‘Twenty men cordon off the clearing,’ the Monk ordered. ‘Hold your carbines at the ready, stay awake. If one of the shinobi tries to break through, drop him on the spot. The others come with me, into the house. No crowding, in line, two by two.’
Masa didn’t want to join the cordon. He attached himself to the men who would go into the house, but he couldn’t get into the first row, only the third.
The plan of the storm had clearly been worked out in detail.
The long double column trotted to the clearing with the jonin’s wooden plank house standing on its edge. The twenty-man cordon took up position round the edge of the clearing and stuck torches into the ground.
The others stretched out into a long dark snake and moved forward.
‘Carbines on the ground!’ the commander ordered, keeping his eyes fixed on the house, which was maintaining a sinister silence. ‘Draw your daggers!’
He dropped back a little bit from the men in front and stopped, as if feeling uncertain.
He doesn’t want to stick his own neck out, Masa realised. And he’s right too. Rakuda (whose heroic death had probably raised him to the next level in the cycle of rebirth) had said that when there was danger, Tamba’s house became like a prickly hedgehog – there were some secret levers that had to be pressed for that. The inhabitants of the house had had plenty of time, so there would be lots of surprises in store for the Black Jackets. Masa remembered with a shudder how the floor had tilted under him that night and he had gone tumbling down into darkness.
The Monk was a cautious man, and there was no point in pushing forward too fast.
And then immediately, as if to confirm this idea, it started.
When one of the two men at the front was just a step away from the porch, he disappeared, as if the ground had opened and swallowed him up.
Or rather, there was no ‘as if’ about it – it did swallow him up. Masa had walked across that spot a hundred times, and he had no idea that there was a pit hidden under it.
There was a spine-chilling howl. The Black Jackets first shied away from the gaping hole, then swarmed round it. Masa stood on tiptoe and looked over someone’s shoulder. He saw a body pierced through by sharp stakes, still jerking about.
‘I only just stopped myself, right on the very edge!’ the survivor from the first row said in a trembling voice. ‘The amulet saved me. The goddess Kannon’s amulet!’
The others remained morosely silent.
‘Line up!’ the commander barked.
Skirting round the terrible pit, from which groans were still emerging, they started walking up on to the porch. The owner of the miraculous amulet held one hand out ahead of him, clutching a dagger, and pulled his head down into his shoulders. He passed the first step, the second, the third. Then he stepped timidly on to the terrace, and at that very instant a heavy section fell out of the thick beam framing the canopy. It smacked the man standing below across the the top of his head with a dull thud and he collapsed face down without even crying out. His hand opened and the amulet in its tiny brocade bag fell out.
The goddess Kannon is good for women and for peaceful occupations, thought Masa. For the affairs of men the god Fudo’s amulet is more appropriate.
‘Well, why have you stopped?’ shouted the Monk. ‘Forward!’
He ran fearlessly up on to the terrace, but stopped there and beckoned with his hand.
‘Come on, come on, don’t be such cowards.’
‘Who’s a coward?’ boomed a great husky fellow, pushing his way forward. Masa stepped aside to let the brave man past. ‘Right, now, let me through!’
He jerked the door open. Masa winced painfully, but nothing terrible happened.
‘Good man, Saburo,’ the commander said to the daredevil. ‘No need to take your shoes off, this isn’t a social call.’
The familiar corridor opened up in front of Masa: three doors on the right, three doors on the left, and one more at the end – with the little bridge into emptiness beyond it.
The hulking brute Saburo stamped his foot on the floor – again nothing happened. He stepped across the threshold, stopped and scratched the back of his head.
‘Where to first?’
‘Try the one on the right,’ ordered the Monk, also entering the corridor. The others followed, crowding together.
Before going in, Masa looked round. A long queue of Black Jackets was lined up on the porch, with their naked swords glittering in the crimson light of the torches. A snake with its head stuck into a tiger’s jaws, Fandorin’s servant thought with a shudder. Of course, he was for the tiger, heart and soul, but he himself was a scale on the body of the snake…
‘Go on!’ said the commander, nudging the valiant (or perhaps simply stupid) Saburo.
The hulk opened the first door on the right and stepped inside. Turning his head this way and that, he took one step, then another. When his foot touched the second tatami, something twanged in the wall. From the corridor Masa couldn’t see what had happened, but Saburo grunted in surprise, clutched at his chest and doubled over.
‘An arrow,’ he gasped in a hoarse voice, turning round.
And there it was, a rod of metal protruding from the centre of his chest.
The Monk aimed his revolver at the wall, but didn’t fire.
‘Mechanical,’ he murmured. ‘A spring under the floor…’
Saburo nodded, as if he was completely satisfied by this explanation, sobbed like a child and tumbled over on to his side.
Stepping over the dying man, the commander rapidly sounded out the walls with the handle of his gun, but didn’t find anything.
‘Move on!’ he shouted. ‘Hey, you! Yes, yes, you! Go!’
The soldier in a hood at whom the Monk was pointing hesitated only for a second before walking up to the next door. Muffled muttering could be heard from under the mask.
‘I entrust myself to the Buddha Amida, I entrust myself to the Buddha Amida…’ Masa heard – it was the invocation used by those who believed in the Way of the Pure Land.
It was a good prayer, just right for a sinful soul thirsting for forgiveness and salvation. But it was really astonishing that in the room which the follower of the Buddha Amida would have to enter there was a scroll hanging on the wall, with a maxim by the great Shinran: [xxii]
‘Even a good man can be resurrected in the Pure Land, even more so a bad man’. What a remarkable coincidence! Perhaps the scroll would recognise one of its own and save him?
It didn’t.
The praying man crossed the room without incident. He read the maxim and bowed respectfully. But then the Monk told him:
‘Take down the scroll! Look to see if there’s some kind of lever hidden behind it!’
There was no lever behind the scroll, but as he fumbled at the wall with his hand, the unfortunate man scratched himself on an invisible nail. He cried out, licked his bleeding palm and a minute later he was writhing on the floor – the nail had been smeared with poison.
Behind the third door was the prayer room. Right, now – what treat would it have in store for visitors? Not staying too close to the Monk (so that he wouldn’t call on him), but not too far away either (otherwise he wouldn’t see anything), Masa craned his neck.
‘Well, who’s next?’ the commander called and, without waiting for volunteers, he grabbed by the scruff of the neck the first man he could reach and pushed him forward. ‘Boldly now!’
Trembling all over, the soldier opened the door. Seeing an altar with a lighted candle, he bowed. He didn’t dare go in wearing his shoes – that would have been blasphemy. He kicked off his straw jori, stepped forward – and started hopping about on one leg, clutching his other foot in both hands.