Basho looked at his lantern and murmured, “I didn’t want Kaoru arrested … because of his mother.”
That wasn’t the answer Hiro expected. “What do you mean? Explain yourself!”
“I knew Mina—Kaoru’s mother—before she married.” Basho gestured toward the shutters. “Her father owned the shop across the street and two doors down. I wanted to marry her, but her father chose Chikao instead of me.”
“You stopped an arrest because you care about some drunkard’s mother?” Hiro asked.
“You don’t have to believe me,” Basho said. “But it’s the truth.”
“What did you learn on your little walk?” Hiro narrowed his eyes at the merchant.
“Kaoru talked about calling upon the angry ghosts of Ginjiro’s ancestors and how a selfish man would always pay for his selfish ways. He said, ‘We’ll see how big Ginjiro feels when he’s lost everything.’ Ginjiro is another sake brewer.”
“I know who he is,” Hiro hissed. “Enough delay. Tell me who killed Chikao.”
“I swear, I do not know.” Basho looked desperate.
“If you truly knew nothing, you wouldn’t have guessed that he was the man I meant.” Hiro drew his wakizashi. “Would you remember more with a blade at your neck?”
“Please,” Basho whimpered. “I don’t know who killed him. I swear. I was told that he died but nothing more. Please, I have a family…”
Hiro believed the merchant but needed to ensure his silence. He placed the point of his sword on Basho’s stomach. “You will never mention this conversation. Not to anyone, including your wife.”
“I won’t breathe a word.” Tears spilled over Basho’s eyelids, but the merchant didn’t dare wipe them away. “I swear I won’t.”
“I hope not,” Hiro said, “because I will know, and even a word is more than your life is worth.”
He sheathed his sword, slid the shutters open, and dashed away into the night. When he reached the opposite side of the road, he hid in the shadows and watched Basho close up the shop. He didn’t leave until the locks slid into place with a click that echoed through the midnight silence.
Hiro didn’t worry about Basho discussing his visit. Kyoto’s bandit clans showed mercy to people who held their tongues, but none to those who talked. Basho would never risk his family’s safety, or his own, by telling tales.
Unfortunately, the merchant’s words had not revealed as much as Hiro hoped. The shinobi considered the story as he made his way home through the darkened streets and alleys.
Even if ghosts existed—and Hiro did not believe they did—the dead would not obey the commands of the living. Father Mateo’s religion claimed that people could speak with a holy ghost, but the priest didn’t say he could bend the ghost to his will. On the contrary, the Jesuit claimed it worked the other way around.
However, the part about Ginjiro’s losing everything suggested a real threat and also implicated Kaoru. Hiro might have dismissed the story as a drunken flight of fancy, but the words meshed well enough with the facts to make him wonder why Chikao returned to Ginjiro’s brewery the night he died—and whether or not he truly returned alone.
Someone in Kyoto knew what happened in that alley. Hiro had to find out who and make that person talk—and he had less than half a day in which to do it. He wished he could have asked Basho what time Kaoru left the Golden Buddha on the night Chikao died, but the question would have sounded too suspicious coming from a bandit’s lips.
He would have to learn the answer another way.
When he reached the bridge at Sanjō Road he found half a dozen samurai standing guard. Given the explosion and the missing guard, he expected more. Hiro waited in the shadows until the guards distracted themselves in conversation. When they did, he scurried off to cross the river farther north.
Only a single samurai guarded the bridge at Marutamachi Road. The guards must have decided Hiro’s bombs were an isolated incident, worthy of extra guards at that location but nothing more.
Hiro slipped under the western end of the bridge and considered his options. He doubted his physician act would work so close to home. The guards who patrolled this bridge had seen him in the past, or else would see him in the future, making the lie too great a risk.
Explosive charges wouldn’t help him either. One exploding lantern was coincidence. Two explosions in one night meant sabotage. Hiro wanted to get across the bridge, but not enough to generate a citywide alert.
A shadow moved in the street to the west of the bridge. Hiro watched it from his hiding place among the pilings. The shadow didn’t move like a tree or with the measured pace of a human being or a horse. The movements came at intervals, and without repetition, in the manner of a spy who wanted to remain unseen.
Nervous excitement loosened Hiro’s joints and pooled in his stomach. Whoever approached the bridge did so with the stealth and speed of a highly trained shinobi.
Hiro took a long, slow breath to counteract the energy that lit his veins on fire. Many shinobi worked in Kyoto, rivals as well as those from his own ryu.
Unfortunately, a shinobi heading east on Marutamachi Road at night suggested only two potential targets—and only one if the assassin crossed the bridge. If that happened, Hiro would have to kill the spy before he reached the house where Father Mateo lived.
The other shinobi approached the river slowly, with the subtlety of a master. Hiro tracked the assassin’s movements with interest, wondering how the rival shinobi planned to cross the bridge. He doubted the assassin would swim the river. Not only would the samurai guard see someone in the water, but soaking clothes would leave a trail—a fatal error no trained spy would make.
The shadow reached the final house before the bridge and disappeared into the yard. Hiro fixed his eyes on the spot and waited. Nothing moved.
Perhaps the assassin wasn’t after the Jesuit after all.
Hiro breathed a sigh of relief and reprimanded himself for the assumption.
As the surge of excitement left his muscles, Hiro wondered who lived in the house at the end of the street. He stared at the building but saw no clues to the owner’s identity. He saw no sign of the assassin, either. No light shone through the latticed windows. No foliage moved in the yard.
Hiro turned his thoughts to the river and how to cross it safely.
A woman’s scream shattered the silence.
Hiro tensed. The scream came from inside the final house before the river—the one the shinobi assassin entered.
“Help!” the woman screamed again. “Help me! Help! A thief!”
Geta thumped on the wooden bridge as the samurai guard responded to the cry. Footsteps pounded the earthen road, and Hiro peeked from beneath the bridge to watch the samurai race to the darkened house.
Hiro crouched, preparing to run across the bridge the moment the guard disappeared from view. He knew he could get across and hide before the samurai returned. He took a breath, prepared to run …
… and ducked back into his hiding place as the strange shinobi broke from the shadows and raced across the Kamo River bridge.