The Hand of Death Ch. 17

"That is pleasant news. You do understand I would have no misgivings if you wanted the same offer I made Junghai?"

"He said as much. I just think once the cargo arrives it will be worth more than that?"

"Why is that, Jute san?"

"Last night Junghai mentioned something you said to him yesterday. About how you wished to change Riko's luck."

"Yes. If anyone needs a change of luck, it is Riko." I smiled.

"And I think if anyone can change it for him, it is you." I looked at her puzzled. "You four boys have always been the luckiest people I have ever known." She grinned.

I spent half an hour catching up with Jute and how she had been doing these past few years before I had to leave to continue with my 'favors.' I knew at this hour any samurai assigned to the Toshi Guards would be training in the practice yard of the castle. So I went there to find my old friends. Taisa Sashi was now in command of Gunso Kiki, Gunso Kajiru and Gunso Kai. They had all been promoted since I had served with them last. They had been in the middle of Kenjutsu practice with their men until Kai spotted me.

"Taisa!!!" he yelled across the yard.

Before I could respond, "Taisa!!!" came from all of the men present.

Apparently it was a tradition of theirs. I hadn't realized, until then, just how little I went to the practice yard at practice time. My friends handed the command of their units off to their subordinates and came over to see me. Once the greeting and bowing was done Kiki handed me a bokken and took her stance.

I just looked at her. "I have no idea what you want me to do with this." I was still holding it blade side down when she attacked.

"Kyah!" And she swung down towards my chest. I smiled and blocked her blow with the blade while stepping in to tap her chest with the butt of the handle. "That does not count!" she yelled as she circled back towards me to prepare for another strike.

"We think it does," said Kajiru, nodding along with the others.

"Kyah!' she yelled.

I flipped the bokken right side up and blocked her next swing. We continued to parry several times. Me smiling and joking, "I think you are letting this get to you, Kiki san." Her cursing me, "I am going to cut that smug smile off your face!"

In reality she was very good. The fight lasted a long time, until we were both sweating profusely. Certainly to the point where the other mononofu had stopped practicing and instead gathered around to watch the fight. Attacks, parries, spins and counter swings went back and forth for several moments until I noticed both of us would pause between attacks to catch our breath. And the whole time with those three idiots commenting!

"Taisa Hiro, I really think you need more of an upward motion on that maneuver."

"It was a downward swing, Kai!"

"Maybe both of you need to meditate on the essence of the bokken?"

"Shut up Sashi!" said both of us in unison.

The men loved it. Especially the comments from our friends. Their commanding officers. We were getting nowhere. This fight kept going. So I cheated. Her last blow made me step back a pace closer to Kajiru, so I took his bokken and stepped back with two swords.

"Oh you admit you cannot beat me, Taisa Hiro!?"

I smiled. "I admit, I want this fight to end before those men..." I indicated with a jerk of my head the group of samurai around us, "...are Taisa themselves."

I came at her with both swords flying. I put everything into it that I had and she managed to parry every attack. She was incredibly fast. Somewhere in all of that she slid low to my right and took her sword in a slicing motion across my mid-section. Cheers erupted from everyone, for her. I just looked at her with her arms raised in victory and that big stupid smile on her face.

"That - does - not - count." I said.

"I am pretty sure it does." She smiled.

"There is going to be no tolerating her now." said Sashi as he shook his head.

All of us went to get cleaned up and met in the hot baths. This was one of the few places in Giapan I could get undressed without worrying about other people seeing my body. I noticed the others had picked up several battle scars. I had too for that matter but nothing compared to the truly scary things that had been done to my body by my own House. Anytime I found myself in a bath with anyone that I knew, I always had to give them several moments to get used to it before they could stop staring. The scarification from the Bei-oshi was the worst for people. It looked like they had scooped out portions of my flesh and replaced it with quicksilver. Maybe they had. I was passed out during the whole thing so I couldn't be sure.

Sashi asked, "What brings you to us today, Taisa sama?"

"Work actually. I have to take care of something for our House and while getting ready for it I came across an old friend in need. I was hoping I could convince you four to look into it for him."

Kai asked, "What is it your friend needs?"

I explained to them what had happened to Riko and what I had been doing to help him over the past several hours.

"Well of course we will do it. I am just not sure we can get the OK for a company of men to go with us." said Kiki.

"Both Shogun Eita and Daimyo Daiki are investors in the cargo. So you probably can if you mention that to your commanders." I said.

They all nodded.

Being a Taisa, Sashi had over 100 samurai at his command. These were broken into three squads, Kajiru commanded thirty samurai archers, Kiki commanded thirty mounted samurai with

No-Dachi, which is a katana with a four to five foot blade. Then he had Kai commanding thirty samurai with spear. Ten of them were officially engineers who reported directly to Sashi but in reality five of those were ninja for scouting and... special needs. Very early in his career Sashi had acquired the habit of augmenting his forces with Ainu scouts when he could find them. In addition to all of that he had thirty heimin and ten eta, ten heimin for supply, with ten to care for the animals: cavalry horses and messenger pigeons. Ten as cooks and cooking staff while the ten eta were for handling the dead. As options for discovering the lost caravan go, I thought these guys were a pretty good one.

The last thing on my 'To Do' list was Obihiro Ninba, the merchant. I lied a little to Riko when we spoke, on many points. I had heard about the merchant before. He had chased one of my old friends out of business. Okane had started as a peasant and worked her way up to money lender. Ninba had been in town for less than three months and he was able to put her out of business already. She had no name by birth so no one cared enough to get involved. I was no better. I was 'too busy' at the time. Now she was living as a cleaning servant for one of the inns. Not a good life for a seventy year old woman.

Her investments had a string of bad luck associated with them. Bandit problems, fires, boats sinking and so on. Until finally no one would do business with her for fear of her luck rubbing off on them. I was noticing a trend in this town concerning our merchants. Okane could have taken what profits she had and lived a good life until she died. Instead she took what she had and paid a local Kokujin to grant a daisho to her daughter who had to move away with her family to serve in his household as a samurai-ko.

Riko didn't know Ninba the Hokkaido merchant stayed at "The Foreign Shade" sake-house. But I did. I sat down at a table in the corner and ordered a bottle of sake. Then I waited. Not too long after I was settled, I saw another Hokkaido come down the stairs. There had been several in this house already, but this one was greeted as Ninba sama by the staff. Without being too obvious I took note of his face, then I paid my bill and headed home.

I had sent a pigeon to Yoshio yesterday. It would be a week before the men I asked for would arrive. During that time Ketsumempo and I worked and began gathering the equipment we needed for the cover story I had come up with. This left us with ample time together and of course nightly dinners with her father and his court. I had asked Anaido to hold off on the trading of any goods and instead focus solely on money for the next few weeks. Money was his favorite anyway so he did not mind. In reality I needed the use of his storehouse for our cover story and the men from Yoshio when they got here.

Soon I had word from a sensei of the Bei-oshi that the ten students I had requested were housed at my storehouse. They were in their first month of training. I waited until nightfall to go and speak with them. When I arrived, I misted up over the wall to settle into a corner and observe the students.

They sat as individuals with a good distance between them. Not anything like my friends and I when we waited for a mission to start. These were ten lone ninja. I folded the shadows around me and misted my way to the front of the group then just went solid and looked at them. Their sensei was the only one that noticed and bowed to me from where he was sitting. I waited for the students who finally noticed their sensei's movement, then noticed me, and finally bowed to me as well. I returned it and told them to rise.

"Do any of you know why you are here?"

One of them said, "My lord, we would not even know what town we were in if some of us were not from here."

I smiled. "I remember those days. You wind up on some barren rock wondering 'who would live here' and before you get an answer you're off jumping around until you're sick." A few of them laughed. "When I requested you, I asked for the ten students the sensei thought would be dead before the end of the year." None laughed at that. "Can you tell me why you think I would ask for the ten most likely to die?"

One said, "Because the mission is incredibly dangerous?"

I shook my head. "No. This mission is a vacation compared to some of the missions you will run this year. I just wanted the chance to warn you. To give those of you smart enough to learn, an opportunity to survive the Bei-oshi... Do any of you know why they are so sure you ten will not make it?"

They looked at each other but none of them had any idea. I walked to sit down closer to them.

"When I went through the Bei-oshi I had three close friends. One of them, Ino, died because some mononofu got lucky and hid in the shadows as we ran by. Ino was one of the few to die because of bad luck. We still lost almost 60 classmates that year but almost none were due to luck." They looked a little confused. "The vast majority of the ninja we lost in my class were due to them being too proud to get help.

Consistently they would wander off on their own, pretending to be the spirit of death and when they got overwhelmed, as all do in this business, they died." I could see that made an impact on them. "This mission will be mostly gathering of information. I need spies and I hope to use this opportunity to encourage the ten of you to start acting like a team... instead of the soon to be deceased."

We broke them up into two groups of five. One group to observe Obihiro Ninba at his room in town and collect information. The other five dressed as heimin would follow him and his men. The Sensei would help when he had to. They had a week to get me everything I needed.

I spent the time looking for my ronin. I had decided that with everything going on in Toshi Goemon, we would just skip looking for ronin here and move on to finding them in Umeko Mura. I collected Ketsumempo and we rode the short distance to the nearby town.

While we rode I asked her, "Have you ever heard of this odd little town?"

"Why do you call it that?"

"It serves some unorthodox duties for our House. Mostly crime."

"What kind of crime?"

"Hostage storage, drugs, prostitution, officially it is known for gambling."

"Officially?" I nodded. "Officially, gambling is a crime," she said.

"How sheltered are you?" I asked.

"What do you mean?! I am not sheltered!"

I laughed, she was beautiful when she was angry. "How many gambling houses are there in Goemon Toshi?"

"None. ...Why?"

"How many gambling dens are there in Shiro no Nokizaru?"

"Are you insulting my father?!"

"No, I am simply trying to find out what you know?"

"The answer is still NONE!"

I nodded. "There are six that Masao knows about. There are four at your home that Daiki has not told you about."

"You lie."

I nodded again. "Often. Yes. But not now. There are two more in Goemon that Masao is unaware of, but the Machi-bugyo will find them soon enough."

"But... why would they allow it?"

"We need the money that gambling provides, and you get good information out of people who are in your debt."

She thought a long time on that before she nodded her understanding. "Why do you know so much about what goes on?"

"I am friends with most of the heimin and hinin in Goemon Toshi."

"Why?"

"Because I like them, and no one has the courage to tell me otherwise."

"I do! You should not associate with those people. It is not proper."

"Ha! Oh you are a brave one. It does not count when you say it."

"Why not?!"

"Because you only did it to prove me wrong."

The trip to Umeko Mura went quickly. Once we had recovered from our small trip we began our search for the men. The first day proved useless. All the samurai we saw were men of lost hope; they had given up. We needed men who had held on to their honor despite their situation. The second night was much better. We walked into a drab sake house and looked around. She was the first to spot him.

"There." She pointed at him.

In the back corner sat an older samurai, drinking but sober.

"Yes. That is our man." He watched us as we approached him. I spoke first. "May we sit, ronin san?"

He appraised us for a few seconds. "Who am I to tell you what you may do, my lord?"

His voice sounded like granite being sanded. We sat down across from him.

"My friend and I are looking for some samurai to accompany us on a trip."

"How many men?" he asked.

"Ten at the most."

"Best I can do is six, no less."

"Six would be sufficient, if they can keep their mouths shut."

"That would depend on the work, my lord."

"The work is simple escort duty. You guard us and our things. Nothing special. We pay four silver per man, per month. Payable upon completion."

"For how long?"

"Two, maybe three months."

He thought a long time on this, trying to decide what trouble we intended most likely.

"Yes. My boys can do that."

"We will want to meet them first." Ketsumempo stated.

"I can take you to them."

He finished his drink and rose. He took us to a dive of an inn. We waited outside while he went in to get his 'boys'. A few minutes later he returned with four men and one woman. They were all younger than him. We talked to all of them for a few hours and found that their leader was named Masakari. They were six samurai, Hoko, Yumi, Menuki, she was the duelist, Jerukukami the Onmyoji, and the youngest, Kubikiri. They were formerly of our House but had been ronin-ized when their lord made some blunder in front of Daimyo Masao. Kubikiri had been a courtier when they were first ronin-ized but even he did not know what that blunder had been. All of the others had spent time with him teaching him weaponry. That of course was against the rules of society so I loved these people immediately. I tested Kubikiri in fencing and found that he was pretty good. We discussed where they had been and what they had done. From what I could tell they were all very experienced by now. When we were satisfied, I gave them a retainer's fee of 10 silver and told them where to meet us in two weeks.

We were very optimistic for the entire ride back to Goemon Toshi. We went to her suite in the castle while we discussed our plans. I had caught her up on all of the details by this time. Suddenly she turned to me after I had closed the shoji screen.

"I am so excited at how well everything is coming together," she beamed.

Then she stepped towards me and we kissed. It surprised me, and I didn't know why, but this caused some very odd feelings in my stomach. I pulled her closer as we kissed. The feeling in my gut got worse when she pulled back a little and said, "You are very handsome, Hiro."

"I know." I smiled.

She laughed. What followed, well, it wasn't perfect. What first time is? But it was close. It was also a bit addictive. We had things to do during the day but the nights were cool with a good breeze coming from the north. Holding her every night felt... I cannot give it justice but it felt better than anything I had ever known. I wanted that time with her to never end. Unfortunately my ninja had finished their work and had everything I needed. So I would have to pull myself away from her for a night or two.

The merchant, Obihiro Ninba, had six samurai who had been given to him by a family Kokujin. Any other people he needed were just hired when it became necessary. Like the men who pirated Okane's shipments. They worked for the information of that shipment and kept what they captured as payment. The bandits that hijacked Riko's caravan worked for that information. The reward was the caravan. I liked this guy. He was cheap and effective. He was still going to die, but I liked him.

He kept over 4000 gold pieces in a warehouse he rented from old man Fujibayashi Chujitsuna. That was how he could afford to underbid Okane and Riko. Assuming he was going to do to Riko what his records and journal say he had done to Okane. He would survive off of those funds until Riko was out of business and then return his prices to normal until he recouped what he lost fighting Riko. Then he would pick another one of my friends to run out of business.

He also stored all of his goods at the warehouse; silks, steel, armor, weapons, cooking ware, art, rice, wheat, dried fish, everything. His samurai were broken into three groups. The two who guarded the warehouse during the day, the two who guarded it at night and his two personal yojimbo. One bodyguard always traveled with him while the other was awake and vigilant the entire night. This was going to be easier than I thought.

I spoke with Cho and had him store 10 wagons for me in an out of the way part of the warehouse district. Next I went to the samurai district of the castle. I knew many of the men here but only as acquaintances. I knew a gifted onmyoji named Teruo who was a master of fire. I located him in his two room home in the bachelor section of the samurai quarters. Once he invited me in I asked, "Teruo san, I find myself in need of your service."

"Of course, Hiro sama."

Due to my rank with our House he didn't have much choice but my asking him was flattering.

"When you start a fire, do you have strict control over it?"

"Yes. I do."

"I need you to keep this secret but I need a building destroyed tonight, but I have to be sure the fire does not spread."

"How big is the structure?"

"It is a warehouse."

His eyebrows rose. "Some merchant insulted you, I take it?"

I smiled. "No. It is business. And I need it to stay quiet. Can you meet me near the Yoriki hut in the warehouse district near the middle of the hour of the Tiger?" Tiger fell from 3 am to 5 am.

He agreed and we shared tea for several moments before I had to move on. Next I went to speak with the ninja's Sensei. With all of the information already gathered they spent their time observing our prey and his men to make sure nothing unexpected came up tonight. As for their Sensei he was stationed at Anaido's warehouse. He greeted me as I entered. It only took a few moments to explain the plan and make sure he had everything he needed to complete it. Once that was in order all that remained was to... wait. I wandered the castle thinking over my plans. To my surprise, Ketsumempo just happened to be home. We discussed our plans for the evening and finalized any details that were missed until then. We were very busy.