Chapter Two: Blue moon

Jin's arrival at the village's only inn caused little stir once he identified himself as the servant of a wealthy merchant. He knew most innkeepers found the sight of two blades at least a touch disconcerting but the promise of future trade, travel, and thus prosperity eased even the most anxious businessman. Jin was able to inquire after caravan sightings and most business of the village without obstacle.

"Good sir, our village is certainly the most hospitable in the region, so we see many travelers and visitors, all year. The quieter folk keep to themselves in the forest, but we in the village and the fishermen below are quite content with the news and goods that our visitors bring…." The innkeeper fixed his eyes on Jin's downturned ones rudely but without arrogance. "More tea, sir?" He started to pour before Jin's grunt of approval hit the air.

Speaking to the cup of tea, Jin asked, "So you get a lot of visitors year-round…from where do they come?"

"Oh all over, sir. This spring, we even had a family of pottery traders from Fukushima. I don't know how all eight of them fit on their tiny cart."

Jin thought that would be a rather long trip for porcelain dishes to travel.

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Late in the morning after his arrival, Jin set out from the village to search the forest. He followed the road leading west out of the village, away from the sea, for here the coast ran nearly north-to-south. He began to grit his teeth slowly in annoyance as he came across several cart-tracks departing from the road, heading in every direction. Pausing for a moment, he reasoned that as the disappearing travelers never seemed to end up in nearby towns, but were likely departing via the sea, that he should keep near the coast. He turned left down the next track and detected the faint scent of the sea.

Jin came to a point in the path where, oddly, an ancient tree forced the track to diverge around it. Right, or left? he thought as he stood in the center of the path that had so unerringly ran straight to the base of the tree. He looked both left and right, then saw it – a glimpse of dark wood planks between two trees to the right. He diverted from the track and silently approached the structure. A shack, not old but already weathered-looking, sat in a small clearing. A couple of fat vines with bright orange blossoms lay on a low trellis alongside the dwelling, along with a few rows of other young green shoots. He could see a small pile of wood at one corner of the shack, and one poorly papered window sat above it. Jin froze to assess the scene before him: no fresh smoke, no sounds from behind the structure, no sight of movement within. He moved slowly forward, and confirmed the shack's vacancy with one eye at the small tear in the window screen.

Rounding the corner, Jin entered the shack. Small sacks of what appeared to be rice sat in one corner. A low table, small narrow tatami on the otherwise dirt floor, and chest made up the other furnishings. The chest held little more than some kimono (rather large) and a set of surprisingly long silk ropes. Though meagerly furnished, everything was neat and clean enough to suggest that someone currently lived in this dwelling. Jin decided, as he inhaled a little more deeply, that its owner was definitely female. There was a faint aroma, one he knew to be feminine, though he couldn't quite know why, carried on the small breeze that was neither forest nor ocean.

Before she returned, he knew he had to press on in his investigation.

Returning to the tree in the road, he now noticed what he hadn't while standing on its opposite side: another track, heading back towards the coast. Jin followed this path to its end and grunted slightly in satisfaction when he found it led to a small clearing above a seacliff, where the trees just met the cliff's edge before it fell into the rocks and waves below. From the far side of the clearing, a set of stairs roughly gouged out of the short cliffside led to a little lock. Ah – the point of departure.

Jin scoured the area, noting its likely recent use and its surprisingly well-concealed location on this particular strip of coastline. Several large rocks jutted out of the water just offshore, making this bit of coast unattractive to passing ships, and the waves seemed rather erratic, making it unattractive to local fishermen. Jin knew very little of the sea, but figured it would not be easy to depart from such a location. However, for these fleeing Christians, to consider the alternative….

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden flare of orange from behind the trees – the sun was setting. He would have to return to the village. Jin followed the coast back in the growing dusklight.

Jin was deep in mediation as he trudged the pathless coastline, so that he very nearly failed to hear it. But being the finely-tuned assassin he'd become, Jin did catch the faint sound of a voice, humming a song very softly. He froze in his tracks to listen, and identify its source, then suddenly moved back deeper into the forest towards the sound.

The song came from a woman – average-framed, Jin noticed with very slight disappointment – moving swiftly through the trees. Her pale green kimono made it difficult to see her as more than a shimmer in the forest shadows, but now that Jin had caught the sound of her song, he tracked her unerringly as she moved gracefully but purposefully through the wood. Luck also helped guide him as the rising of a full moon began even as the sun set so that Jin could see the woman's moon-shadow dappled form between the trees ahead of him.

After over an hour of tracking, Jin saw the woman slow down and eventually stop at the edge of a clearing. From his vantage point, he could hear the woman take a few deep breaths and straighten her attire before she cleared her throat to emit a loud cough. Jin moved silently closer, hoping to get a better look at this woman, when he was distracted by the contrasting sounds of water flowing over rocks and a fire snapping a broken log. Moving ever closer, he saw the woman move forward into a clearing, which he could now identify as an occupied campsite.

The woman was quietly greeted by several figures that arose from around a tiny fire not far from the edge of a narrow river. Two more fires were ringed by people, some of them likely children. Several figures exchanged bows with the woman, and a couple of children ran to embrace the woman's legs. She let out a loud and happy laugh, which was met with some inaudible distress from the adults in the camp, but the children failed to let her go. Jin stayed hidden in the treeline and watched as after little conversation the woman settled next to one of the fires, and within twenty minutes all in the camp were asleep. He could see no evidence of goods for trade or Christian symbols or anything else suspicious or illegal. That, and the lack of an obese people trafficker led him to decide to give up this pursuit and head back to the village.

Jin was unusually pensive as he returned to his bed in the village inn. He replayed the day's search in his head as he drifted to sleep…there was something…something…about that woman's laugh….