CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

SHOUT AGAINST THE FIRE

The old pilgrim decided to spend the day visiting with his cousin, so Cat and Kasane left him behind. The detour around the bay was long and arduous. Then they had to wait at the Arai barrier through the hours of the Snake and Horse because of a daimy’s procession and the number of pilgrims trying to pass through.

The wait was tense. The Arai barrier marked the boundary of the province of Mikawa. Lord Kira’s closest allies were in Mikawa. Once Cat and Kasane reached the head of the line, however, they found that the harried officials weren’t checking commoners’ papers very thoroughly.

By the time they reached Futagawa the sun had almost set. They ignored the shouts and the tugs on their sleeves as the waitresses tried to pull them into the tea houses for sake and raw fish. Instead they bought hot chestnuts from a street vendor and peeled and ate them as they followed the people heading toward the temple gates.

Once inside they found the compound mobbed. The noise of drums and bells and the loud, eerie moan of conch trumpets drowned out everything else. After hours of chanting and preparation, priests of the Shingon sect were about to perform the fire-walking ritual.

“Where is Inari-sama?” Kasane had to put her mouth to Cat’s ear and shout to be heard.

“I don’t know.” Cat tried to get her bearings as the faithful surged past her. This was a Buddhist temple compound, but the guidebook said the shrine dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice, swordsmiths, and fishermen, would be found here.

Cat checked her wallet, fastened to a cord around her neck and stuck deep inside her jacket. This crowd was a paradise for cutpurses. She held out a short straw rope, and Kasane caught the other end of it. They didn’t so much follow the crowd as allow themselves to be carried by it.

They moved past the temple’s drum tower toward the center of the compound where a huge pile of burning logs was spewing flames and sparks. The ceremony had started hours ago, but as the climax approached, more and more people swarmed through the gates and added to the press. As Cat and Kasane pushed forward, the drone of chanting grew louder.

It filled the compound and resonated in Cat’s chest and skull. From the sound of it a hundred or more priests must have been reciting sutras to Fudo, the fiery god of immovable strength. Cat glimpsed their orange and yellow robes through the crowd as she worked her way around the open square cordoned off by straw ropes.

Even as far back as she was, Cat began to perspire. The holy men standing within arm’s length of the flames didn’t seem to notice the heat, though. And here toward the center of the crowd the faithful were calm, their eyes fixed on the sacred fire.

Even so, everyone shrank back when the priests scattered the huge pile of embers. Sprays of sparks shot into the darkening sky, arced, and fell in a glittering rain. With long-handled rakes the priests began spreading the glowing coals into a path about twenty feet long and wide enough for two or three people to walk abreast.

“Over there.” Cat gestured to a chapel set in a grove of trees away from the cluster of buildings around the main temple.

Now that the pyre had been leveled, the red torii gate and the distinctive thatch and uncluttered roofline of the Shinto building were visible beyond the roped-off area. As Cat got closer she could see the two slender stone foxes sitting on pedestals on either side of the entrance.

Cat and Kasane slipped through the crowd, moving outward, until they reached the chapel. Looking back across the path of embers, Cat could see a solid mass of worshipers filling the compound. Here, however, only scattered groups of people moved among the deep shadows cast by the trees and the buildings.

Up close, the stone foxes and their massive granite bases were taller than Cat. Their backs were covered with dark green moss. Their legs were dappled with silvery lichens. Their pointed muzzles had broken off, giving them a raffish look. Their long, oblique green quartz eyes seemed to regard her mischievously.

Cat searched among the charms and invocations and notes written on wooden tags and hung on the roofed message board. Two letters addressed to the Floating Weed had also been hung there. Traveler’s was folded as usual. The other had been knotted elegantly.

“Two letters, younger brother?”

“So it seems.” Cat regarded the two pieces of paper as if she expected them to grow the wings and claws of a long-nosed mountain demon and leap at her.

The letters were side by side. Both were addressed to the Floating Weed, but the writing had been done by two different hands. Cat recognized the earnest, childlike strokes of Kasane’s pilgrim. She recognized the other, too. She remembered Hanshiro’s calligraphy from when he and the monks and Musui had composed poetry that night so very long ago.

As Cat handed the pilgrim’s letter to Kasane, she studied the dark forms of the people around her. Suddenly they looked sinister. With shaking hands she opened the second letter. It contained the first part of a linked verse written by the master Shhaku over two hundred years earlier. She read it quickly by the dim light of the lantern next to the stone fox.

Now is not the time
To be thinking of yourself
As one all alone.

He had signed it, “One who asks to serve you.”

As Cat folded it quickly and stuffed it into the front of her jacket, she saw Hanshiro approaching.

“My lady,” Hanshiro said.

In the noise of the nearby ceremony, in the rush of fear and rage that roared through Cat, Hanshiro’s words and the nuances of his gesture were lost to her.

In his Fire Book Musashi said the voice was a thing of life. He said to shout against the fire, against the wind, against the waves. He said to shout before one flourished one’s sword and after cutting down the enemy.

Cat shouted, then she charged Hanshiro. He hardly moved to avoid the thrust of her spear. The passing blade riffled his sidelock. He stepped aside as the force behind the blow carried Cat past him.

“Well done, my lady.” Hanshiro had seen Cat pass the pilgrim’s letter to her companion, the young peasant woman. Maybe Lady Asano was only serving as scribe for another’s affair. Hanshiro didn’t smile, of course, but joy shone in his eyes. Given the circumstances, it made him look triumphant.

“Burei-mon!” Cat said. “Impudent wretch! Kill me, but do not mock me!”

As though to oblige her, Hanshiro raised his sword and assumed the fighting stance. He had seen the ruffian closing in. He knew Kira’s man had been in the drum tower directing them with hand signals, but they had arrived sooner than he expected. The bystanders had prudently disappeared.

“Younger brother,” Kasane cried. “Behind you!”

Cat slid sideways, ducking behind the stone fox where Kasane was hiding. She hadn’t much time to observe or to plan. The Tosa bounty hunter was on one side. From the other came a group of men armed with knives and staves. And she couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw in the shadows a young rnin who looked familiar. He too was advancing with sword raised.

“Take off your sandals,” Cat muttered to Kasane.

Kasane didn’t question the command. Crouched behind the statue, she could hear the shouts of the men and the clash of steel and wood over the din of the drums and cymbals, conchs, rattles, bells, and the priests’ chanting. She yanked off her sandals and hastily crammed them into her sleeves. Taking advantage of the shadows and with Kasane close behind her, Cat ran toward the only path of escape.

“The holy men haven’t drawn out the heat,” Kasane shouted when she realized what Cat had in mind.

She was right. The priests were lined up at the far end of the fiery path of glowing coals. They seemed to shimmer and dance in the rising waves of heat and smoke. Only after they had walked across, neutralizing the fire’s effect, would the faithful follow.

“No time.” Cat took Kasane’s hand, lifted the straw rope, and ducked under, pulling Kasane after her. The priests’ chanting faltered, and they looked at her in horror. A groan went up from the crowd.

Cat heard Hanshiro shout, “Stay away from the drum tower!” Then she took the first step onto the coals.