Kaze shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right. But you see, I gave that boy his life back twice and it’s very annoying that you took it.”
Manase looked at him, puzzled, trying to fathom why the death of a peasant would concern Kaze. Kaze shifted his weight from one foot to the other and watched closely as Manase’s bow followed his body movements. Manase’s target practice was done while sitting on a moving horse and shooting at a swinging target. He was aiming at where the target would be, not where the target was. He had to anticipate the movements of the horse and the target and had to shoot the arrow to the position where the target would be when the arrow arrived. Kaze would use that knowledge.
“Of course, the most difficult part,” Kaze said, “was trying to understand why you dumped the bodies at the crossroads. I was especially curious about why you took such a roundabout route to drop the first body off. I imagine the samurai was killed someplace near your manor, yet instead of going directly from your manor to the crossroads, you loaded him onto your horse, rode southwest to Higashi village and then northwest to the crossroads. To hide your identity, you put on a Noh mask of a demon and wore a demon’s costume to frighten the peasants in Higashi village. The peasants didn’t describe it fully, but I imagine it was the hannya demon’s mask used in Dojoji. I know that’s one Noh play you practice.”
Manase made no response, but Kaze could see his lips tightening. Kaze knew that he would soon have to attack or die where he stood. “That’s where my conversations with Nagahara Sensei proved interesting. Even though he slipped in and out of reality, he still loved to talk about the Heian era. I’m sure you know that in ancient days a gentleman was proud of his skill at archery but would often hide the fact that he had skill with a sword. Very different from today, where the sword is the soul of a warrior.
“In those days they had many interesting customs that we don’t follow today,” Kaze continued. “For instance, I’m sure you know that in many tales there are times when a noble wants to visit a friend or lover, but instead of going there directly, he first goes to another friend’s, stops there briefly, then goes to the person he really wanted to visit. That’s because people then believed that on certain days, certain directions were unlucky. If the noble was trying to visit someone to the west on a day when traveling west was unlucky, he first traveled southwest to another person, stopped, then traveled northwest to his eventual destination. He never went directly west, so he was able to get where he wanted to go without breaking the prohibition against traveling west. That’s exactly what you did.
“Nagahara Sensei said there are ancient texts that tell which directions are unlucky on which day, and I’m sure you have one of these books in your collection. On the day you killed the samurai, it was unlucky for you to travel directly west, so you went southwest to Higashi village and then northwest to the crossroads. On the day you killed the boy, it wasn’t unlucky to travel west so you skirted Suzaka village and went directly to the crossroads.
“Why you wanted to leave the bodies at the crossroads puzzled me until Nagahara Sensei told me that in ancient days, people believed that obakes would get confused by roads. I know from personal experience that obakes inhabit roads. A crossroads would be confusing to an obake, because the roads branch off in all directions. To confuse the ghosts of the samurai and the boy, you left their bodies at a crossroads where many paths converge. Their ghosts couldn’t find their way back to you, their killer.”
Kaze decided that now was the time to act. Without warning, he quickly lunged to the left, pulling out his sword. Manase reacted immediately, pulling back his bow and letting loose his arrow. But before Manase did that, Kaze had already shifted direction. His move to the left was a feint designed to get Manase to shoot where he thought Kaze would be when the arrow reached its target. Instead of continuing left, Kaze simply leaned in that direction and then immediately shifted his weight to the right. Kaze’s sword was out of its scabbard by the time the arrow neatly grazed the left sleeve of his kimono.
He closed the distance between him and Manase, expecting Manase to bend down to the quiver to grab another arrow or at least to pull out his sword. Instead, Manase, seeing his arrow had missed, dropped his bow and put up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. Kaze’s sword was already moving in a deadly arc, and it took effort on Kaze’s part to stop the swing of his sword so it didn’t cut down the helpless Manase.
“Take out your sword!” Kaze demanded. Manase backed up a step, his hands still up in the air. Kaze advanced, his sword at the ready and threatening. “Take out your sword and fight!”
Manase shook his head. “You killed five men by yourself with your sword. I’m no match for you. You’re too strong for me.”
“You killed General Iwaki at Sekigahara,” Kaze said. “He was a good swordsman. There’s no reason for you not to fight.”
Manase shook his head. “I didn’t kill him. During the confusion of the battle, my friend and I found the General and his bodyguard. They had all committed seppuku. They were dead when we found them. We dragged the General’s body away from his bodyguards and cut it up so people wouldn’t know he had committed suicide on the battlefield after his defeat. My friend lost courage, but I saw that this was my opportunity. I took the General’s head to Tokugawa Ieyasu to get a reward. I think Tokugawa-sama was too wily not to be suspicious, and that’s why he gave me this miserable little district as a reward instead of something grander. The samurai I killed was my friend from that battle. He returned to Ise and eventually heard about the reward I got for taking the head of General Iwaki. He came here demanding money, but I have no money. I’ve spent it all. I was even borrowing money from Boss Kuemon. That’s why Kuemon started robbing shipments to me, to get his money back. My friend said he would tell Ieyasu what I had done and get his reward from the Tokugawa government for turning in a fraud. I had no choice but to kill him.”
“And the young boy?” Kaze shouted.
Manase flinched, but, looking at Kaze’s blade still glistening in the sun, he said, “My friend was stopped by Boss Kuemon. He told Kuemon that he was a friend of mine from Ise. Kuemon, thinking that my friend could get money from Ise to help pay off the loans I owed him, had my friend brought to me. That young boy was the person who led him to me. After you killed Kuemon, the boy showed up at my manor asking to be taken into my service. He could link me to my dead friend, and I decided it was better if he died, too. After all, although my friend was a samurai, that boy was just a peasant. His death was meaningless.”
Kaze scowled. “We’ve had too many meaningless deaths over the last few years.”
Manase shrugged. “Are you going to take me to the next district to present your case?”
“No,” Kaze said softly.
Manase looked puzzled. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to execute you.”
Manase sputtered, “How dare you! You’re a miserable ronin and I’m a District Lord. I demand that I be given a proper hearing.”
Kaze shook his head. “No. As you point out, I am a ronin and you are a District Lord. If I bring a case against you, it’s impossible to know the results. I am sure that you won’t tell the authorities in the next district the same story about General Iwaki that you told me. That fraud alone would carry the death penalty for you. You are a very clever man, Lord Manase, and by the time we got to the next district, I’m sure you would have developed an equally clever story that will put me in the wrong and you in the right.”
“So you’re going to kill me?” Manase said incredulously.
“Yes.”
“I found a great deal of money at the bandit camp,” Manase said hastily. “It’s yours, all yours.”