Chapter 44

Hiro did not return her smile this time either.

“After the landslide blocked the travel road, I found a position as a maid in another teahouse on the detour route,” Emiri said. “During the day, I normally watch the road from there. But I also needed to keep an eye on this part of the road, and since not even I can be in two places at once, I persuaded Zentaro to act as my accomplice.”

“By convincing him you were a fox.”

“It wasn’t difficult. His dedication to Inari, and his love for the foxes of the mountain, made him easy to persuade.”

“Surely he knew you from the village.”

“He rarely came into the village while I lived there, and I never met him face to face. The old courtesan who owned the teahouse did not let us spend any time outside, for fear it would ruin our ‘delicate complexions.’” Emiri imitated an elderly woman’s disapproving tone. “She barely let us out to use the latrine during daylight hours. Even then we had to wear full makeup and kimono. Zentaro would never have recognized my face.”

“The inside of a teahouse seems an ineffective place to watch a road,” Hiro observed.

“Quite the opposite,” Emiri countered. “Everyone of consequence stopped for a meal. At least, they did until the landslide changed the route. This original road is dead—and the village with it, though not everyone has accepted that reality.”

“Speaking of death,” Hiro said, “did you kill Ishiko and Masako?”

“Why would I do that?”

“To avenge Riko’s death?” Hiro almost wished she had. At least it would have explained the killings.

“That wasn’t me.” She shook her head. “But I do disguise myself as a yūrei when I pass the village at night to meet Zentaro.”

“You pass through the village dressed that way?” Hiro knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for Father Mateo’s ghost.

“Through the forest near the village,” she corrected, “and I try to avoid being seen at all, but since they believe Riko became a yūrei, the disguise discourages anyone from attempting to follow me.”

“So you are Zentaro’s ‘messenger from Inari’?”

“I am, although I did not plan to be. Not initially, anyway. The night I fled the teahouse, he discovered me hiding in the woods. The typhoon was blowing too hard to risk a trip down the mountain when I left the teahouse, so I waited out the worst of the rain at the burial yard—inside the mausoleum. Zentaro found me there, and mistook me for a kitsune. Don’t ask me why. I am not sure he’s entirely sane.”

“I am entirely sure he’s not.”

She tipped her head in acknowledgment. “In any event, I played along. Since then, I spend a couple of nights each week in his cave. I arrive after dark and leave before dawn, and he tells me what goes on in the village. He thinks I deliver his words to the kami.” She laughed. “Hanzo is not precisely a god, but men should fear him more than they do Inari.”

“And Zentaro never questions where you go or who you are?” Hiro asked the question even though his own observations of the yamabushi provided an adequate answer.

“He truly seems to believe I become a fox in the daylight hours. And seems honored to be performing a valuable service for Inari Okami.”

“Not to mention, smitten with the messenger.”

She smiled. “An unexpected benefit.”

“It isn’t dark right now,” Hiro pointed out.

“And I wouldn’t have approached his cave, except that I thought I needed to protect him.”

Fair enough. “Did you tell him to keep the villagers away from the forest after dark?”

“Yes, but it did no harm. They feared the yūrei anyway.”

“Could Zentaro have taken your instructions a step too far?” Hiro asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You never fully answered my question about Ishiko and Masako. Did you kill them. . .or do you know who did?”

Her expression grew serious. “I did not kill them. As to the second part of your question, I do not know. Zentaro seems completely dedicated to his yamabushi practice. I don’t believe he would kill, but when I returned to the cave last night he was not there.”

“What time did he return?”

“I cannot say. I fell asleep, and when I woke, he was beside me. It didn’t occur to me to ask where he had been.”

“And the night Ishiko died?” Hiro asked.

She sighed. “I was not here.”

“I need you to find out where he was,” Hiro said, “and if he killed the women to enforce Inari’s ban on people walking in the forest after dark.”

Emiri gestured to the ledge. “You need to leave, before the evening mist comes down the mountain. The descent is treacherous when the rocks get slippery, especially if you don’t know it well.”

“You are not coming?” Hiro asked.

She shook her head. “Kitsune only take on human form at night. I’ll stay here until then.”

“The slippery descent doesn’t bother you?”

“I have plenty of practice.”

As Hiro crawled out of the cave Emiri added, “You mentioned that you came on Hanzo’s orders?”

He turned to face her. “Hanzo believes that Oda Nobunaga has acquired a list of Iga agents and their current posts, and wants every agent on the list to return to Iga as soon as possible, for reassignment.”

“Let me guess. My name is on the list.”

“I would not be here otherwise.”

“I will leave tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll talk with Zentaro and learn the truth. If he killed the women, I will let you know. . .on one condition. I do not want him harmed. He would only have killed them if he believed Inari wanted it to happen.”

Hiro nodded as if in assent. He saw no reason to argue until—and unless—the truth required it.

“He will not be happy when I go.” Emiri’s voice suggested she would miss Zentaro too. In a lighter tone, she continued, “Do you have a message I should take to Hanzo?”

Hiro thought carefully before he spoke.

To send no message would raise suspicion, but sending one created other problems. Although he told the truth about Oda, the list, and Hanzo’s recall of the affected spies, the mission to warn Emiri and the others was not Hiro’s to fulfill. Hiro had undertaken the mission on his own authority, after the spy originally charged with the task had died. As far as Hattori Hanzo knew, Hiro and Father Mateo were hiding out at the Portuguese colony in Yokoseura, many miles to the south.

Hiro decided he could hide the truth no longer.

“Tell my cousin that his agent on Koyasan was murdered, but not by Oda’s spies, and that I will finish warning the agents on the list before the first spring thaw.”

He considered adding that he and the priest would travel to Yokoseura as soon as they completed their mission in Edo, but decided not to make a promise he already knew he did not intend to keep.