Chapter 1

“This doesn’t look like a travel road.” Father Mateo squinted at the narrow, uneven trail running up the rocky slope ahead. Patches of icy snow still clung to the base of the towering cedars along the left side of the path. On the right, a stand of broad-leafed bamboo grass grew high enough to block the view. Piles of old debris along the road, and leaning trees, suggested a landslide many months before.

The priest’s irascible housekeeper, Ana, made a disapproving noise. “Hiro-san has missed a turn.”

“We are not lost.” Master ninja Hattori Hiro anticipated the housekeeper’s next comment. “They told us that the village sits at the top of the second hill, on the old travel road.” He gestured to the rocky path. “This road. Which has neither branched nor split since we left Hakone.”

He shut his mouth abruptly as he realized the extent of his frustration. Trading the enticing hot spring baths of Hakone for a night in a freezing mountain inn had clearly annoyed him more than he expected.

Father Mateo looked back down the hill. “Perhaps we should have spent the night in Hakone. . .” He sneezed and wiped his nose with a scrap of cloth.

“An overnight stay in the village gives us a reasonable excuse to stop and find the woman stationed there.” Hiro kept his words deliberately vague, but knew the priest would understand the reference to their clandestine mission.

“The woman?” Father Mateo dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’re looking for a female ninja?”

“A kunoichi,” Hiro corrected. “Surely you did not think all the names on the list were male.” Especially after what you saw in Iga. 

A frigid wind blew down the hill, rustling through the swath of sasa on the right side of the road. The bamboo grasses bowed and waved like a crowd of peasants greeting a samurai lord.

Hiro crested the slope and caught sight of a two-story building a hundred yards ahead, on the east side of the path. “You see?” He gestured toward it. “The ryokan.”

The traditional inn had a steep thatched roof, to prevent the buildup of winter snow, and long, broad eaves that extended past the edge of its raised veranda. A signpost and a small stone lantern stood beside the two low wooden steps that led to the porch and entry.

“And that”—Hiro gestured to a single-story building across the road from the ryokan—“will be the teahouse, where we’ll likely find the woman we came to see.”

“Will you recognize her when you see her?” Father Mateo spoke softly, despite the deserted road.

“I should. My mother trained her, and Emiri was also a friend of. . .Neko’s.” Mention of his dead lover’s name brought a pang of loss that clenched Hiro’s chest like an iron fist. But this time, the initial sharpness faded quickly, giving him hope that eventually he could learn to remember her without pain.

For the moment, diversion would have to do.

The rest of the village had now come into view. Just past the teahouse and the inn, six peasant houses lined the road, three on either side of the earthen path. Beyond the houses, a narrow, stubbly rice field separated the humble dwellings from a large, two-story house that stood alone on the east side of the road, as if unwilling to admit that it belonged to the rural village. The quality of the carpentry and architectural style suggested a samurai mansion, though significantly more provincial than the ones in Kyoto.

Just past the mansion, the travel road reentered the forest and resumed its upward slope toward the mountain’s summit. Massive cedars rose around the village, looming over the houses as if plotting to reclaim the narrow strip of land carved out of the forest by short-lived creatures foolish enough to believe it was their own.

Hiro’s gaze drew back along the peasant homes. Icicles hung from the edges of the thatch and along the eaves. Smoke rose from two of the houses, but the rest looked strangely vacant.

“The village seems too small to support an inn and teahouse,” Father Mateo said.

“They exist to serve the travelers. The villagers most likely work as porters on—” The final words died on Hiro’s lips as he noticed a hooded figure standing at the north end of the village, where the road reentered the forest. The stranger wore pale trousers and a tunic, belted at the waist, and carried a six-foot bamboo staff. An enormous conch shell hung from a dark red cord around his neck. He stood as still as the pines that lined the path.

At the moment Hiro saw him, the stranger stepped backward and vanished into the trees.

“What is it?” Father Mateo asked.

“A yamabushi.” Hiro did not nod or gesture. “In the forest at the far end of the road.”

The Jesuit craned his neck in that direction. “I don’t see him.”

“He returned to the forest.”

Father Mateo looked up the road as if hoping the yamabushi would reappear. “I would like to meet a mountain ascetic. Do they truly eat only foraged bark and tree roots?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Hiro climbed the steps that led to the ryokan’s front door. “They keep to themselves—a prerequisite for hermits.”

“Hm,” Ana muttered. “Abandoned village. . .hermits don’t seem out of place.”

Her words made Hiro pause for a second look. He noted again that most of the village homes looked dark and cold. No children called or played in the street. No women talked between the houses.

“It does seem strangely quiet.” Father Mateo tugged his traveling cloak more tightly around his shoulders. “Maybe we should return to Hakone after all.”

“Nonsense. The ryokan is open.” Hiro gestured to the glowing lantern beside the steps and rapped on the inn’s front door. It gave a hollow echo, like the entrance to a long-deserted tomb.

A shiver ran up Hiro’s spine. For a moment, he reconsidered returning to Hakone.

The heavy wooden door swung open, revealing an older woman dressed in pale mourning robes. Her silver hair hung down her back in a single braid. The stern, unyielding lines of her face suggested a person who rarely smiled.

A younger woman stood behind her, wearing a plain but once expensive kimono of pale gray silk and a striped blue obi.

The gray-haired woman bowed. “Good evening, gentlemen.” She turned away. “My daughter-in-law, Kane, will see to your needs, now that she deigns to answer the door.”

The younger woman stepped forward, but said nothing until her mother-in-law’s retreating footsteps faded into silence. As she waited, she regarded Hiro and Father Mateo with a wary suspicion that pinched her mouth into unpleasant lines. At last she asked, “May I help you?”

Noting the swords at Hiro’s waist, she added a perfunctory, “sir.”

“Have you rooms available?” Hiro asked.

“You want to stay. . .tonight?” Her startled tone implied that they should not.