They scrambled up the wooded slope and along a stony stream for at least an hour.
At the top the commander waved his hand and the Black Jackets slumped to the ground, worn out. Kamata gestured for Fandor in to come over to him.
The two of them moved away about a hundred paces to a naked boulder overgrown with moss, from which there was a panoramic view of the mountain peaks around them and the valley stretching out below.
‘The village of the shinobi is there,’ said Kamata, pointing to the next mountain.
It was about the same height, and also overgrown with forest, but it had one intriguing and distinctive feature. A section of the summit had split away from the massif (probably as a result of an earthquake) and twisted down, separated from the rest of the mountain by a deep crack. On the side facing them, the separated block ended in a precipice, where the slope had crumbled away, unable to retain the layer of earth on its inclined surface. It was a quite fantastic site: a crooked slice of mountain suspended over an abyss.
Erast Petrovich pressed his binoculars to his eyes. He could not make out any signs of human habitation at first, only the pine trees crowding close together and flocks of birds flying in zigzags. The only structure was clinging to the very edge of the precipice. Adjusting the focus with the little wheel, Fandorin saw a wooden house that was certainly of considerable size. It had something like a little bridge or jetty protruding from the wall that ran down into nowhere. But who could moor at that berth, at a height of two hundred sazhens?
‘Momochi Tamba,’ said Kamata in his distinctive English. ‘His house. The other houses can’t be seen from below.’
The titular counsellor felt his heart leap. O-Yumi was near! But how could he reach her?
He ran the binoculars over the entire mountain again, slowly.
‘I don’t understand how they g-get up there…’
‘That’s the wrong question,’ said the commander of the Black Jackets, looking at Erast Petrovich, not the mountain. His gaze was at once searching and mistrustful. ‘The right question is how do we get up there? I don’t know. Tsurumaki-dono said the gaijin will think of something. Think. I’ll wait.’
‘We have to move closer,’ said Fandorin.
They moved closer. To do that they had to climb to the peak of the split mountain – and then the separated block was very close. They didn’t walk, but crawled to the fissure that separated it off, trying not to show themselves above the grass, although on that side they couldn’t see a living soul.
The titular counsellor estimated the size of the crack. Deep, with a sheer verticalwall – impossible to scramble up. But not very wide. At the narrowest spot, where a dead, charred tree stuck up on the other side, it was hardly more than ten sazhens. The shinobi probably used a flying bridge or something of the sort to get across.
‘Well then?’ Kamata asked impatiently. ‘Can we get across there?’
‘No.’
The commander swore in a Japanese whisper, but the sense of his exclamation was clear enough: I knew a damned gaijin wouldn’t be any use to us.
‘We can’t get across there,’ Fandorin repeated, crawling away from the cliff edge. ‘But we can do something to make them come out.’
‘What?’
The vice-consul expounded his plan on the way back.
‘Secretly position men on the mountain, beside the crack. Wait for the wind to blow in that direction. We need a strong wind. But that’s not unusual in the mountains. Set fire to the forest. When the shinobi see that the flames could spread to their island, they’ll throw a bridge across and come to this side to put them out. First we’ll kill the ones who come running to put out the fire, then we’ll make our way into their village across their bridge.’
With numerous repetitions, checks and gesticulations, the explanation of the plan occupied the entire journey back to the camp.
It was already dark and the paths could not be seen, but Kamata walked confidently and didn’t go astray once.
When he had finally clarified the essential points of the proposed action, he pondered them for a long time.
He said:
‘A good plan. But not for shinobi. Shinobi are cunning. If the forest simply catches fire all of a sudden, they’ll suspect that something’s not right.’
‘Why just all of a sudden?’ asked Fandorin, pointing up at the sky, completely covered with black clouds. ‘The season of the plum rain. There are frequent thunderstorms. A lightning strike – a tree catches fire, the wind spreads the flames. Very simple.’
‘There will be a storm,’ the commander agreed. ‘But who knows when? How long will we wait? One day, two, a week?’
‘One day, two, a week,’ the titular counsellor said, and shrugged, thinking: And the longer the better. You and I, my friend, have different interests. I want to save O-Yumi, you want to kill the Stealthy Ones, and if she dies together with them, there’s no sorrow in that for you. I need time to prepare.
‘A good plan,’ Kamata repeated. ‘But no good for me. I won’t wait a week. I won’t even wait two days. I also have a plan. Better than the gaijin’s.’
‘I wonder what it is.’ The titular counsellor chuckled, certain that the old war-dog was bragging.
They heard muffled braying and the jingling of harness. It was the caravan moving up, after passing through the ravine under cover of darkness.
The Black Jackets quickly unloaded the bundles and crates off the mules. Wooden boards cracked and the barrels of Winchester rifles, still glossy with the factory grease, glinted in the light of dark lanterns.
‘About the forest fire – that’s good, that’s right,’ Kamata said in a satisfied voice as he watched four large crates being unloaded.
Their contents proved to be a Krupps mountain gun, two-and-a-half-inch calibre, the latest model – Erast Petrovich had seen guns like that among the trophies seized by the Turks during the recent war.
‘Shoot from the cannon. The pines will catch fire. The shinobi will run. Where to? I’ll put marksmen on the bottom of the crack. On the other side, where the precipice is, too. Let them climb down on ropes – we’ll shoot all of them.’
Kamata lovingly stroked the barrel of the gun.
Fandorin felt a chilly tremor run down his spine. Exactly what he was afraid of! It wouldn’t be a carefully planned operation to rescue a prisoner, but a bloodbath, in which there would be no survivors.
It was pointless trying to argue with the old bandit – he wouldn’t listen.
‘Perhaps your plan really is simpler,’ said the vice-consul, pretending to stifle a yawn. ‘When do we begin?’
‘An hour after dawn.’
‘Then we need to get a good night’s sleep. My servant and I will bed down by the stream. It’s a bit cooler there.’
Kamata mumbled something without turning round. He seemed to have lost all interest in the gaijin.
‘The dead tree, the dead tree’ – the words hammered away inside the titular counsellor’s head.
To be beautiful
After death is a great skill
That only trees have
THE GLOWING COALS
It was not difficult to get to the next mountain in the dark – Fandorin had memorised the way.
They clambered up to the top by guesswork – just keep going up and when there’s nowhere higher left to go, that’s the summit.
But determining the direction in which the split-away section of the mountain lay proved to be quite difficult.