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On the outskirts of the city stood a traditional house surrounded by a high wall. After fleeing the chaos of the meeting in the cannery, Nobuyasu had come here with the sword. The property was heavily protected by his men and an advanced security system. There was no chance he'd be disturbed once he was inside the gate.
He sat cross-legged on a cushion and contemplated the Masamune sword. It lay on a low, polished table before him. He took deep breaths, forcing himself to be calm, still wired from the adrenaline charge of the events at the cannery.
There hadn't been time to take the scabbard, only enough time to pick up the blood-drenched sword and run. He'd washed the blade with clean, cold water and dried it with a silk cloth. Now it sat waiting for him.
Waiting to reveal its secret.
At last.
Over the years Nobayasu had acquired many properties, old and new. He was particularly fond of older Japanese homes built in the traditional style. They suited his sense of traditional values. Of course they often required remodeling. He'd purchased one such home in Osaka several years before, not far from the famous castle built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
At the end of the sixteenth century, Hideyoshi had been the most powerful general in Japan, more powerful than the Emperor. The Masamune sword had been sold to the Toyotomi clan by the man who had won it in battle. After Hideyoshi's death and the eventual defeat of his son, the sword was sold to the Tokugawas.
The home where Nobayasu sat contemplating the sword had once belonged to Hideyoshi's chief advisor. When the house was being remodeled workers discovered a secret compartment in the wall. It contained a scroll, a painting of Hideyoshi with the Masamune sword. The text on the scroll that had set Nobayasu on the quest to find the sword.
As he neared death, Hideyoshi worried that the fate of his son and his clan were in jeopardy. Civil war was sure to begin when he died. Money would be needed to fend off the samurai of Iyeasu Togukawa and his allies.
A lot of money.
Hideyoshi stole funds marked for the armies in Korea and buried the treasure. It was an enormous sum, more than a hundred tons of gold. Over time, the treasure had become the stuff of legend. Every Japanese knew of the Tenshou Ooban. Historical records backed up the legends. The gold had existed. It had never reached Korea, and had never been found.
No one knew where it was, but Nobuyasu was about to find out. The scroll said that the secret to finding the treasure was hidden within the hilt of the Masamune sword.
Hideyoshi would have assumed the sword would never pass from his family's hands. It would have seemed a safe place to hide clues to the location of the treasure.
Oh, so clever, general, Nobuyasu thought. Too clever for your own good. Your son was defeated before he could claim the gold, and the secret died with him.
Nobayasu picked up the sword. His hands trembled with excitement. Following directions from the scroll he'd memorized long ago, he pressed the decorative gold inlays on the hilt in a specific sequence.
One. Three. Three. Five. Seven. Two. Two. One. Nine.
The gold cap on the end of the hilt popped open. He peered inside and saw a roll of thin paper wrapped around the end of the tang. Carefully, he extracted the paper. It had been rolled up for a very long time, but Nobayasu was patient and gentle. Soon it was laid out under a piece of glass. He bent down to read it, and cursed in frustration.
The faded characters inked on the paper made no sense. The writing looked like Japanese in the old style, but something wasn't right. It was a dialect, or it was in code, or both. Whatever it was, he couldn't read it.
Nobayasu got up and went to a cabinet, took out a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, and poured himself a large drink. He looked over at the sword lying on the table and the message under glass next to it. That piece of paper held his salvation. The gold would stave off financial ruin. He could use it to sway the next election.
The answer to all his problems was right there on that piece of paper, and he couldn't read it.
Nobuyasu drained his glass and filled it again. He couldn't take the paper to one of the experts in medieval Japanese. No one must know about it. No one could be trusted with information like that. No, the regular channels were out. Who could he get to read it?
When the answer came, he smiled at the perfect irony of it.