SHUSAKU LAY PANTING on the sand. The water lapped insistently at his feet, as if wanting to pull him into the sea again, as if angry with him for escaping its clutches.
He ignored it.
Over the mountains behind him, the glow of sunrise was beginning to pale the sky. He knew that he would have to find shelter soon, or experience the pain of burning again, as his scar tissue was roasted once more by the sun’s rays.
He ran his fingers over his stomach, feeling the flesh and bone already knitting itself together. It was agony, but Shusaku was used to agony. He had been a vampire a long time, and this was not the first wound he had endured. If it was, he wouldn’t have been able to pull himself through the water, wave after wave, bleeding all the while, just to reach the shore.
The strange thing was that he was not dead. Not because the wound had been a fatal one – it hadn’t.
But that was just the problem. Lord Tokugawa knew how to kill a vampire – he had dealt with ninjas before and was aware that only a direct blow to the heart, or a decapitation, would destroy them.
Yet he had not aimed for Shusaku’s heart. He had cut his stomach instead.
And there was something else. Lord Tokugawa knew he could swim.
The more Shusaku thought about it, the clearer it seemed – Lord Tokugawa had deliberately kept him alive. And he had given him the ball before he kicked him over the side. Why?
Shusaku couldn’t work it out. There was one, impossible explanation – that Lord Tokugawa had somehow recognized Taro as his son, had known who he was, and had preserved Shusaku’s life so that he could preserve Taro’s. It was said that Lord Tokugawa didn’t plan in days or even in months, but in years – that he wasn’t just several moves ahead on the chessboard, but playing an entirely different game. Could he have planned this – all of this?
But it couldn’t be. How would the daimyo have known? So far as Shusaku knew, the man had never laid eyes on Taro since he was a baby.
For now at least, it wasn’t important. What was important was that he still lived, and that Taro did too. Now he could go after the boy and help him. It had been months since he had last seen him. He had so much he wanted to say, so many things he wanted to teach. What had happened – his brush with death at Lord Oda’s castle – had made him realize how much he wanted to impart the knowledge and skills he had learned over the years. Taro had been a good pupil – the best. Shusaku almost thought of him as a son.
In a way, too, he considered the boy his redemption. He had killed so many men, and as on that night in Nagasaki, he sometimes felt them crowding around him, an entourage of the dead. There was a saying the Tendai Buddhists had – akuji mi ni tomaru. All evil done clings to the body. Occasionally Shusaku felt that this was literally true, that the ghosts of those he had killed were clinging to him. But when Taro was around, he’d felt something different – a possibility that he might redeem himself, if only he could teach Taro to make the most of his natural gifts.
Perhaps all those killings would even be worth it, if they put a good and just man on the throne of the country. A man with Taro’s instincts of kindness, protection, and compassion.
His fingers brushed against the raw edge of his wound, where it was still open and ragged to the touch.
When I move, it’s going to hurt very badly, he thought. However, the stars were starting to fade now, as the light in the east brightened. He had to get to shelter, and very quickly. He stretched out his hand to pull the ball, which he had placed on the beach beside him, against his side.
Stupid thing, he thought. It doesn’t even work. And yet Lord Tokugawa had pushed it into his hands, and Lord Tokugawa didn’t do anything without having a good reason. So although every fibre of every muscle in his body had screamed in fury at the pain of swimming with a heavy metal ball in one hand, he had kept it with him as he swam. And even though he himself was screaming inside with fury at the fact that Lord Tokugawa had wounded him, he knew he would pick up the ball and carry it with him, keeping it safe for whatever future moment Lord Tokugawa had foreseen. Because long before Lord Tokugawa had hurt him, he had saved his life – and Shusaku owed him still. And even if Shusaku didn’t understand why, it seemed the daimyo had saved his life again. Lord Tokugawa could have killed him on that ship. He hadn’t.
Sighing, Shusaku hauled himself to his knees.
He had been right. It hurt very badly indeed.