Disclaimer: I don't own Samurai Champloo or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos; neither do I make any money from this work of fanfiction.
A/N: Huge, huge thank you to FarStrider, for beta-ing par excellence.
The Hanged Man
I. garden
It was a pleasure to burn. — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Text of a letter delivered at Gojuu Hall, Mihara, the eleventh day of Uzuki, from Mujuu-Shinken Dojo, Kisarazu:
My dear Juunosuke:
The winter was difficult here in the north, this past year, and it often seemed as if the snow would swallow us entirely — now, I wonder if we will ever hear the summer crickets over the sound of running water. I have heard that the cold lingers on in the south; I have been offering daily that the trees which grow in the shade of Hiroshima Castle will not be blighted by the winter wind. Perhaps it is the frailty of age that causes me to dread the way one becomes chilled to the bone, though I have seen no sign that I am soon to be gifted with any wisdom to temper it.
An old acquaintance of ours has come to me with a surprising request, to send Jin to him for study.
I'm hesitant to send our boy away — for he is as much yours as he is mine, I think — but I can see no way around it without causing great offense. I have put the matter to Jin, who is willing to go; still, he is very young, and his experience of the world outside our gate is small. I should have sent him to you earlier, I know, but I have allowed my regard for our boy to blind me to what is best for him.
You remember the dojo on your last visit to us, so you will understand what a surprise it was when I was approached with an offer of patronage from our potential benefactor (who, it seems, has taken up gardening once again), in return for which we would be asked only to send those boys with the most promise to meet with him. If a boy chose another path than that offered, he said, he would let him go with sadness but the best wishes for his future.
He asked also for Jin; on that, he said, he could not compromise.
It seemed as if he had indeed been sent by the gods, and I am ashamed to admit that I did not press him as hard as I should have. When I did ask him why he had chosen us— certainly I would have seen the Yagyu as more practical — he answered me that the short time he had spent here had taught him more than anything else he had experienced. He did not bear us any ill will, he assured me; he had come to appreciate the purity of the Mujuu during his time spent in the service of Edo, adding that he thought other schools were overrepresented in his masters' service. It seemed most reasonable then, and even today, as I dip my brush in ink, I think to myself that my fears are unfounded. Still — how I wish Master Sekiun was here, or even Ichiun-senpai, to tell me the truth of what happened then and to tell me what I should do now.
I am in great need of your advice, my friend. Our old acquaintance assures me that the Mujuu will bloom again, but I wonder if we will regret the harvest.
As always, I remain
Your devoted friend,
Enshirou
Jin could still feel the answer on his tongue like an unripe persimmon, bitter and sweet at once; it tasted of adulthood, he thought.
The small garden where his shishou had taken him was quiet, and pleasant. The man he had been brought here to see was pruning the dead wood from a plant with dark glossy leaves and pale violet flowers. He and the man were alone; his master had left him with a whispered admonishment to be respectful. It was sunny and warm as he stood there, waiting awkwardly.
The man kept his eyes on his work. The sound of his shears was so familiar, and for a moment Jin was a tiny boy once more, listening to the older students in the Mujuu orchard as they worked; but the dojo already felt as if it belonged to another lifetime.
The man rose and brushed dirt from his hands. "You are Jin," he said, looking at him for a moment as if he disliked him; then the man smiled, the impression falling away. "Do you know who I am?"
"You are Kariya-dono."
The man's smile broadened. "Ah. I was you, once," he told Jin. "You've come a long way. Would you like to see the flowers of my garden?"
Jin nodded. He was as tall as Kariya, he saw as he crossed the courtyard; the man's eyes flickered over him, assessing. Kariya was a tidy, broad-faced man dressed in plain brown kimono and black hakama. He should have looked enough like a monk for a stranger hurrying past him to consider giving alms; instead, he looked as unmovable as a troop of cavalry or Hiroshima Castle.
"The garden isn't as large as what you're used to," the older man commented. "But there are hardly enough of us here to justify planting an orchard."
Surprised, Jin looked directly at him. "You know the dojo?"
Kariya raised his eyebrows. "I was a student there for a time. As a matter of fact, I knew your shishou when I was a boy, a little — he was a few years ahead, of course, so it wasn't as if he knew me well." He clasped his hands behind his back as they walked, nodding at a small tree that was growing crookedly in a wooden tub. "I'll need to replant that before it breaks the container. Is it still the same, or do the older boys now spend more time with their juniors?"
"Sometimes."
"How interesting. Your shishou knows best, certainly," the older man said. "I spent very little time with any of the other boys when I was there, older or not. My time was saved for kenjutsu." He gave a self-deprecating smile. "I'm sure that sounds foolish to you."
Jin shook his head. "No."
"Hn. In spending all my time in training, I improved to the point where I had no equal among the other boys; even on a good day, the junior masters were hard pressed to beat me. As you might expect, the other boys — " Kariya shrugged. "But you've hardly come here to listen to me talk about my difficulties. How old were you when you began your training?"
"I was five when I first went to the dojo."
"I see. And your family?"
"My parents died when I was small. Shishou is the only family I have."
"So." The older man brightened, seeing Jin's interest as they neared an unusual plant, a yellow sunburst of a flower balanced atop a rough green stalk. "You've noticed my sunflower."
"Sunflower?" The boy looked at the flower, dark eyes alert. "What is it?"
Kariya smiled. "You've never seen one before?" he asked, as Jin shook his head. "I suppose not — your shishou has different interests. It was brought here by foreign priests from the other side of the world. During the day, when the flower blooms, its face follows the sun; at night, the flower turns its face to the sunrise, waiting for the sun to appear again. The priests used it in their teaching. What do you think it means?"
Jin frowned slightly. "Loyalty to one's lord." His fingers curled into his palms.
The older man inclined his head. "But?" he asked. "If you've been taught that questions are ill-mannered, you should forget that now and ask as many as you like. Otherwise, I'll never know what you think."
The boy's dark eyebrows drew together. "What if the lord isn't worthy of that loyalty?"
Kariya nodded, turning away from the sunflower. "Very few of them are." He walked away toward a stand of small trees in containers, Jin following after a moment. "It may have been different when the country was at war — battles were fought for simpler things. If a neighbor wanted the part of a lord's territory that touched on the sea, he took it; if the lord wanted it back, he went to war with his neighbor. Whether a man was an enemy or a friend was a very clear thing.
"Nothing is as simple as it seems, these days. Ronin are everywhere, available to anyone willing to pay them for their loyalty. The question of whether a lord is worthy of loyalty makes it seem as if one is either worthy or one is not; what you should ask is whether this lord is more worthy of your loyalty than that lord. To see it as anything more than an arrangement — " Kariya stopped in front of the saplings. " — the Mujuu makes much of worthiness and loyalty, which are fine qualities for the dojo. But the world does intrude, doesn't it?"
"If that's true, then what use is the sword? If it's nothing," Jin asked, "why don't lords come to arrangements among themselves? We wouldn't be needed."
The older man chuckled. "And what would that serve? Let me tell you this: there are more reasons to serve a particular lord than whether he is worthy of your loyalty. You'll learn what they are. Over time," he added, beaming at Jin. "I can see you are loyal to your shishou, which is only right. He's been very loyal to you, hasn't he?"
The boy nodded.
"Of course he has. He's a good man." The broad smile slipped a moment as Jin watched. "I can imagine he's a good teacher as well. He was a good student — one of those people who are loyal, certainly. Master Sekiun was always very fond of him; he was less fond of me, but . . ."
"Why?" Jin looked at the ground. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
Kariya raised his eyebrows. "No," he said, regret coloring his voice. "Master Sekiun acted correctly. If anything, the fault was mine. The time I spent in practice became a distraction to the other students. I was sent to another dojo, for a time." He sighed. "I wish he would have allowed me to stay at the Mujuu; I learned new techniques at the other dojo, but nothing compared to what I would have been taught. It's still one of the things I regret most. I understand now, but even so — "
"But wasn't it for your benefit that you went to the other dojo?"
"Hn. I suppose so, yes," the man said. "I was grateful. And Master Sekiun was kind; he could have lied to me and told me he was sending me for my own good, but he was honest. He told me it would be best for everyone if I went elsewhere for a little while."
"What happened then?"
"Oh, I learned what I could, and the master sent me on to walk my path." Kariya reached out to where a spider had strung a web between two young trees, the filaments a bright silver-white in the sun; he carefully tore the web free of the branches and lowered the web to the ground, where the spider scuttled off between the pots. "Master Sekiun released me from the Mujuu almost immediately after — we couldn't agree on some matters — and I went into service with a lord from the south for a few years, before taking a position in the shogun's guards."
The boy nodded, his face unreadable.
"This would have been about the time you were born," the man said. "Ancient history, almost Kamakura days. And I would not change any of it. Our duty is to everyone, to keep peace in the land. What lord could offer you more than that?" The serene smile returned to Kariya's face.
Jin tucked his hands into his sleeves, his elbows sharp angles under the cloth. "Kariya-dono — "
"Yes?"
"I have heard — " Jin paused, clearly thinking how to phrase his next words. "I have heard the shogun's guard called no better than a band of assassins. Is that true?"
Kariya laughed. "Is that what you've heard? Then I imagine you'll be disappointed to hear that I haven't drawn my sword for anything other than practice in fifteen years. Are you sure it was the shogun's guard?" he asked. "Perhaps it was the Iga . . . not that it matters, really. What is it that you object to?"
Jin was silent.
"I see." The older man bent, taking up some of the soil from one of the pots between his fingers; he crumbled it back around the roots and grunted with satisfaction. "Tell me, when you train, what do you use?"
"A shinai."
"And you are samurai?"
The boy looked affronted. "Of course."
"And someday you will carry a daisho, instead of your shinai?"
"Yes, but — "
"What do you think your sword is for?" Kariya asked softly. "If you are unprepared to use it, then give it up. Become a monk." He straightened. "The truth is, there is nothing for us but the sword — for you, and I, and your shishou alike. The only difference between he and I is in how we see the world; he sees the world as an extension of the dojo. It's not.
"The world is a garden."
Jin looked at the older man, all his attention fixed on Kariya.
"And like every garden, it needs gardeners to take care of it." Kariya passed his hand behind the delicate leaf of a tiny maple tree, its bright verdant edges jagged against his palm. "It is very important to care for it properly. Given the right attention, a garden can become a work of art: a poem, a painting, a small heaven. Do you see?"
"Yes," the boy said, eyes thoughtful.
"Good." Kariya allowed his hand to fall to his side. "It is often difficult to care for a garden in the way that it needs. It is the gardener's duty to watch over it and keep it from harm. Do you know how to keep weeds out of the garden?"
Jin was silent; he had often worked in the gardens of the dojo, but knew that this was not what the older man was asking.
"Weeds rob the flowers of the water and nutrients they need, causing them to wither and die. If the weeds are uprooted, however, the flowers that are growing alongside the weeds are disturbed and will not survive."
"What do you do?" Jin asked, curious.
"You should plant flowers that will use the weeds as their nourishment." Kariya reached out to stroke the leaves of a small tree with a rough-skinned finger, before turning to the younger man with a look of satisfaction. "We'll talk more of this, soon, but for now, I would see your shishou. Will you find him for me?"
At the first footstep on the engawa, Mariya rose from the mat where he had been waiting, not in meditation so much as in dread: though whether it was dread that Kariya would find Jin unacceptable, or dread that he would not, he did not know. His heart was in his throat as he recognized the sound —
— a moment before Jin stepped into the room, ducking a little to avoid the low lintel.
"Jin."
"He would like to talk to you, shishou." The boy was as he had last seen him (and why wouldn't he be, Mariya asked himself wryly, the shogun's man knew how valuable the boy was), and the relief was so strong that he wasn't sure whether he wanted to embrace Jin or shake him until his teeth rattled for frightening him.
Instead, he allowed himself to smile at the boy. "Thank you, Jin. Stay here, please; I would prefer to see him alone."
Kariya did not bother to turn to face him, or even to look up from his work on a small pine as Mariya approached.
As he walked closer, Mariya looked at the place where Kariya had chosen to meet. It was clearly not a home, the well-kept garden notwithstanding; the building was clean, but smelled of dust and tatami that had been kept too long in storage. It was in stark contrast to the Mujuu's cheerful shabbiness, like an arrow painted in vermilion ink as to why he was here in the first place.
Kariya's rudeness reminded him of how it was that he was here.
Mariya spoke first, before the silence in the garden could become any louder. "Well?"
"You do me a great honor, in coming to see me," Kariya said, a sly smile in his voice. "The master of the Mujuu, and his best student."
"You tested him, then."
"He has . . . considerable skill," Kariya admitted grudgingly, as he turned to face the Mujushin headmaster. "You've taught him well. He'll surpass you soon."
Mariya nodded.
"Does he have swords of his own?"
"I've kept his father's, until he was old enough," Mariya said. "But I thought to give him mine, someday."
"Have him bring his father's swords. Nothing else." Kariya picked up a pair of shears lying next to his foot in a gesture of dismissal. "I expect him back here within the week."
"You're ordering me to give you my pupil? Now?" Mariya controlled himself, keeping his hands loose at his sides instead of giving in to the impulse to take the katana from its sheath at his hip. This was sooner than he'd thought, too soon, it wasn't enough time, he needed to be able to ensure that Jin would be safe: "I intend to pass on the dojo to him, I can't — " He stopped, as the other man paused in his work.
"You can't?" The man's voice was amused. "You already have."
"What do you want with him? You can't have a use for the Mujuu, not for what you do. You'd be better off with one of the Iga. They'd be falling over themselves to give you as many of their sons as you wanted."
Kariya rose to his feet in a single fluid motion. "Careful. This shogun may not be old enough to remember hunting tigers in Kai, but his family has a long memory," he said, snipping at an out-of-place branch. "Not that your boy looks much like a Takeda to me — more like a Suwa, with that face. Pretty thing, isn't he?"
"Women's tricks?" Mariya said. "You can't want him for yourself, that would mean you wanted something other than — how did you put it? 'Planning for the future'." He passed his hand over his chin, feeling the scrape of stubble against the skin of his palm; he wondered how it long it had been since he was last able to shave himself as clean-faced as Jin. Slack skin and wrinkles where there used to be firm flesh — for a master of the sword, he'd either lived too long or not long enough, he decided wryly.
"He's safe enough from me, that way." The other man deftly caught the branch as it fell, adding it to a small pile of brush. "I have no interest in that."
"Then what do you want?"
"Be reasonable." There was a rustle of leaves in the canopy over their heads, as a crow alighted on a low branch. "You're complaining that your boy will have a place of honor in serving Edo, and that your dojo will thrive. He could even take my place, someday, which I'm sure will fail to please you." Kariya took a piece of soft paper from the breast of his kimono and carefully wiped the blades of the shears.
Mariya closed his eyes. "Give me a month," he heard himself say. "He'll train with me, during that time — katana, naginata, whatever you please."
"Within the week," Kariya repeated. "You're trying to bargain for something that doesn't belong to you any more. Don't waste my time."
"The Mujuu will be worthless without him. There's no one else who could be its master, after me."
"Then I have no time to lose, do I?"
The time spent preparing for the journey flew by, the second time.
Jin was traveling with a group of merchants instead of with Mariya, the goodbye hanging awkwardly in the air as the merchants waited patiently for the boy to join them. For a moment, Mariya allowed his hand to rest on Jin's shoulder, under the pretext of wiping off a faint smudge of blue dye on the boy's neck from his new kimono; Mariya found a piece of soft, crumpled paper inside his own and scrubbed at the mark as Jin submitted patiently.
It was ridiculous, Mariya thought to himself, the boy's broad shoulder underneath his fingertips. It could not have been more than two or three summers ago that Jin had still been small enough that a scraped knee could be made better by taking the boy into his lap. This boy (man, he reminded himself) was big enough for Mariya to sit in his lap and confess his sins, expecting to have everything made right.
. . . which, in a way, he decided, he really was doing.
Mariya let his hand fall back to his side, still clutching the paper.
"Have you eaten?" the older man asked him, for the third time that morning.
Jin nodded, again.
"Remember what I've taught you," Mariya told him, his voice steady against the backdrop of chatter from the lessons going on. The Mujuu was flourishing; the outflow of students had already stopped, the polite letters of regret (most sorry cannot) replaced by a steady stream of messages from fathers (please earliest return possible) eager to ingratiate themselves and their sons with a school that wore Edo's favor like a coat of greasepaint on an actor, however that knowledge had come to be out. Kariya, he supposed.
"No, shishou." Jin was breathing from his chest, to Mariya's eye the only indication that the boy felt anything; a wave of guilt swept through the older man once more.
"And never forget. The Mujuu will always be your home."
"I won't, shishou."
Mariya opened his mouth to speak — don't go don't we'll find a way there has to — then hesitated, knowing that there wasn't. He reached instead into his kimono, bringing out a pair of eyeglasses which he gave to the boy. "Be careful," he said slowly. "Think about what you see."
Jin smiled, his breathing easing a little with the distraction, and took the glasses. "Are you sure you don't want to keep these, shishou? I think they might be more useful to you than me."
"No." The older man's mouth narrowed. "You should wear them."
Jin unfolded them and put them on, sliding them into place with a long forefinger. He gave Mariya a questioning look, wrinkling his nose at the strange weight, as his hand went back to rest on the spotless daisho at his hip.
Mariya sighed. "They're waiting for you."
Jin looked back only once as the merchants made their way ahead of him down the path, Mariya watching after; the boy's face — man's face, the older man reminded himself, Jin deserved that much — was still faintly puzzled. Then the party was swallowed by the leafy silence of the trees, and Jin was gone.
A flutter of cloth caught his eye as he turned back, toward the dojo.
Mariya stopped, glimpsing dark hair swinging over a green-clad shoulder, and a downturned mouth in a pale face. It took him a moment to put a name to the face: the Hojo boy — Yukimaru, he thought. He made a note to ask Yakobei later to make discreet enquiries of the nanadan if they knew why the boy would have been watching, before the prickling behind his eyelids threatened to unman him completely.
He closed his eyes, forgetting the Hojo boy entirely as he offered a silent prayer to whatever gods were listening; please, please, keep my son safe.
The daisho was an awkward weight at his side, as the gate swung open. He rested his hand on the hilt of the katana, the blue silk of the bindings smooth under his fingertips; it seemed strange just to walk in, after everything surrounding the decision of whether he would come here or not.
The building — it was difficult not thinking of it as another dojo, even though there had been no sign of other students, or really of anyone other than Kariya himself — was quiet, with only the chatter of birds to make it seem anything more real than a reflection in water. The pale, neatly raked gravel of the courtyard crunched underfoot as he crossed. Mortified, he wondered if there had been a mistake, with Kariya waiting for him at some entirely different place.
It was a surprise, then, when he heard a girl's voice greet him: "You must be Jin."
The voice came from just inside the building. His eyes adjusted to the dim interior, seeing a slender figure with a fringe of hair framing a face that she turned up toward him. "I am," he said.
She smiled, rising to her feet. "I've given you a room in the back — it has a window that looks out at a maple tree that I like," she said, cheerfully. "It doesn't get the morning sun, but you won't be there that much in the morning, anyway; you'll be out doing drills until your arms fall off."
"Ah." He smiled back: was she a daughter? He wondered if she was a servant for a moment, but abandoned that thought, deciding a servant would not be that self-possessed.
"I'm Sara," she told him, leading him down a familiar hall toward the garden. "Kariya-dono prefers his tea in the garden. Will you join him?"
"Yes. If it's not too much trouble," he said, looking around surreptitiously for somewhere to put the daisho — unless Kariya wanted to see that he had it? — before glancing at her for a cue.
She chuckled. "May I take your daisho?"
He handed it over with some reluctance, letting his fingers slip over the hard smoothness of the scabbard, still warm from him; his swords, now. She took them gently, handling them with great care as she set them on a stand just under a set even more plain than his, close to a wooden staff. He looked back longingly only once — would they be safe there? — as she led him into a part of the building he had not seen before, into what looked like the rooms where people lived.
Kariya was there already, sitting and watching the steam curl off the surface of a cup of tea; he looked up as Sara slid the door open. "Ah," he said, as if Jin was returning from another room, rather than a journey from the dojo of two days. "Almost a week. You must have traveled quickly. Will you have tea?"
Jin nodded slowly, trying to read the other man, as he sat down across from him.
Sara was already warming the cup in preparation for pouring. "Jin, perhaps tomorrow you will let Kariya-dono have a look at your swords," she said. She smiled faintly as the liquid made a graceful arc from the teapot to the cup, her eyes fixed on some faraway point; Kariya grunted softly in acknowledgment as she handed him his teacup.
"Oh?" Kariya asked. "How will I know them from the others?"
"Masamune," she said. "The tsuka-ito is blue."
"Are you sure?"
"It feels blue," she said, smiling. "If you'll forgive me, Kariya-dono, I have some more work to do. Jin." She bowed her head as she left the room.
Kariya's eyes were sardonic as he watched Jin staring after the woman.
"She's blind?" Jin asked. "How — " His words stumbled to a halt as he looked, bewildered, at the man.
"It isn't her eyes that see the cup." Kariya sipped his tea with evident enjoyment. "She's very skilled on the shamisen, as well. Perhaps some day you'll hear her play."
"But how — "
" — did she know where the cup was?" Kariya finished for him. "By all means, ask if you want to know. She might tell you, or she might not. It's nothing you need to concern yourself with, however."
Jin swallowed the question of whether there were others like her, and fell silent, thinking.
"You, on the other hand," Kariya said, and smiled. "I think I'm going to find what you see to be very interesting. Sometimes it is useful to be able to see the garden for what it is."
The tea left a sour taste in Jin's mouth. "Will I be studying with you?"
The man shook his head. "No. Mariya told me you would have taken the examination to become a junior master in the coming year: I doubt a dojo will be of much use to you, any more," he remarked casually. "Your lessons will be different, certainly — " Kariya looked up, as the woman slid the door quietly open and crossed to where they sat. She gave Jin a polite nod, bending to murmur into the older man's ear before standing again.
Kariya set his cup on the tray. "I'll have to cut our time short, this evening. Pity — I was looking forward to hearing about the Mujuu." He turned to Sara. "Would you take Jin to his room, please, and make him comfortable?"
"I would be very happy to," she said.
"Good. Tell me, where did I leave my shears?" he asked.
"Next to the tokonoma," she said, tranquilly. "I saw them, just now. I thought you would prefer that I leave them there for you."
"Ah. Very good." Kariya turned to Jin, as the young man got to his feet. "I'm sure you're tired. We'll take this up again in the morning."
The conversation within went quiet, as Kariya slid back the fusuma; Sara had already served the two men inside with tea and wafers, he saw. "Counselor," he said, bowing his head. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"This isn't a social visit." The shogun's counselor was a squat, pug-faced man, one of the lesser Kuroda who had chosen Edo over the foreign god; his aide sat unobtrusively back, his eyes on the mat in front of him, waiting. "We've found her."
"Ah." Kariya's eyebrows lifted. "The girl."
Kuroda grunted. "The situation has become more complicated. There was an incident involving the son of the governor, and a criminal from the south who killed the governor himself — " He passed a thick-fingered hand over his shaven head. "Pirate, if the reports are correct, though how he'd have made it to Edo is beyond me. The criminal was already wanted for questioning in the death of our lord's uncle, but escaped when the girl created a diversion."
"Diversion?"
"She threw lighted fireworks into a crowd," Kuroda rasped. "She and the criminal got away when the crowd panicked."
"I see." Kariya's eyes glinted in the dim evening light. "How very vulgar."
"She was overheard asking about a samurai who smelled like sunflowers."
"Sunflowers. Well," Kariya said easily. "That does complicate things, doesn't it?"
The shogun's counselor gave him a sour look.
"He disappeared eight or nine years ago. It's hardly surprising that she can only describe him as smelling like sunflowers; she was very young." Kariya frowned. "Still, it's inconvenient. Mariya Enshirou's boy's only arrived today; I'll need more time with him before he'll be of any use."
"The Thousand Man Killer?" Interest flickered across Kuroda's face. "Congratulations. Edo will be pleased," he said. "If you weren't already, you'd be made captain of the guard."
"The counselor is much too kind." Kariya's eyebrows drew together. "The girl, however."
"Hm. Find her, and report back to me."
"And the criminal?"
"If he's still with the girl when she's found, leave them alone. If he's not — " Kuroda shrugged. "Unfortunate, but forget about him; she's more important than he is." Kuroda rose with an effort, the aide a noiseless shadow behind him.
"Ah," Kariya said. "This is hardly a place for someone of your stature, certainly, but we would be pleased to offer you a place to stay this evening — Sara's improved on the shamisen since you were here last, she'd enjoy playing for you."
Kuroda shook his head, a crooked smile on his face. "No, one of the local han is eager to make a friend of me — he's been unwise enough to mention he's had shochu brought in from Ryukyu," he said. " I've tasted the horse piss you call sake, Kariya."
Kariya chuckled, accompanying the heavy man and his shadow to the courtyard, where a palanquin was surrounded by men. "What does a gardener know about sake?"
The counselor made a short, sharp noise of amusement as he climbed into the palanquin. "In that case, you should know shit when you see it," Kuroda said, his smile broadening at his own joke. "Keep me informed regarding the girl — and on your progress with Mariya's boy."
"Within the day, counselor," Kariya promised.
He watched as Kuroda's palanquin was carried off, waiting until it disappeared from sight before he went inside. Sara's voice was audible from the hallway; for a moment, he stood and listened as she chatted to the boy, something about traveling through Hyuga.
She backed out of the room, a pillow in her hands as she slid the door shut behind her. He motioned that he'd follow her to the storage room where the bedding was kept, as she nodded; he stood and listened a moment to the sound of Jin moving around inside the room (walking quietly, he noted; that was very good) until he heard the sound of cloth rustling as the boy got into the futon Sara had made up for him.
She had lit the lantern in the storage room, and stood bathed in its warm yellow glow, examining pillows critically as he slid the door closed behind him. "He's never been anywhere," she said, keeping her voice quiet. "Hiroshima, Kisarazu, and now here, just imagine."
He sat. "Yes. Gojuu Hall." A thought struck him; he filed Gojuu Hall and the Niwas away, to be thought about later. "What do you think?"
She shrugged, letting a cushion fall to her feet. "I think tomorrow I should speak with the laundress — these aren't as clean as they could be. About him? I think he'll have a long day tomorrow." A smile touched her lips. "He's going to think he might hurt me."
He chuckled. "Yes."
"Hm." She shook her head, still smiling.
"Kuroda had something interesting to say — Seizo's daughter has gone looking for him. With, unbelievably, some criminal in tow."
Sara raised her eyebrows. "The Kasumi girl? She was in Yokohama, if I remember correctly — I'll send to Shibui to have him find her," she said. "Even he should be able to do that."
"Shibui's dead." Kariya clicked his tongue in annoyance. "He was a grubby little man, who'll be replaced by another grubby little man — it's tedious. It'll mean finding someone else in his household, until the new governor is installed," he said. "For the time being, there was a man named Ryujiro: have him find the girl and report back."
She nodded. "Do we offer him payment?"
"He knows enough not to ask," he told her. "Just enough."
"I see." She made no move to go, her face thoughtful.
Kariya sat back, waiting. "What is it?"
Sara was quiet for a long moment, then: "The boy," she said at last. "He's so young."
"Older than you when you first came here," he said and got to his feet. "He learned from Mariya himself. It won't be a problem."
"It's not that." She turned her face toward him, her mouth folded into a worried line. "It'll be a year, soon. Do you think — "
"Sara." Kariya frowned. "Now is not the time for distractions."
"He should be walking now." She pressed her hands against her abdomen. "He was so strong. When I touched his palm with my finger, he held on so tightly, like he knew what we were going to do — "
"I remember," he said, his voice softening. "You know it's not possible. As it is, I wish — he's as safe as I can keep him. If he was here, you know they'd come for him. This way, in a few years' time — there's a chance things will be different."
She nodded. "I know. But I can't stop thinking."
Kariya reached out and took one of her hands. "He's with a good family, an innkeeper and his wife. He'll never want for anything — he'll even have a trade, when he grows up," he told her. "A good one. Would you want him to have this life?"
She shook her head, her dark hair gleaming in the sunset light that filtered through the window.
"Well, then." He released her hand and drew his fingertips along the line of her jaw. "It doesn't make it easier, I know. I miss him, too," he confessed.
Sara gave him a penitent smile. "I should be stronger. You're right — I'm sorry."
"Ah." He nodded. "It's nothing."
"I'll send to Ryujiro tonight."
"Don't be long." Kariya bent, kissing the corner of her mouth before he left the room.
His footsteps were a whisper along the mats that lined the hallway. The light was out in the room where Jin was sleeping, he noted automatically as he passed. Good: the more time the boy had to think, the better.
The kitchen was dark. He walked past the unlit lantern, to the basin Sara kept filled — she preferred not having to walk outside in the middle of the night if she wanted water, she said — where he sluiced water over his hands and washed his face, scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand.
