CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

DOESN’T IT MAKE THE CROWS SNEEZE?

With eyes closed Cat sat in her huge, round coffin tub of aromatic cypress on the raised section of flooring at the far end of Hino’s Great Chamber. Around her neck hung a brocade bag containing the lineage of the transmitters of Buddhism. Clouds of incense, the clamor of bells, and the chants of the priests swirled about her. She had been sitting this way for hours, meditating until she had fallen into a trance. Her expression had the remoteness of death in it. Her breathing was too shallow to be detected.

Kasane had shaved Cat’s head so she would look the part of a corpse. Hair had an unpleasant odor when burned, so it was removed from bodies bound for the crematorium. Lord Hino’s provincial consort had artfully rubbed charcoal under Cat’s eyes and blended in a large patch of rouge on her cheek. Under the shrouds and the white face powder and in the dim candlelight, the makeup looked like the bruises of someone who had fallen from a great height. Finally, Kasane had helped Cat dress in the white hempen robes and veils of the dead.

The robes hid the fact that Cat’s arms and legs were not the broken limbs of the man who fell from the top of the keep in her place. At the hour of the Tiger, while the morning was still dark, Lord Hino’s laborers had loaded the assassins into handcarts. With a servant trotting ahead with a lantern, they had wheeled them to the execution ground by the river where the corpses of criminals were exposed. They had dumped them there. Among them was the man caught spying. He had managed to cut his throat before details of the plot could be extracted from him.

Nor was there to be an elaborate funeral ceremony for the captain of the guard. Mats had been spread in the garden at dawn, and he had committed seppuku there shortly after sunrise. Officially he was atoning for the attack that ended in the murder of his lord’s guest. Unofficially the captain was expressing his shame at allowing a spy to infiltrate the elite corps and humiliate Lord Hino.

The spy had alerted the ninja who had tied and gagged the guardsman waiting in the back passageway to take Cat’s place. They had let Cat pass, then they had ambushed the captain and his two men. They had knocked them out, tied them up, and continued the chase. Lord Hino had not yet discovered who had sent them, but he had apologized profusely to Cat.

The wild, mountainous region lying just to the north was famous for its ninja, it’s “warrior wizards.” Their feats of cunning and combat were more myth than reality, but they were inclined to believe their own propaganda. Lord Hino thought it a sad state of affairs when they had little better to do than go after one lone woman.

His usually mild expression had been replaced by a dark glower. His face was florid with rage at the penetration of his stronghold by enemy agents. He sat at the head of his highest-ranking retainers and the members of his household and staff. They all wore the plain, uncrested silk robes of mourning, and they filled the fifty-six-mat room called the Great Chamber. They had gathered to pay their respects. They were also serving as witnesses to the fact that Lady Asano was indeed dead.

At the rear of the chamber Kasane sobbed and moaned into her sleeves. Her lover, Shintar’s, main task was to keep a steady supply of paper handkerchiefs ready for her, and she was going through them at a prodigious rate. When Lord Hino bowed low before the coffin and put in six coppers to pay Lady Asano’s passage across the River of Three Ways, Kasane threw back her head and wailed like a stricken animal.

Four servants carried a six-panel set of folding screens onto the dais and arranged them discreetly in front of the coffin. Hino’s master carpenter and his first apprentice, laden with the heavy, circular coffin lid, disappeared behind the screens. The sound of hammering rose over the drone of the priests’ chanting as the carpenters used mallets to fit the lid in tightly, then tied straw ropes around it.

“Ahhhhh!” Kasane wailed. “All one gets from life is sorrow and disappointment!” She began clawing at her face and tearing out strands of her hair until poor Shintar looked quite alarmed.

Her grief became so impassioned, the other guests swiveled their bowed heads sideways to look at her. Blushing and bowing his apologies, Shintar helped her up and led her from the room. In the Great Chamber the sound of her cries faded as she stumbled away down the long outer corridor.

Kasane’s keening drowned out the noise of the trapdoor opening behind the screens. Cat’s coffin was lowered through it, and a duplicate was hoisted up to stand in its stead. In the secret room under the floor, Hanshiro anxiously supervised the men who ran a carrying pole under the straw rope. The coffin was airtight, and Hanshiro feared Cat would suffocate before he could get the lid off.

Crouching to keep their heads from hitting the low wooden ceiling that was the floor above, they carried it along a series of narrow passages. When they were too far from the chamber for the people there to hear the noise of wood scraping against wood, Hanshiro pried open the lid.

He helped Cat out of the coffin, but she had lost the feeling in her legs and slumped against him. He carried her through back corridors to a room hidden among the inner apartments of Hino’s private living quarters. He tried to set her gently on the thick silk quilts covering a pile of mattresses.

“No.” Cat wobbled and almost fell. She clung to Hanshiro’s heavy wadded coat, the deep red uniform worn by Hino’s foot soldiers. “We haven’t time to tarry.” She smiled up at him, a calm, serene smile, as though while attending her own funeral she had come to know death as a friend. “Please, help me walk. It’ll return the use of my legs faster.”

She put her arm across Hanshiro’s shoulders, and he held her around the waist. Together they paced back and forth in the small room while the men who had carried the coffin knelt at the perimeter. They were dressed in the dark-red-and-yellow-striped livery of Hino’s palanquin bearers.

Kasane slid open the door and slipped inside. Shintar stood behind her. Cat had given Kasane permission to tell him the true story of their mission.

“Are you well, mistress?” Kasane asked. In her mourning she had pulled her hair out of the carefully arranged loops of her shimada. It now framed her face in a wild tangle.

“Yes.” Cat beckoned for her to come closer. “You had no trouble finding the fish?”

“No, mistress.” Kasane’s brief smile looked out of place under her disheveled hairdo, red-rimmed eyes, and crimson nose. “The other coffin is full of it.”

Buying Cat’s weight in the small fish called “In Place of a Child” had been Kasane’s idea. When burned it smelled like human flesh being cremated.

Kasane picked up the clothes hanging on a lacquered stand and followed Cat behind a screen. Cat held the end of the haramaki to her abdomen, while Kasane, pulling it taut, wound it in place. It would ease the terrible jolting her organs would receive duing the next five days. Then Kasane helped Cat change into the white traveling robes of a Buddhist nun.

“I’ve arranged with Lord Hino for your trousseau,” Cat said in a low voice as she dressed.

When Kasane started to protest, Cat put her fingers to her lips to silence her.

“I asked Lord Hino to provide you with a chest with natural finish. In it I’ve instructed him to put a writing case, plain lacquerware, and cooking utensils. In a cedar trunk he’s to include two gowns of first-grade cotton, quilted bedding of Chinese flower design, and a mosquito netting with a green lining, as well as numerous other things. He’s also promised to give you a generous dowry and provide you and Shintar with employment in Edo if you desire it.”

Cat knew that Kasane would need work. Once peasants had been to either capital, government edicts discouraged them from returning to their villages. Officials feared they would infect others with their prodigal city ways.

“But, mistress …”

“Elder sister,” Cat said gently as Kasane tied the sash, “I can never thank you or repay you for the aid and companionship you’ve given me.

“But won’t … ? Can’t … ?” Tears welled up in Kasane’s eyes when she realized she was about to be abandoned. “Please, mistress …” Her voice was barely audible. “Take me with you.”

“Lord Hino’s palanquins are waiting, and time is short.” Cat had dreaded telling Kasane she must stay behind. “I ask you to mourn that tub of fish until the kites and the crows sneeze.”

Cat smiled sadly at her, and Kasane tried to smile back. She knew the poem. It was one of the many Cat had taught her to make the long Tkaid pass more quickly under their tired feet.

At Toribeno,
The smoke never ceases
Over the funeral pyres.
Doesn’t it make the kites and crows sneeze?

“How long must Shintar and I stay here?” Kasane asked. “And should we burn incense and chant sutras for the honorable fish?”

“If you leave before your mistress is buried, you’ll raise suspicions. You would do me a great favor if you mourned those fish as though they were your sainted parents.” Cat tenderly smoothed Kasane’s unruly hair. “But you need tarry only until tomorrow night when the fish are carried in their coffin to the burning grounds and turned into smoke.”

“To make the crows sneeze.”

“Yes.”

“Then may we follow you to Edo?”

“Yes. By tomorrow night, even if my enemies learn they’ve been tricked, they’ll be too late to stop us. But your trousseau and dowry and position in Lord Hino’s household will be waiting for you when you want them. And if I live, I will leave a message for you at Lord Hino’s house in Edo.”

“We’ve come so far together.” Kasane didn’t mean either her words or her tears as a reproach, but Cat began to cry, too. She held Kasane as though she were comforting a disconsolate child, but she was seeking comfort herself.

“Something might happen to you while we’re apart.” Kasane buried her face in Cat’s robes, and her sobs distorted her voice. The thought of Cat’s dying far from her was almost more than she could bear.

“Sweet, brave, loyal Kasane,” Cat murmured. “In this world, we leave no trace more enduring than the tracks of the plover in the sand.” Cat held Kasane’s face in her hands and tilted it so she could look into her eyes. “If fate wills it, we will see each other again.”

“As you say, mistress.” Kasane wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

“Lord Hino has one of these … .” Cat held out a small brocade bag. Inside was the lacquered strip of wood with her kaimyo, her death name, written on it. “I want you to keep this one.”

Kasane bowed and slipped the bag into her sleeve.

“You have the money I gave you?”

“Yes.”

“Then we must go.” Cat adjusted the nun’s veil on her shaven head. She laid her palms together, and Kasane draped the big rosary over her hands and hooked it under her thumbs.

“You look very holy.” Kasane tried to smile in encouragement. She knew her outburst had been unseemly for the servant of a warrior.

“My lady,” Hanshiro called softly.

“I’m coming.”

With Hanshiro, Kasane, and Shintar and several guards behind her, Cat followed the bearers, hand-picked by Lord Hino, through the dark garden to a hidden door in the rear castle wall. In a covered entryway stood Hino’s portly factotum. He would see them to the borders of the fiefdom. With him were two samurai who would pose as criers and clear the roadway for Cat and Hanshiro to pass. Nearby, two palanquins rested on frames that raised them to a convenient height for the passengers to enter them.

These were not the flimsy, rude kago of the Tkaid’s lower-class travelers. These were norimon, the transport of nobility. Crosspieces had been lashed to the ends of the long, hollow, arched carrying pole so that two pairs of bearers, front and rear, could run side by side. Lashed with slipknots alongside the pole on Cat’s palanquin was a naginata, its long blade encased in its wooden sheath.

The black lacquer of the palanquins gleamed softly in the lamplight, and Cat could see that both were decorated with an interlaced pattern of Lord Hino’s crest and wisteria vines worked in gold powder. Yellow silk curtains covered the barred windows. The doors were slid aside, and two huge red silk tassels dangled from the corners of each doorway.

“My lady …” Hino and his steward hurried along behind their lantern bearer.

“Yes, my lord.” Cat bowed low.

“I can’t leave the vigil for long or someone will become suspicious.” Hino bowed as he handed her a brocade amulet bag. “This is from Ise. It will protect you.”

“Your kindness is beyond measure, my lord.”

“I would send a larger escort and baggage to make your journey easier …” Hino was mortified at the meager show he was making.

“A retinue would only slow us.” Cat smiled up at him from behind her sleeve as she slid gracefully into the palanquin and settled down on the thick, dark green silk cushions.

Hanshiro climbed gingerly into the one behind her. He despised traveling in a palanquin, no matter how big. The tiny compartment hampered his sword arm and made him feel like a caged cricket.

“A courier has gone ahead to see that bearers are ready when needed.” Hino had to raise his voice because these bearers had already hoisted the poles onto their shoulders and were marking time. The steward had instructed them to make a show of being in a hurry.

“Thank you, my lord, for all you’ve done.”

“Ya-en-sa!” With a muted shout the men started forward in the stiff-legged gait peculiar to their trade. It made the journey more unpleasant for their passengers, but it enabled them to cover great distances in little time. As they moved away, grunting in unison, their straw-clad heels flashing in the moonlight, Hino heaved a sigh of relief. The night’s hail of ninja littering his garden would make him the subject of ridicule and conjecture, and he was glad to have Lady Asano outside his walls. He would be even more relieved when she was beyond the bounds of his lands.

Lord Hino knew that this mock funeral for a tub of fish was going to cost him more than a real one would have. To insure the head priest’s silence, Hino’s contributions to the temple would have to be generous to the point of ruin. And the timing was bad. The New Year would soon be upon him, bringing with it the annual plague of creditors swarming about his house.

Hino felt embarrassed to be fretting about money. Warriors didn’t besmirch themselves with the coins that passed from hand to hand, among commoners and the ruling class alike. Besides, the young Lady Asano was the daughter of his old friend. Digging the pit of his debt deeper on her behalf was the least he could do. Hino even felt a bit bad about the fact that he had seen to it that she and her surly paladin would not reach Edo in time.