-inspiring. I see now how they must have struck terror into the hearts of their enemies.

Yobutomo ushers me forward, and we move through the activity. The ground underfoot has turned to mud and I stay close lest I be separated from him in the jostling crowd. We spot Kan’emon, bellowing orders, and angle our path toward him. He notices Yobutomo.

“The yamabushi returns!” he says. “I hope you are ready to fight?”

“What’s happening?”

“The Asakura and Azai clans call for aid!”

“They still fight?” An involuntary twitch flickers at the corner of Yobutomo’s mouth and for a moment I see something pass behind his eyes. “Surely they were crushed by Warlord Oda in the battle of Anegawa.”

Kan’emon shakes his head wryly. “It has been an entire year, and enough men must have survived, for they have regained their strength. An Asai messenger has arrived, with news of fresh battle. A council has been called, do you want to join, old friend?”

Yobutomo gives a quick nod, and Kan’emon turns and indicates with a quick brush of his hand.

“Come, follow me.”

We move quickly, following close to Kan’emon’s broad back as he makes for the main temple building, lumbering his fatty bulk like a bear.

“Anegawa… You were there,” I say to Yobutomo, with a certainty that is not a question.

Yobutomo does not look at me, keeping his attention instead focussed ahead as we walk briskly through the crowd. He pauses as a cart full of straw and armour crosses our path and we lose contact with Kan’emon momentarily, and only then does he stop and look at me.

“Too late, the yamabushi arrived, at the aftermath of the battle. We were too few, and could do little but hide in the forest, impotent to aid those who had fallen. We could only watch as the armies of Oda walked through the stench of smoke and dust, decapitating and collecting thousands of heads of their enemy. Countless men were killed that day, the rest of the army shattered upon the mountains…”

Our way has cleared, and Yobutomo hurries to catch up, but I stand immobile, my gaze drifting northwards towards the distant grey-upon-grey peaks. It is hard to imagine such momentous deeds had been played out on the other side of those slopes. One year ago, I was running paths through those mountains at the very time the battle was being fought; perhaps if I had climbed to a crest and looked north, I could have seen the movement of armies. Perhaps the air I breathed had held the smoke of those who had perished.

I find that Yobutomo and Kan’emon have slipped away into the crowd. I shake my head, for again that weakness and lightness of my body make me feel faint, but I force myself after them. The two men have taken great strides up the stone stairs of the largest temple building of the Hiei complex. I enter the cool dark within.

Kan’emon has been intercepted by Tomoe, and she matches her stride with his, her long cascade of jet black hair rippling over the surface of her light body armour. She casts a look behind and I flush red as her eyes move past me.

“Tomoe, is our army ready?”

Her voice is as melodious to my ears as her features are to my eyes. “We have a shortage of arrows, but they can march within the hour,” she says. “I can’t say as much for the rest.” Her gaze wanders over those assembled, the heads of the other sub-temples of Enryaku-ji.

Voices echo in the vast high ceilinged space, where the crowd has gathered. Finally, I see in the centre, almost forgotten, is an exhausted man, who drinks deeply from a large water gourd, drips running down his stubbled chin. The officious monks call at one another with such voice they do not notice the messenger wishes to say something.

“Quiet, you fools! Let him speak!” bellows Kan’emon. The commotion silences, freeing the air.

The messenger sets down his gourd, wipes his mouth and blinks hard, clearing his head. He wears the scraps of light armour, torn and bloody.

“We cannot delay any more,” he says. “We seek assistance now.”

“What is the news?” asks Yobutomo. “Quickly, tell us what happened.”

The messenger looks around, and sees that he is surrounded by new faces, so launches into his report from the beginning.

“We attacked before dawn of this day. Information came to us that Warlord Oda would be temporary absent from Kyoto, and it was decided then that we must seize the opportunity and swoop down from the north in revenge.”

“Without Oda to command them, the army is at its weakest,” says a breathless monk.

The messenger hangs his head. “If only it were so. Oda’s finest general, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, met our army near Sakamoto and drove us back into the hills, where we now retreat. I was sent to Mount Hiei, to seek the warrior monks, and ask for their assistance. A formal alliance between Hiei and the Asai and Asakura to take on Oda Nobunaga in a decisive battle.”

“Then we go to their aid!” shouts Kan’emon.

A tall, gaunt faced monk raises his hand. “But are we are ready? We have only just started production of the arquebuses.”

“We have copied the southern barbarian designs,” replies another monk, a squat man with a face blackened with soot.

“Such modesty! From what I have heard, you have made some improvements of your own,” interjects Kan’emon.

The monk gives a shrug. “In any case, our workshop has produced only nine-hundred so far.”

“It is not nearly enough,” says the tall monk, stepping forward. “We can’t take on Oda and his army, they number over thirty thousand.”

“It is too soon to attack!” comes another cry from the far side of the circle, and another monk steps to join the side of the tall monk, lending force to the argument with his close proximity.

There are murmurs of assent.

“We are outnumbered ten to one!”

Kan’emon spins to address them all, his voice booming.

“Is not every one of the warrior monks worth a thousand ordinary men? An army that cares not if they met god or devil!”

Yobutomo surprises me by raising his voice.

“We cannot abandon our allies in their time of need. He who advances is sure of salvation, and he who retreats will go to hell.”

“Who are we to listen to the yamabushi?” cries the tall monk, almost spitting the word.

“We cannot delay,” says the messenger, finding his feet. “If the decision is to fight, then it must be now.”

“If we strike now, before we are ready, we will be defeated!”

Voices are raised, ripples over those assembled and driving cracks as it spreads, creating a subtle shifting of the mood. In moments, arguments have started, and the air is awash with noise. I cannot separate one voice from another, for I have consciously avoided the political manoeuvrings of the sub-temples and their various leaders. The room has degraded into anarchy edged with growing animosity as old tensions flare. Kan’emon has drawn himself up like a pufferfish as he confronts another monk almost as broad across the chest as himself, both of their voices lost to the din of the argument. Tomoe stands at his side, her lips set in a firm line. I feel myself removed from the shouting, as surely and as swiftly as if I had been plunged beneath a pool of water, simply watching their mouths move as they gesticulate.

I shake my head, trying to find clarity. I realise I am still weak, but it is something more than that: the vast distances I had run every day and the degree of focus it had required forced my attention to every single step. I had been totally unaware of anything not upon my immediate path, and even now I find it difficult to think of anything but my next breath. So many people casting so many plans spins my head and I find myself drawing tight, seeking a quiet place.

The quiet place is inside of me, and I go there…

I am startled when Kan’emon grabs my arm. Somehow, the room has emptied, and only he and Yobutomo remain. I wonder how I could have missed so much. I have a sense that some significant time has passed.

“Tonbo, monk of Enryaku-ji, I hope you are ready to repay your debt!” Kan’emon says, his eyes glinting.

I straighten, clearing my head, my focus returning.

“Debt? What debt?” I ask.

Yobutomo purses his lips and his bushy eyebrows furrow and he and Kan’emon exchange glances. He speaks slowly. “We go to war. You cannot forget your value, the reason why Nobushige pursued you with such fervour. The secrets inside your head.”

Blood is starting to thump in my ears as my thoughts make connections like beading trickles of water in the dust.

“My secrets…?”

Yobutomo glances to Kan’emon. “Seven years ago, I made a promise. I told Kan’emon who you were, that you were fleeing Lord Date Masamune.”

“You know the secrets of the One-Eyed Dragon’s castle,” says Kan’emon, leaning in with a huge gloating smile. “We will use that knowledge to attack him!”

I look to Yobutomo to judge his reaction, but his face is stone.

“You gave me a chance to have a new life,” I say in the tense silence. “To have spent all these years learning my freedom, when all this time I was cultivated as a tool…” I look up, my gaze steady as it meets his eyes. “Things have a way of coming back to their beginnings. Is it my eternal fate to be a spy?”

Yobutomo shakes his head.

“Lord Date has given his full support to Warlord Oda, and for such services he will no doubt be awarded lordship of the entire Sendai domain. It will make him one of the most powerful warlords in the country.”

“We are attacked from all sides,” says Kan’emon. “Oda has sworn to drive Buddhism from this country, extending protection to the new religion of Christianity. With your knowledge of the secrets ways and the weaknesses of Miyamori Castle, a handful of men can strike north. A select group of only the best will accompany you, I will be among them. We shall leave right now! We can bring down Miyamori Castle from the inside! Oda’s flank will be weakened, his forces splintered. You can swing the battle in our favour.”

I shake my head. “All this time, I was part of your scheme, to win my trust?” I cannot hide the disappointment in my voice. “You gave me hope, that I could free myself of duty.”

“You are stronger than that!” bursts Kan’emon, his patience at last exhausted. “Don’t be so precious with your newfound enlightenment, it is not so easily fractured. We all have debts we must repay: it is not duty, it is responsibility! I told you, Yobutomo - we should not have waited, we should have taken the chance we had seven years ago.”

“What, and drive him to death? After a lifetime of beatings and derision, the boy was but a shadow, inhabited by ghosts. I was lucky to get a handful of words a day out of him. He had no strength for what we asked.”

“It is no better now! Come now, monk Tonbo of Enryaku-ji, what is your decision?”

I refuse to give under the pressure and simply bow my head.

Kan’emon gives a dismissive noise deep in his throat. He says, “We do not have time for this!” and without further word turns his back and strides away, where Tomoe intercepts him at the door, matching his pace, and together they speak in quick undertones that fade as they depart.

Yobutomo remains. I see something deep flicker in his eyes.

“You do not owe Lord Date or the assassin Nobushige anything!”

I feel oddly disjointed from reality, and it seems that Yobutomo, whom I thought I knew so well, now looks at me as if from the far bank of a swiftly flowing river. I do not understand: this was the man who instructed me to break free of my past, to become a new man. How can he implore me to go back? I have taken control of my emotions now, and I feel a calmness washing over my body, the frustration and impotent anger has fled. My mind does not race through avenues of thought as it once did; rather it is a wide expanse, like a pond, upon which ripples travel and interact.

Everything in the world is in balance, nothing can exist pure and in and of itself; even what I had mistaken as entirely good intention in the old monk had a true, more sinister, motive. Every man, I realise, manipulates ends to his own liking. Caught in a web, I cannot help but feel betrayed.

“I am no longer that person. That is my past. If I had known you schemed this, I would never have begun the kaihogyo. I am no longer a spy, and am surely no warrior.”

“And I do not ask you to be either. All I ask is that you help us.”

“To bring death and destruction to those within Miyamori Castle? Such deception goes against the essence of Buddhism.”

“And what is that?”

“Not to commit evil, to perform only good, and to purify the mind.”

“Is not what I ask a deed of good? For hundreds of years, we of the Buddhist faith have taken up arms, and our belief has given us the strength to conquer emperors and samurai. Divine signs from the heavens have aided our fight against tyranny. If we do not act, Oda will conquer the entire land by force of arms, slaughtering men, women and children alike.”

“I have spent a long time thinking about action and consequence. Everything fans outwards from every action like toppling game pieces. No. I have caused enough deaths through my foolishness as a child. I will not bring myself to enter into these machinations of war.”

Yobutomo’s lips are a hard line. “Did you not consider that inaction may have as significant impact as a misjudged action?”

“An action cannot be undone. As a murderer of your own child, you should know that.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth I know they are wrong. The condemnation sits in the air between us, twisted and wrong. I know I have overstepped myself, and we have betrayed one another.

Yobutomo does not flinch, and his gaze locks to mine, a kindled fire behind his eyes. It is as if I have broken reality into two; here, now, I stand at the crux where all things come together. What is the past, is surely now locked in the past. Nothing can ever bridge that gap to the cone of the future that yawns vast and empty before me.

I work my mouth, trying to speak, but Yobutomo cuts me off.

“It is foolish to argue this further. You are right, you did not agree to the bargain. Find your place in solitude - but like it as not, the war will find you.”

He turns abruptly and strides away, leaving behind him an emptiness in the air, walking without looking back through the great door of the temple. Looking past it, letting my focus widen into the distance, I see the rising of the hillside in a profusion of deep greens, and beyond that the expanse of mountain stacked upon mountain, over it all great high banks of slate grey clouds.

Chapter Twenty Six

My feet have taken me to the streets of Kyoto.

I pause, and look up, my head clearing, half-wondering how I had gotten myself here. Everything I see is an assault raw senses that have been so long deprived. The afternoon light slants through the buildings, every little detail trying to fill my mind, the streets deserted, a pall of smoke hanging red in the air. Here and there abandoned carts lay beside the road, some broken detritus upon the road where armies had marched. A oxen, its harness broken loose and trailing in the dirt, grazes in the grass. Lush foliage of cherry trees line the road, unfazed at the war between men.

A few people ghost past upon errands, keeping close to the sides of the streets, not looking anywhere but directly ahead, afraid to draw attention to themselves. A score of beggars and street urchins wander the shadows like carrion crows, gathering spilled clothing and foodstuffs.

With the populace shuttered indoors all is strangely silent as I wash like a leaf through the stream of the streets. Rounding a corner, from the outskirts of the city and entering closer to its heart, and I at last come across what I seek: a road lined with the trailing branches of willows, coloured lanterns strung partway across the road, evidence of preparation for festivities only half complete. There are more people here; I see a score venturing out into the streets in the growing evening, moving individually down the street as quiet as spirits. I close my eyes.

Tanabata: the festival seventh day of the seventh month.

So often had the number seven appeared in the pages of the books of Enryaku-ji. The seven Buddhist treasures, so often read in those nights of my study that all were committed to memory and could count them off on my fingers: the treasure of conviction, virtue, conscience, concern, listening, generosity, and discernment. And there were the seven deities of fortune, who travelled together on their ship upon the waves, visiting on New Year’s Eve to dispense happiness, each individual god having a characteristic virtue: longevity, fortune, popularity, candour, amiability, dignity, magnanimity. Now that my mind was pondering, I also recalled there were seven celestial bodies, and the seven times the spirit is resurrected.

My eyes still closed, I reflect that it is a number of good luck, yet for me it only brings me heartache, for it was on the seventh day of the seventh month that I hold the strongest memories of Yuki, when we wandered the festival. Now seven years have passed. I wonder why I am drawn here.

A shiver runs up my spine. It was in these streets that had last seen the ghost of Yuki. I cannot deny that desire to see her spirit once again.

Footsteps approach.

I open my eyes, and Yuki is there.

My heart caves into the vacant hollow of my chest. No longer a girl, she has metamorphosed into a young woman, yet retains that quick characteristic tilt of her head, her lips together and slightly parted in the middle lending to an avian impression as she glances up in curiosity as she passes, not pausing. My mouth moves to speak, but nothing escapes but a breath of air.

It is not enough. I have paused too long, and she is gone.

I turn, hardly believing, and something within me cries out to her, reaching futilely through that space between us like infant fingers grasping at a flow of water. I try to speak again, but cannot. Then, somehow, she stops as if struck, and turns. She wears a muted yukata that despite its plainness has an elegant cut, hugging her hips. Her hair is bound up at the back of her head, exposing the elegant cast of her neck, her skin clean and pure, almost translucent. Her eyes narrow, then widen in surprise. She drops the basket she carries and it spills to the ground at her side.

“Atsushi? You’re alive!”

I feel a shot of weakness disperse throughout my body, fearing that if I should close my eyes for but a second the vision will vanish, yet knowing the longer I looked the more my heart is stretched.

“Do not go,” I whisper to the ghost.

She walks to me. Her eyes brim with sudden tears.

I find I stand taller than her now. She reaches up and brushes her fingers against my shoulder. Despite that elegance, there is something haunted about her, the way she moves close, as if wanting to be sheltered from something.

I do not flinch away, yet neither do I move forward. Suddenly she is in my arms and I am holding her. Our embrace is as smooth as if it had been rehearsed a thousand times, as if we have both been waiting for this moment our entire lives. I can feel every part of her, the rise of her breasts pressing against my chest, her hair as light as curtain of silk across my arm, her hands chill as she holds them clasped into tight little fists between us. I have never touched a woman before, never felt another’s body pressed against mine. It is dizzying, intoxicating.

“Atsushi,” she says into the cloth at my shoulder, her voice but a choked whisper. “Finally, you are here. You are so very late.”

And in that moment we are a dichotomy of the past and present; the boy I once was and the girl she was, both within us. We are still, holding that moment. If it weren’t for her heartbeat and her trembling between the hug of my arms I would have thought time itself had stopped.

“Yuki,” I say, finding my voice.

It is as if a spell has been broken. She backs away a little, out of my arms. It is but half a step, but I feel a painful ache at the sudden chasm of distance between us.

“I don’t go by that name any more,” she says, glancing aside, as if afraid of being overheard. She moves quickly to retrieve her basket from the ground, holding it in both hands before her at her waist like a shield between us.

“Are you real?” I ask. “How can you be alive? How can you be here?”

She only shakes her head. “Those times… I do not want to talk about it…”

We stand looking upon one another, separated by a pace, feeling a strange awkwardness after our sudden an unexpected embrace. I say, “I have been dreaming of you. You have always been in my thoughts.”

There is something Yuki likes about my reply, visible relief passing over her face. She moves closer again, so close that we are almost touching. She has to tilt her head back to look at me. My heart is beating furiously as I lose myself in that perfect face.

“You are a monk,” she says simply, a flat statement that could perhaps be construed as accusation.

I run a hand over my head of hair, the stubble only a finger-width long. It is not uncommon for farmhands to wear their hair short, and I know my dress is nondescript, so it cannot be that that gives me away.

“What makes you say that?” I ask.

“There is something about your eyes,” she says. “You have changed. Somehow… serene.”

“I belong to no temple,” I say. My voice, I find with surprise, does not waver. “I am nobody but myself.”

I don’t know where I drew the courage, but somehow I find myself raising my hand and cupping it about her shoulder, drawing her near as gently as if I were handling a fluttering moth, taking care not to disturb that fine powder dusting its wings.

Something melts inside of her and she allows herself to be drawn in. My focus narrows until I know of nothing else in the world but her. The deepening evening is ours alone. There is only Yuki, and she is looking at me. There could be nothing simpler yet more complete.

Yuki seems to catch herself, and breaks the moment, glances up and down the street.

“It’s not safe here,” she says.

Then I understand her nervousness. I say, “The battle is far from here, do not be afraid.”

She shakes her head.

“No. I know somewhere, come on.”

She grabs my hand, tugging at my arm, pulling me off balance and then when I yield she surprises me and starts running, my hand in hers and I am strung behind, a grin plastered across my face as we run down a darkened walkway between ramshackle buildings. I cannot let her go. It feels as if this is all a dream, and I do not fight lest I somehow wake.

She too is laughing as our footsteps echo down a narrow paved street that drops lower from the main road, slapping past tall weeds growing on either side and I see we are running alongside the river. We approach a bridge from beneath and she slows, the wooden supports towering above us as she leads us to where the grassy banks drop into the lazy waters. In the growing darkness the silhouettes of the limbs of cherry trees lean and skim the surface.

I see that the bridge spans the river at the point where two rivers join, the Takano from the northeast and the Kamo which flows south. Somehow, the confluence of the two flows lends the scene a special serenity. We have a clear view of a rising full moon hanging white and huge above the mountains, its broken reflection upon the hypnotising ripple of the river dancing over stone and rock. Our breathing slows and I suddenly become aware that the air is alive, roaring, with the sound of cicadas, and I wonder how it took me so long to notice them. It feels as if we are the only people in the entire world.

She places the basket on the grass at her feet. Her chest rises and falls after our brief flight. She looks at me. Our hands are still entwined. My senses are sharpened, feeling the softness of her palm, her fingernails as she holds my hand tight. My head is burning with a thousand questions. I cannot help but be drawn back to that night at Miyamori castle, the last time I had seen her, her warning that allowed me to escape with my life. I do not know where to begin, my mouth is working and at last I am able to form a question.

“How did you - ?”

She reaches with her free hand and places a slender finger against my lips. She shakes her head

“No questions,” she says. There is something behind her eyes, a sadness, as if she hides a hurt. She quickly wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand as if forcing away tears, and tries a smile.

“I have azuki-mochi.” she says, drawing her basket nearer. Opening the cloth covering she reveals several neat wrapped bundles. With her free hand, for I do not relent my grasp upon her other, she takes one of the sweets from the basket, and gives it to me. I see the rise of two veins beneath the skin arcing beautifully across the back of her hand.

I cannot help but grin, and bring the azuki-mochi to my mouth. I eat slowly, the sticky rice cakes stuffed with red bean are an assault to my tongue, a barrage of sweetness that is almost cloying after the years I have been sustained on the simple, clean food of Enryaku-ji.

She misinterprets my hesitation, and says, “Please, eat. I have many. I was on my way to -… My friends, they were too afraid to venture out, they feared to be caught outside after what has been happening, so I went to the stalls - it’s Tanabata you know.”

“I know. That is what drew me to Kyoto. A part of me knew you would be here. Do you remember?”

Her face crinkles in confusion, the plums of her cheeks rising, and it is clear she doesn’t.

I laugh.

“I saw you, all those years ago. You were with your friends, fishing for turtles. The fireworks rocked you from your feet, and I caught you.”

Yuki’s eyes sparkle, but it is clear she does not remember.

I give her hand a squeeze. “You smiled at me,” I continue. “And I remember the warmth of it filled my soul. I have held onto that feeling for so many years…”

We sit facing each other, the long summer grass soft beneath us. Her throat of her yukata has loosened; I am enchanted by the ridge of her collarbones and suddenly I want nothing more than to touch that perfect skin, to feel that impossible softness in the cup of my palm.

As slowly as the fading of light of sunset we move closer, until at last she tilts her head, eyes closed, lips parted, and kiss. It is the lightest, most tender touching. We break, pause, and again, meet again, savouring that sensation. Her fingers twist into mine as by slow degrees we grow bolder, our kisses more ardent, until I feel the flicker of her tongue against mine. This alone is enough to transport me to another plane. Her skin is so smooth it makes my fingers feel like coarse crude pads as I trace the tender rises and falls about her throat. She responds to my touch and I sense the impassioned desperation in her. She has a hunger, and with sudden passion grabs the back of my head and draws me in. Her scent and the taste are like nothing I have ever imagined, somehow feeling so right, so different, yet so good. We are embracing, holding each other with fierce strength, our kiss desperate, as if by its passion it can wash away all those years. If only I had known she had wanted me, a small part of me wonders. Can it be this easy?

With a conscious decision I let everything fall away, and simply accept the fact that somehow she is here, now, and in my arms.

The moon spins overhead in the vast blanket of stars so quickly it seems disconnected from reality, the summer air without breath of wind, the stillness warm and comfortable. The passage of time means nothing to us, and when she speaks her voice is soft and unexpected, and I realise that many hours have passed in wordlessness.

“It’s not raining,” she says. “The magpies can made their bridge.”

“Magpies?” I ask.

“The bridge of the legend. The magpies that make the bridge in the sky over the Milky Way.” She smiles, raising her chin to gaze upon the heavens. “So that the separated lovers, the weaver’s daughter and the farmer’s son, may meet once a year on Tanabata, the seventh night of the seventh month.”

I open my mouth to reply, but when I see her face in the moonlight her eyes are glassed with tears and she turns away from me suddenly. I am struck dumb, not sure how to react, not knowing what has caused her reaction. I prop myself up on one elbow, hesitate, then lay an arm across her, a light touch.

She spins and embraces me in a crushing hug, her chest heaving, sobs racking her body. I feel her soft hair in the crook of my shoulder and the wetness of her tears there, my hands about her impossibly slender waist, the cloth of her yukata a thin veil over the butterfly of her hips. My thoughts stop and time has no meaning: the future, the past, they cast only weak shadows as we embrace in the wholeness of the now.

Chapter Twenty Seven

The lightening of the sky to the east draws me back to the world. We have been given the entire night, a night of stillness and timelessness, but even that must yield eventually. The greyness quickly fades into colour and light, and that spell of the night is broken. The new day’s sky is heavy with banks of clouds that have approached stealthily from the horizon, stealing upon us like thieves. The air has changed, laden with the threat of a dawn shower.

“I always regretted not coming back to find you,” I say. “Why didn’t I trusted my own senses?”

Her brows furrow and her lips disappear as she sucks in her mouth into a tight line of concern. “What do you mean?”

“Two years ago, I saw you, here, in Kyoto.”

“I - ? No, I have just arrived, I don’t –”

I can tell she is lying, if only by the tone of her voice. Although I have spent seven years in the forest spending vast stretches of time in solitude, it has attuned my sense of empathy. Her eyes do not meet mine, and she withdraws her hands to herself.

“It was you. I saw you.” My heart feels weak. “You were climbing from a handcart, it was decorated with cranes and bamboo leaves. You were wearing the most exquisite kimono, and you turned, and for a moment, you looked at me.”

Yuki is silent. I swallow, and close my eyes, forcing myself not to give into the shakes that threaten. “I had thought you a ghost.”

The sound is the cicadas that has accompanied us all night is joined by the croaking of a crow in the distance; an oddly jarring sound, a sound that reality has returned. Yuki released her pent breath and stands abruptly, gathering her arms close to her chest as if to ward off a chill.

“It’s morning,” she says. “I have to go.”

“No, wait! You can’t go! You told me last night to take you away from here, and I intend to.” I reach up, but she takes a step backwards.

“I was in a strange mood last night. A lot of things were on my mind.” She shakes her head. “I have to go, I have something important I must do.”

I am on my feet and manage to catch her hand in mine. “This is the moment,” I say. “I cannot let you go, I will not.”

I feel a deep sense of unease settle in the pit of my stomach, a feeling of premonition. I have not slept at all. It is something my mind and body is accustomed to, yet it seems to have muddled my thoughts as if I have taken a step into a strange world of unreality.

Yuki looks at me with sorrow. “That’s why I don’t like mornings, things are always different in the light. Nothing is simple, I’m sorry.”

“This can be simple.”

She looks at me with pity. It was then I knew. I had fooled myself. I had allowed myself to think that all this time I had been on her mind, she had been waiting and looking for me, and I could simply sweep in and take her away.

The first few drops of rain begin to fall.

“My advice to you is to leave Kyoto before sunset,” she says. She gathers herself together, purses her lips and gives me a wry smile, and simply walks away.

I stand there, watching her back, but she does not turn, and is gone up the path of long grass and vanishes from my sight. I turn back to the river, running a hand over the stubble of hair on my head, watching the circular ripples in the languorous flow of the river with the increasingly heavy drops of summer rain. I cannot make sense of anything, all I know is that I am losing something, throwing away my one chance.

Filled with sudden resolve I scramble to my feet and hurry up the grassy slope after Yuki. I clamber up to the street above, searching left and right. For a moment it seems like I am too late, but then I catch a glimpse of her figure, her poise is unmistakable as she rounds a corner in the distance, her steps quick. The rain is heavy now as I start after her, my pace at first a walk, then quickly hastening when I realise I am losing ground. When I round the corner I am careful that she does not see me, making sure to keep a good distance between us.

She walks up a steep, cobbled road, and as I follow I fancy that I can smell her perfume. I only see her figure appear now and again as she turns down streets with small shops lining the road. It seems the war has not affected the streets of central Kyoto. Despite the overthrow of the Shogun the streets mill with early morning commerce, as if it is like any other day.

Yuki moves past all, not pausing or deviating from her course. Even from this distance I see she moves in haste, as if late for some appointment, yet she keeps her composure, her steps short and rapid. I walk without taking my eyes away from her, trusting that my feet will find their own way. I see her step into a narrow doorway of a house set close between others, and the door closes, and she is gone.

I wait there, on the far side of the street, in the shadows. I feel a twinge of shame at what seems like deception, as if I betray her trust, but I know that I cannot rest with her out of my sight. I content myself with the thought that I will simply wait here, and the future will bring what it may.

I lower myself to a squat, resting easily upon my haunches as I wait. I do not dwell on the tumultuous night that has been, but simply let myself go into that stream of thought. The rain grows heavier, thundering down upon the streets, driving the pedestrian traffic into shelter.

Some time must have passed, for when Yuki appears at the doorway the rain has stopped, and I turn my head away, hiding my profile. She has changed her dress, and now wears a fine golden kimono, her hair bound up high and hard at the top of her head, makeup on her face and a fan folded in her prettily folded hands. She takes quick small steps, her socked feet in wooden geta clacking upon the stone as she heads up the hill without pause.

I follow.

I see she approaches a large fortified building, but just then a large group of people move before me, shaking their umbrellas of water, and it is some moments before I can see ahead once again. She has disappeared.

I continue up the steadily climbing road. The crowds have thinned a little here and my steps slow as I grow closer to the two storeyed building fenced by a tall bamboo palisade with gates standing closed at its front. From this elevation, it commands an excellent view of the city. From her last movements, I calculate that Yuki must have been heading here, for she is no longer in sight.

There I pause upon the far side of the street from the building, skulking in the shadows under the dripping eaves, when a voice at my ear startles me.

“It is the Tiger of Kai,” whispers the beggar, his clothes bedraggled, his hair corkscrewed, his beard tangled.

I restrain the urge to flinch away as his fetid breath wafts towards my face.

“I’m sorry?” I ask.

The beggar tosses his head to the high walled building. Two stern-faced samurai in red-laced plates of black armour guard the gate. “Inside. It’s Lord Takeda Shingen, the Tiger of Kai, the leader of the Takeda clan.” His voice dropped and he rocked a little. “I am to keep watch…”

I shake my head to clear my thoughts, confused. I peer closer at the guards and sure enough see the emblem of the Takeda clan; four interlocking diamonds. Something is odd, for I know the Takeda clan, who has long been friendly to the monks of Hiei and Enryaku-ji, is aligned against Oda Nobunaga, the man who has taken this city.

“You are to keep watch? For who?”

The beggar did not reply, but with darting eyes seemed to recall himself. “I cannot speak to anyone,” he says to himself in self-rebuke, shuffling away.

“No, please, tell me,” I say, moving after him. “How do you know who is inside?

“The man, he pays me to watch. So I watch.”

“Did you see…” I pause, swallow. I look back at the fortified entrance. “Did you see a courtesan enter a few moments ago?”

“Oh, the Lord Shingen likes tea ceremonies,” says the beggar, his eyes lighting up, a knowing smile on his lips. “And has a special fondness for pretty ladies.”

With a cackle he turns his shoulder to me and shuffles away.

My heart is heavy, my thoughts mired in confusion. Surely, there is no point in continuing this fruitless endeavour, what was I hoping? That I could chase her down, make her run away from her life with me? It is puerile fantasy.

I shake my head, at last ready to leave Yuki to the life she has made for herself here. It is clear I can follow her no more. I breath in, filling my lungs with the rich smell of the summer rain, letting that tangle of thought go.

I feel an itch, the need to walk, to run through the forest. The city is not my place.

I turn my back upon the beggar and the fortified house, and take in the vista of the buildings of Kyoto. The rain has eased, and the sky is beginning to clear, the edges of the streets running with water and all about is the slowing small percussions of droplets from roofs. I am just about to walk away when, from the corner of my eye, I see movement, and I turn my head slightly, seeing the beggar give a quick little nervous bob of his head to someone passing on the street before nervously ducking away, running back down the street in a flurry of rags.

I turn, curious, and see an old man, his head cowled against the last remaining mist of rain in the air, approaching the gate.

So this was the man employing the services of the beggar, I think.

I draw myself back into the cover of the shadows. The samurai guard snaps his hand upon the hilt of his katana.

The old man rests his handcart down upon its legs and straightens the severe bow in his back and indicates to the handcart he pushes before him with a toss of his head. I cannot hear what he is saying, but the samurai guard lifts the lid of his cart and I see stacks of steam buns. As the guard moves his head about, giving the contents a thorough inspection, I cross the street, angling closer to the gate, where I can hear them conversing.

The old man tosses back his hood. His bulbous head is ringed with a sweaty band of cloth, his skull shadowed by close-cropped hair, his face broad, eyes deep-set in the softness of his face. That face -

My senses come alive like water in a sleeping ear. My focus sharpens; I can see every detail, can hear every sound, even the smell of the steam buns mingled with the rains is unnaturally striking. It has been years, and he grown obese, but there had been no mistaking those wide-set eyes, those thin lips and long downturned mouth upon a broad jaw like that of a crouched bullfrog. I would recognise my old master anywhere: Nobushige, the assassin.

Unable to move, I simply watch, feeling myself drawn in all directions at once, drawn deeper and deeper into this strange world of unreality.

The guard has given a curt nod of acknowledgement and waves the old man through, the tall double doors guarding the house opened from within at his signal. The old man lifts the handles of his handcart and pushes it through, and is gone within. I still haven’t moved as the guard returns to his post and the doors have closed once again, and he begins talking where he left off, as if nothing untoward had happened.

Then I think.

Yuki.

He will know her instantly, and he is not a man to forget old vendettas.

I move without thought, crossing the cobbled stones with stumbling haste. The samurai steps in my path.

“You must let me though!” I say. “I am…” I pause, and that uncertainty is my undoing. “I am a monk of Enryaku-ji.”

The guard gives a shake of his head. “We have been instructed to let none but those authorised through.” He pauses, his eyes steely, then adds. “We have been advised to be especially wary of shinobi disguised as monks.”

“I am no assassin! Please, listen to me. I know that man you just admitted. He is a servant of Lord Date, and a sworn enemy of the Takeda clan! He can mean only death, you must let me in!”

The guard exchanged a glance with his superior. The first guard shakes his head and remains still.

Frustrated energy wells and pools in my body like a natural spring bursting from the earth, for the moment capped yet I can feel the pressure rising. Nine days of intense mediation have left my mind as keen as a freshly forged and quenched katana blade and I know my course of action immediately. There can be no time for haranguing.

I walk away hurriedly, not breaking into a run, far enough away to be out of sight of the guards, my head straight and gaze unflinchingly before me. I find that my body has not forgotten those old skills Nobushige had taught me. My fingers find the small indentations in the bamboo palisade, using them only for balance, letting most of my bodyweight be borne by my toes worked between the cracks and twisted sideways to lock them in place. The key is to keep upward momentum, not to panic and try to hold my weight through my hands. The wall is higher than I had first supposed but I do not allow a moment’s hesitation until at last my hands find the lip. The tops are sharpened into points but I do not allow the pain to distract me. I bring my legs and body over the top and roll over the other side and hang by my hands, looking down between my feet. My hands are slippery with blood. I cannot delay. There is a garden below, and I judge my landing. Pushing back slightly with my knees I let go, taking up the impact as I impact the ground with bent knees.

I scan my surrounds, taking my bearings, shaking my hands by my side. I am fortunate, for the main building is deeper into the enclosure, an imposing wooden structure five storeys high, and here in the garden the patrolling samurai upon the gravelled walkways do not see me. I look at the palms of my hands. The cuts are superficial.

Before me red carp swim in a lotus pond upon which a bridge leads to a teahouse built out over the water. I tense a moment, listening: there are no shouts of alarm, the garden is still and windless. There is only the gentle trickle of running water.

My nerves are on edge, so much so that I jump at the sudden punctuation of sound to my right, a sharp rap of a shishi-odoshi, the deer-chaser. I lower myself back down to my haunches, taking deep slow breaths, as the water slowly fills the green bamboo tube of the mortar, and drops again a few moments later with a sharp clack, spilling its water before springing back into place, the process endlessly repeating. Crouching low into the leaves of immaculately trimmed bushes, keeping my movements smooth, I advance. Then I see it.

The handcart stands near the start of the bridge, ominously silent and still, the covers open and Nobushige nowhere in sight. I start forward, heart racing, scanning the teahouse, seeing motion within. My heart is hammering. I have no weapon, but I am prepared to fight tooth and nail. The bamboo mortar clacks sharply behind me, but I hardly hear it. I am just about to break into a run when a hunched figure that can only be Nobushige emerges from the teahouse and with quick furtive steps crosses the bridge back to his handcart. Only now do I see a samurai as he steps forward to meet Nobushige. He had been hidden from my sight by a wall of foliage, and had I charged forward I would surely have been downed by the willow-leaf arrow he holds nocked and lose in his short bow.

Nobushige gives a wave of acknowledgment to the samurai, an apology for taking the other’s time, and they engage in some brief conversation that seems, incredibly, amicable, and Nobushige returns a tray to his handcart, and takes up the handles, and moves away.

I sink back into the cover of the bushes, feeling weak. I am too late. I shake my head, trying to order my thoughts. I do not know that Yuki is in the teahouse, perhaps she had been invited into the main building instead. But my heart knows, and is filled with dread.

Taking care to avoid the samurai guard, I edge to the side and slip quietly into the waters of the pond. A part of my mind notes the chill but only fleetingly. I take care not to slip upon the roots and uneven footing; the pond is not deep, barely up to my waist, and I take a deep breath and crouch low so the waters are up to my eyes. I feel the cold push upwards into my nose, against my mouth, and all sound I hear overwhelmed by that harsh clack and warble of water reverberating in my ears. The water is murky and turgid and I move through it with huge, propelling steps toward the teahouse. I know that the ‘v’ of ripples in my wake are a tell-tale advertisement to any who may happen to look, but I cannot restrain myself to go any slower.

I find the supports of the teahouse and finally I can draw breath as I raise my head from the water. My hands slip on the wooden railing in my haste and I have to grab again, clawing my way up and under the railing.

It is like a landed fish that I flop to the landing, clothing heavy with rivulets of streaming water. The teahouse is round-walled, with a low exposed beamed ceiling, thatched walled, with a low table in the centre upon which sit neatly arranged accoutrements of the tea ceremony. Two cushions are arranged on either side of the table. Within, a figure stooped over a low table straightens with a gasp.

I stagger to my feet and rush to her, crossing into the room upon sodden feet. Her face flashes guilt and panic, her hands clasping a folded ceremonial fan at her breast, wide eyed with shock. I pause in momentary hesitation, for she is entirely transformed from the pure and natural girl who had laid at my side but hours before. She wears the white makeup of a courtesan all over her face, a line of bare skin around her hairline giving the illusion she wore a mask. Her eyebrows are coloured dark, her upper lip painted vivid red, her lower lip white but for a thin strip of colour. As she gasps I see her teeth have been blackened, disappearing into the blackness of her mouth.

Every part of my body is shaking with relief. I have found her. She is alive.

“Atsushi?” she hisses. “What are you doing here?”

Booted feet sound upon distant floor boards. Looking out into the glare of the morning light I see two samurai on the narrow bridge, twin swords of the katana and wakizashi at their belts, hair bound up in top knots atop a visage weathered by battle. Behind them comes a nobleman wearing a crested black kimono, flanked by a young girl of regal bearing; Lord Takeda Shingen and his daughter, I presume. They had paused midway, where his daughter points delightedly at the pond, and together they admire the length of the carp that swim beneath. Their samurai guard halt with them. It was dark within the teahouse; they hadn’t seen us yet. I notice too that the early morning rain had soaked into and stained the wood of the bridge dark; the puddles where I had emerged from the pond had left no visible mark.

Yuki storms to the far side of the room and lifts a section of the thatch of the wall where the bindings have been loosened. “You can’t be here! You have to leave right now - the Lord Shingen cannot find you here!”

I stare at the slender opening dropping to the waters below. I shake my head and move towards her, confused.

“What is this? An escape route?” I cannot hide the quaver in my voice. Is it fear or anger I feel? “What are you planning?”

In contrast to the short sleeves of a married woman, an unmarried woman wears a kimono that have long sleeves, and as the kimono has no pockets, these sleeves are often used to hold personal items. As I make to grab hold of Yuki she withdraws and I catch only her arm, dislodging a package nested within those pockets and something falls to the floor.

There is a beat, and for a moment we are held in silent tableau as if we are players upon a stage. We both look down at the item blazing quietly upon the floor between us: a tiny wooden tube, stoppered at both ends. She makes to snap it up but I am closer, and my reactions a fraction faster.

“He was here. Nobushige. What did he give you?” I ask.

“Atsushi, pay back my favour from all those years ago: I saved your life then, you can save mine now. Do not betray me, leave me to my duties.” Tears glisten upon the white of her face, trembling upon her brink of her eyelashes, but do not fall. I see Lord Shingen and his entourage has resumed walking down the bridge.

I unstopper the tube, a piece of rolled paper, thin and translucent between my fingers as I withdraw it like the dried husk of a cicada. I see deeper within the tube lies white powder.

I raise my eyes to find Yuki’s face. She turns aside, but the movement is too slow and I see the dilation of her pupils and the horror there. She shakes her head, a fractional movement of denial, almost invisible, and makes a snatch at the tube. The tiny parchment tears in twain easily, but I retain the bottom fragment and the tube of powder. Yuki’s expression of guilt opens a floodgate of answers and the world recedes as all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, my gaze tracing up to the tea set upon the low table in the centre of the room. The cups and pot are lacquered bright red, every surface perfectly smooth. Ironically fitting, I reflect, that lacquer derived from the sumac tree should be toxic.

I do not have the strength to stand, somehow I am on the floor, slumped against the wall. I feel as if every last ounce of wind has been knocked out of me. It takes a long moment to overcome that frightening sensation and at last draw in enough breath to speak.

She was a kunoichi; a female ninja. A temptress to steal into the enemy’s heat and confidence…

“You have been part of this from the very beginning,” I say softly.

Yuki draws herself up, filling her chest with fierce pride. “I serve the powers of peace and good.”

I look up at her. “Lords Oda and Date? Who are we to say who is evil and who is good?”

“Lord Oda is helping to bring order to the whole country! The only fool remaining who has the power to disrupt that peace is walking down that bridge.” She tosses her head towards the doorway, her black hair snapping, her voice a furious whisper. “Lord Oda has brought him here to discuss putting actions behind his words, yet it is no surprise to us that no settlement was reached, those of Kai only flap their gums and mouth empty promises. They will return to their lands with haughty heads held high, not caring what blood is spilled due to their stubbornness. I have a chance to save untold hundreds of lives by taking one.”

“He is using you,” I say. “Master Nobushige. He will use you like a weapon, and when it is blunted, you will be discarded.”

“You don’t understand!” she cried. “Oh you fool, it’s not that simple.”

As if in a dream I lift the fragment of scroll to my eyes. Yuki turns her back, wretched, and watches toward the doorway, her eyes set in fatalistic anguish. My eyes take conscious effort to focus on the characters of the incomplete message.

If I do not take them away now, this great trouble will be everlasting. Moreover, those priests violate their own vows: they eat fish and stinking vegetables, keep concubines and never unroll the sacred books. How can they be vigilant against evil, or maintain the right? Surround their dens and burn them, and suffer none of them within to live!

“What is this?” I ask her.

Yuki looks back at me.

“Do you know of the temple of Enryaku-ji?” she asks.

I nod carefully. “I… Yes, I have heard of it.”

“Everything is in place. Warlord Oda has decided to make the first move against those monks who have brought so much hardship to us all.”

My throat is so dry I can hardly form the word. “When?”

“Now, as we speak. That is why I cannot fail today. There can be no aid in the battle from the forces of Kai.”

I struggle to my feet and take a pace towards the wall, my hand over my face, fingers pressed to my temples. Yuki chases after me and her hands find the slender tube of silent death, her fingers slipping between mine in a strange parody of when our fingers intertwined last night and I do not resist as she twists it from my grip.

“Atsushi, I can only ask one more time. Leave me to my duty.”

“Your duty.” I repeat her words and they seem to ring in my head. How could I have deceived myself into thinking that in freedom I could find my true self, when in fact to be one and complete means to be but a part of the whole.

Independence is an illusion.

I know what I must do.

“I owe you my life. I will not betray you,” I say. At the rear wall I lift the loosened section of thatching. My feet are through first, searching and finding the supports, and I lower myself. I pause as my chest is upon the floor and look back; Lord Shingen is but moments away. Yuki swishes herself between the open door as I hear the two samurai retainers enter, her gown a shield. She drops to a crouch, her gaze meet mine, and in that instant I am looking into those depthless black wells of her eyes and am in love all over again.

Footsteps echo within the room, and I slip softly away.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Enryaku-ji is twelve miles from Kyoto via the wide trade road, but I know the small hidden trails directly up the side of Mount Hiei slashing that distance by a quarter. Even at my fleetest it will take at least an hour, but as I start running my legs feel strangely leaden. I am gaunt, my starved reserves long since turned to ash.

My body has betrayed me.

The mountain where rises up green and impossibly distant beyond the buildings of the city. I drop my head, watching my feet. My pace has slowed almost to a stop, the muscles in my legs protesting, my breath uneven. I vowed never to return, yet here I am, only a day later, my guts in a wretched silent knot. It is not my fight, I think again. If I return, I only put myself once again within the trap.

Raising my head and relaxing my senses my gaze goes to infinity, and I hear deep within me the calling of the mountain, and everything is lighter. I start running, and suddenly it is easy. I realise it was not a physical but a mental block upon my body and the ease it is overcome is almost laughably simple. I find vast measures of satisfaction in the strength of my reawakened body as it moves once again in that long practiced stride: short and rapid, my toes kissing the ground beneath my centre of balance, not extending too far forward, my ankles pivoting as weight rolls down the outside of my foot to the heel, where I push off with a flick against the ground.

The repetition is meditation.

The straw sandals upon my feet are near noiseless; by the time the wind of my passage startles plodding townspeople I am but a vanishing figure in the distance. I have no sense of the passage of time, only knowing that I do not stop or slacken my pace, even when the gradient turns upward. It is a time where my energy is seemingly limitless. I am aware of the forest that now surrounds me, the city has fallen away behind. I do not allow myself to think conscious thoughts, but simply let my mind rest, climbing through the narrow tracks faster than a horse could possibly gallop around via the trade route. I scramble up the steep trail now in the shade of the towering sugi trees, the foliage ripe and lush in the humid summer air. The air changes; it is full of birdsong and insect calls and the trickle of water were a stream falls over rocks.

And then I am there. Enryaku-ji.

As I emerge from the forest I see groups of warrior monks clustered about the temple buildings, dishevelled and bloody yet grinning broadly as only an army who has seen victory can. There are more than a few casualties and the cries of those in mortal pain come from behind closed doors. I walk through a wall of faces that seem to fall silent as I pass, as if I am some splinter piercing the flesh of their brotherhood, but it can only be my imagination playing tricks upon me, for many here know my face, and they have no reason to distrust me.

It seems an age of wading through the armoured monks until I at last I find Kan’emon. He is surrounded by his senior warrior monks, among them is Tomoe, her long jet-black hair tied back behind her head, as composed and cool as ever. Kan’emon sees me and straightens, question in his eyes. The soldiers at his side bristle. I notice the bloodied weapons are in their hands.

“Boy, back already to share in the spoils of war?”

I stop before him and bow low from the waist, my hands pressed together.

“Kan’emon, I bring news, is Yobutomo with you?”

“I am not your messenger-boy,” he retorts. He must see something in my stricken visage, for his voice softens. “The last I saw of him was after the battle, he mentioned he was returning to Mount Haguro.”

I fought down the irrational feeling of desperation, that premonition that I would never see him again. “It has all been a ruse,” I say. “Warlord Oda is right now amassing his army to attack Mount Hiei and raze it to the ground. You must recall your forces and prepare for attack, or else flee.”

“How is it you came across this information?”

I swallow, and look up. My breathing is slow and even, despite the exertion of the extreme pace I have pushed running up the slopes.

“In Kyoto, I chanced upon my old master Nobushige, the assassin, and intercepted a message.” I hand the tiny parchment to Kan’emon. It has not stood up well to the sweat from my fingers, the characters smudged, and Kan’emon has to squint to read. I can see his face shift.

“He means to make an example of us,” he says.

“I am sorry,” I say, bowing again, aware of how useless my words are now. “You were right, I shouldn’t have started the trials – I should have shown you the way to lead an attack on Miyamori castle and weaken Oda’s flank. I was a weapon that should have been used.”

Kan’emon’s tone is brusque. “It’s not use clenching your buttocks after a fart.”

He sits still a moment, as if turning matters over in his head. All those about him exchange glances, but do not speak. Kan’emon reaches a decision, and turns to his soldiers, picking out each of them in turn. “Busho-Hagami, send for those samurai of the Asai that remain, gather them in the central yard. Sakai, get the horns and the bell sounding, call all back. Hakozaki, pass word to the other leaders, give them this parchment, tell them we have little time to prepare, clean and load the guns and cover them all in their skins. Call all women and children able to wield a weapon to take up arms, there will be no shelter here. Miura, send as many as you can find into the kitchens to collect all the crockery pots they can find, the larger, the better, and take them down to the river.” He pauses, brows knitted, and look to the sky. It is clear blue, but like him, I have seen the signs: the ants gathering and swarming, that particular heaviness to the air. “We must hold Oda’s advance long enough for the rain to start,” he says pensively. He glances at me and blinks, as if recalling to himself that I am here, and seems surprised at the look in my eyes. One corner of his lip curls in what might be a smile.

“We've fought and won against warlords before,” he says. “And we shall do it again.”

The empty drum of the sky rumbles with distant thunder.

We are in shadow, the setting sun disappeared over the rise of the mountain at our backs, as from our vantage on the eastern flank we see smoke from the sacked village of Sakamoto, a vast solid column of destruction that rises into the pallid sky until reaching a distinct height where high winds flatten its peak into a long streak across the sky.

I look down at the flowing river in the ravine below and the remains of the bridge, the smouldering blackened main posts remain like a skeleton spanning between the rocks. I had aided the other monks in setting fire to the bridge, sealing ourselves in. The last of the fleeing townspeople from the ravaged houses of Sakamoto has crossed, fled up the mountain to take refuge in the temple. They came hollow-eyed and desperate, for they had seen death come to their neighbours and their family, and pleaded for protection from the mountain monks. My warning had come but hours before Oda’s army, tens of thousands strong, had made their move, surrounding the mountain in a vast ring, moving steadily upwards, burning and shooting all that stood in their way. I am not sure if I have unwitting sealed the fate of thousands more lives by drawing the armies of Hiei together inside the tightening noose.

Our forces, bolstered by those strong enough to hold a weapon from the routed city of Sakamoto, are distributed throughout the hillside, hiding in wait, holding position until the enemy should reveal himself. I admire the skill of the mountain monks, for they have used the natural terrain to their advantage and their camouflage is such that the forest seems empty even though I know hundreds lay in wait.

All that can be done has been done, the entire day passing as if through a kind of surreal lens. I have not eaten nor rested, yet I feel no hunger or fatigue. Rather, I am propelled by a nervous energy. With sunset the wind is rising, whipping the branches overhead into a frenzy and as I cautiously descend through the foliage I feel it buffeting my body. There is no rain, but in all directions come the staccato flash-flash-flash of lightning within the clouds.

For the thousandth time, I wish Yobutomo were here.

“Tonbo, is that you? Come over here, boy.”

I look around, and see Kan’emon waving his hand, gesturing me to come closer. I approach the thicket, the rising towers of mature bamboo clear of undergrowth. He is with Tomoe, both upon their haunches, studying the ground before them where they have scratched lines of a map and placed small sticks upright in the earth. To my eye the scratches are meaningless, yet it gives me heart that there is at least someone here who has a plan of action. Tomoe meets my eye. Her ice cold beauty is exquisite and the marble of her eyes flashes a thrill over my skin. She gives a slow nod of greeting then returns her gaze to the map.

Kan’emon hands me a thick bladed sword. “Here, take this Tonbo.”

“What? No, please. I have no skill, it is far more useful in your hands.”

He presses it into my chest until I am forced to hold its weight.

“I have enough of my own, take it.”

His voice is gruff, but there is something else there. It is only that I knew his manner so well that I can judge that this is a token of kinship. My breath hitches and I swallow, and slowly dip my head, my eyes closed. Although I have bowed to this man many times in the past, this is the first time my heart truly bends.

The sky rumbles, and the first fat drops of summer rain begin to fall, slapping through the leaves, a handful making it through the foliage and hitting the ground heavily. Kan’emon grins.

“The gods favour us,” he said. “The rain comes.”

The drops double in frequency, and then double again. Within moments it has intensified so that the rain becomes a roar of white noise in the forest, drowning all else. There is some delay as the earth soaks up the water, but it is not long before it is saturated and rivulets form begin to run downstream, fingers of tributaries adding to the slowly rising waters of the river. The sky plunges into darkness as the storm clouds move overhead and the mountain monk army dispersed through the trees hunch their shoulders. We are soaked through as the water hammers down through the branches, but the air is still pleasantly warm. Through the trees come silent flashes of lightning, faint and distant, a promise of what is to come.

There is nothing to do but stoically wait. The roar of the rain falling tirelessly from the sky drowns out all room for thought or speech. Soon, full night is upon us.

Then lightning strikes directly overhead, illuminating the night in full colour for a fraction of a moment. Thunder rends the air like the splitting fibres of a great tree, the sound and fury awakening a deep and primal fear deep in my core. I blink and wipe my eyebrows, sweat stinging as it is washed into my face.

Then I see them. The approaching army; tall posts upon which are strung the banners of war, Oda’s crest, black ink upon white cloth, rippling furiously in the wind. They have marched upon the bridge at the far side of the river, using the storm to disguise their advance.

There is a cry of warning. Then the first arrows fly across the river toward us, coming as heavily and as rapid as the rain, fired blindly into the trees but none-the-less frightening. They whistle as they pass through the branches and plunge into the undergrowth or into the girth of trees. We are spread out over such a large area that the enemy’s attack is diluted and finds no mark.

I peer through branches dancing with driving rain, seeing that Oda’s army has reached the destroyed bridge, and is bringing up scores of men to repair it with felled tree trunks. I hear the buzzing hum of something passing close by my ear and drop to the ground.

From all sides around me monks return the arrow fire. Tomoe nocks a plain bolthead arrows with barely a point to them, shaped to punch through breastplate armour. I dare to raise myself upon my haunches again and see a cloud of black upon black of the monks’ return salvo, a wave of arrows given speed from higher ground plunging into the industrious foes upon the bridge. In the noise of the downpour they are too far away for their cries to reach my ears and I see them fall silently into the waters below. A new wave of Oda’s soldiers sweep forward to replace the fallen, arquebuses taking up position in leapfrog advances. The sharp reports of the firearms are almost continuous, the shots too numerous to distinguish individually, sounding like a chain of fireworks at a festival, shrapnel ravaging the leaves and branches of the hillside where I duck low.

Several voices close by cry out in sudden pain. I see a monk to my right break from his cover, drawing back his arm as he cocks an arrow to his bow, but before he can release the top of his skull is blown clean away.

Frustratingly, the monks leave their arquebuses at their feet, still in their tight covers, using only their bows.

“We must return fire!” I cry to Kan’emon. Even to one as green to warfare as myself, I see that arrows alone will not be enough to hold off the enemy who are already halfway towards completing the bridge.

He does not reply, but in reply shouts at the top of his lungs, addressing the monks within range.

“Hold! Keep the guns covered!”

The enemy surge is an unstoppable tide, leaking and spilling into every opening. A tree has been laid across the gap, and already two more are lined up behind. Foot soldiers scramble in the banks below, climbing down the steep sides and braving the briskly flowing ink black water. There must be hundreds growing into thousands upon the path already, shouting as they come. It is only a matter of time until we are enveloped. Already a score have crossed, their numbers swelling like a black tide, swords flashing silver in the rain and light of the fire like the sides of fish within a stream.

War banners illuminated by nearby torches flaming despite the downpour show the crest of the Oda clan, a five leaved flower. Rising above the foot soldiers are the mounted samurai directing the charge I see other banners of different clans that have joined the forces of Oda’s army, among them two facing sparrows, the clan of Date Masamune, the one-eyed dragon. I find myself oddly detached from reality as I watch those of my former lord and master through the eyes of their enemy.

Then fat heavy drops ease, a typical summer shower; heavy, intense, but quickly over. The leaves and bores of the trees drip mightily, but the air slowly clears. The enemy forces still scramble upwards and closer.

“Now!” shouts Kan’emon.

The covers are removed from the arquebuses and finally the monks of Enryaku-ji arm themselves, raising the firearms to their shoulders and taking aim. From all sides I am concussed with the controlled fire of a thousand gunners. The sound seems to echo between heaven and earth, the force of the defence driving Oda’s army back like a great wind, flaying men through their armour, the bodies of dead and wounded stacking like leaves. There is little answering gunfire; the weapons of Oda’s army are wet, waterlogged, and useless. I see the heads of their gunners bent over their weapons as they work, frustrated and impotent.

“Namu amida butsu!” comes the shouted chant from the monks, over and over from hundreds of mouths, raising their fighting spirits, intimidating their enemy. They reload, and again light up the night with the sizzle and flash of gunpowder.

It is as if Kan’emon has been kept on a tight leash, and finally that energy spills forth. He leaps to his feet and races down the hillside, his long naginata whirling above his head.

I raise to my feet, about to follow, but a hand on my shoulder stops me. I turn and look into Tomoe’s impassive face.

“We wait here,” she says simply.

Oda’s men struggle for footing in the mud as they cross the river, and horses charging up behind them stumble and fall. They have fallen into the trap we have set earlier that afternoon; old pots and vases buried up to their necks trapping their ankles and cracking beneath their feet. The monks lying in ambush close the jaws of the trap, firing down at the stationary targets. All the while I hear the constant creak as Tomoe draws back her bow and twang of release, firing arrow after arrow down into the riverbank. The enemy claw into the cover of the reeds but they are too slow, their backs shredded by arquebus fire and arrow. The chant echoes over the hillside with a depth to rival the magnitude of thunder, surging like a tide of triumph.

“Namu amida butsu!”

Kan’emon is at the bridge. He lumbers forward as implacable as a hungry bear and pushes away the makeshift logs Oda’s men had placed across the span. They fall into the waters below, leaving only those blackened posts. Kan’emon steps upon the supports of the bridge, spinning his deadly blade of the naginata over his head as soldiers charge. Although they have lost the use of their guns, arrows still flash from the ranks of Oda’s men, whistling through the air, lodging into the beams of the bridge. Kan’emon’s naginata is perfectly balanced as he spins it like a waterwheel, deflecting and shattering the wooden shafts, yet he cannot stop all. I see two long shafts plunge into Kan’emon’s flesh but he seems to not notice.

Several more attackers come at him, forced by the narrowness of the bridge to come at him one at a time. Kan’emon favours the upward stroke toward the unprotected groin, using the leverage and length of the polearm to cast them to the waters below as easily as a fisherman might flick his line of fish. My heart goes out to him, as if my will alone can give him strength.

If it were any lesser army, victory would have been had. But these were the allied forces of Oda, armies that have seen countless battles, whose loyal soldiers are not afraid to throw themselves forward with no regard to their own lives, knowing that they have the unstoppable inertia of Warlord Oda behind them; their deaths will be honourable, propelling them upwards into the next life. There is no shortage to the number of foes leaping to meet Kan’emon’s blade.

Suddenly with one mighty clash the haft of his naginata splinters in his hands. He looks at it a moment, then throws it away. A foot solider sees the weakness and charges with his lance, aiming to run the monk through and cast him into the river. Kan’emon reaches back over his head, grasping the hilt of the tachi strapped to his back. The sword blade is naked and flashing across his body, slicing away the tip of the spearing lance. The footsoldier cannot check his advance, which has now become a stumble, and he is within Kan’emon’s range. The second slash of his sword removes the footsoldier’s arm at the elbow clean through bone sinew and lacquered armour.

Wielding the sword in an interlaced, zig-zag style he mows down another three men, finding the weak points in armour, his steel finding soft flesh. On the next, his blade snaps, caught in a helmet of the foot soldier, and Kan’emon twists the haft and bodily shoves both the blade and the enemy into the waters below. From his belt he seizes a tanto and the next man who meets him finds his sword battered away and his throat cut by that short blade.

There is a respite, and the soldiers at last back away. Kan’emon seems to stiffen, then stop, as rotund and implacable as a statue of Buddha. Arrows stick from his body, lodged in his arms, the armour of his chest, and his legs.

Several footsoldiers cautiously approach, heads ducked low, edging sidelong.

Kan’emon is still.

The soldiers pause, edge another step. It seems Kan’emon moves a fraction, for suddenly they retreat hastily, shields held high, but they are impelled forward from their leaders. A lance probes out, touches Kan’emon.

At last they realise, although still standing, he is dead.

Slowly, he topples forward, and his body adorned with a hundred arrows drops into the blackness below.

There is a sound of a horn, and a fresh charge surges forward. A wave of foot soldiers have between them a felled sugi tree, hacked of its side limbs. Behind them, three other groups with similarly sized tree advance. It is clear that they aim to launch them across the gap of the bridge. I see there will be no stopping the advance this time. A fresh wave of arrows pelt the foliage. Instinctively, the muscles between my shoulder blades bunch together.

“We must retreat,” Tomoe states flatly. “Follow me.”

In the space of only moments, it has become a rout. The monks scatter and flee before the rush of Oda’s soldiers swarming up the hillside. We run towards the temple buildings, our way lit by flaming torchlight in places, but mostly we move by the feeble blue light of the stars above. As we climb, I see those who have been hit by arrows or gunfire, their bodies littered the wet undergrowth. It does not take strength to aim and fire a weapon, so the ranks of these ranged defenders are made of a large number of women, even young girls and boys.

I am with the stream of fleeing monks as we filter into the outskirts of the temple buildings. There are no walls or gates to pass through, for each sub-temple has been constructed to defend itself from its neighbours, not from an external attack.

There is a strange moment of calm. Nobody speaks. The roofs drip and running feet slap wetly in the mud. An east wind has picked up, gusting through the night, the trees far overhead a susurrus of uncountable thousands of leaves.

From down the hill come sounds of the clash of steel upon steel. The first of Oda’s samurai have appeared, met and repelled by the monks who have taken cover within the buildings. There is the sizzling cracking explosion of gunpowder, for the monks have taken the opportunity to repack and reload their arquebuses, and I hear the screams and shouts of those hit. I feel a curious sense of calm. The monks to my left and right attack, weapons aloft. I find myself moving with them as if directed by a mind that is not my own, my actions directed by a larger consciousness. There is no order to this skirmish, it is a brawl of close combat and confusing shadow and blinding flash of muzzle fire. I am jostled and shoved, and I feel but do not see scores of arrows passing within a hair’s breadth. A monk to my right falls, and my flank is exposed. There is a slash of a naginata in the dark, narrowly missing my shoulder, striking the attacking footsoldier. The cone-shaped helmet of hardened leather splinters and the man’s head snaps sideways and he falls away, out of my sight and lost instantly in the scramble. My head whirls with the strangeness of it all, is that death I had just seen? But I do not have time to think and process, but only react.

In the brawl I come across Tomoe. She has in her hands a curved sickle, arcing a long trace as she spins the chain above her head, slicing and tearing at those before her. The sickle whips with deadly accuracy and with such range that her foes fall back, forming a wide circle of bare earth at her feet. The way she moves and fights is somehow sensuous, every ounce of her strength is put into each blow but it does not blunt her aim or her technique. As I watch the sickle jerks to a stop, lodged into a footsoldier’s neck, and she pulls upon the chain, freeing the blade, the enemy falling forward with hands uselessly pressing against the spouting geyser of blood. I see how she has gained the reputation for never letting blood fall upon her, for she moved as if it were a dance, ducking away too quickly even to be caught by the crimson spray.

A blast wave of wind from an explosion knocks me suddenly from my feet, casting me high and knocking me about like an autumn leaf. I fall face forward to the ground pooled with muddy water –a high pitched ringing driving like nails into my head. I open my eyes, seeing at first only the stones and mud and leaves. I raise my head and slowly shift my focus. The smoke swirls, and like a curtain opening upon a stage I see I have fallen before Fujin, the god of wind. In the flickering light and shadow his power and life strike a chord deep in my being. He lies upon his side, part of the wood of his head splintered away. His mouth is carved open in a silent ferocious roar, the muscles of his body bulging in exaggerated fullness as he holds a writhing bag of wind over his shoulders. Lying awkwardly atop those mighty arms of the statue is a monk, his body shredded, his face turned away from me, flung who-knows how far by force of the explosion. Something shifts in the settling debris and the monk’s body rolls, a limp sack of bones and flesh. He crashes to the earth, his right arm flings downward, his arquebus in his hand and landing by my side as surely as if were a deliberate presentation to me. The monk lies face-up in the mud, his eyes wide open. In a stab of panic I half-expect those white-rimmed pupils to flicker in my direction.

The night sky is illuminated in a brilliant yellow as one the temples burns, the thatching of its roof catching the flame despite the rains. The air is thick with smoke and steam and that incessant tone in my ears makes me feel suddenly isolated, as if I am the only being upon the entire earth. It is an unerring sensation, and I do not try to stand, instead feeling everything recede away.

The sound of a phalanx of riders draws my attention to the base of the rise, a mere stone’s throw away. Armour and banners flutter about the mighty warhorses, those sitting atop straight-backed and with a presence of command. The milling horses allow for a moment a clear view to the rider centre-most; the unmistakable silhouette of the upright half crescent moon upon the helmet like the horns of bull.

It is Lord Date Masamune, the One-Eyed Dragon himself, leading his men from the frontline.

They move at a leisurely pace through the swirling smoke and bright light and stark shadow of the blazing fires. Lord Date raises his arm in an encompassing sweep, giving an order to his retinue that I cannot hear. Two of his samurai gallop away, leaving him with less than ten guards. Feeling as if my actions have been pre-ordained, I switch my focus to the dead monk lying by my side, stretching my arm that seems made of wood to prise the arquebus free of the claw of dead man’s hand. I almost recoil; disturbed to find the flesh is soft and still warm. My nervous gaze skitters across the monk’s face, half-expecting some twitch or reaction, but he is still. The grip is surprisingly heavy as I raise the gun to my shoulder, my fingers trace along the wood, trying to find the trigger. I have seen these weapons used, but never held one. I do not even know if it is loaded.

I sight down the length of the steel bore, taking aim at Date, but samurai mill about, and I can’t get a clear shot.

Then Tomoe is there, looking small as she stands before the group of mighty warhorses. Undaunted, she steps forward; her chain whirling over her head on a short leash, with extra length held in her free hand.

The samurai bodyguards edge forward to protect their masters but Date shoves them aside, spurring his horse forward between them. Light plays across his face, his lips curled in savage pleasure as he brings his longbow up to his eye, squinting along the length of the nocked arrow, his other eye masked by the black and shiny cup of the eyepatch. Drawing his arm he loosens and Tomoe flings herself aside as the arrow embeds into the earth, nicking the edge of her robe, missing her by a fraction. Date cocks his head in surprise, the grin stretching as if pleased to be challenged. He reaches to the quiver at his belt in the saddle before him and grasps a handful of arrows, holding them like a fan in his draw hand. Knowing I have only moments, I look down the sights of the gun, but Date’s horse is dancing and I have to trace the heavy weapon to follow his path. Too slow, too slow. My finger presses upon the trigger and some mechanism moves, but I hesitate, and can only watch as he drops one arrow after another into the string and fires upon Tomoe. Drawing and firing; one, two, three, four shots in rapid succession. I have never seen such skill, his motions so fluid it seems easy, each draw short and loosened without pause. Tomoe somehow avoids every one; using the crescent blade and chain to deflect some, dancing and twisting from others.

Date gives a roar of frustration, and two of the attendant samurai exchange a look with their master, then at his nod they dig their heels into the mounts, surging forward upon Tomoe as if to run her down, their weight low over their horse’s necks. She dives aside, barely missing the hooves and launching the chain and sickle at one as he charges by, the momentum driving the point of the sickle deeper into the chest of the samurai as feet splayed Tomoe is able to hold the chain as it whips taut, vibrating with tension as the blade rips the rider into the air and to the ground, spouting blood from torn plates of armour, his chest opened, and the riderless horse vanishes into the smoke.

The remaining samurai pivots and charges with drawn katana as Tomoe wrenches upon the chain but it is embedded and stuck fast. She gives a violent pull and the body at the end of the chain twists but it is not enough. The samurai raises his blade, suddenly upon her. At the very last moment she drops the chain and ducks under the feet of the galloping horse, pressing herself close to the flank as the razor sharp edge swishes through the air. Tomoe does not aim for samurai’s body high upon horseback, but instead she grabs low at his boot, breaking it free of the stirrup. There is a confused blur of shadow as samurai draws his horse to a stop, hauling upon the reins so the beast’s head stands upright, mighty muscles in its neck twisting upright.

Again, I find Date with the sights of my gun. He sits upon his horse, watching the scene play out. Then the rest of the attendant guards draw closer, obscuring him from me. I know I have only one chance. The end of the barrel wavers, up down left right, as I try to compensate, unable to find the right degree of strength. I am on my belly, noisome smoke in my lungs and eyes, the wet grass pressing against my body, my elbows propping the weight of the gun. I have the advantage of higher ground, yet the shot is not clear.

Meanwhile, the samurai has wrenched his foot away from Tomoe, drawing back his leg in preparation to stamp down. Tomoe ducks beneath the horse’s belly and suddenly upon the opposite side she pulls the man from his horse. He is caught off-balance and for a moment teeters atop his mount, clawing uselessly at the air, but he cannot find purchase and they both come tumbling down heavily together, Tomoe’s hand about his waist, drawing the wakizashi short sword. Heavy in his armour, the samurai takes a fraction longer to recover and Tomoe has her foot on his chest. She seizes the samurai’s top-knot of hair and cuts off his head with a quick and bloody slash. Blood fountains as she whips the dismembered head in an arc and flings it into the night. She stands there, her head bowed, the wakizashi held low in one hand, her chest rising and falling.

Then she gives a hiccup as if she had been given a hard push to the chest. Her head snaps upright, finding Date looking at her, lowering his bow with calm satisfaction. He is in my sights.

I squeeze the trigger.

The gun explodes into life, the recoil shoving the butt hard up into my shoulder.

In that moment everything is millpond still; Date’s head whipped to one side, a spurt of blood staining the stone wall of the temple at his back, his guards too shocked to move at the shot that has come so unexpectedly from the darkness. I do not believe it. I have found my mark. My heart seems to flutter to a halt and I do not know how to react to the mad flow of exaltation flooding my veins.

The moment of ethereal silence passes. Date finds his balance and regains himself upon his saddle, holding a hand to the side of his face, and as he straightens I see his face.

I have only taken his ear.

He hauls upon his reins and wheels his rearing horse, and taking his cluster of samurai with him, retires from the field.

My eyes return to Tomoe, who has not moved. Then I see the the dark shadow upon her robe, and I think, the onna-no-geisha has lost her reputation to have never been stained by a drop of blood. But then I see the stain is growing. She seems captivated by the sight of black feathers protruding from her breast over her heart, sunken so deep that only a handspan of the arrow shaft protrudes.

She drops the blade and falls to her knees, teetering, then collapses to the mud.

Chapter Twenty Nine

The flames lick hungrily at the buildings of Enryaku-ji, devouring timber and thatch fed by the hands of Oda’s soldiers. My hearing has returned, that all-encompassing ringing faded into the background, and I can hear the crack and sizzle of the terrible fire and the screams of the refugees within.

Everything is being undone; buildings that took scores of lifetimes to construct are consumed in brilliant flaming beasts of destruction, the last shred of resistance had fled, Oda’s army swarming like ants, slaughtering the wounded and helpless, spreading the fires. It is no longer a battle, it is a massacre.

I do not know where to turn, what to do, how to act. I hear a strong sonorous voice calling out from within the main temple. They are surrounded on all sides by fire that has begun to climb up the walls, tickling at the roof.

“Let us concentrate our attention on the Moon of Perfect Enlightenment,” calls that voice from within, shouted over the roar of the fire. “Chastise our hearts in the water that flows from the hillside of Shimei! Scalding water and charcoal fire are no worse than the cooling breeze!”

At this command a mob of monks, women and children pour forth from the doors of the temple and I watch as they throw themselves into the conflagration. Young and old, screaming as they burn.

I watch, feeling the last of my strength slip, sick to my core, wishing to flee, yet somehow I cannot tear my eyes away from the sight of the figures thrashing in pain within that bright furnace, my arms over my head as much to shield me from the waves of heat as to block out the cries that resound inside my skull, opening a yawning emptiness inside of me.

At last, hunched low, I stumble away in the mud and as I turn something draws my eye; a silky flow of shadow upon shadow. I look, and see it is a man darting from the forest into the buildings, and for a moment his face is illuminated as he passes before a beam of firelight. I blink, wondering if I had seen another ghost.

Nobushige.

I shake my head, hardly daring it to be possible, yet knowing it to be true. There is the way of the ninja; while the battle is fought he seeks to infiltrate the temple grounds, sow chaos and spreading mayhem from within the camp. This class of mercenary has no scruples of morals or the honour of war.

I have to stop him.

I pass several monks, and grab at the sleeve of the man nearest me, shouting and pointing, but he is reloading his gun and will not be distracted. I give up, and continue my pursuit.

The sky is lightening; a deep blood red full of smoke and ash. Has an entire night passed? The east wind has gained strength, the air turned from something unseen and unfelt into a palpable presence, gusting into me, shoving and plucking at my clothing. It breathes into the fires and they respond with renewed ferocity, turbulent fingers of flame burning all the brighter as they devour the ancient wood and thatch.

I do not understand how I have survived.

I follow Nobushige as he moves away from the fires and the swelling numbers of enemy soldiers, heading deeper within the complex where still darkness remains. He moves rapidly and I must focus my attention entirely upon him lest I lose him in the smoke and confusion. Then I do lose sight of him and stagger to a stop, eyes roaming the dark as despair floods over me until I see movement and a flash of light; someone is feeding a flame beneath the supports of a temple. Nobushige does not see me and I circle him, edging closer, keeping to the shadows and the swirling smoke.

In the light of the kindled fire I see a face lit from below, dark shadows in the deep sockets of wide spaced eyes. A rush comes over me, a flash of false strength followed immediately by a crippling weakness. I drop lower and move so that a large wooden pillar is between us, my feet in their straw sandals easing into the mud with every step. I can hear him now, the scratching like the workings of a rat. My advance is steady until I am within his reach.

Again, fate has brought our paths together.

Nobushige looks up, startled. His eyes widen in surprise as he recognises me, then narrow. I have slipped into a mediative state; everything seems to have stopped, my mind is clear, calm. I lunge at him with outstretched hands, that special kind of strength given only when the mind has taken complete control, it is strength given without regard for consequence.

I catch Nobushige about the chest and despite his bulk throw him backward, his head striking the ground. I throw myself atop of him. He is much larger than me, it is as if I ride a fat sow, my legs astraddle his chest. My right hand has found a heavy rock and I hold it high, fingers splayed over its circumference, muscles tensed, ready to dash it against the side of his skull. From the periphery of my vision I see the rock in my hand has a sharpened edge like that of a crude axe.

“Wait, boy!” That edge of command in Nobushige’s voice seems to cut right through my thoughts.

“You are a liar!” I scream at him. I screw my eyes into tight slits, yet I hesitate. I know it is a mistake, for I hold a snake by its tail and should my attention slip a single instant I will be struck dead, but more than anything else I need answers.

“Let me explain!” he says levelly. “I serve my Lord. To do my duty, I must deceive those foolish enough to be deceived.”

I feel the edge of my alertness blunting; my words feel padded, as if someone else is speaking through my own mouth.

“You have taken Yuki,” I say, my voice weakening, shaking my head at my own foolishness.

An expression flashes across Nobushige's face that I cannot read. Then I realise what it is. He is hiding something dear to his heart.

“She always has always been mine,” he growls. “She was a fool to warn you to flee the castle all those years ago. It was a lapse in judgement but she has repented - she respects her father.”

I feel myself return with a snap.

“Her father…?”

“A clever hawk hides its claws,” Nobushige says with a smirk of self-satisfaction at my confusion. “Blood ties are thick. And I do not doubt the loyalty of my daughter.”

At first I do not understand, but then I feel a shifting of the world. My hand starts to visibly tremble, wavering, the stone somehow ten times heavier.

“Daughter… You use your daughter… How can you be so cruel?”

“The world is cruel! To grow strong we must match that cruelty. Give in to passivity and you will fail, just like these pathetic monks. They will be forgotten by history, deserted by their gods because they are weak!”

I raise my eyes and see the glow of flames is growing brighter, gusting with the east wind. It won’t be long until Oda’s soldiers are upon us. My resolve is all but gone; Nobushige’s face has changed, I see in it now Yuki reflected there beneath those sharp eyes. The taking of his life will not make right the destruction of this night; there is no hope for the monks of Enryaku-ji. Perhaps all this is how it should be, perhaps these deaths are ordained, a natural conquest leading to peace over the land. If only I could let go and take everything back…

Too long. I have thought too long.

Nobushige twists and is out from beneath me. He is suddenly at my back and the heavy stone tumbles from my hand. His hands close about the tender flesh of my throat, squeezing tight and an incredible pain explodes my vision into bursts of light. He stands behind me, out of reach of my flailing hands as they scramble at his but meet nothing to fasten to, desperate to get a breath of air as my lungs work violently against the tightness.

“You should never have fled, traitor,” he says, his face leaning over my shoulder and so close to mine I feel his spittle. His eyes roam my face. “We have unfinished business, long have I sought to find you.”

There is a kind of catharsis to the pain. How could I have not known? I see now a huge part of myself has always been taken by Nobushige, he has always been my master. Despite seven years of intense focus at Mount Hiei, I had never truly lost that thread binding my soul to his command. I recall then a recurring childhood nightmare: a giant bat, twice as tall as I stand its wings wrapped about me as it sinks its teeth into my neck. The vision of suffocation has become a reality and the insurmountable mountain of pain forces me to let go of everything and I am borne along sinking deeper, the edges of the world going black, my ears engulfed with roar of screaming blood and my fingers no longer fight at his. The pain is everything. I am dying. It will not be long.

A strange thought enters my head, some fragment of wisdom lodged in the hull of subconscious: one who cannot master himself is condemned to be mastered by others. Now, finally, I feel my thoughts unravelling as everything begins to slip away.

I am startled by a flicker; a candle flame lying flat in the wind, resisting. There is some hidden strength in my mind and I realise it is the drive instilled by the kaihogyo. Keep moving and refuse to be lost in the widening spiral of the future, thoughts that if given free reign lead to hours that blossom into days and then into years until the will to continue is bled thin. I have that intensity of focus, as if I once again the only thing important in the world is the next footfall I am about to make upon the forest floor, and nothing more.

Endure, I think. Endure.

My fingers find something at my belt that now I realise I knew had been there all along, whispering its presence in my head that I only hear now that I am listening. A flare of energy fizzes through my body.

A hidden claw of my own.

The dagger of the kaihogyo is in my hand. With the last of my strength I fumble and it is in my hand and I raise my arm, elbow locked, then swing down, my arm like a pendulum and as it strikes I feel the blade speak to me along its length, telling me of fabric and skin and flesh and blood until it is buried up to the hilt and it bucks in my hands and is torn away. The hands fall from my throat and for some time I still cannot breath, my world dark. My throat has collapsed in upon itself and the pain roars in my ears.

I gasp, and air rushes into my lungs with a ragged tearing noise. I exhale, then inhale again, my hands splayed upon the earth before me and I retch.

“Damn you boy!” Nobushige cries.

I open one eye, the red strength of rage tunnelling my vision as I get to my feet. Nobushige is upon the ground on his back, his hands pressed about the handle of the knife deep in his upper thigh. Nobushige’s teeth are bared in pain, his leg straight and quivering.

My anger drives my actions. I reach down and tear my knife from his leg and a fountain of blood covers us both. Nobushige shrieks. I hold the knife backhand and I can see only that patch of his chest where I will drive my knife home, deep into his heart. The hatred wells and boils within me.

Nobushige throws back his head, tendons in his neck standing out like cords of rope, averting his eyes from his impending death. My knee is upon his chest, the bloody knife coming down fast -

In that fraction of a moment I see it all. The fear that drove my rage is gone and I see only the man. It makes sense. Freedom in belonging, his duty a part of something greater.

I twist and cast the knife aside. I exhale, directing my trembling energy towards untying my belt and wrapping it about the top of Nobushige’s thigh, his pants sopping wet with blood. I draw the knot tight with a savage pull, the gush of blood from the narrow wound suddenly stops.

Nobushige is too weak to do anything but raise his head.

“What -”

“Take care of Yuki,” I tell him. “She needs you.”

I bend and retrieve my knife. And then I turn and run into the roiling smoke and darkness.

Chapter Thirty

An eerie orange glow suffuses the vast dome of the sky overhead and the air seems to hang in my ears, dead and heavy with silence. Gentle gusts of wind hold flakes of silent ash aloft, raining softly down as they have done for the past three days, blanketing every visible surface as far as the eye can see with formless grey. The fields, roads and rooftops of Kyoto, and even here, beneath the arc of the bridge where the two rivers meet.

I wonder at the uncountable number of incinerated particles that had once made up flesh of thousands of men women and children who had perished; now so indiscriminately mixed with what had been the thatching and beams and burls of wood of the vast complex of buildings of Enryaku-ji. I wonder if Yobutomo had returned to the conflagration; perhaps some of these flakes that fall upon me now had once been a part of his body. I feel that pang again, and I wish I had seen him one last time, if only to dispel that tension and bitterness of our last parting.

I bend my head over my task. The water here at the grassy bank of the river is not swift, and a sodden mass of ash chokes the surface and reeds. I clear a window to see the crusting along the blade of my submerged knife blooms red, swirling slowly away downstream, metal becoming silver under the soft pad of my thumb.

My inner monologue of thought slows, and then stops completely. I am alone and truly free in every bare and terrible sense of the word. Somehow in that solitude I have come back to the world, seeing it now from afresh. Nothing is perfect, nothing is finished, and nothing lasts.

I blink back to reality, and rub harder at the blade, although it is already clean. The cold water feels good, it numbs my fingers. It is dangerous for me to be here in Kyoto; soldiers hunt for any who have escaped the mountain, and despite my nondescript clothing I still have the air of a monk, and it would be wise not to linger, yet I had to come back to this place to say goodbye.

Watching that endless song of flowing water I am almost taken by overwhelming sadness. The sucking emptiness tears at the lining in my chest, the loss a hollow yawning where my heart once was. I feel as if I am a swimmer afloat, feeling the cold swift current of the lower stratum beneath as I kick. If I let that emotion go it will run and take me, and I will drown. I rock back on my haunches, exhaling, withdrawing my hands from the water and closing my eyes, lost in the circle of cause and effect, blame and guilt.

It is then, in my silence, I feel the warmth on my face as I raise my face to the sun. A fluttering rises in my belly, an odd feeling of surety as I realise that I am not afraid of the emptiness anymore.

I open my eyes, and know the world awaits.

THE END

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About the author:

Ronan Frost has loved fantasy and sci-fi since he was a child. He has been writing since a young age, first inspired in primary school to spend countless hours penning a comic book complete with lots of red ink for the blood on axes and swords. Fast-forward twenty years and now with a PhD in physics, Ronan still loves to write fiction and lose himself in imaginary worlds. 
He currently lives in Tokyo, Japan with his lovely wife and two children.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this book, or even if you didn’t, please leave a review or rating. The success of emerging writers such as myself depends entirely on such feedback!